Stanley Thomas Williams (25 October 1888-5 February 1956) was a scholar who helped to establish the study of American literature as an academic field during his teaching creeer at
Yale University. In 1935 he was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship. His most notable publication is a two-volume biography of
Washington Irving but he is best remembered for changing the study of
Herman Melville by strategically directing doctoral dissertations on his life and works.