It was discovered on 2 March 1981, by American astronomer Schelte Bus at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.
The likely S-type asteroid was named for the McGraw-Hill Telescope located at Kitt Peak, Arizona.
[1] McGraw-Hill is an assumed, stony S-type asteroid,[3] in agreement with the albedo (see below) obtained by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).
The observations gave a small brightness variation of 0.06 magnitude but resulted in no useful rotational lightcurve (U=n.a.).
[2] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's WISE telescope, McGraw-Hill measures 3.042 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.254,[5][6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a stony asteroid of 0.20 and derives a diameter of 3.43 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 14.69.