Sterling North

After attending the University of Chicago (he left without graduating in 1929), North worked as a reporter (eventually literary editor) for the Chicago Daily News, the New York World-Telegram, and the New York Sun, before becoming a full-time freelance writer. In 1940, in his position as Chicago Daily News Literary Editor, North was one of the first public figures to denounce the newly popular medium of comic books. Barely two years after the introduction of Superman, North wrote that comics were "a poisonous mushroom growth of the last two years" and that comic book publishers were "guilty of a cultural slaughter of the innocents." One of North's first books, The Pedro Gorino, published in 1929, was a narrative of the life of Harry Dean, an African-American sea captain. A 1934 North novel, Plowing on Sunday, featured a rare dust jacket illustration by Iowa artist Grant Wood. North's book Midnight and Jeremiah was made into the Disney movie So Dear to My Heart in 1949. (The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Burl Ives's version of the 17th century English song "Lavender Blue"). In addition, North wrote Abe Lincoln: Log Cabin to White House, The Wolfling: A Documentary Novel of the Eighteen-Seventies, Racoons are the Brightest People, Hurry Spring, and many other books. In 1957, he became the general editor of Houghton Mifflin's North Star Books. This firm published biographies of American heroes for young adult readers. Although uncredited, North's beloved bride, Gladys Buchanan North, also contributed to the editing process.