James E. Baum

James Edwin Baum (November 15, 1887 – December 1, 1955) was an American journalist and big-game hunter. After running away from home he worked as a wrangler before finding employment as a reporter at the Omaha Daily Bee. After a stint with the Chicago Daily News and an investment firm Baum served as a pilot during World War I. He worked as a cattle rancher after the war and at the Chicago Evening Journal. Baum rejoined the Chicago Daily News in 1925 and accompanied the paper's 1926–27 Abyssinia expedition during which he shot big game specimens for the Field Museum of Natural History. Afterwards he wrote several fiction and non-fiction books and undertook other expeditions for the museum.

Biography James Edwin Baum was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on November 15, 1887. At the age of 14 he ran away from home and freighthopped to Wyoming where he found work as a wrangler. Baum worked as a reporter at the Omaha Daily Bee from 1908 to 1914, apart from a brief period in 1910 when he attended Princeton University. In retirement Baum spent his summers in Lake Forest, Illinois, and winters in Palm Beach, Florida. He died in a hospital in Palm Beach on December 1, 1955.