Samuel Sloan (March 7, 1815 – July 19, 1884)[1] was a Philadelphia-based architect and best-selling author of architecture books in the mid-19th century.

Sloan also reached thousands of potential customers through the pages of Godey's Lady's Book, which began publishing his designs in 1852.

"The man who has a home," wrote Sloan in 1871, "feels a love for it a thankfulness for its possession and a proportionate determination to uphold and defend it against all invading influences.

"[4] Economic downturns in the late 1850s as well as the American Civil War put a halt to his professional success and Sloan briefly left Philadelphia for New York in 1867.

Important examples of his later work are found outside Pennsylvania, notably in Morganton, North Carolina's Western State Asylum for the Insane.