United States House of Representatives: History, Art, & Archives
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BASSETT, Edward Murray

BASSETT, Edward Murray
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
BASSETT, Edward Murray
1863–1948

Office

Representative

State/Territory

New York

Party

Democrat

Congress(es)

58th (1903–1905)

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Concise Biography

BASSETT, Edward Murray, A Representative from New York; born in Brooklyn, N.Y., February 7, 1863; attended the public schools in Brooklyn and Watertown, N.Y., and Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y., in 1881 and 1882; was graduated from Amherst (Mass.) College in 1884 and from Columbia Law School, New York City, in 1886; was admitted to the New York State bar in 1886 and commenced practice in Buffalo, N.Y.; moved to New York City in 1892 and continued the practice of law; member of the Brooklyn School Board 1899-1903; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1903-March 3, 1905); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1904; resumed the practice of law; member of the New York Public Service Commission 1907-1911; chairman of the Heights of Buildings Commission 1913-1915; chairman of the Zoning Commission in 1916 and 1917; appointed by Secretary Hoover in 1922 as a member of the Department of Commerce, Advisory Committee on Zoning; writer on bankruptcy, eminent domain, and police power; died in Brooklyn, N.Y., October 27, 1948; interment in Ashfield Plains Cemetery, Ashfield, Mass.

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

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External Research Collections

Cornell University
Carl A. Kroch Library

Ithaca, NY
Papers: 1892-1948, 20 cubic feet. The papers of Edward Murray Bassett contain correspondence, books, articles, reports, legal briefs transcripts, and scrapbooks dealing with his tenure as a U.S. Congressman, 1902-1905, and his membership on committees and boards including the Public Service Commission of New York, the Brooklyn Committee on City Plan, the Zoning Committee of the City of New York, and the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs Committee. Papers deal primarily with zoning and city planning in New York City. Also includes many articles, reports and books authored Edward M. Bassett. An unpublished finding aid is available in the repository and online.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Bassett, Edward Murray. Autobiography of Edward M. Bassett. New York: [Harbor Press], 1939.

------. Constitutional limitations on city planning powers. New York: Board of estimate and apportionment, Committee on city plan, 1917.

------. The master plan, with a discussion of the theory of community land planning legislation. New York: Russell Sage foundation, 1938.

------. Zoning progress in the United States: pt. 1. Zoning and the courts, by Edward M. Basset. pt. 2. Report on zoning laws and ordinances. Washington: N.p., 1926.

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