Charles Henry Dow was born on November 6, 1851, in Sterling, Connecticut. He was the son of a tanner, who worked in a family-owned shop in town, and the eldest of seven children. The Dow family was highly religious, and Charles was raised in strict Calvinist traditions.
He was home-schooled before attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Afterwards, he received a fellowship to study history and philosophy at Yale College, graduating in 1876. He then took a teaching position at Xavier University in Cincinnati for two years, before returning to Connecticut to teach at the local high school.
After his tenure in teaching, Henry Dow moved to New York, accepting a position as a junior reporter at the Wall Street Journal, one of the most prominent financial newspapers in the country. There, he quickly rose in the ranks, becoming the head of the financial department in 1884. In 1882, he began writing a weekly column for the Journal, documenting and commenting on the daily activity of the stock market.
He became known for his thoughtful and thorough analysis of the stock market, and his columns became increasingly popular. Henry Dow was not only credited with introducing detailed stock market analysis to a general audience, but also introducing the concept of what is now known as the “Dow Jones Industrial Average” (DJIA), which was first published in 1896.
DJIA was a compilation of 12 of the current industrial stocks, and served as a measure of the performance of the industrial sector in the United States. Due to Dow’s theories and methods of analysis, DJIA became an effective tool to measure the stock market, and remains one of the most common indices used in the market today.
In addition to his work at the Journal, Dow also started his own financial magazine in 1885, titled The New York Times Financial Review. The magazine was meant to provide a more thorough explanation of the financial markets, and it earned a large following.
Charles Henry Dow passed away in 1902, and is remembered for his innovative models and concepts that advanced the financial industry. He is known as the “Father of Modern Financial Analysis” and it is said that his work revolutionized the way people invested, as it provided investors with the necessary tools to make educated decisions about their investments.
