When Guggenheim returned, he ran the administrative aspects of the business. She worked in the promotion department of her father's "Daily News" in 1927, before being assigned as a reporter. She socialized with other young reporters at speakeasies and misspelled the names of the parties involved in a high-profile divorce case, for which the newspaper was sued for libel. She returned to Chicago after she was fired, then married Harry Frank Guggenheim, who was Jewish. Patterson also had a career in comics, creating the character "Deathless Deer" with Neysa McMein. It ran in the "Boston Herald" and the "Chicago Tribune" in 1943. Harry Guggenheim used a portion of the Guggenheim family's fortune to help his wife purchase a newspaper in Hempstead and found "Newsday" in 1940. Guggenheim awarded 49% of the paper's stock to his wife, and retained 51% for himself. "Newsday"'s use of investigative journalism, "lively style", and coverage of liberal and international politics led it to become a respected newspaper. In 1954, it won the Pulitzer Prize and became the country's largest suburban magazine. Patterson used the paper as a vehicle to create an identity for Long Island. Alicia Patterson died aged 56, of complications following stomach surgery for an ulcer, on July 2, 1963. Her ashes are interred at her hunting lodge in Kingsland, Georgia. John Steinbeck, Patterson's friend since 1956, wrote a series of articles in the form of "Letters to Alicia" for "Newsday" following her death. In them he expressed his controversial views, such as his support for President Lyndon B. Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War and his perception of moral decline within the United States. The series was written at the request of Harry Guggenheim, who became the editor of the newspaper following Patterson's death, with Patterson's nephew, Joseph Medill Patterson Albright, working as his assistant editor. She was memorialized by Joan Miró's mural, "Alicia", at the Guggenheim Museum, proposed by Harry F. Guggenheim, who was then president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The Alicia Patterson Foundation, created in accordance with her will, presents an annual prize to mid-career journalists.