Hubert H. Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey (1965)

Humphrey (left) in the Oval Office with President Johnson

Hubert Horatio Humphrey (born May 27, 1911 in Wallace , Codington County , South Dakota , † January 13, 1978 in Waverly , Minnesota ) was an American politician and from 1965 to 1969 under Lyndon B. Johnson the 38th Vice President of the United States States . He also held a seat in the US Senate from 1949 to 1964 and again from 1971 until his death . From 1945 to 1948 he also held the office of Mayor of Minneapolis .

Life

Humphrey first studied pharmacy and ran his own pharmacy from 1933 to 1937 . He then studied political science and graduated from the universities of Minnesota and Louisiana . During the Second World War he held various posts in war-related offices and was a lecturer and radio commentator.

He became mayor of Minneapolis after World War II and a senator in 1948. From 1948 to 1964 he was the first Democratic Senator for the state of Minnesota. In the 1960 presidential election he ran as an intra-party candidate for president, but was beaten in the internal primaries by John F. Kennedy .

In the 1964 presidential election , he was nominated as running mate of President Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic candidate for the vice presidency . After a clear election victory in November 1964, Humphrey was sworn in to the office of Vice President on January 20, 1965. In the same year he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Humphrey was known as a supporter of the Vietnam War . He also achieved fame in Germany when the press , in the run-up to his visit to Germany in April 1967, hyped the Communards of Commune I into assassins when they threw bags filled with pudding, flour and coloring matter at trees. This so-called pudding attack was one of the early formative moments of the German 1968 movement . After the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy , he was nominated for the Democratic presidential candidate at the chaotic party convention of the Democrats in Chicago in late August 1968. The election on November 5, 1968 against the Republican Richard Nixon went in a head-to-head race to his disadvantage. Humphrey resigned from Vice President on January 20, 1969.

After his retirement, he became professor at Macalester College in St. Paul and at the University of Minnesota that same year . He was also on the board of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. operates. Afterwards he was briefly again a lecturer before he was again a senator from 1970 until his death. In 1972 he again unsuccessfully applied for the office of president, in 1976 he turned down a candidacy.

The American songwriter and satirist Tom Lehrer dedicated his song Whatever Became of Hubert? , who deals in a satirical way with his rather inconspicuous activity as Vice President. The Minneapolis Metrodome , the Minnesota Vikings , Minnesota Twins and the University of Minnesota football team bear his name.

Humphrey had been married to Muriel Humphrey since 1936 . The marriage resulted in three sons and a daughter.

Hubert Horatio Humphrey died of bladder cancer on January 13, 1978 at home in Waverly at the age of 66 .

literature

• Jules Witcover: The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power. Smithsonian Books, Washington, D. C. 2014, ISBN 978-1-5883-4471-7 , pp. 377-390 (= 38. Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota ).

Web links

Commons : Hubert Humphrey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hubert H. Humphrey in the catalog of the German National Library
• Hubert H. Humphrey in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Biography on the website of the University of Texas (English)
• Photos of Hubert H. Humphrey during his last election campaign in the Macedonian Baptist Church, San Francisco, May 23, 1972 by Bruce Jackson, on csac.buffalo.edu (English)
• Hubert H. Humphrey at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia (English)
• Hubert H. Humphrey in the Find a Grave database (English)
• Portrait of Hubert Humphrey in the archive of the Austrian Media Library