Thomas Stanley Matthews

Thomas Stanley Matthews (January 16, 1901 – January 4, 1991) was an American magazine editor, journalist, and writer. He served as editor of Time magazine from 1949 to 1953.

Background Thomas Stanley Matthews was born on January 16, 1901, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was New Jersey bishop Paul Clement Matthews; and his mother was Elsie Procter, the Procter & Gamble heiress. including Margaret (later Flinsch) and Dorothea (later Dooling).

He earned a first bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1922 and a second from New College at Oxford University in 1925.

Career

He joined the staff of The New Republic in 1925. There, literary critic Edmund Wilson encouraged him to write for the magazine. By 1928, he became an assistant editor and by 1929 an associate editor. ) Finally, he succeeded Time co-founder Henry Luce as the magazine's editor, serving in that position from 1949 to 1953.

However, W.A. Swanberg, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Luce and His Empire, criticized Matthews for emphasizing the readability of Time at the expense of objectivity. "For him to be managing editor of America's most politically oriented and propagandist 'newsmagazine' was as if F. Scott Fitzgerald were Secretary of State," Swanberg wrote. Swanberg also characterized Matthews as being "as close to being politically obtuse as such an otherwise cultivated man could be." He had four sons: Thomas S. Matthews Jr., John P. C. Matthews, Paul C. Matthews, and W. A. P. (Alexander) Matthews.

Works The Library of Congress holds the following books by Matthews: To the Gallows I Must Go (1931) Sugar Pill: An Essay on Newspapers (1957, 1959) Name and Address: An Autobiography (1960, 1961) O My America! Notes on a Trip (1962) Great Tom: Notes Towards the Definition of T. S. Eliot (1974) Jacks or Better: A Narrative (1977) Under the Influence: Recollections of Robert Graves, Laura Riding, and Friends (1979, 1983) Angels Unawares: Twentieth-Century Portraits (1985)

Articles appearing online include: "Football Morals" (November 26, 1976)

Poems appearing online include: "After Such Knowledge: T.S. Eliot" (undated)