William Cox REDFIELD, Congress, NY (1858-1932)

REDFIELD, William Cox, a Representative from New York; born in Albany, N.Y., June 18, 1858; moved with his parents to Pittsfield, Mass., in 1867; attended the public schools and received home instruction; employed in the Pittsfield post office and later as a traveling salesman for a paper company; went to New York City at the age of nineteen and was employed in the stationery and printing business; leaving this in 1883, he became connected with the manufacture of steel and iron forgings in Brooklyn, N.Y.; interested in many other manufacturing concerns and banking and life insurance companies; delegate to the Gold Democrats National Convention at Indianapolis in 1896; unsuccessful candidate as a Gold Democrat for election in 1896 to the Fifty-fifth Congress; commissioner of public works for Brooklyn Borough in 1902 and 1903; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second Congress (March 4, 1911-March 3, 1913); unsuccessful candidate for nomination as Vice President of the United States and therefore declined to be a candidate for renomination to Congress in 1912; appointed Secretary of Commerce in the Cabinet of President Wilson and served from March 4, 1913, to November 1, 1919, when he resigned; engaged in banking and the investment and insurance business in New York City and Brooklyn, N.Y.; died in New York City, June 13, 1932; interment in the Albany Rural Cemetery, Albany, N.Y.

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