Biography:

George William Curtis was a journalist and editor.  He was born on February 24, 1824 in Providence, RI, attended private school in New York, and traveled throughout Europe, Egypt, and Syria in the 1840s.  Upon his return to the US, he wrote for and helped George Palmer Putnam found Putman’s Magazine.  Shortly thereafter, he began writing for the Tribune and Harper’s Weekly, a popular New York political magazine.  He served as the editor of Harper’s Weekly from 1863 to 1892.  In 1864 he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention where he supported Lincoln, and even wrote the letter notifying the incumbent president of his re-nomination.   Curtis was politically active, and a Mugwump who believed in civil service, education, and trade reforms.  During the Grant administration he became Chairman of the Civil Service Reform Commission and later the president of the National Civil Service Reform League and the New York Civil Service Reform Association.  He died in Staten Island on August 31, 1892.