John James McGovern was an American journalist and author.
Background
John James McGovern was born in Troy, New York. He was the eldest of three children of James and Marion (Carter) McGovern. In 1854, when his father and sister died of cholera, his mother took him to Ligonier, Ind. , where she died four years later. The boy then lived with Judson Palmiter, a printer, in Ligonier, where he attended school and worked during the summer months on the farm of his uncle, Henry Carter, at Lima, Ind.
Career
In 1862 when Palmiter moved to Kendallville, Ind. , to publish the Noble County Journal, McGovern began his journalistic career by working in the printing office. Under the kindly influence of Palmiter he developed an appreciation of music and poetry which colored his later life. He worked as a printer in Sturgis, Mich. , in 1866, returning the following year to Kendallville, and thence going to Kalamazoo to join the staff of the Michigan Telegraph. In 1868 he moved to Chicago, became a typesetter on the Chicago Tribune, and gradually advanced to proof-reader, telegraph editor, and night editor. In these years he began to write poetry, some of which was published in the Tribune. For two years (July 1884 - July 1886) he was associate editor and for a few weeks (July-October 1886) sole editor of the Current, a literary magazine, which printed poems, essays, and editorials by him, and from 1887 to 1889 he was chief editorial writer for the Chicago Herald. Encouraged by his growing literary experience, he gave up newspaper work to devote his time to literature. His writings fall into several categories; all show his understanding of public taste in easy reading, sensational matter, and moral emphasis. Four published novels and two still in manuscript, two volumes of poetry, along with other lyrics printed in newspapers, and nearly twenty volumes of moral and literary essays and miscellaneous writings make up the bulk of his work. Numerous philosophic and moral essays still remain unpublished, also several dramas and manuscripts of personal experiences. After 1902 he became an occasional lecturer on literary and biographical subjects. The last two years of his life were dark with sickness. He died in Chicago.
He was a genial person, was referred to as the "grand old man" of the Chicago Press Club, where he gave many lectures, and was the leading spirit of the Old Printers Club. McGovern was always confident of his literary powers and wrote with the conviction that posterity would value his unpublished works more than his contemporaries did his printed volumes. The manuscripts were preserved by his daughter, Mary Harriet McGovern, whom he made his literary executrix.
Connections
In 1877 McGovern was married to Kate C. Van Arsdale of Philadelphia, who bore him two sons and a daughter.