PEPPER, Claude Denson, a Senator and a Representative from Florida; born on a farm near Dudleyville, Chambers County, Ala., September 8, 1900; attended the public schools of Camp Hill, Ala.; taught school in Dothan, Ala., and worked in a steel mill in Ensley, Ala., before attending college; served in Students Army Training Corps, University of Alabama, in 1918; graduated from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1921 and from the law department of Harvard University in 1924; taught law in the University of Arkansas in 1924 and 1925; admitted to the bar in 1925 and commenced practice in Perry, Fla.; member of the State house of representatives in 1929 and 1930; moved to Tallahassee, Fla., in 1930 and continued the practice of law; served on the State board of public welfare in 1931 and 1932; member of the State board of law examiners in 1933; elected on November 3, 1936, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Duncan U. Fletcher; reelected in 1938 and 1944 and served from November 4, 1936, to January 3, 1951; chairman, Committee on Patents (Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1950 and for nomination in 1958; engaged in the practice of law at Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and Tallahassee, Fla., and in Washington, D.C.; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-eighth and to the thirteen succeeding Congresses, and served from January 3, 1963, until his death; chairman, Select Committee on Crime (Ninety-first through Ninety-sixth Congresses), Select Committee on Aging (Ninety-fifth through Ninety-seventh Congress), Committee on Rules (Ninety-eighth through One Hundred First Congresses); awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 26, 1989; died in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 1989; lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, June 1-2, 1989; interment in Oakland Cemetery, Tallahasse, Fla.
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
[ Top ]Clark, James C. "Claude Pepper and the Seeds of His 1950 Defeat, 1944-1948." Florida Historical Quarterly 74 (Summer 1995): 1-22.
Danese, Tracy E. Claude Pepper and Ed Ball: Politics, Purpose, and Power. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
Halamandaris, Val J. "Claude D. Pepper." In Profiles in Caring: Advocates for the Elderly, pp. 3-42. Washington: Caring Publishing, 1991.
Kabat, Ric A. "From Camp Hill to Harvard Yard: The Early Years of Claude D. Pepper." Florida Historical Quarterly 72 (October 1993): 153-79.
___. "From New Deal to Red Scare: The Political Odyssey of Senator Claude Pepper, 1936-1950. Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 1994.
Lichtenstein, Alex. "In the Shade of the Lenin Oak: 'Colonel' Raymond Robins, Senator Claude Pepper, and the Cold War." American Communist History 3 (2004): 185-214.
Paterson, Thomas G. "The Dissent of Senator Claude Pepper." In Cold War Critics: Alternatives to American Foreign Policy in the Truman Years, edited by Thomas G. Paterson, pp. 114-39. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971.
Pepper, Claude D. Ask Claude Pepper. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Co., 1984.
___. "A Foreign Policy to Win the War, Keep the Peace, and Promote the Welfare of Our Nation and the World." Foreign Policy Reports 20 (October 1, 1944): 167-76.
___. "Observations on the Policy of the Bricker Amendment." University of Florida Law Review 7 (Spring 1954): 58-67.
Pepper, Claude D., with Hays Gorey. Pepper, Eyewitness to a Century. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987.
Stoesen, Alexander R. "Claude Pepper and the Florida Canal Controversy, 1939-1943." Florida Historical Quarterly 50 (January 1972): 235-51.
___. "Road from Receivership: Claude Pepper, the duPont Trust, and the Florida East Coast Railway." Florida Historical Quarterly 52 (October 1973): 132-56.
___. "The Senatorial Career of Claude D. Pepper." Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1965.
Swint, Kerwin C. "Homo Sapiens, Thespians, and Extroverts," in Mudslingers: The Top 25 Negative Political Campaigns of All Time. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006: 47-54.
U.S. Congress. Memorial Services Held in the House of Representatives and Senate of the United States, Together with Tributes Presented in Eulogy of Claude Denson Pepper, Late a Representative from Florida. 101st Cong., 1st sess., 1989. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1990.
