J. Hyatt Downing

J. Hyatt Downing (1888-1973) was an American writer.[1]

Biography

John Hyatt Downing was born on March 18, 1888 in Granville, Iowa.[1][2][3] He grew up in Hawarden, Iowa and Blunt, South Dakota.[1][2] He worked on his father's ranch and as a railroad surveyor for the Northwestern Railroad, hotel's night clerk and sherpherd in Wyoming, Nebraska and the Black Hills.[1][3] He then graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1913.[1][3]

He worked for the Internal Revenue Service in Aberdeen, South Dakota.[1][3] He married Mary McGinnis and they had one son, John, in 1921.[1] They moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico and managed an alfalfa farm shortly after he had contracted tuberculosis, but returned to the Midwest by 1925.[1][3]

From 1925 to 1930 he published short stories in Scribner's Magazine, while working as an insurance agent in Saint Paul, Minnesota.[1] His first novel, A Prayer for Tomorrow, was a semi-autobiographical account of the ranching culture in South Dakota.[4] He moved to Sioux City, Iowa and wrote four more novels, including Sioux City, which he sold to the movies.[1] For this reason, he moved to Los Angeles, though the movie was never made and he wrote publicity and radio scripts for Twentieth Century Fox instead.[1][3] His last short story was published in Reader's Digest in 1963.[1] His novel Four on the Trail was a paperback Western only released in England.[5]

He died in 1973.[1]

Bibliography

Novels

Short stories

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 University of Iowa library
  2. 1 2 John R. Milton, The Literature of South Dakota, Dakota Press, 1976, p. 254
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Clarence A. Andrews, A Literary History of Iowa, University of Iowa Press, 1972, pp. 38-42
  4. ↑ Joel Johnson, 'Literature and the Political Cultures of South Dakota', in The Plains Political Tradition: Essays on South Dakota Political Culture, Jon K. Lauck (ed.), John E. Miller (ed.), Donald C. Simmons, Jr. (ed.), Pierre, South Dakota: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2011, p. 169
  5. ↑ Anthony T. Wadden, 'J. Hyatt Downing: The Chronicle of an Era' in Books at Iowa 8, 1977, p. 56

External links

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