Journalist, Educator MacDougall Dies

EVANSTON, Ill. —  Curtis D. MacDougall, a journalist, educator and author who edited the early works of Saul Bellow, Nelson Algren and Studs Terkel, died Sunday.

He was 82 and died in a hospital here from complications after hip surgery he had undergone Oct. 14.

MacDougall, a retired professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, had a career in journalism and political activism that spanned seven decades.

At the time of his death he was working on the ninth edition of his book, “Interpretative Reporting,” a journalism textbook in wide use.

MacDougall worked at various times for United Press International in Chicago, the St. Louis Star Times and the Chicago Sun, predecessor of the Chicago Sun-Times.

From 1939 to 1942, he headed the Illinois Writers Project, a federal program that saw him hire and edit the work of many unemployed writers, including Bellow, Algren and Terkel.

He was a professor at Medill from 1942 to 1971 and also wrote a definitive study of the Progressive Party movement of the late 1940s, “Gideon’s Army.”

He is survived by his wife, Genevieve, and five children.