Dreiser, Theodore

The American author Theodore Dreiser was born as Herman Theodore Dreiser in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was the ninth of ten surviving children in a poor and strictly Catholic family. Dreiser arrived in Chicago when he was fifteen, and made a living from odd jobs. He attended the University of Indiana for a year, and after another period of odd jobs he embarked on a career as a journalist and novelist in 1892. He died in Los Angeles.