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Summary Information

Repository
Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Lilly Library
Indiana University
1200 E. Seventh St.
Bloomington, IN 47405-5500
Phone: 812-855-2452
Fax: 812-855-3143
Email: liblilly@indiana.edu

Creator
Pyle, Ernie, 1900-1945

Title
Pyle mss.,1929-1945

Collection No.
LMC 1878

Extent
2 boxes

Language
Materials are in English.

Abstract
The Pyle mss., 1929-1945, consists primarliy of the correspondence and writings of journalist Ernest Taylor Pyle, 1900-1945.

Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Biographical Note

Ernest Taylor Pyle (1900-1945), also known as Ernie Pyle, was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist. After attending Indiana University Bloomington, Pyle served as a newspaper correspondent and columnist who covered the lives of ordinary people as well as soldiers in World War II. Pyle was killed in battle at Ie Shima in the Pacific.

Scope and Content Note

The Pyle mss., 1929-1945, are letters to Ernest Taylor Pyle, 1900-1945, journalist, from editors, newspapermen, journalists, congressmen, senators, and friends. Included are also ninety-nine personal letters from Pyle to his wife, Mrs. Geraldine "Jerry" Elizabeth (Siebolds) Pyle, 1900-1945, and one hundred and eight personal letters to Paige Cavanaugh, 1899-1991, businessman and classmate of Pyle at Indiana University. These letters were written while Pyle was a war correspondent in England, Ireland, France, Italy, Sicily, Africa, and the South Pacific during World War II. He used ninety-seven pseudonyms in writing to Cavanaugh. In addition to the letters there are sixty-six articles and one column, "On V-E Day," Pyle had written which was found in his pocket at the time of his death, April 18, 1945, on Ie Shima. The Pittsburgh Press published the column on September 9, 1945. After the war the body was moved to the new National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl Crater, near Honolulu.

In 1944 Pyle was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and voted the Outstanding Hoosier of the year by the Sons of Indiana of New York. In the same year he received the honorary degrees of Litt. D. from the University of New Mexico and L.H.D. from Indiana University and the Raymond Clapper memorial award from the Sigma Delta Chi fraternity.

Among his publications are Ernie Pyle in England. New York: P.M. McBride & Company, [1941]; Here is Your War. New York: H. Holt and Company, [1943]; Brave Men. New York: H. Holt and Company, [1944]; Last Chapter. New York: H. Holt and Company, [1946]; Home Country. New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., [1947]. Lee Graham Miller published An Ernie Pyle Album: Indiana to Ie Shima. New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., [1946]; and The Story of Ernie Pyle. New York: The Viking Press, 1950.

• Indexing Terms

• • Topics
  • American Literature--Indiana
  • Journalism
  • World War, 1939-1945

Related Material

Pyle mss. II, Pyle mss. III, Pyle mss. IV, Pyle mss. V, Pyle mss. VI, and Pyle mss. VII also located at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Administrative Information

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