George Stimpson was born in Jones County, Iowa, near Anamosa on November 3, 1896. He attended school at Valparaiso University, from which he graduated in 1921. In 1922 he worked on the Valparaiso Messenger before moving to Washington, where he became a correspondent for several newspapers, including the Cedar Rapids Gazette and the Houston, Texas, Chronicle. He worked for a while at the Washington Herald.

He was the author of a syndicated column "Information Roundup," and became an expert on Shakespeare and the Bible, as well as American history and politics. He was also an associate editor of the weekly magazine Pathfinder. He was elected president of the National Press Club in 1935.

He wrote ten informational books. He intended to write a trilogy of books about America comprised of A Book About American History, A Book About American Politics, and A Book About American Government He was working on this last book in September 1952 when he died at the age of fifty-five. He had been in poor health with a bad heart and diabetes and had been virtually blind for about a year at the time of his death