WILLIS, Frank Bartlett

WILLIS, Frank Bartlett
Library of Congress
1871–1928

Concise Biography

WILLIS, Frank Bartlett, a Representative and a Senator from Ohio; born in Lewis Center, Delaware County, Ohio, December 28, 1871; attended the common schools; graduated from the Ohio Northern University at Ada in 1894; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1906; professor of history and economics at Ohio Northern University 1894-1906; professor of economics and law 1906-1910; member, State house of representatives 1900-1904; was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses and served from March 4, 1911, to January 9, 1915, when he resigned, having been elected Governor; Governor of Ohio 1915-1917; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1920 for the term commencing March 4, 1921, and subsequently appointed in January 1921 to fill the vacancy in the term ending March 3, 1921, caused by the resignation of Warren G. Harding; reelected in 1926 and served from January 14, 1921, until his death; chairman, Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions (Sixty-eighth through Seventieth Congresses); died in Delaware, Ohio, March 30, 1928; interment in Oak Grove Cemetery.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

Herbert Hoover Library

West Branch, IA
Papers: 1921-1928. 5 folders.

Ohio Historical Society

Columbus, OH
Papers: 1892-1928. Ca. 41 feet. Political and personal correspondence and papers. Includes pension and patronage correspondence (1911-1915), primary campaign records (1914), a small amount of gubernatorial papers (1915-1917), and senatorial papers (1921-1928). Senatorial materials include general and patronage correspondence, and documentation relating to Ohio politics and to specific legislative and national issues. Topics include prohibition, immigration, the World Court, Teapot Dome, veterans' benefits, civil rights, postal affairs, the territories and insular possessions, the presidential election of 1924, his senatorial campaign in 1926, and his fight for the Republican presidential nomination in 1928. Finding aid.
Additional Papers: Correspondence in William Leontes Curry papers, 1831-1926; materials concerning his duties as secretary to Willis in Charles A. Jones papers, 1900-1970; and correspondence in Charles E. Hard papers, 1894-1941.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Ridinger, Gerald Edwin. "The Political Career of Frank B. Willis." Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1957.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Frank B. Willis, Memorial Addresses. 70th Cong., 1st sess., 1927-1928. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1929.

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