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An article is a written work published in a print or electronic medium. It may be for the purpose of propagating the news, research results, academic analysis or debate.-News articles:...

 written for Scripps-Howard Newspapers between 1935 - 1940 by columnist Ernie Pyle

Ernie Pyle

Ernest Taylor Pyle was an American journalist who wrote as a roving correspondent for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain from 1935 until his death in combat during World War II. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944...

. It was compiled and published in 1947 by William Sloan Associates, Inc.

Pyle, tired of his desk job, badgered the syndicate

Print syndication

Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....

 for a road job, and was given a job as a roving reporter, driving around in his car and writing columns about the people he met, and the places he visited. The column became a huge success, eventually being featured in over 200 newspapers. He eventually wrote columns from places as far distant as the northern reaches of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

. Pyle described life in conditions as disparate as the tropics

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately  N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at  S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

 of South America to the horrors of the 1930s Great Plains

Great Plains

The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...

 Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...

.

Thanks to the talent and compassion of the man writing them, they present a picture of an America that no longer exists. Pyle captured America's affection by writing about the lives and hopes of typical citizens. These are stories of great people (a lunch with Walt Disney circa 1935) and everyday people (the woman who was on her way to commit suicide and ended up becoming a trapper in Alaska), and people you never heard of, but through them all Pyle's empathy makes these people come alive. Non-judgemental and accepting, yet always looking for the unusual, Pyle honed his craft with these character studies and unknowingly prepared himself for being embedded with US troops in WWII.