O'Meara, Walter

Walter O'Meara was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1897) and grew up in Cloquet, Minnesota. He graduated from Cloquet High School (1914) and attended the University of Minnesota before serving in the army during World War I. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin (1920) with a degree in journalism.

After working as a reporter for the Duluth News Tribune for several years, O'Meara joined the Chicago office of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. He later moved on to work for the Benton & Bowles advertising agency in New York (1932), but returned to J. Walter Thompson as co-chairman of their plans board in New York (1942). During World War II O'Meara served as chief of planning for the Office of Strategic Services and was head of the information department for the Office of Price Administration.

In 1950 O'Meara left advertising as a full-time profession to pursue a writing career. He published several magazine articles and 16 books, two of which, Minnesota Gothic and Grand Portage, were best sellers in the 1950s. In 1956 O'Meara was media director for Adlai Stevenson's first presidential campaign.

O'Meara lived most of his working life in Connecticut. He moved to Arizona in 1969 and later moved to Cohasset, Massachusetts, where he died on September 29, 1989. Walter O'Meara married Esther Arnold (1922) and had four children: Ellen, Donn, Wolfe, and Deirdre.

Biographical data was taken from the collection.

From the guide to the Walter O'Meara papers., 1897-1989., (Minnesota Historical Society)