A Message From The Ernie Pyle Legacy Foundation
And so here we are...
That’s the old man, in bronze, outside the Indiana University Media School. If Ernie were around he’d probably say, “When are going to get off my back?” Well, I can’t. I’ve had something stuck in my craw for two years now…
My name is Michael Brainard, and it was two years ago I, suggested a project to The Ernie Pyle Legacy Foundation: The Complete Works Of Ernie Pyle. The idea of putting everything Pyle ever wrote together into one place. Everyone at the EPLF thought it a fine idea. So, at this moment I gained a deeper understanding of the value in keeping one’s mouth shut.
This has become, and will remain, a monumental task.
But, the idea is a good one. And I have the full support of my fellow board members. The effort fits our mission: to promote awareness of the life and work of Ernie Pyle. After all, he is one of America’s best-loved journalists of the 20th century. I say that last sentence, understanding you may find it dubious. Rest assured, your grandparents (or great grandparents?) did not.
They did not because they may have read him everyday. At least they did during the second world war. Some found him before that. A Scripps-Howard Alliance newspaper may have been handy in their hometowns. Pyle was a syndicated columnist there.
But here’s the thing, as they say: access to most of his writing has disappeared. He wrote for the newspaper when newspapers didn’t keep internet archives. Sure, with our help Penguin Classics republished Pyle’s Brave Men in 2023. But aside from that, nothing exists in print of his work. And yes, you can head on over to Ebay and look around. There you may collect the bulk of Pyle’s war writings in vintage book compilations. Here Is Your War, Brave Men, The Last Chapter and even his pre-war stuff in Home Country still exist there. But there is so much more writing that didn’t make it into those books.
Not only that, different versions of his dispatches exist in the books. An editor got a hold of them. You will see the originals. And it is quite possible nobody has seen the originals since they were first printed in the 1930s.
Today is the premiere of “The Complete Works Of Ernie Pyle” on the publishing platform Substack.
Unadulterated versions of everything Pyle wrote will make up this Substack. Whatever made the final in The Washington Daily News, his home paper, is what you get. They will appear in order of the date published, until his death on Ie Shima, April 18th, 1945.
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We are starting with August 8, 1935. It is a story about the town of Flemington New Jersey, and the aftermath of the Bruno Hauptmann trial. Hauptmann was tried in Flemington for the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's child. Pyle thought it would be a good idea to follow up on things and start his column there.
It was no small feat to convince his superiors to allow him to drive all around the country as a roving reporter. It started about 7 months earlier. Ernie and his wife, Jerry, took a vacation by car across America. When they returned home, renowned syndicated columnist Heywood Broun took his own vacation. This left a big blank space in the paper. Ernie asked if he could fill that space with some stories of his trip. Thus, the Hoosier Vagabond stories began.
Eleven columns. That is how many he wrote in April of 1935. And they are available right now on our Substack page, so you can get caught up on Ernie’s timeline.
After today, we will be posting one story a day, until everything Pyle ever wrote is available. We will even circle back and get his Aviation Column that he wrote from 1929-1932. If we can find anything he wrote outside of his Scripps Howard Alliance duties, that goes in too. Also, I have found the stories he wrote for the LaPorte Herald, Ernie’s first job as a newspaperman in 1923. Look for those in the future.
I will also be adding notes, both trivial and essential. Understanding the moment surrounding the creation of the column may help. I will even take to task longer efforts, like this one, when I have something personal to say.
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It may be that Substack is the perfect place to revive Ernies column for our times. After all, the columns come off as a blog by all modern measures. Each a tidy missive detailing some facet of life away from home. And be it the prewar years or wartime, he was always writing from the road through the eyes of a simple Indiana farm boy. Hell, he’d have been a Substacker himself if he made it this far. And, in a midwest-magic-realism kind of way I guess he is now.
In the spirit of open-source, we will keep this Substack a free one. In the future I will let everyone in on this process including where I’ve been to research and amass Pyle’s work. Am I out of pocket on this? Oh, hell yes I am. But, I’m doing it anyway. And here's a bonus: you can help.
Transcribing jpeg's of the microfilm dispatches is the bulk of the work. Please send me a message here on our page if you would like to get involved and help with transcription. Also, If you find any mistakes please let us know. We are using AI to help transcribe the jpeg’s and sometimes it goes rogue. We try to catch them, but sometimes a mistake makes it through.
With enough volunteers we could get to the finish line on this project a lot quicker. More on that later. But, if you’d also like to contribute any loose change you may have laying around please hit the donate button. We could surely use the help.
So, tell a friend. And hit the subscription button. Substack will send you an email everyday. Imagine that, “The Complete Works Of Ernie Pyle” in your inbox each morning. Like the good old days.
Without further ado, off we go into the backcountry of “The Complete Works of Ernie Pyle.”
Michael Brainard
Director, Ernie Pyle Legacy Foundation
Special thanks to Executive Director of the EPLF, Jerry Maschino, and directors Kevin Benson, Jamie Zega and Morgan Maschino. Kevin, Jamie, Morgan and I will be your admins. Don’t be afraid to reach out!
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Bob voyage Ernie Jr