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Definition: Thomas from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary

Norman Mat•toon \ma-॑tün, mə-

pronunciationpronunciation

\ 1884–1968 Am. socialist polit.

Thomas, Norman Mattoon

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1884–1968, American socialist leader, b. Marion, Ohio; grad. Princeton (1905), Union Theological Seminary (1911). He served as pastor of several Presbyterian churches and did settlement work in New York City until 1918. (He formally left the ministry in 1931.) In World War I, he became a pacifist and joined (1918) the Socialist party. He founded (1918) The World Tomorrow , was (1921–22) an associate editor of the Nation , and became (1922) codirector of the League for Industrial Democracy. He was also active in setting up the American Civil Liberties Union . Thomas unsuccessfully sought election as governor of New York (1924, 1938) and as mayor of New York City (1925, 1929). After the death (1926) of Eugene Debs , he assumed leadership of the Socialist party and was repeatedly (1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948) the party's candidate for president. He polled his highest vote, about 880,000, in 1932. An advocate of evolutionary socialism, Thomas was a constant critic of the American…
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Full text Article Thomas, Norman

From The Great American History Fact-Finder
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Full text Article Thomas, Norman (Mattoon)

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born Nov. 20, 1884, Marion, Ohio, U.S.—died Dec. 19, 1968, Huntington, N.Y.) U.S. social reformer and politician. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister and became pastor of New York’s East Harlem Church. He joined the Socialist Party in 1918 and left his parish post to become secretary of the…
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Full text Article Thomas, Norman Mattoon

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1884–1968, American socialist leader, b. Marion, Ohio; grad. Princeton (1905), Union Theological Seminary (1911). He served as pastor of several Presbyterian churches and did settlement work in New York City until 1918. (He formally left the ministry in 1931.) In World War I, he became a pacifist…
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Full text Article Thomas, Norman

From American Biographies: American Social Leaders and Activists
(b. 1884–d. 1968) socialist leader, pacifist Norman Mattoon Thomas was a perennial candidate for president of the United States under the banner of the Socialist Party and was a committed pacifist. He was born on November 20, 1884, in Marion, Ohio, the son of Reverend Welling Evan Thomas and Emma…
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Full text Article Thomas, Norman Mattoon

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
1884-1968 US socialist leader Born in Marion, Ohio, and educated at Bucknell University and Princeton, he worked in social settlements, studied theology and was ordained a Presbyterian minister, becoming pastor of East Harlem Church in New York City (1911-31). Horrified by the poverty he…
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Full text Article AMERICA FIRST COMMITTEE

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History
When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, thereby unleashing World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to aid the Allies by such means as cash-and-carry (September 1939) and the exchange of fifty American destroyers for eight British bases in the Western hemisphere (September…
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Full text Article Norman Thomas (1884–1968)

From The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame
Norman Thomas (1884–1968)
Norman Thomas, center, Socialist Party candidate for president, leads parade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1932. C redit : Associated Press I n O ctober 1967, eighty-two-year-old Norman Thomas—blind and crippled by arthritis and a recent automobile accident—took the podium to address a meeting of…
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Charles Garland, age 21, told the executor of his father’s estate that he would not accept the inheritance left to him because it came from “a system which starves thousands.” When they saw press reports describing this decision, radical activists Upton Sinclair and Roger Baldwin urged Charles to…
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Full text Article Harrington, Michael

From American Biographies: American Social Leaders and Activists
(b. 1928–d. 1989) antipoverty activist A socialist, Michael Harrington was the author of The Other America , a book that changed the way Americans viewed wealth and poverty in their country. He was born on February 24, 1928, in Saint Louis, Missouri, to Edward Michael Harrington, a patent lawyer, …
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Full text Article Socialism and American Exceptionalism

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
“Why is there no socialism in the United States?” So asked Werner Sombart, a German academic and socialist, in a short book of that title published in 1906. In his country and in several others in Europe, Socialists were then the leading force in the labor movement and had scores of delegates in…
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