Stanley Thomas Williams (25 October 1888 – 5 February 1956) was a scholar who helped to establish the study of American literature as an academic field during his teaching career at Yale University.
His most notable publication is a two-volume biography of Washington Irving but he is best remembered for changing the study of Herman Melville by strategically directing doctoral dissertations on his life and works.
His interest initially was in Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving, but in the late 1930s he turned his attention to Melville, though publishing only incidental works himself.
He serving on the board of editors for the Literary History of the United States and the journal, American Literature.
Foster (1941), Merton M. Sealts, Jr. (1942), Walter E. Bezanson (1943), Harrison M. Hayford (1945), Merrell R. Davis (1947), William H. Gilman (1947), Nathalia Wright (1949), James Baird, Charles Feidelson, Jr., Tyrus Hillway, and Henry F. Pommer.