George Henry Smith wa an American newspaper writer and author of humorous juvenile stories.
Background
He was born on October 20, 1873 at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, the son of George Henry Smith, a jeweler, and his second wife Annie (Ramage) Smith. He was a grandson of the Rev. Richard and Maria (Stribley) Smith of London, England, who settled in Horseheads, New York, about 1828, and is said to have been a descendant of Sir Richard Grenville.
His grandparents on his mother's side were Mary (Cowan) and Joseph Ramage of Philadelphia, the latter a descendant of French Huguenots who settled in the north of Ireland. When he was three years old his father died; five years later his mother remarried.
Education
He was sent to boarding school. He later attended University School, Knoxville, studied under private tutors, traveled in America and the British Isles, and after four years at Yale received the degree of B. A. in 1899.
Career
At seventeen he was a reporter on the Knoxville Journal, and before he entered college he was writing for the Knoxville Sentinel and the Chattanooga News. He became traveling representative for the Lyman D. Morse Advertising Agency of New York, 1899, and a year later established an independent advertising and publishing business.
He was president of the Writer's Aid Association, 1901-03. For four years, 1903-07, he was solicitor for schools with the advertising department of the New York Times. He then became New York representative of the Chronicle Publishing Company of Orange, New Jersey, 1907-09.
His stories, which first began to appear in the Globe (New York) in 1909, were syndicated and appeared daily in many newspapers throughout America under the pen name of "Farmer Smith" and "Uncle Henry. "
He became children's editor on the Globe, 1909-15, and held similar posts successively on the New York Evening Mail, 1915; the Public Ledger (Philadelphia), 1915-17; the Philadelphia Record, 1918-19; the Newark Ledger, 1920-23; the Daily Graphic (New York), 1925-27; and the Brooklyn Standard-Union, 1928-31. During these years he also contributed special articles to the Evening World (New York), 1905-30, and reviewed motion pictures for the Newark Ledger, 1923-25.
At the entrance of the United States into the World War he was asked to aid in the mobilization of children in war work. He died in Maplewood, New Jersey, of heart disease.
Achievements
Connections
On April 8, 1901, in New Haven, Connecticut, he married Harriet Clarke Sanford, daughter of Rev. Elihu Turney Sanford and Harriet Ford (Clarke) Sanford. They had two daughters, and one son. His success in entertaining the eldest of his four children with droll bedtime stories disclosed an unsuspected talent for interesting children and led him directly into a special field of newspaper work.