Thomas O’Conor Sloane III (November 20, 1912 – March 13, 2003) was an American editor, professor, etymologist and career military officer.
Sloane, a senior editor at Doubleday[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] in New York City, New York collaborated with such distinguished talents as Salvador Dalí, Thor Heyerdahl, Jacques Cousteau and his son, Philippe Cousteau, Marc Chagall, Hugo and Nebula Award winner Isaac Asimov, Marcel Marceau, Edward Steichen, Leon Uris, Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton, General Matthew Bunker Ridgway, Emmy Award winner Allan W. Eckert, Austin Clarke, Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (Lord Dunsany), Owen Lee, JK Stanford, Joseph T. Durkin, Charles C. Tansill, Selden Rodman, Elizabeth Bentley, George Teeple Eggleston, John M. Oesterreicher, Peter Kavanagh, Oppi Untracht, Philippe Diole, Jack Ganzhorn, Leonard Wickenden, Mario Pei, Seon Manley, Anne Fremantle and many others, during his four decades as an editor at Doubleday, Devin-Adair and other publishing houses.
Additionally, Sloane facilitated the publication of the book Fabrics for Interiors: A Guide for Architects, Designers, and Consumers (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1975) by Jack Lenor Larsen and Jeanne Weeks, by authorizing the release of drawings from Elements of Weaving (Doubleday, 1967) by Azalea Stuart Thorpe and Jack Larsen to the authors and their publishing house.
Sloane freelanced Desert Calling: The Story of Charles de Foucauld (Henry Holt, 1949) by Anne Fremantle.
The book — published seven years before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which launched the modern environmental movement — proclaimed the dangers of the use of insecticides and other chemicals on human health and the environment.
[78] Additionally, Kathryn S. Olmsted uses Civil Intelligence Report: T. O'Conor Sloane, III, January 22, 1951, Rauh Papers contained in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., as a resource for her book Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
[102][103][104] Sloane was the etymologist for the International Dictionary of Medicine and Biology (Wiley, 1986)[105] which he worked on for approximately three years during the late 1970s to early 1980s after his retirement from Doubleday.
[16][117] His grandfather was Dr. T. O'Conor Sloane, a scientist, author, professor, inventor and the editor of Scientific American and Amazing Stories.
Sloane was a 1931 graduate of Regis High School on Manhattan's Upper East Side and attended Fordham University in The Bronx, from 1932 to 1937.
[123] Sloane met and married his future wife of 59 years, Ella Margaret Sloane, née Lunder of Canton, South Dakota[82][124] while stationed in England during World War II, she as a nurse with the American Red Cross and he, as an intelligence officer, a Captain in the United States Army Air Corps; they had three children, Thomas Lunder, Catherine Maria and Juliana Margaret.
[82][16][128] Sloane, a direct descendant of the O'Conors[129] of Connaught, Ireland, held a lifelong interest in both Irish and American history, politics and literature; his editorial work at Devin-Adair in particular, reflected this.
[130][131][132] He believed that to be erudite in one's family history and heritage informed professional endeavors and contributions to society,[133] cultural sensibilities,[134][135] military service and civic responsibilities, political views, and religious faith.
[136][137] He was also a descendant of Auguste Chouteau,[120][121] the founder of St. Louis, Missouri[16] and his great-great uncle was Charles O'Conor[138] of New York City, a lawyer who battled "Boss" Tweed and Tammany Hall and was the first Catholic presidential nominee, a Bourbon Democrat, on the Straight-Out Democratic Party ticket with John Quincy Adams II in the 1872 United States presidential election.
[141][142][143][144] Sloane corresponded with many notable figures[145] during his editorial tenure at Doubleday and Devin-Adair, some of which is preserved in the archival collections of Georgia O'Keeffe,[146][147] A. M. Sullivan,[91] James Rorty,[148] Selden Rodman,[149] Edward Steichen,[18] Robert Payne,[150] Max Eastman,[151][152] Parker Tyler,[153] Leah Brenner,[154] Harry Sylvester,[155] Austin Clarke,[13] Otto Grossman,[156][157] Frank Hughes,[158] Mary Kennedy,[159] Edward C. McAleer,[160] and others.
[161][162] One of Sloane's editorial projects at Doubleday involved a request to the international law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell to examine the papers of former CIA director Allen Dulles concerning the Bay of Pigs Invasion, his letter caught the attention of the CIA and is archived in the National Archives Building, in College Park, Maryland.