Dashiell Hammett

  Dashiell Hammett was born May 27, 1894 in Maryland, US. In 1915, he became part of the Pinkerton Detective agency at the age of 21. Three years later, he enlisted in the US Army’s Ambulance Corp during World War I. He was posted at a camp outside Baltimore. At this camp, he caught the flu, and this developed into tuberculosis. In July 1919, he was invalided out of the army and returned to Pinkerton as an employee. He was admitted to a veterans hospital in Washington with tuberculosis. He went back to Pinkerton’s once released, but he then was hospitalized yet again for tuberculosis. Here he met his wife, Josephine, who was his nurse at the time. After being released from an army hospital in San Diego, he was able to marry Josie. They settled in San Francisco, where he worked some for a branch of Pinkerton’s until his health demanded his departure. 

In 1922, he learned how to write stories and sold vignettes and short stories to various magazines. In 1923, He then started selling detective stories to The Black Mask. After his second daughter was born in 1926, he gave up freelance writing to be an advertising writer for a jeweler. He soon left due to his poor health. He had to live separately from his wife and children because of his tuberculosis. His marriage eventually fell apart under the weight of separation and ended in divorce. He returned to writing for The Black Mask, and some of his long short stories were published as novels. 

In 1929, Hammett moved to New York City, but after his successful novel The Maltese Falcon, he moved back to Hollywood as a screenwriter. He meets Lillian Hellman (a playwright) in Hollywood, and had an on and off relationship with her until he dies. He then returns to New York and wrote The Glass Key in 1931. He continued to produce works such as The Thin Man and Secret Agent X9. In 1942, he re-enlisted in the army for World War II and was stationed in Alaska. In 1945, he returns to New York and became the NY Civil Rights Congress’ President. He was jailed in 1951 for refusing to answer questions in court on a case involving the NY Civil Rights Congress. Once released from prison, he fell into trouble with the IRS. His health continued to fail and degress. He was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York in 1961, where he died of throat cancer on January 10.