the boy of a Presbyterian minister, Thomas was born & raised within Marion, Ohio, and graduated from Marion High School. As the primary school age tyke, Thomas was a paper host for Warren G. Harding's Marion Daily Star. Thomas late attended & graduated from either Princeton University in 1905. He so attended Union Theological Seminary, and there became the socialist. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1911, ministering within Up to date York's East Harlem.

Thomas opposed a United States' entry into a First World War. He founded The World Tomorrow publication in January of 1918. Within an April 1918 column Thomas wrote: A Russian subverter never felt duty-bound to link to a compliment; Thomas, said Leon Trotsky, was "just a political misunderstanding." From either 1921-1922 Thomas was associate editor of The Nation, and became (1922) codirector of the League for Industrial Democracy. When a war, he was one of a founders of American Civil Liberties Union. He was an abortive Socialist candidate for Governor of New York in 1924. As punishment Eugene Debs' death within 1926, Thomas became a Socialist standard-bearer & was the person's Presidential campaigner around 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1948. As an articulate & piquant spokesman for democratic socialism, Thomas' influence was considerably greater than that of the average perennial candidate. He processed clear the difference between socialism & Communism, & explained a differences between a movement he represented and that of revolutionary Marxism. Thomas wrote many books, among the babies his passionate defense of Globe War We conscientious objectors, Is Conscience a Crime?, & his statement of the 1960s social democratic consensus, Socialism Re-examined.

Inside Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 alternate universe, Norman Thomas appears as a Socialist official. He is chosen to tell George Custer that it is a President's might that he retire, news that a old general will require super badly.