author
Joseph Gilpin Pyle
b. 1853
Best remembered for a major life of railroad builder James J. Hill, this American writer also worked in journalism and library service. His career moved through newspapers in St. Paul and Seattle before turning toward long-form biography and historical writing.
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About the author
Born in 1853, Joseph Gilpin Pyle was an American writer, editor, librarian, and biographer. Sources identify him as a contributor to the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, where he wrote on Minnesota, and as the author of works including The Little Cryptogram, Unenforced Law and the Stay-at-Home Vote, and The Life of James J. Hill.
Pyle spent many years in newspaper work. Available records describe him as an editor on St. Paul papers and as editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1899 to 1903. Later, he was associated with the James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul, a role that fits with his reputation as both a man of letters and a careful researcher.
His best-known book is the two-volume The Life of James J. Hill, published in 1916 and 1917. Contemporary commentary noted that he knew the region and the subject well, which helps explain the book's lasting interest for readers of western history, railroads, and American biography.