O. O. McIntyre
Encyclopedia
Oscar Odd McIntyre was a famed New York newspaper columnist of the 1920s and 1930s who cleverly combined a small town point of view with urban sophistication. The Washington Post
once described his column as "the letter from New York read by millions because it never lost the human, homefolk flavor of a letter from a friend." For a quarter of a century, his daily column, “New York Day by Day,” was published in more than 500 newspapers.
Born in Plattsburg, Missouri
, McIntyre began his newspaper career in 1902 on the Gallipolis Journal in Gallipolis, Ohio
where he married Maybelle Hope Small. He moved on to East Liverpool, Ohio
to become a feature writer on the East Liverpool Morning Tribune. After a period as managing editor of the Dayton Herald (Dayton, Ohio
), McIntyre worked as assistant managing editor at the Cincinnati Post. He was 28 years old when he arrived in New York in 1912 as an associate editor at Hampton’s Magazine, which folded shortly after he took the job.
. Within two years, 26 papers had signed on at an annual fee of $600. In New York, his column appeared in the Journal-American. Back in Gallipolis, the Gallipolis Tribune ran the column on its front page.
His publicity work for the Hotel Majestic gave him free room and board, and syndication made him one of the highest paid newspaper writers with an income of more than $200,000 each year. He lived in style, and his many celebrity friends included Irvin S. Cobb
, Gene Fowler
, Major Bowes and top talents of Broadway. He was the publicist for Flo Ziegfeld and various comedians and actors.
His column required him to daily write approximately 800 words, or about 292,000 words a year. He usually worked right after breakfast, keeping the blinds closed and the lights on because he disliked sunlight, and by 5:30pm he had completed another installment. The column ran in 508 newspapers in every state, Mexico and Canada, for a combined circulation of 15,000,000. McIntyre received 3,000 letters a week from his readers. He also wrote a monthly essay for Cosmopolitan
for over 15 years.
McIntyre turned down offers to become a radio personality because he thought it would lower the high standard he had for the writing in his column. However, the characters profiled in his columns gave Fred Allen
the inspiration to create in 1942 the hugely popular "Allen's Alley" segment of his radio show.
likes a midnight hamburger with onions, too."
In 1929, McIntyre described his approach in the preface to Twenty-five Selected Stories, a collection of his articles from Cosmopolitan
: "I write from a country town angle of a city's glamour, and the metropolis has never lost its thrill for me. Things the ordinary New Yorker accepts casually are my dish--the telescope man on the curb, the Bowery lodging houses and drifters... speakeasies..." He often wrote with affection about small town life, as in "That Was Happy New Year" (1932):
. Maybelle Hope Small McIntyre, who lived to the age of 101, died in Point Pleasant, West Virginia
, in April 1985.
After McIntyre's death, the newspaper column was continued by editor Charles Benedict Driscoll until 1951. When Driscoll's biography, The Life of O.O. McIntyre (Greystone Press, 1938), was published seven months after McIntyre's death, it made The New York Times
bestseller list.
The O.O. McIntyre Park District in Gallipolis is named in his honor. A Gallia County film production about McIntyre was made in 1994 by Edna Pierce Whiteley. The O.O. McIntyre Story: Chronicle of a Journalist of Note is narrated by Whiteley with Earl Tope as the voice of McIntyre. The film is available as a 30-minute videocassette.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
once described his column as "the letter from New York read by millions because it never lost the human, homefolk flavor of a letter from a friend." For a quarter of a century, his daily column, “New York Day by Day,” was published in more than 500 newspapers.
Born in Plattsburg, Missouri
Plattsburg, Missouri
Plattsburg is a city in Clinton County, Missouri, along the Little Platte River. The population was 2,354 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Clinton County.- History :...
, McIntyre began his newspaper career in 1902 on the Gallipolis Journal in Gallipolis, Ohio
Gallipolis, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,180 people, 1,847 households, and 1,004 families residing in the village. The population density was 1,156.2 people per square mile . There were 2,056 housing units at an average density of 568.7 per square mile...
where he married Maybelle Hope Small. He moved on to East Liverpool, Ohio
East Liverpool, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 13,089 people, 5,261 households, and 3,424 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,010.3 people per square mile . There were 5,743 housing units at an average density of 1,320.8 per square mile...
to become a feature writer on the East Liverpool Morning Tribune. After a period as managing editor of the Dayton Herald (Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
), McIntyre worked as assistant managing editor at the Cincinnati Post. He was 28 years old when he arrived in New York in 1912 as an associate editor at Hampton’s Magazine, which folded shortly after he took the job.
Syndication
While freelancing and doing public relations work in 1912, he started writing a daily column about New York City life for "the home folks." He circulated these mimeographed columns through the mail, and the Bridgeport Post was the first newspaper to run the column at an annual fee of $8. With his wife handling his business affairs, he soon had syndication contracts with Scripps-Howard and McNaughtMcNaught Syndicate
The McNaught Syndicate was an American newspaper syndicate founded in 1922. It was established by Virgil Venice McNitt and Charles V. McAdam. Its best known contents were the columns by Will Rogers and O. O. McIntyre, the Dear Abby letters section and comic strips, including Joe Palooka and...
. Within two years, 26 papers had signed on at an annual fee of $600. In New York, his column appeared in the Journal-American. Back in Gallipolis, the Gallipolis Tribune ran the column on its front page.
New York Day by Day
His publicity work for the Hotel Majestic gave him free room and board, and syndication made him one of the highest paid newspaper writers with an income of more than $200,000 each year. He lived in style, and his many celebrity friends included Irvin S. Cobb
Irvin S. Cobb
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was an American author, humorist, and columnist who lived in New York and authored more than 60 books and 300 short stories.-Biography:...
, Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler was an American journalist, author and dramatist.He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed permanently gave him a distaste for red meat...
, Major Bowes and top talents of Broadway. He was the publicist for Flo Ziegfeld and various comedians and actors.
His column required him to daily write approximately 800 words, or about 292,000 words a year. He usually worked right after breakfast, keeping the blinds closed and the lights on because he disliked sunlight, and by 5:30pm he had completed another installment. The column ran in 508 newspapers in every state, Mexico and Canada, for a combined circulation of 15,000,000. McIntyre received 3,000 letters a week from his readers. He also wrote a monthly essay for Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
for over 15 years.
McIntyre turned down offers to become a radio personality because he thought it would lower the high standard he had for the writing in his column. However, the characters profiled in his columns gave Fred Allen
Fred Allen
Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...
the inspiration to create in 1942 the hugely popular "Allen's Alley" segment of his radio show.
Small town life
McIntyre had a flair for language, coining words and phrases when needed, such as a pianist who could create "go-gollies" at the keyboard. He described his good health "chirky" and his Park Avenue apartment as "a cozy higgledy-piggledy." The "Thingumbobs" section of his column featured such observations as, "Leopold StokowskiLeopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
likes a midnight hamburger with onions, too."
In 1929, McIntyre described his approach in the preface to Twenty-five Selected Stories, a collection of his articles from Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
: "I write from a country town angle of a city's glamour, and the metropolis has never lost its thrill for me. Things the ordinary New Yorker accepts casually are my dish--the telescope man on the curb, the Bowery lodging houses and drifters... speakeasies..." He often wrote with affection about small town life, as in "That Was Happy New Year" (1932):
- Children scrubbed clean, fathers in frock coats and mothers in rustling silks moved from one home to another.
- In the late afternoon, if the weather permitted, those who were not enjoying late afternoon naps would go to the public square to hear a band concert or perhaps an address by Colonel John L. Vance.
- It was a gathering that would seem incongruous in this jazz age; Pappy Pitrat, the old French scholar, with his heavy cane and cape; Miss Eliza Sanns, a delicate bit of lavender and old lace; Colonel Creuzet with his snow white shock of hair; Mr. Hutchinson, the hardware merchant, who wore stiff white shirts on week-days; C. D. Kerr, the druggist, whom Editor Sibley called the best dressed man in town.
- Most of these people today are “sleeping, sleeping on the hill.” It has been nearly twenty years now since I have seen Gallipolis. They tell me of a new high school building that occupies two blocks.
- Back Street has been paved. A new bridge spans the Chicamaugua. The Park Central has a mosaic floor. There are concrete walks in the public square and Billy Schartz’s cigar store is now “The Smoke Shop.”
- I want to go back again, but I hope there have not been too many changes. I like to think of the tolling evening church bells, the cows being driven home from pasture, the shrill whistle of the Hocking Valley train at six-fifteen as she rounded the curve at Fox’s dairy.
- I hope the older men are still sitting out front on the big scales at Neal’s Mill at twilight and that the motor age has not forever stilled that doleful “ting-tang-ting-gg!” floating out from the anvils of the blacksmith shops.
- I hope to go over at noon and join the little crowd that used to gather around the iron pump in the lower end of the public square. And I cherish a hope that the rusty old tin cup is there on the same brass chain.
- I hope “Banty” Merriman still has a place for me to loaf in the back room of his jewelry store and that Harry Maddy will join me in one of our old walks up through Maple Shade past the fair grounds.
- I want to keep always my memories of those dead and gone days when my world was young—when Karl Hall and I dug a cave under the river bank; when Alfie Resener and I smoked our first corn silk cigaret; when Harry Maxon and I set fire to McCormack’s haymow; when Ned Deletombe and I were taken to the Justice of Peace by Constable Jack Dufour for swimming naked in the creek.
Books
After McIntyre traveled to London and Paris, he also wrote about those cities. His books include the 1935 bestseller The Big Town.Death and legacy
He was 53 years old when he died in 1938 at his Park Avenue apartment, leaving an estate of $72,456. He was buried on a high bluff overlooking the Ohio RiverOhio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
. Maybelle Hope Small McIntyre, who lived to the age of 101, died in Point Pleasant, West Virginia
Point Pleasant, West Virginia
Point Pleasant is a city in Mason County, West Virginia, United States, at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. The population was 4,637 at the 2000 census...
, in April 1985.
After McIntyre's death, the newspaper column was continued by editor Charles Benedict Driscoll until 1951. When Driscoll's biography, The Life of O.O. McIntyre (Greystone Press, 1938), was published seven months after McIntyre's death, it made The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
bestseller list.
The O.O. McIntyre Park District in Gallipolis is named in his honor. A Gallia County film production about McIntyre was made in 1994 by Edna Pierce Whiteley. The O.O. McIntyre Story: Chronicle of a Journalist of Note is narrated by Whiteley with Earl Tope as the voice of McIntyre. The film is available as a 30-minute videocassette.
Archives
The Gallia County Historical/Genealogical Society has more than a dozen three-inch binders on McIntyre.Fellowship
The annual O.O. McIntyre Postgraduate Writing Fellowship was established in 1986 by the Missouri School of Journalism to help aspiring writers further their careers.See also
- Edgar GuestEdgar GuestEdgar Albert Guest was a prolific English-born American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.In 1891, Guest came with his family to the United States from England...
- Franklyn MacCormackFranklyn MacCormackFranklyn MacCormack was an American radio personality in Chicago, Illinois from the 1930s into the 1970s on his radio program, The All Night Showcase...
- Franklin Pierce AdamsFranklin Pierce AdamsFranklin Pierce Adams was an American columnist, well known by his initials F.P.A., and wit, best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower", and his appearances as a regular panelist on radio's Information Please...
- Nick KennyNick Kenny (poet)Nicholas Aloysius Kenny was a syndicated newspaper columnist, a song lyricist and a poet who wrote light verse in the Edgar Guest tradition.-Biography:...