Irvine Luther LENROOT, Congress, WI (1869-1949)

LENROOT, Irvine Luther, a Representative and a Senator from Wisconsin; born in Superior, Wis., January 31, 1869; attended the common schools; worked as a logger and a court reporter; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1898 and commenced practice in Superior, Wis.; member, State assembly 1901-1907, and served as speaker 1903-1907; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-first and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1909, until April 17, 1918, when he resigned, having been elected Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on April 2, 1918, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Paul O. Husting; reelected in 1920 and served from April 18, 1918, to March 3, 1927; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1926; chairman, Committee on Railroads (Sixty-sixth Congress), Committee on Public Lands and Surveys (Sixty-eighth Congress), Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Sixty-ninth Congress); resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C.; appointed judge of the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals by President Herbert Hoover in 1929, and served until his retirement in 1944; died in Washington, D.C., January 26, 1949; interment in Greenwood Cemetery, Superior, Wis.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Griffith, Robert. “Prelude to Insurgency: Irvine L. Lenroot and the Republican Primary of 1908.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 49 (Autumn 1965): 16-28; Margulies, Herbert. Senator Irvine Lenroot of Wisconsin. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977.

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