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Walter Ansel Strong, the owner and publisher of the Chicago Daily News from 1925 to 1931, was born in Chicago to physician Albert Bliss Strong and Ida Cook Strong on August 13, 1883. In 1895, Dr. Albert Strong was institutionalized due to mental issues, possibly caused by a brain tumor. His mother, Ida,took her youngest child, Richard, to California, leaving Walter in Chicago. With his mother absent and his father incapacitated, Walter Strong lived at a Chicago YMCA while attending high school and working for his cousin, Victor Lawson, publisher of the Chicago Daily News. Strong worked selling the Chicago Daily News from street corners during the day, and attended Lewis Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) at night, graduating in 1901 with a degree in civil engineering. Upon graduating from Lewis Institute, Strong attended Beloit College in Wisconsin. In addition to his studies, he held a variety of jobs to support himself and his mother, including selling electrical appliances, running a roller skating rental business, and working at the Beloit Free Press. He also participated in sports becoming the captain of the college's first basketball team, edited the college newspaper, and acted in theatrical productions. After graduating in 1905, Strong moved back to Chicago to work as an audit clerk at the Chicago Daily News. In 1908 he accompanied Victor Lawson to Europe, working as Lawson's secretary, and by 1910 had become auditor and office manager of the Daily News. Strong also attended John Marshall Law School during this time, graduating in 1912.

Strong married Josephine Webster in 1913, and the couple settled in Evanston. They had five children: Walter Ansel Jr. (1914), Jonathan Webster (1917), Robert Kitchell (1919), Anne Haviland (1922), and David Seymour (1925). He continued to advance at the Daily News, gaining Victor Lawson's trust and respect, and in 1921 was officially appointed business manager. Under his direction the Daily News acquired radio station WMAQ (formerly WGU), becoming one of the first newspapers to operate a radio station. Victor Lawson died in August of 1925, leaving no instructions in his will regarding the disposition of the Daily News, and Strong spent the rest of the year working out the details of purchasing the newspaper. Strong's tenure as publisher of the Daily News coincided with Prohibition. The activities of gangsters and bootleggers such as Al Capone and Bugs Moran, as well as the machinations of mayor William Hale Thompson's administration, kept Washington D.C. and the rest of the nation focused on Chicago. As publisher of a major Chicago newspaper during this tumultuous time, Strong became quite respected and well-known, serving on the boards of directors of the National Association of Broadcasters and International Advertising Association. In 1926 he traveled to Europe, meeting with French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré as well as Benito Mussolini, then Prime Minister of Italy. He later spent time in Washington D.C. with Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, becoming particularly friendly with Hoover. As a highly admired representative of the newspaper industry and the Chicago community, he gave many speeches, including a well-received talk at the University of Chicago known as "Newspapers and the New Age". Strong also oversaw the Daily News' construction of a new, modern building on the Chicago River, which involved negotiating air rights over existing railroad property, and presided over the paper's move in 1929. Walter Strong died of a heart attack on May 10, 1931, at the age of 47.

Citation: Walter Ansel Strong Papers, The Newberry Library, Chicago. Gift, David S. Strong, 2009. The Walter Ansel Strong Papers are the physical property of the Newberry Library. See also the Edward Price Bell Papers (Midwest MS Bell), Charles H. Dennis Papers (Midwest MS Dennis), Victor F. Lawson Papers (Midwest MS Lawson), and Field Enterprises Records (Midwest MS Field Enterprises)