The New Student's Reference Work/Stead, William Thomas

Stead, William Thomas, an English journalist, was born on July 5, 1849, at Embleton, Northumberland. At 14 he became merchant's apprentice and at 22 editor of The Northern Echo, Darlington. In 1880 he became associate-editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and in 1883 the editor. In 1890 he founded The Review of Reviews, one year later The American Review of Reviews and in 1893 The Australian Review of Reviews. In 1895 he began the publication of the Masterpiece Library of Penny Poets, Novels and Prose Classics. His interests have been social and broadly democratic. For one of his publications against existing social evils, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, he was put in jail for three months. His efforts in the interest of international peace have been untiring. His more important publications are The Truth About the Navy, Truth about Russia, The Pope and the New See, The Story that Transformed the World, If Christ came to Chicago, The Labor War in the United States, Satan's Invisible World, A Study of Despairing Democracy, The United States of Europe, Mr. Carnegie's Conundrum, The Conference at the Hague, The Americanization of the World, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes. He died in the wreck of the Titanic, April 14, 1912.