Silas Bent

Who was Silas Bent?

Silas Bent IV, son of Silas Bent III and Ann Elizabeth Bent was an American was a journalist, author, and lecturer. He began newspaper work in 1900 in Louisville, Kentucky, on the Louisville Herald. After three years he moved to St. Louis and joined the staff of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as reporter and assistant editor. He was appointed assistant professor of theory and practice of journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri when the school was opened in 1908, but resigned that position in February 1909 to return to the Post-Dispatch. Later, he did publicity work in Chicago and then spent 13 years in New York City. As a freelance writer he contributed articles to The New York Times, Harper's Weekly and The Atlantic among others.

Bent's most famous work is Ballyhoo, a critical survey of newspaper practices; he also wrote Strange Bedfellows, a book on contemporary political leaders; a biography of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Buchanan of the Press, a novel about a reporter's career set in St. Louis. He died in 1945 and is buried in Bowling Green, Kentucky.