Thomas W. Cridler

Thomas Wilbut Cridler was born in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia on November 13, 1850. He was educated in West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., where he studied law.

On July 1, 1875, Cridler joined the United States Department of State as a clerk. He rose steadily through the ranks of the State Department. He traveled to Europe several times on government business and served as the State Department's special disbursing officer at the International Monetary Conference held in Brussels on November 22, 1892.

In 1897, President of the United States William McKinley named Cridler Third Assistant Secretary of State, with Cridler subsequently holding this office from April 8, 1897 until November 15, 1901. In that capacity, he was present in Paris for the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1898). He was the U.S. Special Commissioner to the 1900 Paris Exhibition and wrote a special report to the United States Congress about the Exposition. During this visit, the Government of France made Cridler an officer of the Legion of Honour.

Upon his resignation from the State Department in 1901, Cridler became Commissioner for Europe for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. In 1911, he became vice president of the Collin Armstrong Advertising Company.

Cridler died at his home in New York City on February 23, 1914.

• Lincoln: A Typical American - An Address by Thomas W. Cridler at the Union League Club of Brooklyn, February 12, 1901

• "Thomas W. Cridler Dead; Third Assistant Secretary of State Under President McKinley", The New York Times, Feb. 25, 1914
• Who's Who in America (1903-1905), p. 337
• The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 12 (1904), p. 318

• Works by or about Thomas W. Cridler at Internet Archive
• Asst. Secretary of State Cridler Writes of His Fury Over McKinley's Assassination Shapell Manuscript Foundation