James Harper (1795-1869) established a printing firm in New York City that grew to become one of the largest and most influential American publishing houses of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As it expanded under the guidance of its founder and his three brothers, the firm published the works of such influential American authors as Washington Irving and Herman Melville. During his tenure, magazines were launched that have survived into the twenty-first century as Harper's Bazaar and Harper's.

Harper was born on April 13, 1795. He was the eldest of Joseph and Elizabeth Kolyer Harper's four sons. Harper had emigrated from England to the New York area before the American Revolution. By the time of the future publisher's birth, the family had settled in Newtown, Long Island, a distinctly rural area at the time. The Harper boys were raised in a disciplined and pious Methodist household, and farm duties prevented...