RHODES, JAMES FORD (1 May 1848-22 Jan. 1927), historian and businessman, was born in Cleveland to DANIEL POMEROY and Sophia Lord Russell Rhodes. He attended the University of the City of New York (1865-66) and University of Chicago (1866-67), but never graduated. Rhodes studied history and French literature in Paris and iron metallurgy at the Berlin School of Mines, before joining his father's business in 1870. He founded Rhodes & Co., producers and commission merchants in iron, iron-ore, and coal, in 1874, with his brother Robert, his brother-in-law MARCUS A. HANNA, and others. In 1881 he began writing monthly trade circulars for his company; they circulated widely and were well received. In 1884, Rhodes retired from business to devote his life to studying and writing history. The firm was dissolved in 1885, later reorganized as M.A. HANNA & CO.
Rhodes published articles in the Magazine of Western History (1885-86), and wrote the first 2 volumes of his 7-volume History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 before moving to Cambridge, Mass. in 1891, and to Boston in 1895. By 1906 he had completed vol. 7 of the history. He published many books, in 1918 receiving the Pulitzer Prize in history for his History of the Civil War, 1861-1865. Rhodes received many honors and honorary degrees. In 1898-99 he was president of the American Historical Assoc.
Rhodes married Ann Card in 1872 and had 1 son, Daniel Pomeroy Rhodes II. Rhodes died in Brookline, Mass. His ashes are buried in RIVERSIDE CEMETERY.
Cruden, Robert. James Ford Rhodes (1851).