io State Journal, was the first humorist influence on Thurber, and Thurber's first columns were an imitation of Ryder's style (Homes 23, 24). In 1918 he was the editor-in-chief of The Lantern (Holmes 32). Thurber wrote and directed his first play Psy!
             chomania in 1923 for The Strollers, the college dramatic society (33). Thurber's greatest accomplishment at Ohio State was his election to Sphinx, a senior honor society reserved for leaders in campus activities (34). The most important items Thurber gained from Ohio State were writing experience and self-confidence (38). Leaving Ohio State without a degree, Thurber became a code clerk for the United States embassy in Paris at the beginning of World War I (Morsberger, "J.T." 606).
             Thurber established himself as a journalist before he became a fictional writer (Gale 1803). In 1920 he returned to Columbus, Ohio and worked as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch (Morsberger, J.T. 13). In 1922 he married Althea Adams, a very domineering and strongly willed woman (Gale 1804). Though he was a journalist, Thurber dreamed of being a creative writer (Morsberger, "J.T." 606). He expressed many of his creative thoughts in his Sunday column for the Columbus Dispatch called "Credos and Curios" (Morsberger, "J.T." 606). In the summer of 1924, he resigned from working at the Columbus Dispatch, wanting to become a creative writer (606). The first short story he was paid for was "Josephine Has Her Day" (Gale 1804). It was first published in the Kansas City Star Sunday Magazine in 1926 (1804). In the spring of 1925, he went to France to complete a novel about his college life but was not successful in finishing it (Morsberger, "J.T." 606). In September 1925 he b!
             ecame a rewrite man for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune (Gale 1804). In 1926 he retuned to New York and had an unsuccessful attempt at selling stories and his book Why We Behave Like Microbe Hunters...