T. O'Conor Sloane III

T. O'Conor Sloane III
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Born	T(homas) O’Conor Sloane III (1912-11-20)November 20, 1912 South Orange, New Jersey
Died	March 13, 2003(2003-03-13) (aged 90)
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States of America
Alma mater	Fordham University
Occupation	Editor Professor Etymologist Military officer
Spouse(s)	Margaret Sloane
Parents	T. O'Conor Sloane, Jr. (father) Gertrude Larned Sloane (mother)

Thomas O’Conor Sloane III (November 20, 1912 - March 13, 2003) was an editor, professor, etymologist and career military officer.

Sloane, a Senior Editor at Doubleday in New York City, New York collaborated with such distinguished talents as Jacques Cousteau, Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, Marcel Marceau, Edward Steichen and Isaac Asimov.

Sloane was the editor of Salvador Dali's autobiographical Diary of a Genius (Doubleday, 1965) https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full/305/630305.jpg Letter from Salvador Dali to his editor, T. O'Conor Sloane III, July 22, 1965; regarding promotional efforts for Diary of a Genius which stands as one of the seminal texts of Surrealism, by the artist who became the living embodiment of the 20th century's most influential art movement.

Sloane initiated and was the editor of Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (Doubleday, 1964) by Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov, in his autobiography, I. Asimov: A Memoir (Doubleday, 1994 hardcover edition), describes the details of Sloane's idea for the book, the decision to put Asimov's name in the title and their excitement at the book's success. Interestingly, Asimov's first published work of science fiction had been accepted by Amazing Stories, the magazine that Sloane's grandfather, Dr. T. O'Conor Sloane had once been the editor of. Sloane and Asimov had a productive working relationship that continued over the years although Sloane did ultimately decline to be the editor of Asimov's Guide to the Bible (Doubleday, 1968).

Sloane edited books on metal craft and jewelry with Finish artist, Oppi Untracht, and his wife, Saara, such as Metal Techniques for Craftsmen : A Basic Manual for Craftsmen on the Methods of Forming and Decorating Metals (Doubleday, 1968).

Sloane worked as an editor and associate editor at various publishing companies before joining Doubleday, which by 1947 had become the largest publishing house in the United States. He served as an editor at Devin-Adair Publishing Company, a conservative publishing house located in NYC and later, Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Sloane was an associate editor at E. P. Dutton, Declan X. McMullen Co. and Liveright Publishing.

In the book Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley by Kathryn S. Olmsted, the author uses Civil Intelligence Report: T. O'Conor Sloane, III, January 22, 1951, Rauh Papers, contained in the Library of Congress, as a resource for the book.

One of Sloane's projects 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, catching the attention of the CIA.

Sloane's correspondence with the author Robert Payne is archived in the Robert Payne Collection, Collection 293, Subgroup II: Correspondence, Series 1: Literary Correspondence by Title, Box 13, of the Stony Brook University Special Collections and University Archives.

Sloane's correspondence with the author Max Eastman, editor of Reader's Digest and literary agent for Leon Trotsky is archived in the Eastman mss., 1892-1968, Collection No. LMC 1301, Box 1, Series: Correspondence, at Indiana University.

Additionally, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois archives correspondence, research materials, notes, and manuscripts of articles, stories, and speeches concerning the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's assassination, the Orpet-Lambert poisoning case, chemistry, and publication of Otto Eisenschiml books and articles. Correspondents include Lincoln research colleagues E.B. Long, Ralph Newman, David R. Barbee, and Margaret Bearden; editors Harrison Platt and T. O'Conor Sloane III; and businessman Gordon Beaham III.

Sloane taught copy editing and creative writing at Hunter College in New York City and Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Additionally, he provided the etymologies for various works.

Sloane was born in South Orange, New Jersey, son of the photographer T. O'Conor Sloane, Jr. and Gertrude Larned Sloane, author of Fun with Folk Tales: Six Plays in Verse with Music and Songs (E.P. Dutton, 1942). His grandfather was Dr. T. O'Conor Sloane, a scientist, author, professor, inventor and the editor of Amazing Stories from 1929-38. Sloane was a 1931 graduate of Regis High School on Manhattan's Upper East Side and attended Fordham University in the Bronx, from 1932-37. He was a resident of Westport, Connecticut for 72 years.

Sloane met and married his wife of 59 years, Margaret Sloane, née Lunder, in England during World War II where she was stationed as a nurse with the American Red Cross and he, as an intelligence officer, a Captain in the United States Army Air Corps. Mrs. Sloane, a graduate of St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minnesota stood nearly as tall as her 6' husband, sang opera semi-professionally and hailed from a Norwegian-American farming family involved in South Dakota politics, she retired as a high school English teacher. After the war, Sloane continued military service as a reservist, achieving the rank of Lt. Colonel by the late 1950s and eventually retiring from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a Colonel, he was buried with full military honors.

Sloane, a direct descendant of the O'Conors of Connaught, Ireland, held a lifelong interest in both Irish and American history, politics and literature. He once required a family member to write down approximately 2,000 years of historical figures and events from the book by Dr. John O'Donovan, The O'Conors of Connaught: An Historical Memoir (Hodges, Figgis, and Co., 1891) from a posthumous manuscript compilation, one of the many books on Irish history in Sloane's personal library. His grandmother, Isabel Mitchel Sloane, was the daughter of John Mitchel, the Irish patriot and author of the Jail Journal (Cameron, Ferguson & Company, 1880) and the aunt of John Purroy Mitchel, the 95th mayor of New York City from 1914 to 1917. Sloane's uncle, John Eyre Sloane, married Thomas Edison's daughter Madeleine. He was also a descendant of Auguste Chouteau, the founder of St. Louis, Missouri.

References

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