Alexander Walter "Dude" McDowell

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Husband Alexander Walter "Dude" McDowell ^{1 2}

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           Born: 7 Aug 1883 1
     Christened: 
           Died: Aft 1943
         Buried: 

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         Father: Parker McDowell (1848-      ) 1 3
         Mother: Martha A. McClain (1857-      ) 1 3

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Wife

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General Notes: Husband - Alexander Walter "Dude" McDowell

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As president of "The Sharon Herald," Alexander Walter McDowell has achieved a goal to which he first aspired when he was nine years old, in 1892. In that year, he and his thirteen-year-old brother, William, began grinding out a miniature weekly paper, "The Sharon Star." It twinkled for six years until the lads outgrew the schoolboy venture and sold it; but both returned to newspaper work in later years.
Mr. McDowell went from Sharon High School into a clerical position with the Sharon Steel Company, a mill founded by the Sharon philanthropist, the late Frank H. Buhl, and he was with that concern four years. He also worked a year for a Pittsburgh auditing firm.
Then his natural talent for drawing led Mr. McDowell to study at the Cleveland School of Art. He worked several years in art departments of the "Cleveland Press," the "Cincinnati Post" and the "St. Louis Star-Chronicle."
As the years on out-of-town papers passed, Mr. McDowell wished-like most newspapermen-to have a small paper of his own. Three other Sharon young men, William S. Organ, William B. Ramsay and Joseph Buchholz, shared this desire. So they pooled their energies and meager financial resources, borrowed the remainder and bought the weekly "Sharon Herald" from the late John L. Morrison in 1907. This paper had grown from the first newspaper published in Sharon on April 11, 1864.
The four colleagues published the weekly until April 12, 1909, when they expanded it to a daily. Mr. Organ was president of the company and Mr. McDowell was secretary and treasurer.
The "Herald" continued to grow and prosper until the big flood of 1913 struck the Shenango Valley and swept away the newspaper plant on River Avenue. By that time, however, the advertisers and readers had faith in the "Herald's" owners and they encouraged them to reestablish their paper.
Mr. McDowell was in charge of the financial operation of the publication. Mr. Ramsay was editor and Mr. Organ and Mr. Buchholz managed the mechanical department. When Mr. Organ died Christmas Day in 1920, Mr. McDowell succeeded him as president and treasurer.
In May, 1935, the "Herald" and the "Sharon News-Telegraph," a competing newspaper, merged and a new corporation-Sharon Herald Company-was formed with Mr. McDowell as president.
The "Herald" came to be recognized as one of the leading newspapers in western Pennsylvania. It occupied frontage of two hundred feet on South Dock Street in Sharon and the three-story brick building was fifty feet wide, giving thirty thousand square feet of floor space.
In the past few years the "Herald" also has installed a modern photo-engraving department equipped for etching of stainless steel and modernized its job printing department; connected its Sharon office with Mercer, Greenville and Grove City by printer machines and it was the first newspaper in the nation to employ teletype transmission of news from branch offices to the editorial rooms; helped found radio station WPIC and equipped the "Herald" editorial room for hourly news broadcasts; and built the Sharon Herald lodge at nearby Orangeville, Ohio, as a recreation spot for employees and a gathering place for community organizations.
The "Herald" contributed to the civic growth of its home city and has promoted many improvements. Veterans of World War I were numerous in its personnel and twenty per cent. of its employees were in military service by October, 1942. The paper was commended for its contributions to the war effort.
The "Herald" won prizes for newspaper excellence at annual conventions of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association.
Mr. McDowell was president of the Pennsylvania Publishers group in 1938.
All his friends knew him by the familiar nickname, "Dude."
He was a bachelor, and he told those who questioned him about it: "I married a newspaper."

1 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Genealogical and Personal History of the Allegheny Valley, Pennsylvania (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1913), Pg 376.

2 Joseph Riesenman, Jr., History of Northwestern Pennsylvania, Vol. III (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1943), Pg 525.

3 —, Biographical Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905), Pg 98.