GILLETT, Frederick Huntington

• Frederick H. Gillett of Massachusetts had not held a top party leadership position before his election as Speaker in 1919. He had served six terms as chair of the Committee on Reform in the Civil Service. Gillett was also the first Dean of the House to be elected Speaker since Linn Boyd in 1851.
• Gillett, who largely let other party leaders manage the House’s legislative agenda, served three terms as Speaker. His third and final election as Speaker required three days and nine ballots.
• Gillett left the House to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1925.

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GILLETT, Frederick Huntington, a Representative and a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Westfield, Hampden County, Mass., October 16, 1851; attended the public schools; graduated from Amherst College, Amherst, Mass., in 1874 and from the law department of Harvard University in 1877; admitted to the bar at Springfield, Mass., in 1877 and commenced practice in that city; assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, 1879-1882; member of the Massachusetts state house of representatives, 1890-1891; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third and to the fifteen succeeding Congresses; (March 4, 1893, to March 3, 1925); Speaker of the House (Sixty-sixth, Sixty-seventh, and Sixty-eighth Congresses); chair, Committee on Reform in the Civil Service (Fifty-sixth through Sixty-first Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination to the Sixty-ninth Congress; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1924 and served from March 4, 1925, to March 3, 1931; was not a candidate for renomination in 1930; engaged in literary pursuits; died in Springfield, Mass., July 31, 1935; interment in Pine Hill Cemetery, Westfield, Mass.

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

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Boston Public Library

Dartmouth College

Harvard University
Houghton Library

Massachusetts Historical Society

Ohio Historical Society

Westfield Athenaeum Archives

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