George von Lengerke Meyer

George von Lengerke Meyer

George von Lengerke Meyer (born June 24, 1858 in Boston , Massachusetts , † March 9, 1918 ibid) was an American politician ( Republican Party ) who belonged to the US cabinet under two presidents .

After Meyer graduated from Harvard in 1879 , he embarked on a career as a businessman. He was a director and majority shareholder of various banks, insurance companies and railroad companies even before he celebrated his 30th birthday. As a politician, he became one of the few successful Republicans in the democratically dominated Boston. He was first a member of the city council, then from 1892 to 1896 the House of Representatives of Massachusetts . For two years he was the speaker of the house there; in this capacity he succeeded William Emerson Barrett .

In 1900 US President William McKinley offered him the post of Ambassador to Italy , which he filled as the successor to William F. Draper until 1905 ; then he was ambassador to Russia until 1907 , where he replaced Robert Sanderson McCormick . He returned to the US to Postmaster General in the Cabinet of Theodore Roosevelt to be. During his tenure, which lasted until 1909, stamp machines and, subsequently, stamp rolls were introduced for the first time .

After Roosevelt had been replaced by William Howard Taft , this appointed Meyer as Minister of the Navy . He held this office until Taft was voted out of office in 1913. During this time, the Navy conducted its first tests with naval aviators . Eugene Burton Ely first took off in an airplane on a warship in 1910; the following year the first landing on one followed, which initiated the development of the aircraft carrier .

After Taft left office, George von Lengerke Meyer also withdrew from politics. He died in his hometown in 1918. The Navy honored him by naming a destroyer as the USS Meyer .

Web links

Commons : George von Lengerke Meyer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• George von Lengerke Meyer at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia (English)

• George Meyer of Lengerke in the database of Find a Grave (English)