John Alexander Hill

John Alexander Hill (February 22, 1858 in Bennington, Vermont – January 24, 1916) was a co-founder of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, the predecessor corporation of today's S&P Global and McGraw-Hill Education.

Career In the 1880s, prior to entering the publishing business, he owned and operated machine shops and worked as a railroad engineer. Beginning in 1888, Hill worked as an editor at Locomotive Engineer, and over the next few years he would produce several technical and trade publications. In 1896, he became president of the American Machinist Press.

From 1900 to 1902 he served as mechanical engineer for the General Manifold Company, custom-designing machinery. In 1902, he formed his own company, The Hill Publishing Company, As head of Hill Publishing, he printed five weekly magazines: American Machinist, Power, Engineering News, The Engineering and Mining Journal, and Coal Age.