He obtained a BA in English from Ripon College in 1923 and a Master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1926).

In 1944, MacDougall ran for the Illinois 10th District in the US Congress, was arrested for illegally distributing political literature, and lost the election.

In 1948, he ran for US Senate (presumably on the ticket of the Progressive Party, given his 1965 history of the Wallace campaign, Gideon's Army), and lost.

[4] The Newberry independent research library in Chicago houses the Curtis MacDougall Papers.

William David Sloan has commented that "his many books, articles, and speeches helped set the tone and added to the debate surrounding journalism education for a half century.