Finley Peter Dunne

Finley Peter Dunne was born in 1867 in the west side of Chicago to Irish immigrants. He began his career as a newspaperman in Chicago in 1884, working for six different daily papers including The Chicago Times and The Chicago Tribune, before he settled in as the editor of the Chicago Evening Post in 1892.
It was here where he became famous for his creation of a fictional Irish saloonkeeper by the name of "Mr. Dooley." "Mr Dooley succeeded Dunne's Colonel Malachi McNeery, a fictional downtown Chicago barkeeper who had become a popular Post feature during the World's Fair of 1893"(Fanning). Dunne used Mr. Dooley to comment on news in a satirical manner, often providing readers with 750 word dialogues in a think Irish brogue.
Up until 1898 Mr. Dooley was only known to the Chicago community, however, during the Spanish-American War in 1898, Mr. Dooley's satirical coverage of the war brought him to the attention of people outside of Chicago. It got to the point that by the time Dunne moved to New York in 1900, Mr. Dooley was the most popular figure in american journalism. In 1906 Dunne became the editor of American Magazine, where he worked until 1913. He then proceeded to join the staff of Collier's magazine, eventually becoming the editor in 1917 where he worked until 1919.
Some may consider Finley Peter Dunne to be a journeyman journalist, however, his creation of Mr. Dooley, and his use of him to portray realistic sketches of urban ethnic communities in the late 1800's and early 1900s was pioneering and vital to American journalism.

Information from:

Fanning, Charles. Finley Peter Dunne. Cengage Learning Home Page. Accessed on 30 September 2013.<http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/late_nineteenth/dunne_fi.html>
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Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalists: Getting the Story. Oxford University Press. New York. 1997.