James Harper

Harper was born in Newtown, New York, on April 13, 1795, the eldest of four sons born to Joseph Henry Harper (1750-1838), a farmer, carpenter, and storekeeper, and Elizabeth Kolyer, daughter of Jacobus Kolyer (1749-1819) and Jane Miller. Harper's paternal grandfather was James Harper, who was born in Scotland and emigrated to Philadelphia, then settled in Newtown before the American Revolution, establishing himself as a teacher and farmer. As a child, he read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and decided that he would like to pursue a career as a printer because of Franklin's success in the field. An apprenticeship was subsequently arranged with a family friend, Abraham Paul, who was a partner in the New York print shop of Paul & Thomas. James' younger brother John (January 22, 1797 – April 22, 1875) began his printing apprenticeship at another printer in the city within two years.

In 1817, the two brothers learned what they could of the profession and felt ready to try their hand at running their own printing business. In 1817 the brothers founded J. & J. Harper in New York at the corner of Dover and Front streets; James was nearly 22, and John was 20. The business was supported by a loan from their father to purchase two Rampage printing presses, some typesetting stock, and simple binding equipment.

In 1817, Paul received an order from New York bookseller Evert Duyckinck for 2,000 copies of an English translation of Seneca's Morals ("Seneca's morals by way of abstract", translated by Roger L'Estrange and first published in England in 1678.) Paul gave the order to his young apprentices, James and John, who did the printing, working with their younger brothers Joseph Wesley (December 25, 1801 – February 14, 1870) and Fletcher (January 31, 1806 – May 29, 1877) who aided in setting type, and issued it under the imprint J. & J. Harper. This book was followed in 1818 with an edition of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1818), which they issued under the J. & J. Harper imprint as a publisher rather than merely printer.

A description of Harper from this time can be found in Glyndon G. van Deusen's 1944 essay on Thurlow Weed, an acquaintance and fellow printer:

Harper was a big fellow with a prejudice against liquor, but with such a jovial nature that he became known among the hard-drinking printers as "the teetotaler who was never sober".

Harper was a trustee of Vassar College until he died on March 27, 1869, aged 73, in New York City. He is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Harper lived at 50 Rose Street while he was mayor and later at No. 4 Gramercy Park West from 1847 until he died in 1869. The Gramercy Park house was built in the Greek Revival style and was designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis.

In 1844, Harper was elected mayor of New York for a one-year term on the American Republican ticket, defeating Locofoco Party candidate Jonathan I. Coddington and Whig Morris Franklin. Harper won the election by 4,316 votes.

He reformed the city police force and established the first municipal police force in 1844, based on planning undertaken earlier by Peter Cooper. In-fighting between the city alderman delayed the full implementation of the reform plan, and Harper could only select 200 men for the force before voters ousted him in April 1845. He outfitted his "Harper's Police" in blue uniforms, which they felt made them targets of violence, and they lobbied successfully to wear street clothes. His successor William Havemeyer continued to reform the police force, successfully expanded the workforce to 800, and began the establishment of station houses.

Harper banished free-roaming pigs from the streets of New York and began work on establishing a citywide sanitation system. He was subsequently put forward for the state's governorship, but he preferred to conduct his firm's business rather than enter public life.