John Walker Harrington

Born in Missouri in 1868, John Walker Harrington built his career in American journalism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sources available here describe him as a newspaper writer and editor who worked for papers including the Cleveland Leader, the New York Tribune, and especially the New York Herald, where he spent many years as a feature writer and Sunday editor.

Harrington also wrote widely beyond daily newspaper work. He contributed pieces to outlets such as the New York Times, Saturday Evening Post, and Scientific American, covering a broad range of subjects that reflected an energetic, curious mind. Accounts in this conversation say he retired in 1942 and died in 1952.

For book readers, he is best remembered for children’s stories including The Jumping Kangaroo and the Apple Butter Cat and The Adventures of Admiral Frog. Those books show a warmer, more whimsical side of a writer whose professional life was rooted in reporting, features, and popular magazine writing.