MCKINLEY, William Brown

MCKINLEY, William Brown
University of Illinois
1856–1926

Concise Biography

MCKINLEY, William Brown, A Representative and a Senator from Illinois; born in Petersburg, Menard County, Ill., September 5, 1856; attended the common schools and the University of Illinois at Urbana; employed as a drug clerk in Springfield, Ill.; engaged in banking in Champaign, Ill., and also in the building and operation of public utilities and bridges; elected a trustee of the University of Illinois 1902-1905; philanthropist; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-ninth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1905-March 3, 1913); was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1912 to the Sixty-third Congress; chairman, Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures (Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses); again elected to the Sixty-fourth, Sixty-fifth, and Sixty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1915-March 3, 1921); was not a candidate for reelection, having become a candidate for Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1920 and served from March 4, 1921, until his death; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1926; chairman, Committee on Manufactures (Sixty-ninth Congress); died in Martinsville, Morgan County, Ind., on December 7, 1926; interment in Mount Hope Cemetery, Champaign, Ill.

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

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External Research Collections

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Papers: In the Republican Campaign Collection, 1902-1926, 3.2 linear feet. The papers of the Republican Campaign Collection consist of correspondence, financial papers, notes, reports, charts, photographs, lists and rosters, printed matter, and miscellaneous items. The bulk of the correspondence relates to the presidential campaigns of William H. Taft, 1912, and Charles Evans Hughes, 1916, and the congressional campaigns of William Brown McKinley. There are many letters to McKinley, who served as chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee in 1910, director of Taft's 1912 presidential campaign, and chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Republican Congressional Committee in 1916. The collection also contains files from McKinley's congressional office. The majority of the correspondence, however, consists of letters between McKinley's assistant, John C. Eversman, and members of the Republican party and the general public. A finding aid is available online.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

Springfield, IL
Papers: Correspondence in Lawrence Yates Sherman papers, 1880-1936.

Knox College
Seymour Library

Galesburg, IL
Papers: 1 letter (September 2, 1925) in Seymour autograph collection, 1750-1945.

Syracuse University
George Arents Research Library

Syracuse, NY
Papers: 1906-1920. 30 linear feet. Correspondence, political records, legislative documents, petitions, photographs, scrapbooks, and printed matter relating to his political career, especially as director of Taft's 1912 presidential campaign, the proposed Pan American Congress of 1906, tariff debates, judicial reform, and concerns of his Illinois constituency. Finding aid.

University of Illinois
Illinois Historical Survey

Urbana, IL
Papers: Correspondence in Edmund J. James letterbooks, 1904-1906.

University of Tulsa
McFarlin Library

Tulsa, OK
Papers: 1 letter in Alice Robertson papers, 1820-1931.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

U.S. Congress. William B. McKinley: Memorial Addresses Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Memory of William B. McKinley, Late a Senator from Illinois. 69th Cong., 2d sess., 1926-1927. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1927.

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