Harold W McGraw Jr

born in Brooklyn on Jan. 10, 1918, the grandson of James H. McGraw, McGraw-Hill’s founder, and the elder of two sons of Harold Whittlesey McGraw, a former vice president of the company, and the former Louise Higgins. Mr. McGraw’s younger brother, William, died in 2006. Harold Jr. grew up steeped in the lore of his family’s business, hearing much of it from his grandfather James H. McGraw, who had been a rural schoolteacher in western New York before entering the publishing business in the 1880s. After attending the Lawrenceville School and nearby Princeton University, graduating in 1940, Mr. McGraw was a captain in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He briefly worked in advertising and book retailing before joining the book division of the family business in 1947 as a sales representative. In 1940, he married Anne Per-Lee. She died in 2002. Besides his son Harold, who is known as Terry and lives in Darien, Mr. McGraw is survived by another son, Robert, of Greenwich, Conn., who serves on the company’s board; a daughter, Suzanne McGraw, also of Darien; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Another son, Thomas, died in 2006. Mr. McGraw retired as McGraw-Hill chairman in 1988, at 70, the mandatory retirement age he had imposed. He served for 25 years on the board of Princeton University Press, 16 as president, and gave large sums to the university, literacy programs and public libraries. He had the title of chairman emeritus, a post that came with an office at McGraw-Hill’s headquarters and that allowed him to stay abreast of its activities.