Dateline: Toronto - Background

Background

In 1920, after returning from World War I, Hemingway moved to Toronto where he began freelancing for the Toronto Star Weekly, part of the Toronto Star. For his earliest work, Hemingway was paid $5 and eventually hired by the paper. On March 6, 1920, Ernest M. Hemingway received his first byline for the Toronto Star Weekly, a story entitled "Taking a Chance for a Free Shave." The story was about a trip to a barber college, where shaves were free, but performed by inexperienced barbers still in training.

Hemingway continued writing features at a rate of about one a week. He stayed in Toronto off and on for two years, earning about $45 a week. During this time he wrote stories on a wide array of subjects—from the benefits of centralized government purchasing ("Buying Commission Would Cut Out Waste", The Toronto Daily Star, April 26, 1920) to a boxing match between Georges Carpentier and Jack Dempsey ("Carpentier Sure to Give Dempsey Fight Worth While", The Toronto Star Weekly, October 30, 1920) to a humorous look at returning World War I veterans ("Lieutenants' Mustaches the Only Permanent Thing We Got Out of War", The Toronto Star Weekly, April 10, 1920.)

In 1921 Hemingway returned to Chicago and wrote dispatches from there. In December 1921, Hemingway's career changed forever when he went to Europe with his wife and as a foreign correspondent wrote human-interest stories about post-war conditions. Here he made his first experience of bullfighting, the sport that came to be so important in his writings.

After much success as a foreign correspondent, Hemingway returned to Toronto in 1923. But upon his return, Hemingway had a bitter falling out with his editor, Harry Hindmarsh, who believed Hemingway had been spoiled by his time overseas. Hindmarsh gave Hemingway mundane assignments, and Hemingway grew bitter and wrote an angry resignation in December 1923. Even his resignation was ignored, and Hemingway continued to write sporadically through 1924. In 1924, Hemingway published in our time (in lower case) which was the foundation for In Our Time, and Hemingway decided to leave the Star.