George Wharton PEPPER, Congress, PA (1867-1961)

PEPPER, George Wharton, a Senator from Pennsylvania; born in Philadelphia, Pa., March 16, 1867; prepared privately for college; graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1887 and from that university’s law department in 1889; admitted to the bar in 1889 and commenced practice in Philadelphia, Pa.; professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania 1894-1910, and trustee of the university 1911-1961; chairman of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense during the First World War; lecturer at Yale University 1915; member of the commission on constitutional revision in Pennsylvania 1920-1921; appointed on January 9, 1922, as a Republican and subsequently elected on November 7, 1922, to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Boies Penrose and served from January 9, 1922, to March 3, 1927; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1926; chairman, Committee on the Library (Sixty-eighth Congress), Committee on Printing (Sixty-ninth Congress); Republican national committeeman 1922-1928; resumed the practice of law in Philadelphia, Pa.; died in Devon, Pa., May 24, 1961; interment in Old St. David’s Churchyard Cemetery, Wayne, Pa.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Pepper, George Wharton. In the Senate. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930; Zieger, Robert. “Senator George Wharton Pepper and Labor Issues in the 1920s.” Labor History 9 (Spring 1968): 163-83.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present