American politician
Albert Foster Dawson
(January 26, 1872 – March 9, 1949) was a three-term
Republican
U.S. Representative
from
Iowa's 2nd congressional district
.
Born in
Spragueville, Iowa
, Dawson attended the public schools and the
University of Wisconsin?Madison
. He engaged in
newspaper
work at
Preston, Iowa
, in 1891 and 1892, and was the city editor for the
Clinton
Herald
from 1892 to 1894.
[1]
He was secretary to Representative
George M. Curtis
and Senator
William B. Allison
of Iowa from 1895 to 1905. He studied finance at
George Washington University
.
In 1904, Dawson challenged incumbent Democratic Congressman
Martin J. Wade
for the U.S. House seat for Iowa's 2nd congressional district. Riding the coattails of President
Theodore Roosevelt
's re-election, Dawson, like every other Republican congressional candidate in Iowa, defeated his Democratic opponent.
[2]
After serving in the
Fifty-ninth
Congress, Dawson was re-elected in 1906 (to serve in the
Sixtieth
Congress), and in 1908 (to serve in the
Sixty-first
Congress). In 1910 he declined to run for a fourth term, citing business and family reasons.
[1]
In all, he served in Congress from March 4, 1905, to March 3, 1911.
In 1911, he also declined an offer to serve as private secretary to President
William Howard Taft
.
[3]
Returning to Iowa at age thirty-eight, he served as president of the First National Bank of
Davenport, Iowa
, from 1911 to 1929. He was executive secretary of the
Republican National Senatorial Committee
in 1930, and he was a public utility executive from 1931 to 1945.
He retired from business activities and resided in
Highland Park, Illinois
, until his death on March 9, 1949, on a train as it neared
Cincinnati, Ohio
. He was interred in Preston Cemetery.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Iowa Citians on Dawson's Withdrawal," Iowa City Citizen, 1910-01-17 at p.1.
- ^
"Theodore Roosevelt Sweeps the Country," Sumner Journal, 1904-11-17 at p.8.
- ^
"
Dawson Not to Aid Taft
," New York Times, 1911-02-23 at p.2.
External links
[
edit
]
This article incorporates
public domain material
from the
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress