Orville Freeman

Orville Freeman

Orville Lothrop Freeman (born May 9, 1918 in Minneapolis , Minnesota , † February 20, 2003 ibid) was an American politician . He was the governor of the state of Minnesota and US Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson .

Life

Freeman studied at the University of Minnesota , where he met his future political companion Hubert H. Humphrey . With this he had a lifelong friendship. After graduating from college in 1940, he joined the United States Marine Corps . During World War II, he served as a combat officer and earned the rank of major . After returning from the war, he studied at the University of Minnesota Law School and graduated in 1946 with a Bachelor of Laws .

politics

In 1944 he was one of the founding members of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL), which arose from the Democratic Party of the State of Minnesota and the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party . Freeman was heavily involved in bringing the parties together.

As the first DFL member, he was elected Governor of Minnesota in 1954, where he prevailed against the Republican incumbent C. Elmer Anderson . This had defeated him two years earlier. After he had been confirmed in office twice, he was defeated in the 1960 election with a difference of almost 23,000 votes to the Republican Elmer L. Andersen . So he had to resign on January 2, 1961 from the governorship.

Only a few days later, however, he took on his new role as a member of the federal government. The recently elected President John F. Kennedy appointed Orville Freeman as Secretary of Agriculture. Even after the murder of Kennedy on November 22, 1963, he remained a member of the cabinet under his successor Lyndon B. Johnson . He subsequently made particular merits by implementing a food stamp program for citizens with little or no income.

After Johnson's second term ended in 1969, Freeman also left the government. In 2003 he died of complications from Alzheimer's disease . He was buried in Lakewood Cemetery , Minneapolis.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Results of the gubernatorial elections in Minnesota (page 272) ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

• Orville Freeman in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Minnesota Historical Society (English)
• Orville Freeman at the National Governors Association (English)
• Orville Freeman in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)