View source for Fred H. Colvin

{{short description|American machinist, technical journalist, author, and editor}}
{{No footnotes|date=January 2024}}
[[File:Colvin-Arbor-Press-Diagram.tif|alt=glass plate negative showing machine diagram pinned on wall |thumb|Glass plate negative showing Colvin's design for an arbor press, July 1, 1900. From the digitized [https://digital.case.edu/islandora/object/ksl%3A2006080579 Fred H. Colvin Papers] at Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. ]]
'''Fred Herbert Colvin''' (1867–1965) was an American [[machinist]], technical journalist, author, and editor. He wrote, co-wrote, edited, or co-edited many periodical articles, handbooks, and textbooks related to engineering, machining, and manufacturing. His autobiography, ''[[#Memoir|Sixty Years with Men and Machines]]'', provides a thorough and colloquial look into the decades of 1880 to 1950, giving insight into the culture of the [[Machine Age]].
==Overview of career==
Over the years, Colvin worked on both [[Alexander Luchars]]'s journal ''Machinery'' (of which he was chief editor from its beginning in 1894 until 1897) and [[John A. Hill]]'s journal ''[[American Machinist]]'' (which he worked on from 1907 until retirement in 1937, having been co-editor for many years). He came to the Hill Publishing Company (soon to become [[McGraw-Hill]]) in 1907 to work on the ''American Machinist'', and in the subsequent decades, besides his work on the journal, he authored or coauthored dozens of McGraw-Hill monographs, textbooks, and reference books in the field of machining. His principal coauthor was Frank A. Stanley; their first book series together was the "Hill Kink Books" series of 1908, a collection of handy, practical advice for the machinist on the shop floor. (The word "kinks" in this context was used in the sense of "tips and tricks"; that sense of the word is rather obsolescent today and merits glossing.)
From 1908 to 1945, Colvin and Stanley coedited eight editions of ''[[American Machinists' Handbook]]'', a McGraw-Hill reference book similar to Industrial Press's ''[[Machinery's Handbook]]''. (The latter title, still in print and regularly revised, is the one that machinists today are usually referring to when they speak imprecisely of "the machinist's handbook" or "the machinists' handbook".)
Colvin was retired and in his 70s when [[World War II]] started, but he came out of retirement in order to help with the war production effort.
Colvin was the 1942 recipient of the [[Worcester Reed Warner|Worcester Reed Warner Medal]]. In 1944 the [[Stevens Institute of Technology]] awarded him an honorary M.E. degree for his life's work in advancing the field.
Near the end of his life, Colvin worked on a history of the American machine tool industry, but he died before finishing.
==Memoir, poetry, and labor-relations titles by Colvin==
===Memoir===
* {{Colvin1947}}
===Poetry===
* {{cite book
| last = Colvin
| first = Fred H.
| title = Safety valve: poems
| edition = 1st
| publisher = Exposition Press
| year = 1952
| location = New York
| oclc = 1394677 }}
* {{cite book
| last = Colvin
| first = Fred H.
| title = Safety valve: poems
| edition = 2nd
| publisher = Exposition Press
| year = 1965
| location = New York
| oclc = 3699762 }}
===Labor-relations monographs===
* {{cite book
| last = Colvin
| first = Fred H.
| title = Labor turnover, loyalty and output: a consideration of the trend of the times as shown by the results of war activities in the machine shops and elsewhere
| publisher = McGraw-Hill
| year = 1919
| location = New York, NY, US and London, UK
| oclc = 512539
| url = https://archive.org/details/laborturnoverlo00colvgoog }}
* {{cite book
| last = Colvin
| first = Fred H.
| title = The industrial triangle
| publisher = Columbia Graphs
| year = 1955
| location = Columbia, Connecticut, US
| oclc = 3112769 }}
== Bibliography ==
* {{Colvin1947}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
* {{Gutenberg author | id=9202| name=Fred Herbert Colvin}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Fred Herbert Colvin}}
* [https://digital.case.edu/islandora/object/ksl%3A2006080579 Digitized items from the Fred H. Colvin Collection, Department of Special Collections, Case Western Reserve University Library, Cleveland, Ohio, US]
* [http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&Search_Arg=Fred+Colvin&Search_Code=NAME%40&CNT=100&hist=1&type=quick Books authored or coauthored by Colvin—Library of Congress catalog]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colvin, Fred H.}}
[[Category:1867 births]]
[[Category:1965 deaths]]
[[Category:American book editors]]
[[Category:Machinists]]
[[Category:Stevens Institute of Technology alumni]]