Editing S&P Global Ratings (section)

==Corporate history==
[[File:Poor's Directory of Railroad Officials 1893 (Frontispiece).jpg|thumb|right|"Poor's Directory of Railroad Officials", 1893 (frontispiece)]]The company traces its history back to 1860, with the publication by [[Henry Varnum Poor]] of ''History of Railroads and Canals in the United States''. This book compiled comprehensive information about the financial and operational state of U.S. railroad companies. In 1868, Henry Varnum Poor established '''H.V. and H.W. Poor Co.''' with his son, [[Henry William Poor]], and published two annually updated hardback guidebooks, ''[[Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States]]'' and ''Poor's Directory of Railway Officials''.<ref name="snphistory"/><ref name=time-history>{{cite news
 |title       = Corporations: Standard & Unpoor
 |url         = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939281,00.html
 |access-date  = October 19, 2011
 |newspaper   = Time magazine
 |date        = October 13, 1961
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20111220063352/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939281,00.html
 |archive-date = December 20, 2011
 |df          = mdy-all
}}</ref>

In 1906, Luther Lee Blake founded the '''Standard Statistics Bureau''', with the view to providing financial information on non-railroad companies. Instead of an annually published book, Standard Statistics would use 5-by-7-inch cards, allowing for more frequent updates.<ref name="snphistory"/>

In 1941, Paul Talbot Babson purchased Poor's Publishing and merged it with Standard Statistics to become '''Standard & Poor's Corp.''' In 1966, the company was acquired by [[S&P Global|The McGraw-Hill Companies]], extending McGraw-Hill into the field of financial information services.<ref name="snphistory">{{cite web|title=A History of Standard & Poor's |url=http://www.standardandpoors.com/about-sp/timeline/en/us/ |access-date=11 February 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130215110506/http://www.standardandpoors.com/about-sp/timeline/en/us |archive-date=February 15, 2013 }}</ref>