Claude Swanson
45thUnited States Secretary of the Navy
In office March 5, 1933 – July 7, 1939
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Charles Francis Adams III
Succeeded by	Charles Edison
United States Senator fromVirginia
In office August 1, 1910 – March 4, 1933
Preceded by	John W. Daniel
Succeeded by	Harry F. Byrd
45thGovernor of Virginia
In office February 1, 1906 – February 10, 1910
Lieutenant	James Taylor Ellyson
Preceded by	Andrew Montague
Succeeded by	William Hodges Mann
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromVirginia's5th district
In office March 4, 1893 – January 30, 1906
Preceded by	Posey G. Lester
Succeeded by	Edward W. Saunders
Personal details
Born	Claude Augustus Swanson (1862-03-31)March 31, 1862 Swansonville, Virginia, C.S.
Died	July 7, 1939(1939-07-07) (aged 77) Rapidan Camp,Virginia, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Deane Lyons ​ ​ (m. 1894; died 1920)​ . Lulie Lyons Hall ​ (m. 1923)​
Education	Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College Randolph-Macon College (BA) University of Virginia (LLB)

Claude Augustus Swanson (March 31, 1862 – July 7, 1939) was an American lawyer andDemocratic politician fromVirginia. He served as U.S. Representative (1893–1906),Governor of Virginia (1906–1910), and U.S. Senator from Virginia (1910–1933), before becoming U.S. Secretary of the Navy under PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 until his death.^[1] Swanson and fellow U.S. SenatorThomas Staples Martin led a Democratic political machine in Virginia for decades in the late 19th and early 20th century, which later became known as theByrd Organization for Swanson's successor as U.S. Senator,Harry Flood Byrd.^[2]

Swanson was born to the former Catherine Rebecca Pritchett (1834–1873) and her husband John Muse Swanson (1829–1914) inSwansonville, Virginia, on March 31, 1862. His great-grandfather William Swanson moved to Pittsylvania fromAlbemarle County, Virginia, had farmed a plantation using slave labor, represented Pittsylvania County in theVirginia General Assembly, and advocating for building a railroad between Richmond and Danville.^[3] John M. Swanson, who owned slaves in 1850 and 1860, served in the5th Virginia Cavalry Regiment and21st Virginia Infantry during theAmerican Civil War.

After the Civil War, he worked with his brother as merchants and tobacco manufacturers, J.M. Swanson & Bro. in Swansonville.^[4] John and Catherine Swanson had three other sons who survived to adulthood, as well as three daughters: William Graves Swanson (1860–1934), John Pritchett Swanson and Henry Clay Swanson (1870–1952) and sisters Annie Blanche Swanson (1864–1948), Sallie Hill Swanson (1869–1950) and Julia Benson Swanson (1869–1933). Two siblings did not survive to adulthood.

Claude Swanson marriedElizabeth Deane Lyons on December 11, 1894, in the District of Columbia. She died on July 13, 1920. He married her widowed sister Lulie Lyons Hall (1867–1953) three years later, and she survived him. Swanson had met them both while studying at Randolph Macon Academy, for their mother ran a boardinghouse to support her family.

Most Swanson men were Democrats and merchants in southwestern Virginia after the American Civil War. Commerce was the family business. A Swedish ancestor had moved from Philadelphia to southwestern Virginia in the 17th century to farm, as well as trade tobacco (and supply farmers with goods they needed). His grandfather had appeared as a "Tobacconist" in the 1850 U.S.Census, and the same label was used for his father in the 1860 census.^{[note 1]} His brother William G. Swanson later ran the wholesale Swanson Brothers Company, and served as chief clerk at the White Rock Indian Reservation inUtah during the administration of Democratic PresidentGrover Cleveland. John Pritchett Swanson operated the Swanson Supply Company, a wholesale grocery and farmers supply business, and the family also had interests in the South Atlantic Lumber Company and Clement Lumber Company inGreensboro, North Carolina.

Swanson studied under Celestia Parrish^[5] then worked for his father in the family business, and taught as a schoolteacher himself for two years (for $30/month when he was 15 and 16 years old)^[3] when the bright tobacco market collapsed in 1876.

When Virginia's fiscal crisis meant teachers were not paid, and having earned enough to fund his further studies, Swanson entered the new state agricultural college inBlacksburg,Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (or Virginia Tech). Another family financial crisis led him and his brother to work inDanville as clerks in John Carter's grocery.^[6]

Four Danville Methodists lent Swanson funds to attendRandolph Macon College inAshland. He graduated in 1885 after winning oratorical prizes and editing the college newspaper as well as theHanover and Caroline News. He then went toCharlottesville and received a degree from theUniversity of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 1886.^[7]

After admission to the Virginia Bar, Swanson set up a legal practice inChatham, the Pittsylvania county seat.^[2]

The young orator Claude Swanson had drawn the attention of Democratic party politicians in Richmond when he was studying in Ashland just up the railroad line. He won his first public office in 1892, a seat in the U.S. Congress representingVirginia's 5th congressional district. Swanson would serve seven terms in theU.S. House of Representatives, from 1893 until 1906. The district extended from Pittsylvania andFranklin counties into the Republican-leaning mountain counties ofFloyd,Carroll andGrayson. Swanson survived two close election contests.

During the1893 depression, Swanson became Virginia's most outspoken congressman endorsingWilliam Jennings Bryan's inflationary fiscal reforms, i.e. allowing both silver and gold as legal tender. By 1896, Swanson had allied himself withHenry D. Flood,James Hay,Francis Lassiter andThomas Staples Martin (whom he helped elect to the Senate in 1893).

Although his family's mercantile background had shown Swanson the importance of credit, his views (and those of his allies) outraged the conservative creditor class. Railroad developerJoseph F. Bryan, who owned theRichmond Times analogized Swanson to communists, anarchists and repudiators of debt."^[8] Congressman Swanson also endorsed free rural mail delivery, aid to rural banks, graduated federal income taxes (that became the16th Amendment), reduced federal excise taxes and direct election of U.S. Senators (that became the17th Amendment). He rose to influence on the House Ways and Means Committee and as proto-party whip. When the Spanish–American War in 1898 stimulated demand for farm products, the family farms again prospered and his brothers opened a wholesale grocery in Danville.^[8]

In 1903 Swanson bought Eldon, a plantation inPittsylvania County, Virginia, built by the Whittle family for whomChatham's Whittle Street is named.^[9] He lived there (when not in Washington, D.C.) most of the rest of his life. Swanson also entered into various real estate consortiums with Flood and his nephew,Harry F. Byrd.

Swanson's attempt to become Governor of Virginia in 1901 failed. However, after theVirginia Constitution of 1902 disenfranchised many African American and poor white voters, he won the Democratic primary in 1905. In thegeneral election he defeated RepublicanLunsford L. Lewis ofRockingham County by a nearly 2 to 1 margin.

Claude Swanson became the45thGovernor of Virginia, serving from 1906 until 1910. He was known as a progressive: A Board of Charities and Corrections and new board of heath were set up, while hospitals and sanitariums were built for mute, deaf and blind Virginians, along with epileptics and tuberculosis victims. Also, as noted by one study, “Requiring that federal sanitary standards be followed, Swanson ordered Saunders to indict reluctant bakery owners who failed to meet them.”^[10] In addition, a number of labor laws were introduced.^[11] However, this was also an era of increased racial polarization in Virginia, and under Swanson and his lieutenant governorJames Taylor Ellyson, African American schools received far fewer funds, and the state's eugenics program would flower in the 1920s.

SenatorJohn W. Daniel died in office in June 1910. In August 1910, his successor as governorWilliam Hodges Mann appointed Swanson to fill the vacancy until the end of Daniel's term on March 3, 1911. In February 1911, Governor Mann appointed Swanson to the term Daniel for which Daniel had been reelected before his death, which began on March 4, 1911. Swanson won a non-binding primary for the seat in September 1911, and in January 1912, theVirginia General Assembly ratified the primary results by electing Swanson to the remainder of the term, which ended on March 3, 1917.

Swanson continued to win reelection, and represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate from 1910 until 1933. Fellow Progressive VirginianWoodrow Wilson won the 1912 Presidential election, so Swanson supported successful reforms in child labor and banking laws, reduced tariffs and federal funding of highway construction. He and Virginia's other Senator Thomas Staples Martin also supported expansion of the Norfolk Naval Base and theLeague of Nations. Swanson publicly opposed women's suffrage and what became the19th Amendment, although he advised President Wilson privately concerning its passage.^[8]

During the Republican administrations of the 1920s, Swanson's gained seniority in the Senate, and served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Swanson continued to advocate for the U.S. Navy, particularly as Japanese aggression in the Pacific threatened American commercial interests. He argued for a "treaty navy". His familiarity with the 1922 Washington agreements and those of the London Treaty (1930) led PresidentHerbert Hoover (though of the opposing political party) to appoint Swanson as an American delegate to the unsuccessfulGeneva Disarmament Conference of 1932. Swanson had been the first prominent Virginia politician to opposeanti-ProhibitionRoman Catholic 1928 Democratic nomineeAl Smith,^[12] and Hoover would become the first Republican presidential candidate tocarry Virginia sinceReconstruction.

When the Great Depression hit and voters elected DemocratFranklin D. Roosevelt President, Swanson becameSecretary of the Navy, serving from 1933 until his death in 1939.Harry F. Byrd, who had succeeded to leadership of Martin's political organization after Martin's death, succeeded Swanson in the Senate, but became a leading critic of theNew Deal. As Naval Secretary, Swanson oversaw passage and implementation of the largest U.S. peacetime naval appropriations up to that time.

Ill for several months, Swanson died atHerbert Hoover'sRapidan Camp (which was then available for use by the Roosevelt Administration) inCriglersville,Madison County, Virginia, on July 7, 1939. The 77 year old had also visitedShenandoah National Park and reviewed work performed by theCivilian Conservation Corps. His funeral was held in the chamber of the U.S. Senate.^[13] Then his body was taken to Richmond and buried inHollywood Cemetery.

TheLibrary of Virginia holds his executive papers.^[14] In 1992, Virginia erected a highway marker near Eldon to commemorate his service.^[15]

Arlington, Virginia, namedSwanson Middle School in his honor. The U.S. Navy also named a destroyerUSS Swanson (DD-443) for him.

Short-livedSwanson County, Oklahoma, was also named for him, while he was still alive.

• 1892; Swanson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 53.91% of the vote, defeating Populist Benjamin T. Jones.
• 1894; Swanson was re-elected with 52.34% of the vote, defeating Republican G.W.Cornett, Independent G.W. Hale, and Populist W.T. Shelton.
• 1896; Swanson was re-elected with 50.98% of the vote, defeating Republican John Robert Brown.
• 1898; Swanson was re-elected with 57.02% of the vote, defeating Republican Edmund Parr, Populist R.A. Bennett, Independent Republican R.O. Martin, and Independent C.T. Seay
• 1900; Swanson was re-elected with 58.14% of the vote, defeating Republican John R. Whitehead.
• 1902; Swanson was re-elected with 60.8% of the vote, defeating RepublicanBeverly A. Davis and Populist Dan Dickerson.
• 1904; Swanson was re-elected with 64.98% of the vote, defeating Republican J.B. Stovall.
• 1905; Swanson was elected Governor of Virginia with 64.51% of the vote, defeating RepublicanLunsford L. Lewis and Socialist Labor B.D. Downey.

• Grantham, Dewey W. "Virginia Congressional Leaders and the New Freedom, 1913-1917."Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 56.3 (1948): 304–313.online
• Ferrell Jr., Henry C.Claude A. Swanson of Virginia: A Political Biography, (The University Press of Kentucky, 1985)online

• Media related toClaude A. Swanson at Wikimedia Commons

• 1862 births
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• Burials at Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)
• Democratic Party governors of Virginia
• United States secretaries of the navy
• American people of Swedish descent
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• Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia
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