Richard Lee Strout (March 14, 1898 – August 19, 1990) was an American journalist and commentator. He was national

correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

for ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in Electronic publishing, electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 ...

'' from 1923 and he wrote the "TRB from Washington" column for ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'' from 1943 to 1983; he collected the best of his columns in ''TRB: Views and Perspectives on the Presidency'' (New York: Macmillan, 1979), a book notable for showing that Strout was one of the first observers of the American presidency to express worry about what later scholars and journalists came to call the imperial presidency.

Early life and education

Strout was born in

Cohoes, New York Cohoes ( ) is an incorporated city located in the northeast corner of Albany County in the U.S. state of New York. It is called the "Spindle City" because of the importance of textile manufacturing to its growth in the 19th century. The city's ...

, on March 14, 1898, and was raised in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. He graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1919.

Career

In 1919, he moved to England to work in journalism before returning to the United States in 1921, and held various newspaper positions for several years before beginning an association with ''

'', where he worked until his retirement in 1984. He received a master's degree in economics from Harvard in 1923. He won the George Polk Memorial Award for national reporting in 1958 and a special Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in 1978. The Special Award cited "distinguished commentary from Washington over many years as staff correspondent for ''The Christian Science Monitor'' and contributor to ''The New Republic''.""Special Awards and Citations"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-12-07. In 1973, Strout received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...

Death

Strout was a resident of

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, where e died there on August 19, 1990, eleven days after being hospitalized for a fall.

References

;Other sources
''New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors''''Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists'' – (Google Books)

External links

at the Truman Library * American male journalists 20th-century American journalists Pulitzer Prize winners for journalism Harvard University alumni Writers from New York (state) 1898 births 1990 deaths The Christian Science Monitor people {{US-journalist-19thC-stub