American Machinists' Handbook was a McGraw-Hill

McGraw-Hill

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...

 reference book similar to Industrial Press's Machinery's Handbook

Machinery's Handbook

Machinery's Handbook for machine shop and drafting-room; a reference book on machine design and shop practice for the mechanical engineer, draftsman, toolmaker, and machinist is a classic reference work in mechanical engineering and practical workshop mechanics in one volume published by...

. (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".)

The somewhat generic sound of the title American Machinists' Handbook, and the ambiguity of its apostrophe usage, no doubt contributed to the confounding of the two books' titles and identities. It capitalized on readers' familiarity with American Machinist, McGraw-Hill's popular trade journal. But the usage could have benefited from some branding discipline, because the confusion over whether the title was properly "American Machinist's Handbook" or "American Machinists' Handbook" or "American Machinist 's Handbook" was (and is) considerable. ("American Machinist 's Handbook" would be parallel to the construction of the title "Machinery's Handbook"; perhaps McGraw-Hill's handbook's title was originally conceived as that and later was muddied into "American Machinists' Handbook".)

Although McGraw-Hill's American Machinists' Handbook appeared first (1908), it is doubtful that Industrial Press's Machinery's Handbook (1914) was a mere me-too conceived afterwards in response. The eager market for such a reference work had probably been obvious for at least a decade before either work was compiled, and presumably the appearance of the McGraw-Hill title merely prodded Industrial Press to finally get moving on a handbook of its own.

American Machinists' Handbook, coedited by Fred H. Colvin

Fred H. Colvin

Fred Herbert Colvin 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...

 and Frank A. Stanley, went through eight editions between 1908 and 1945. In 1955, McGraw-Hill published The new American machinist's handbook. Based upon earlier editions of American machinists' handbook (sic; note the apostrophe usage difference within that title), but presumably the book did not compete well enough with Machinery's Handbook, because no subsequent editions were produced. Meanwhile, Machinery's Handbook

Machinery's Handbook

Machinery's Handbook for machine shop and drafting-room; a reference book on machine design and shop practice for the mechanical engineer, draftsman, toolmaker, and machinist is a classic reference work in mechanical engineering and practical workshop mechanics in one volume published by...

has continued to be regularly revised and updated, right up to today, and it is still a "bible of the metalworking industries."

List of the editions of American Machinists' Handbook

Year	Coeditors	Title ± subtitle	Edition number	City, Publisher	Notes
1908	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine shop and drawing room data, methods, and definitions	1st ed	New York and London, Hill	This edition is public-domain (copyright expired) and can be read for free in digitized form via Google Book Search.
1914	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine shop and drawing room data, methods and definitions	2nd ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	This edition is public-domain (copyright expired) and can be read for free in digitized form via Google Book Search.
1920	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine shop and drawing room data, methods and definitions	3rd ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	This edition is public-domain (copyright expired).
1926	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine-shop and drawing-room data, methods and definitions	4th ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	Copyright renewed 1954-01-18
1932	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine shop and drawing room data, methods and definitions	5th ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	Copyright renewed 1959-12-07
1935	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms, a reference book of machine shop and drawing room data, methods and definitions	6th ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	Copyright renewed 1963-05-06
1940	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms	7th ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	Copyright renewed 1967-11-03
1945	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	American machinists' handbook and dictionary of shop terms: a reference book of machine-shop and drawing-room data, methods, and definitions	8th ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	Copyright renewed 1963-05-06
1955	Fred H. Colvin, Frank A. Stanley	The new American machinist's handbook. Based upon earlier editions of American machinists' handbook	1st ed	New York and London, McGraw-Hill	(1) Note the apostrophe usage in the title. (2) Copyright renewed 1955-07-26

Renewal data from Rutgers. All works after 1923 with renewed copyright are presumably still protected.