Tom Loftin JOHNSON, Congress, OH (1854-1911)

JOHNSON, Tom Loftin, a Representative from Ohio; born in Georgetown, Scott County, Ky., July 18, 1854; moved to Indiana in boyhood; attended the public schools; employed in a rolling mill; clerk in a street-railway office in Louisville, Ky., 1869-1875; later became secretary of the company; invented several street-railway devices; purchased a street railway in Indianapolis, Ind.; later acquired large street-railway interests in Cleveland, Detroit, and Brooklyn; settled in Cleveland, Ohio; became interested in rolling mills and iron manufacturing; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for election in 1888 to the Fifty-first Congress; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses (March 4, 1891-March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, 1901-1909; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1909; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1903; died in Cleveland, Ohio, April 10, 1911; interment in Greenwood Cemetery.

Bibliography

Massouh, M. “Innovations in Street Railways Before Electric Traction: Tom L. Johnson’s Contributions.” Technology and Culture 18 (April 1977): 202-17; Murdock, Eugene C. “Life of Tom L. Johnson.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1951.

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