William Henry Irwin (September 14, 1873 – February 24, 1948) was an American author, writer, and journalist who was associated with themuckrakers.

William Henry Irwin
Will Irwin in May 1918
Born	September 14, 1873 Oneida, New York
Died	February 24, 1948(1948-02-24) (aged 74) Greenwich Village, New York
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Journalist and author
Spouse	Inez Haynes Irwin

Irwin was born in 1873 inOneida,New York. In his early childhood, the Irwin family moved to Clayville, New York, a farming and mining center south ofUtica. In about 1878, his father moved toLeadville,Colorado, established himself in the lumber business, and brought his family there. When his business failed, Irwin's father moved the family toTwin Lakes, Colorado. A hotel business there failed too, and the family moved back to Leadville in a bungalow at 125 West Twelfth Street. In 1889, the family moved toDenver, where he graduated from high school. He said he cured himself of a diagnosed bout oftuberculosis by "roughing it" for a year as a cowboy.^[1]

With a loan from his high school teacher, Irwin enteredStanford University in September 1894.^[2] Irwin was forced to withdraw for disciplinary reasons but was readmitted and graduated on May 24, 1899.^[a] According to journalism historians Clifford Weigle and David Clark in their biographical sketch of Irwin,

"During four riotous years at Stanford, Irwin 'specialized' in campus politics, undergraduate theatricals and writing, and beer drinking and inventive pranks. Expelled three weeks before he was to have received the B.A. degree in 1898, he got the degree a year later after final, solemn consideration by a somewhat reluctant faculty committee on student affairs."^[3][4]

In 1901 Irwin got a job as a reporter on theSan Francisco Chronicle, eventually rising to Sunday editor. For the San Francisco-basedBohemian Club, he wrote theGrove PlayThe Hamadryads, A Masque of Apollo in One Act' in 1904.^[5][6][7] The same year, he moved to New York City to take a reporter's position atThe New York Sun, then in its heyday under the editorship of Chester Lord and Selah M. Clark. Also in 1904, Irwin co-authored a book of short stories withGelett Burgess,The Picaroons (McClure, Phillips & Co.)

Irwin arrived inNew York City the same day as a major disaster, the sinking of theGeneral Slocum. As a new reporter onThe Sun, he was assigned to work theBellevue Hospitalmorgue, where the more than 1,000 bodies of the victims of fire and drowning were taken.^[1][8]

Irwin's biggest story and the feat that made his reputation as a journalist was his absentee coverage forThe Sun, inNew York City, of theSan Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906.

Weigle and Clark described his activities:

"Because he knew the city so well, he was assigned to write – mostly from memory, supplemented by scant telegraphic bulletins – the story of the quake. Before the last-edition deadline on the first day, April 18, 1906, he wrote fourteen columns of copy. and he kept writing, eight columns or more a day, for the next seven days, as fire swept the ruined city. The booklet, for which Irwin is most widely known, resulted from six or seven columns of the general description of pre-earthquake San Francisco that he wrote on the afternoon of the third day of the story."^[9]

Irwin was hired byS.S. McClure in 1906 as managing editor ofMcClure's. He rose to the position of editor but disliked the work and then moved toCollier's, edited byNorman Hapgood. He wrote investigative stories on the movement forProhibition and a study of fake spiritualmediums.

Back on the Pacific coast in 1906–1907 to research a story onanti-Japanese racism, Irwin returned to San Francisco and found it flourishing. Several years later, he wrote an article on the city's rebirth entitled "The City That Is" in theSan Francisco Call, which concluded that San Francisco had become "a larger city, a more convenient city, and since it is also a more beautiful and more distinctive city I announce myself a complete convert. This city that was business is the old stuff."^[10]

Irwin's series on anti-Japanese discrimination appeared inCollier's in September–October 1907 andPearson's in 1909.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

Then came theCollier's magazine series, "The American Newspaper", one of the most famous critical analyses of American journalism. The series was researched from September 23, 1909, until late June 1910 and published from January to June 1911.^[1]

Irwin continued to write articles, some in themuckraking style, until the outbreak ofWorld War I. He sailed to Europe in August 1914 as one of the first American correspondents. According to the media historians Edwin and Michael Emery

"[Irwin's]beats on thebattles of Ypres and the firstGerman use of poison gas were also printed in theTribune. Irwin was one of several correspondents who represented American magazines in Europe; he first wrote forCollier's and then for theSaturday Evening Post.^[16] Irwin's article appeared on the front page ofThe New York Tribune on April 27, 1915.^[17]

Irwin served on the executive committee ofHerbert Hoover'sCommission for Relief in Belgium in 1914–1915 and was chief of the foreign department ofGeorge Creel'sCommittee on Public Information in 1918.

Irwin was skeptical ofparanormal claims. In 1907-1908, for theColliers Weekly, he published four installments of "The Medium Game: Behind the Scenes with Spiritualism" to cover fraud and trickery associated withspiritualism.^[1]

The psychical researcherHereward Carrington described Irwin as a well-known "exposer of fraudulent mediums."^[18]

During and after the war Irwin wrote 17 more books, includingChrist or Mars?, an anti-war treatise (1923); abiography of Herbert Hoover (1928); a history ofParamount Pictures and its founder,Adolph Zukor,The House That Shadows Built (1928); and his ownautobiography,The Making of a Reporter (1942). He also wrote two plays and continued magazine writing.

Irwin was married to thefeminist author,Inez Haynes Irwin, who published under the name Inez Haynes Gillmore, author ofAngel Island (1914) andThe Californiacs (1916).^[19][20] The Irwins summered in Scituate, Massachusetts, in the early 1900s.^[21] Will Irwin wrote a story in 1914 forThe American Magazine about summer life in Scituate.^[22]

Irwin died in 1948, at the age of 74.^[23]

• The House That Shadows Built (1931).—Paramount Pictures promotional film that took its name from Irwin's book.

• Works by Will Irwin atProject Gutenberg
• Works by William Henry Irwin atFaded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about Will Irwin at theInternet Archive
• Works by Will Irwin atLibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 
• Will Irwin and Inez Haynes Gillmore Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
• Will Irwin,Arnold Genthe. (1908)Pictures of Old Chinatown
• Will Irwin.The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco 1906. New York: B. W. Huebsch. 47 p.OCLC 671922810 (free download)
• Will Irwin atIMDb