Baker, Howard Henry, Jr. (15 Nov. 1925–26 June 2014), politician and diplomat, was born in Huntsville, Tennessee, to Howard Henry Baker, Sr., a lawyer and politician who subsequently served in the US House of Representatives (1951–1964), and Dora Ladd Baker. The Baker family were staunch Presbyterians, members of the Republican Party since the Civil War, and longtime defenders of civil rights for the minority African American population. Young Baker’s paternal grandfather was a prominent judge, and his maternal grandmother was the first female sheriff in Tennessee....
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Baker, Howard Henry, Jr. (15 Nov. 1925–26 June 2014), politician and diplomat
Ann T. Keene
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Bruce, Blanche Kelso (1841-1898), black political leader and U.S. senator during the Reconstruction era
William C. Harris
Bruce, Blanche Kelso (01 March 1841–17 March 1898), black political leader and U.S. senator during the Reconstruction era, was born in Farmville, Virginia, the son of Polly (surname unknown), a slave. The identity of his father is unknown, but he took the surname of the man who owned his mother before he was born. His childhood as a slave on a small plantation, first in Virginia, then briefly in Mississippi, and finally in Missouri did not significantly differ, as he later recalled, from that of the sons of whites. This relatively benign experience in slavery perhaps owed a great deal to the fact that he was a light-skinned mulatto and the favorite of a benevolent master and mistress. He shared a tutor with his master’s son and thus obtained the education that prepared him for later success. During the Civil War, despite the benevolence of his owner, he fled to freedom in Kansas, but after slavery was abolished he returned to Missouri where he reportedly established the first school in the state for blacks, at Hannibal....
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Crawford, William Harris (1772-1834), U.S. senator, cabinet member, and presidential candidate
Edgar J. McManus
Crawford, William Harris (24 February 1772–15 September 1834), U.S. senator, cabinet member, and presidential candidate, was born in Amherst County, Virginia, the son of Joel Crawford and Fanny Harris, farmers. In 1779 financial reverses led the Crawfords to move to the Edgefield District of South Carolina and four years later to Kiokee Creek, near Appling, Georgia. Joel Crawford valued education, and his children attended the field schools that served families in rural areas. After Joel’s death in 1788, young William Harris helped out on the farm while teaching at the field school he had recently attended. In 1794, at the age of twenty-two, Crawford enrolled for two years in ...
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Douglas, Stephen Arnold (1813-1861), U.S. senator and presidential candidate
Robert W. Johannsen
Douglas, Stephen Arnold (23 April 1813–03 June 1861), U.S. senator and presidential candidate, was born in Brandon, Vermont, the son of Stephen Arnold Douglass, a college-educated physician, and Sarah Fisk (he dropped the final “s” in his name in 1846). Following his father’s death, while Stephen was still an infant, he lived with his mother on the farm of a bachelor uncle, who with an outspoken and eccentric grandfather exerted an important influence on the boy. While serving as an apprentice to a Middlebury cabinetmaker, Douglas was captivated by the image of ...
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Houston, Sam (1793-1863), president of the Republic of Texas and U.S. senator
Randolph B. Campbell
Houston, Sam (02 March 1793–26 July 1863), president of the Republic of Texas and U.S. senator, was born Samuel Houston in Rockbridge County, Virginia, the son of Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Paxton, well-to-do planters of Scotch-Irish descent. Houston’s father died in 1806, and he moved with his mother and eight siblings to Blount County, Tennessee, in 1807....
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Kennedy, Robert Francis (20 November 1925–06 June 1968), politician
William L. O’Neill
Kennedy, Robert Francis (20 November 1925–06 June 1968), politician, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, a capitalist, and Rose Fitzgerald. His father Joseph made a fortune in the stock market and through other investments and served from 1938 to 1940 as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. The seventh of nine children, Robert, known as “Bobby,” graduated from Milton Academy in 1943. In March 1944 he enrolled in the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, leaving it in February 1946 to become an apprentice seaman aboard the destroyer USS ...
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La Follette, Robert Marion (1855-1925), Wisconsin governor, U.S. congressman, and Progressive presidential candidate
Donald A. Ritchie
La Follette, Robert Marion (14 June 1855–18 June 1925), Wisconsin governor, U.S. congressman, and Progressive presidential candidate, was born in Primrose, Wisconsin, the son of Josiah La Follette and Mary Ferguson Buchanan, farmers. Only eight months old when his father died, La Follette throughout his life sought to measure up to an idealized image of the father he never knew. He was seven when his mother married John Z. Saxton, a stern, elderly merchant and Baptist deacon....
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McCain, John (29 Aug. 1936–25 Aug. 2018), naval aviator, U.S. senator, Republican Party presidential nominee
Yanek Mieczkowski
McCain, John (29 Aug. 1936–25 Aug. 2018), naval aviator, U.S. senator, Republican Party presidential nominee, was born John Sidney McCain III in the Panama Canal Zone, the son of John Sidney McCain Jr., a navy admiral, and Roberta Wright. McCain inherited a venerated naval name and pedigree, as both his grandfather and his father were four-star admirals, and the family assumed that he would follow them in service....
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Muskie, Edmund S. (1914-1996), governor, U. S. senator, and secretary of state
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Muskie, Edmund S. (28 March 1914–26 March 1996), governor, U. S. senator, and secretary of state, was born Edmund Sixtus Muskie in Rumford, Maine, the son of Stephen Muskie, a tailor, and Josephine Czarnecki Muskie. The spelling of his immigrant father's surname, Marciszewski, had been distorted by an official at Ellis Island, and the new version was eventually adopted by the family. Quiet and studious as a boy, Muskie grew up in relative poverty and often felt isolated as a member of one of the few immigrant families in the area. He attended local schools before entering Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, from which he graduated cum laude with a B.A. in 1936. Awarded a scholarship for law school, Muskie received his LL.B. from Cornell in 1939 and gained admittance to the bar in both Massachusetts (1939) and Maine (1940)....
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Percy, Charles Hartung (27 Sept. 1919–17 Sept. 2011), business executive and politician
Ann T. Keene
Percy, Charles Hartung (27 Sept. 1919–17 Sept. 2011), business executive and politician, was born in Pensacola, Florida, to Edward H. Percy, a bank cashier with distinguished family roots in Alabama and Virginia, and Elizabeth Harting Percy, a concert violinist from Illinois. During young Percy’s infancy the family moved to Chicago, where two more children were born. The Percys led a comfortable life in the 1920s, providing their children with music lessons and other middle-class amenities. By ...
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Thurman, Allen Granberry (13 November 1813–12 December 1895), U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate
Ballard C. Campbell
Thurman, Allen Granberry (13 November 1813–12 December 1895), U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of Pleasant Thurman, a teacher and minister, and Mary Granberry Allen, a teacher. In 1815 the family freed its slaves and moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, where Thurman spent his boyhood. His chief formal education took place under the supervision of his mother at her academy in Chillicothe. Thurman later read law under the tutelage of his uncle ...
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Thurmond, J. Strom (1902-2003), governor, U.S. senator, and presidential candidate
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Thurmond, J. Strom (05 December 1902–26 June 2003), governor, U.S. senator, and presidential candidate, was born James Strom Thurmond in Edgefield, South Carolina, the son of John William Thurmond, lawyer and politician, and Eleanor Gertrude Strom Thurmond. Thurmond grew up in relative affluence on his father's farm and attended local schools before entering Clemson College (now University), from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in horticulture in 1923. During the next six years Thurmond taught agriculture and coached athletics at several high schools near his hometown. In 1925 he traveled to Florida to invest in real estate; that year a young African American woman, Carrie Butler, gave birth to his first child, a daughter named Essie Mae. The child was soon placed with Butler's relatives in Coatesville, Pennsylvania; the identity of her father remained a closely guarded secret until after Thurmond's death....
