George Helgesen Fitch (June 5, 1877 – August 9, 1915) was an American author,
humorist, and
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
perhaps best known for his stories about fictional Siwash College.
Biography
Fitch was born in
Galva, Illinois
Galva is a city in Henry County, Illinois, United States. The population was 2,589 at the 2010 census, down from 2,758 in 2000.
History
Cousins William L. Wiley (1820-1900) and James Wiley (1817-1886) founded Galva in 1854. The name Galva hono ...
. He was the eldest son of Elmer Eli Fitch, editor and publisher of the ''Galva News'', and Rachel Helgesen, daughter of Thomas and Anna (Holverson) Helgesen. His grandfather, Thomas Helgesen, was a native of
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
who had immigrated to America in 1848.
Fitch graduated from
Knox College in 1897. He worked as a reporter for a number of midwest newspapers including the
Council Bluffs, Iowa ''Daily Nonpareil'' and the
Peoria, Illinois ''Herald-Transcript''. Eventually he became frequently published in national magazines, breaking in with his popular "Megaphone" series satirizing urban America. He also penned a syndicated column called "Vest Pocket Essays". By 1910, Fitch not only was a respected writer and editor, he became a nationally syndicated columnist for
George Matthew Adams' news service. He was elected as a
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to:
Active parties
* Progressive Party, Brazil
* Progressive Party (Chile)
* Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus
* Dominica Progressive Party
* Progressive Party (Iceland)
* Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...
candidate to the
Illinois House of Representatives in 1912.
Knox, his ''alma mater,'' was the basis of a series of popular stories set at "Good Old Siwash College". First appearing in the ''
Saturday Evening Post'' in 1908, they focused on characters including football player Ole Skjarson and Petey Simmons, a coach who paid his "amateur" athletes as well as the
fraternity Eta Bita Pie. The Siwash stories were the basis for the movie ''
Those Were the Days!'' (1940) starring
William Holden
William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...
as Simmons, which was filmed on location at and around Knox College. Fitch died of a ruptured
appendix while visiting his sister Louise in California at the age of 38.
Quotes
Fitch gave an early form of the adage "Journalism is the first rough draft of history":
:A reporter is a young man who blocks out ''the first draft of history'' each day on a rheumatic typewriter.
[July 3, 1914, Lincoln (NE) Daily Star, "The Reporter" by George Fitch, pg. 6, col. 4][“First draft of history” (journalism)](_blank)
November 23, 2009, Barry Popik
See
Wikiquote article for details.
Selected works
*''At Good Old Siwash'' (1910)
*''Homeburg Memories'' (1915)
*''Vest Pocket Essays'' (1916)
References
;Other sources
*''Past and Present of Fayette County Iowa'' (B.F. Bowen & Co. Indianapolis. 1910)
* Fitch, Roscoe Conkling ''History of the Fitch Family 1400–1930'' (1930)
*''George Fitch'' (The Literary Encyclopedia. July 17, 2001)
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitch, George
1877 births
1915 deaths
People from Galva, Illinois
American people of Norwegian descent
Illinois Progressives (1912)
Knox College (Illinois) alumni
Members of the Illinois House of Representatives
American humorists
American male writers
Writers from Illinois
Deaths from appendicitis
19th-century American politicians