After a stint with the Chicago Daily News and an investment firm Baum served as a pilot during World War I.
Baum rejoined the Chicago Daily News in 1925 and accompanied the paper's 1926–27 Abyssinia expedition during which he shot big game specimens for the Field Museum of Natural History.
[1] In 1925 he returned to the Chicago Daily News and, with Louis Agassiz Fuertes, planned the newspaper's 1926–27 expedition to Abyssinia.
[2] He wrote the fiction works Stepping Ahead of the Bank Crook in 1925, Spears in the Sun in 1928, Gold and a Girl in 1929 and Adventures of Gilead Skaggs in 1941.
[2][3] In retirement Baum spent his summers in Lake Forest, Illinois, and winters in Palm Beach, Florida.