Marshall, Logan

Logan Marshall (November 18, 1883 – September 22, 1937) was the pen name of Logan Howard-Smith of Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Robert Spurrier and Elizabeth (McKinney) Howard-Smith. The father was an executive of Link-Belt. Howard-Smith attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1905. Upon graduation he took a position as assistant editor at The John C. Winston Co., a publishing firm. Winston was later acquired by Henry Holt and became part of Holt, Rinehart & Winston. At Winston, Howard-Smith both edited and wrote a large number of books, mainly under the pen name Logan Marshall. These were often quickly produced and designed to satisfy public curiosity concerning a current event. As a result, Howard-Smith has been characterized as a "hack", and his language criticized as "strained, excessive, or melodramatic." Howard-Smith's (as Logan Marshall) The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters, however, achieved a great deal of fame as a result of being quickly at the market, and continues to be cited in bibliographies about the incident. Logan Howard-Smith married Amelia Sparks Douglas on April 22, 1917. He died at age 53 on September 22, 1937, and is buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Section J, Plot 182 & 184 N Part.