Thomas H. Eliot

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Thomas H. Eliot
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 9th district
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 3, 1941 - January 3, 1943
Preceded by	Robert Luce
Succeeded by	Charles L. Gifford
Born	June 14, 1907 Cambridge, Massachusetts
Died	October 14 1991 (aged 84) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Political party	Democratic
Religion	Unitarian Universalism

Thomas Hopkinson Eliot (June 14 1907-October 14 1991) was a lawyer, politician, and academic, serving as chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and in the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts. A great-grandson of Samuel Atkins Eliot and grandson of Charles William Eliot, Eliot was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts into the prominent Eliot family. He attended Browne and Nichols School, graduated from Harvard University in 1928 and was a student at Emmanuel College in Cambridge University, from 1928 to 1929. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1932 and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1933, commencing practice in Buffalo, New York. He served as assistant solicitor in the United States Department of Labor 1933-1935 and as general counsel for the Social Security Board 1935-1938. He was lecturer on government at Harvard University in 1937 and 1938, and regional director of the Wage and Hour Division in the Department of Labor in 1939 and 1940.

In 1938 Eliot ran unsuccessfully as election candidate to the Seventy-sixth Congress. However, he gained election as a Democrat to the Seventy-seventh Congress (January 3, 1941 – January 3, 1943). He was unsuccessful as a candidate for renomination in 1942 and for nomination in 1944 to the Seventy-ninth Congress.

Eliot saw war service in 1943 as director of the British Division, Office of War Information, London, England, and special assistant to the United States Ambassador. From 1943 to 1944 he was chairman of the appeals committee, National War Labor Board. He served with the Office of Strategic Services in 1944, and from November 1944 to November 1945 was chief counsel, Division of Power, Department of the Interior.In addition, Eliot served as New England chairman of the United Negro College Fund.

After the war, Eliot engaged in the practice of law in Boston, 1945-1950, before returning to university life. In 1952 he was appointed professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis were he wrote Governing America; the Politics of a Free People: National, State, and Local Government, and American Government: Problems and Readings in Political Analysis . In 1958 he became a professor of constitutional law from 1958. In 1961 he moved to Washington University College of Liberal Arts, serving as Dean 1961-1962, and Chancellor 1962-1971. He also served as Vice chairman, United States Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1963-1967, president, Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, 1971-1977 and as a teacher, Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School, 1977-1985. Eliot was a resident of Cambridge, Mass., until his death there in 1991.

Bibliography

• Eliot, Thomas H. Recollections of the New Deal: When the People Mattered. Edited with an introduction by John Kenneth Galbraith. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992;
• Eliot, Thomas H. Public and Personal. Edited by Frank O’Brien. St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1971.

External links

• Thomas H. Eliot at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Biographical entry at Washington University in Saint Louis
• Biographical entry at the Social Security Administration

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