Harold Morse Dunphy

Harold Morse Dunphy was an American attorney and editor born in 1882 and died in 1949. The surviving bibliographic record around him is quite thin, but his best-known work is One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money, first published in Spokane, Washington, in 1919.

The book itself describes him as Harold M. Dunphy, LL.B., graduate of the University of Michigan, 1906, attorney at law. It also presents him less as a novelist or essayist than as a compiler-editor: someone gathering ideas, experiences, and money-making plans from many sources and shaping them into a massive, accessible handbook.

What makes Dunphy memorable is the spirit of that project. He favored direct, useful language and said he wanted to give readers a plain account of how to make a livelihood, not a high literary performance. That practical, no-nonsense approach gives his work its lasting period charm and helps explain why readers still find him today.