Lowell Jackson Thomas (April 6, 1892 – August 29, 1981) was an American writer, broadcaster, and documentary filmmaker, known as a world traveler. He authored more than fifty non-fiction books, mostly travel narratives and popular biographies of explorers and military men. Between 1930 and the mid-1970s, Thomas appeared regularly on radio and occasionally on television as a travel and news commentator. Until the 1950s, he was a narrator of Movietone newsreels shown in cinemas.
Thomas was especially known for the writings and documentary films that turned T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) into an international celebrity. Later in his career, Thomas was involved in promoting the Cinerama widescreen system. In 1954, he led a group of New York City-based investors to buy majority control of Hudson Valley Broadcasting, which, in 1957, became Capital Cities Television Corporation.
Early life Thomas was born in Woodington, Ohio, to Harry and Harriet (née Wagoner) Thomas. His father was a doctor, his mother a teacher. In 1900, the family moved to the mining town of Victor, Colorado. Thomas worked there as a gold miner, a cook, and a reporter on the newspaper.Hesse, Nelson S. (1930) Lowell Thomas Radio Digest p 6-9,128
In 1911, Thomas graduated from Victor High School where one of his teachers was Mabel Barbee Lee.Lee, Mabel Barbee: "Cripple Creek Days", pg. 265. Doubleday & Company, 1958 (LOC=58-12050) The following year, he graduated from Valparaiso University with a bachelor of science degree. The next year, he received both a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Denver"Lowell Thomas", Encyclopedia BritannicaStephens, Mitchell (2017) The Voice of America: Lowell Thomas and the Invention of 20th-Century Journalism New York: St. Martin's Press pg 18,24 and began work for the Chicago Journal, writing for it until 1914. Thomas also was on the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law "Lowell Thomas" at Kent Law (now part of Illinois Institute of Technology), where he taught oratory from 1912 to 1914. He then went to New Jersey where he studied for a master's at Princeton University (he received the degree in 1916) and again taught oratory at the university.
Career Thomas became interested in travel as a young man, and his skills for self-promotion helped him to persuade railroads to give him free passage in exchange for articles extolling rail travel. When he visited Alaska in 1914, he took a movie camera with him and became one of the first to use the new medium to make travelogues. After the United States entered World War I, Thomas went to Europe to report on the conflict and from there to Egypt and Palestine, where he met T.E. Lawrence, who was acting as British liaison to the local leaders of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Lawrence of Arabia
Thomas shot dramatic footage of Lawrence in Arab dress, then returned to America and began giving public lectures in 1919 on the war in Palestine, "supported by moving pictures of veiled women, Arabs in their picturesque robes, camels and dashing Bedouin cavalry." His lectures were very popular and drew large audiences. He agreed to take the lecture to Britain, but only "if asked by the King and given Drury Lane or Covent Garden" as a lecture venue. His conditions were met, and he opened a series at Covent Garden on August 14, 1919. "And so followed a series of some hundreds of lecture–film shows, attended by the highest in the land".Hall, Rex (1975) The Desert Hath Pearls, (Melbourne: Hawthorn Press) pp. 120–1 In 1924, Thomas published the memoir With Lawrence in Arabia.
Thomas genuinely admired Lawrence and continued to defend him against later attacks on Lawrence's reputation.Clio Visualizing History Page, Lowell Thomas and Lawrence of Arabia."A Legacy of Ripples." Accessed August 13, 2012. Lawrence's brother Arnold allowed Thomas to contribute to T.E. Lawrence by his Friends (1937), a collection of essays and reminiscences published after Lawrence's death.Lawrence, A.W. (editor). T.E. Lawrence by His Friends (Doubleday: New York, 1937), pp. 163-174
In the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, a fictionalized version of Thomas named Jackson Bentley was portrayed by actor Arthur Kennedy. (Kennedy was in his late-forties when the film was made, although Thomas had been in his mid-twenties at the time of the events.)
Narration and Cinerama Thomas was a magazine editor during the 1920s, but he never lost his fascination with the movies. He narrated Twentieth Century Fox's twice weekly Movietone newsreels until 1952, and provided the voice-over for numerous short subject film series, including Lowell Thomas' Magic Carpet of Movietone and Going Places with Lowell Thomas.Webb, Graham (2020) Encyclopedia of American Short Films, 1926-1959 McFarland
Thomas went into business with Mike Todd and Merian C. Cooper to exploit Cinerama, a film exhibition format using three projectors and an enormous curved screen with seven-channel surround sound. He narrated the Cinerama documentaries This is Cinerama (1952) and Seven Wonders of the World (1956), and both produced and narrated Search for Paradise (1957).Crestview, Florida, "Cinerama Crews Shooting New Movie At Eglin AFB", The Okaloosa News-Journal – Edgewater Area News section, Thursday November 1, 1956, Volume 42, Number 44, page 1.
Radio commentator and newscaster Thomas was first heard on radio delivering talks about his travels in 1929 and 1930: for example, he spoke on the NBC Radio Network in late July 1930 about his trip to Cuba."Radio Notes." Canton (OH) Sunday Repository, July 27, 1930, p. 7. Then, in late September 1930, he took over as the host of the Sunday evening Literary Digest program, replacing the previous host, Floyd Gibbons."Gibbons Series Ends." Knoxville (TN) News-Sentinel, September 28, 1930, p. C-5. On the program, he told stories of his travels. The show was fifteen-minutes long, and heard on the NBC Network."Through the Static." New Britain (CT) Herald, September 29, 1930, p. 18. Thomas soon changed the focus of the program from his own travels to interesting stories about other people. By October 1930, he was including more news stories. It was at this point that the program, which was now on six days a week, moved to the CBS Radio network.Yank Taylor. "Radio Review." Chicago Daily Times, October 4, 1930, p. 9
After two years, he switched back to the NBC Radio network but returned to CBS in 1947. He was not an employee of either NBC or CBS, contrary to today's practices, but was employed by the broadcast's sponsor Sunoco. He returned to CBS to take advantage of lower capital-gains tax rates, establishing an independent company to produce the broadcast which he sold to CBS, like coverage of the Coronation Ice Show in Lake Placid, New York in 1934. He hosted the first television news broadcast in 1939 and the first regularly scheduled television news broadcast beginning on February 21, 1940, over W2XBS (now WNBC) New York, which was a camera simulcast of his radio broadcast.NBC News Timelines
In the summer of 1940, Thomas anchored a television broadcast of the 1940 Republican National Convention, the first live telecast of a political convention, which was fed from Philadelphia to W2XBS and on to W2XB Schenectady (now WRGB). He was not actually in Philadelphia but was anchoring the broadcast from a New York studio and merely identifying speakers who addressed the convention to the few thousand people who had television sets in those three cities.
In April 1945, Thomas flew in a normally single-person P-51 Mustang over Berlin while it was being attacked by the Soviet Union, reporting live via radio.Lowell Thomas, American Air Museum
In 1953, Thomas was featured in The Ford 50th Anniversary Show that was broadcast simultaneously on the NBC and CBS television networks. The program was viewed by 60 million persons. Thomas presented a tribute to the classic days of radio.
His persistent debt problems were remedied by Thomas' manager/investing partner, Frank Smith who, in 1954, became the President of co-owned Hudson Valley Broadcasting Company, which, in 1957, became Capital Cities Television Corporation.
The television news simulcast was a short-lived venture for Thomas, as he favored radio. It was over radio that he presented and commented upon the news for four decades until his retirement in 1976, the longest radio career of anyone in his day, since surpassed by Paul Harvey. His signature sign-on was "Good evening, everybody" and his sign-off was "So long, until tomorrow," phrases that he used as titles for his two volumes of memoirs. After his nightly CBS radio news program ended its run on May 14, 1976, he hosted Lowell Thomas Remembers, a 39-week series produced by the South Carolina Educational Television Network which aired on PBS in 1976 and 1977."Lowell Thomas, the pioneering broadcaster whose beat was the...," United Press International (UPI), Sunday 30 August 1981. Retrieved 10 February 2026. It featured Fox Movietone newsreels from the 1920s to the 1950s, with the half-hour installments covering each of the years in that four-decade span.Wickstrom, Andy. "History reels across your screen," Chicago Tribune, Friday 18 April 1986. Retrieved 10 February 2026.
Personal life
Thomas' wife Frances often traveled with him. She died in 1975, and he married Marianna Munn in 1977. They embarked on a honeymoon trip that took him to many of his favorite old destinations. Thomas died at his home in Pawling, New York in 1981. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery. Marianna died in Dayton, Ohio on January 28, 2010.
Legacy and honors In 1945, Thomas received the Alfred I. duPont Award.All duPont–Columbia Award Winners , Columbia Journalism School. Retrieved August 6, 2013. In 1971, Thomas received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, and was honored at the 1973 Peabody Awards.Lowell Thomas, peabodyawards.com In 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Lowell Thomas Walk of Fame, LA Times Thomas was inducted into many Halls of Fame: 1966 National Ski Hall of FameLowell Thomas, National Ski Hall of Fame 1977 National Association of BroadcastersLowell Thomas, NAB 1978 Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of FameLowell Thomas, CSM 1989 National Radio Hall of Fame 1992 National Aviation Hall of FameLowell Thomas, NAHF 2018 Laurentian Ski Hall of Fame.Lowell Thomas, Laurentian Ski Hall of Fame, Canada
Named after him are the Thomas Mountains in Antarctica, a museum in Victor, Colorado,Museum as well as awards from a number of organizations: 1947 Overseas Press Club of America,Lowell Thomas Award OPCA 1980 The Explorers Club,Lowell Thomas Award, The Explorers Club 1984 Society of American Travel Writers Foundation,Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and 2012 Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado.Lowell Thomas Award, BPoC
He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and was honored by the Empire State Society (New York) SAR with the Chauncey Depew Medal for his contributions to American history and patriotic education.
The communications building at Marist University in Poughkeepsie, New York is named for Thomas, after he received an honorary degree from the college in 1981. The Lowell Thomas Archives are housed as part of the university library.
Works Bibliography
With Lawrence in Arabia, 1924 The First World Flight, 1925 Beyond Khyber Pass, 1925 Count Luckner, the Sea Devil, 1927 European Skyways, 1927 The Boy's Life of Colonel Lawrence, 1927 Adventures in Afghanistan for Boys, 1928 Raiders of the Deep, 1928 The Sea Devil's Fo'c'sle, 1929 Woodfill of the Regulars, 1929 The Hero of Vincennes: the Story of George Rogers Clark, 1929 The Wreck of the Dumaru, 1930 Lauterbach of the China Sea, 1930 India--Land of the Black Pagoda, 1930 Rolling Stone: The Life and Adventures of Arthur Radclyffe Dugmore, 1931 Tall Stories, 1931