Hubert Horatio HUMPHREY, Jr., Congress, MN (1911-1978)

HUMPHREY, Hubert Horatio, Jr., (husband of Muriel Buck Humphrey), a Senator from Minnesota and a Vice President of the United States; born in Wallace, Codington County, S.Dak., May 27, 1911; attended the public schools of Doland, S.Dak., where his family had moved; graduated from Capitol College of Pharmacy, Denver, Colo., 1933 and the University of Minnesota 1939; earned a graduate degree from Louisiana State University 1940; pharmacist with Humphrey Drug Co., Huron, S.Dak., 1933-1937; assistant instructor of political science at Louisiana State University 1939-1940 and University of Minnesota 1940-1941; State director of war production training and reemployment and State chief of Minnesota war service program 1942; assistant director, War Manpower Commission 1943; professor in political science at Macalester College (Minn.) 1943-1944; radio news commentator 1944-1945; mayor of Minneapolis 1945-1948; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1948; reelected in 1954, and 1960 and served from January 3, 1949, until December 29, 1964, when he resigned to become Vice President; Democratic whip 1961-1964; known in the Senate as “the Happy Warrior”; chairman, Select Committee on Disarmament (Eighty-fourth and Eighty-fifth Congresses); elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket with Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and served from January 20, 1965, until January 20, 1969; unsuccessful Democratic nominee for President of the United States 1968; resumed teaching at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota 1969-1970; chairman, board of consultants, Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corp.; elected in 1970 to the United States Senate; reelected in 1976 and served from January 3, 1971, until his death in office; the post of Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate was created for him and he held it from January 5, 1977, until his death in Waverly, Minn., January 13, 1978; chairman, Joint Economic Committee (Ninety-fourth Congress); unprecedented sessions of the House and Senate were held in his honor in October 1977, when he was gravely ill; lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, January 14-15, 1978; interment in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minn.; posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 9, 1980.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Humphrey, Hubert. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. 1976. New ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991; Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

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