Slason Thompson

1849-1935

Slason/Slauson Thompson (journalist, playwright, drama critic, railway advertising man) was born on 5 January 1849 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. By 1860 Thompson was enrolled in a local school. He received his first job as a student in the law office of George Botsford.  Thompson moved to California in 1873, where he got a job at the Fox and Campbell law firm. On his way there, he met Lewis Morrison who introduced him to theater. He developed such an interest that he got a part-time job with the Era newspaper, where he reviewed plays. He soon partnered with another stage enthusiast (Clay M. Greene) to write plays. Sharps and Flats (1880) and Chispa (1882) were co-authored by Thompson. Later he worked at west-coast papers The Morning Call, The Chronicle, and The Argonaut. He left California in 1878 to work at the New York Times. He soon left for Cincinnati, then Chicago, where he worked at the  Chicago Herald, working with Eugene Field. Thompson would eventually write two books about Field: The Study of Eugene Field (1901) and The Life of Eugene Field (1926). Thompson became a railway executive writing books on the railways: Cost Capitalization and Estimated Value of American Railways (1925), The Railway Library (1915), and Railway Statistics (1930). When Thompson turned eighty, he wrote Way Back When: Recollections of an Octogenarian (1931). He died in 1935 in Chicago.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton

Archival Material

• Thompson Slason correspondence
  ⌄
  Location

  Brigham Young University

  Website/Catalogue Record

  View Archival Record

  Retrieval Number

  MSS SC 1083

  Date Range of Material

  1902-1931

  Extent

  2 items

  Scope and Content Note

  Holograph letter to "Sam" by Slason dated 1902. In this missive, Slason talks about his research that went into his book "Eugene Field: a Study in Heredity and Contradictions" which was published in 1901. Also included is a carbon copy of an unsigned letter to "Thompson." The writer of the missive was a Denver newspaperman and author whose penname was "Old Farmer." The item is largely about the newspaper work of its author.