Joshua Willis ALEXANDER, Congress, MO (1852-1936)
ALEXANDER, Joshua Willis, a Representative from Missouri; born in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 22, 1852; attended public and private schools; graduated from Christian University (now Culver-Stockton College), Canton, Mo., 1872; lawyer, private practice; public administrator of Daviess County, Mo., 1877-1881; secretary and then president of the board of education of Gallatin, Mo., 1882-1901; member of the Missouri state house of representatives, 1883-1887, speaker, 1887; mayor of Gallatin, Mo., 1891-1892; hospital executive; judge of the seventh judicial circuit of Missouri, 1901-1907; elected as a Democrat to the Sixtieth and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1907-December 15, 1919); chair, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries (Sixty-second through Sixty-fifth Congresses); chair, United States Commission to the International Conference on Safety of Life at Sea, 1913-1914; Secretary of Commerce in the Cabinet of President Wilson, 1919-1921; delegate at large to the Missouri state constitutional convention in 1922; died on February 27, 1936, in Gallatin, Mo.; interment in Brown Cemetery, Mo.
Bibliography
Sponaugle, Gail Ann Kohlenberg. âThe Congressional Career of Joshua W. Alexander.â Masterâs thesis, Northeast Missouri State University, 1979.Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
