Home Country (book)

First edition

Home Country is a collection of articles written by the columnist Ernie Pyle for Scripps-Howard Newspapers between 1935 - 1940. It was compiled and published in 1947 by William Sloan Associates, Inc. after his death in 1945.

Background

Pyle, tired of his desk editing job, badgered the Scripps-Howard syndicate for a road job. Based on some other articles he wrote during a lengthy road trip, he was assigned to be a roving reporter. He drove through the United States in his car and wrote columns about the people he met, and the places he visited. The column became a huge success, eventually being featured in more than 200 newspapers.

He eventually wrote columns from places as distant as the northern reaches of Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, and South America. Pyle described life in conditions as disparate as the tropics of South America and the 1930s Great Plains Dust Bowl.

He wrote about prominent people, such as 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.