The eldest son of publisher
George Palmer Putnam and Victorine Haven Putnam, he was born in
London, UK where his father had been living since 1841 while establishing a branch office for his
New York City publishing company,
Wiley & Putnam. In 1848 the family returned to the United States, settling at
Stapleton, New York, on
Staten Island. Haven's early instruction was at home by his mother and nurse. He was prepared for college, first, by the Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, who had a class of boys at St. George's Church, of which Dr. Tyng was rector, and his son, Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., instructor of a company of cadets. Haven next entered Starr's Military Academy,
Yonkers, New York. In 1857 he attended Prof. John MacMullen's school in upper New York and the Columbia Grammar School conducted by Dr. Anthon after 1859. He
matriculated at
Columbia College in 1861, but the condition of his eyes led his father to send him abroad to consult
oculists in
Paris and
Berlin. In Berlin, Putnam placed himself under the care of Baron von Graefe, then the leading oculist of
Europe. As his sight improved, he attended courses of lectures at the
Sorbonne, Paris, devoted to
French literature and the literature and history of
Rome. At the advice of Baron von Graefe, he discontinued lectures after reaching Berlin and sought open-air environments as necessary to complete his treatment. He visited
Bayard Taylor at
Gotha and en route visited the galleries at
Dresden, tramped through
Saxony,
Switzerland, studied Bohemian life at
Prague, passed through the
Black Forest region, saw the toymakers of
Nuremberg, continued the tramp through the pleasant region of the
Thuringian Forest and finally reached
Göttingen, where he took up his studies at the
University of Göttingen. However, with the outbreak of the
American Civil War he left the university without graduating to return home to serve in the
Union Army. At the war's end, Major Putnam joined his father's publishing business, "G. Putnam Broadway." He was also appointed deputy collector of internal revenue. On his father's death in 1872, George H. Putnam took over the business with his brothers
John Bishop and Irving, renaming it
G. P. Putnam's Sons. He was made president of the firm, a position he held for the next fifty-two years. In 1884 he hired 26-year-old
Theodore Roosevelt as a special partner; Roosevelt would write several works published by Putnam. Like his father, Putnam was active in numerous civic, social, and business causes. He served on the executive committees of the Civil-Service Reform Association, the
Free-Trade League and the
Reform Club, and was a founding member of the
City Club of New York. He also aggressively continued with his father's work on
copyright protection for authors. In 1887, he helped organize the American Publishers' Copyright League that led a successful campaign resulting in the 1891 passage of an international copyright protection law. He retired in 1924, formally turning the presidency of G. P. Putnam's Sons over to
Palmer C. Putnam. He died in 1930, aged 85.
Wives and children Putnam was first married to Rebecca Kettel Shepard who died of
typhoid fever in 1895. They had five daughters: Dorothy Lesley, Ellen, Ethel Frothingham,
Bertha Haven and
Corinna Haven. Bertha went on to become a noted
medieval historian, and Corinna became the wife of
Joseph Lindon Smith,
painter of
Egyptian archaeological discoveries. Putnam married his second wife, the
classical scholar Emily James Smith in 1899. A son of this marriage was wind power pioneer
Palmer Cosslett Putnam. ==Writings==