Thomas McGrath was born November 20, 1916 near Sheldon, North Dakota, the son of James Lang and Catherine (Shea) McGrath. After graduating from local schools, he attended the University of North Dakota in 1935 from hwere he graduated in 1939. In 1940 he received an M.A. Degree from Louisiana State University and then taught for a year at Colby College at Waterville, Maine. With the entry of America into World War II, Mr. McGrath served in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1942 to 1945. In 1947 he was a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford University in England. Mr. McGrath from 1950 to 1954 taught at Los Angeles State College and in 1960 to 1961 at Post College on Long Island, New York. In 1961 he came to North Dakota State University as an assistant professor of English, and in 1969 he accepted a position at Moorhead State University.
 
Mr. McGrath's career as a poet made him a leading writer in America. Among his works are To Walk a Crooked Mile, Letter to an Imaginary Friend, The Movie at the End of the World: Selected Poems, The Gates of Ivory and The Gates of Horn. He authored some twenty film scripts, was editor of Crazy Horse and assistant editor of California Quarterly and other literary magazines. Among his awards are the Alan Swallow Poetry Book Award in 1954 for Figures from a Double World, the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Scholarship (1965-1966) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1967-1969).  

Mr. McGrath married Eugenia Johnson on February 13, 1960 and they had one son, Thomas Samuel Koan McGrath. Mr. McGrath was a member of the Association of Rhodes Scholars and Phi Beta Kappa. He died September 19, 1990.
 

Thomas McGrath Papers  |  Literary, Music and Theater