Bob Bartlett

in 1950 Bartlett was born in Seattle, Washington, as Edward Lewis Bartlett. Bartlett's elder sister, Doris, insisted on calling the young Bartlett 'Bob', which became a name that stuck for life. After attending the University of Washington from 1922 to 1924, Bartlett graduated from the University of Alaska in 1925. ==Career==

Shortly after his graduation, Bartlett began his career in politics. A reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News from 1924 until 1933, Bartlett's father died in 1935, so he returned to Fairbanks to run his family's mining business. However, Bartlett wasn't a big fan of mining and looked back to the political arena in 1938. In 1945, following the retirement of Anthony Dimond, Bartlett was elected as the delegate from Alaska to the 79th and the six succeeding Congresses, with the backing of Dimond. 1964 Alaska earthquake Following the 1964 Alaska earthquake, Bartlett was part of the inspection team, and he contributed to efforts to rebuild Anchorage, along with Governor Bill Egan, Representative Ralph Rivers and Senator Gruening. Bartlett & Gruening came into Alaska on Air Force One, thanks to Edward McDermott, Director of the Office of Emergency Planning. President Johnson declared Alaska a 'major disaster area'. Bartlett and Gruening reported the damage back to Johnson, where he sent federal aid. Fight for Alaskan Statehood . hold the 49-star U.S. flag after the admission of Alaska as the 49th state. Bartlett first introduced the Alaska Statehood Act in 1947, although the bill was defeated. Bartlett re-introduced the Alaska Statehood Act in 1950, with the backing of President Harry Truman, although, after passing the House of Representatives by a 40-vote margin, it was killed in committee in the Senate. Bartlett remained unfazed, and he called on Alaskans to join his fight for statehood. Alaskans responded with the 1956 constitutional convention, which elected Shadow U.S. Senators William A. Egan and Ernest Gruening, as well as Shadow U.S. Representative Ralph Rivers, all sworn in on October 6, 1956. The convention also created a state constitution for Alaska. The shadow Congressmen's main goal was to request or demand Alaskan statehood from the U.S. Congress. The Convention drew national attention to the fight for Alaskan Statehood. With the pressure from the convention and Bartlett, of whom members of Congress were very fond, congressmen and other federal politicians rapidly switched their opinions, most notably Sam Rayburn, the powerful Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, all of whom had been courted by Bartlett, after previous opposition. Bartlett was assisted by numerous Alaskans, such as Territorial Governor Mike Stepovich, who was present at the House vote, former Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening, and senior U.S. Department of the Interior official Ted Stevens, who was (illegally) using the Interior's offices to lobby for statehood. After talking to Stevens in 1958, Bartlett remarked in a letter to a friend "At a guess, I should say that many taxpayers' dollars are used for telephone calls to the Interior Department from Alaska and vice versa on matters more political than executive." In 1958, the bill for Alaska Statehood was reintroduced, backed by Eisenhower, Johnson, and Rayburn. The main opponents of the bill were Republicans and Southern Democrats. Republicans feared that Alaska, a Democratic-leaning state, would elect Democrats to Congress. Southern Democrats feared that Alaska, a state with a high native population and that had passed one of the first laws against discrimination, would elect pro-civil rights Senators. The bill would pass the House in April 1958, and defeat competition from powerful Virginia Representative and Chair of the House Rules Committee, Howard W. Smith, as well as Washington Representative Thomas Pelly. Bartlett used a powerful procedure, which had been omitted shortly after 1912 because Congress did not plan to add any more states after Arizona. However, the Library of Congress found that the procedure had never been formally abolished. The procedure would have allowed every single Representative to speak on the floor for an hour. Facing the possibility of more than 400 hours of debate, Smith and the other Representatives who were in opposition all backed down. Bartlett was key in shepherding the bill through the Senate, where it passed on June 30, 1958, by a vote of 64–20. Following this, the chamber broke into applause. Bartlett missed this, as he held the promise that he would call back home to Alaska if the bill passed. Bartlett was in his office, calling Alaskans, for most of the night. President Eisenhower would sign the bill on July 7, 1958, and after the November 25th 1958 elections, in which nearly 80% of eligible Alaskans voted, Bartlett would be elected U.S. Senator, defeating R.E. Robertson. Bartlett would be inaugurated on January 3, 1959, the day that Alaska became a state. Bartlett's part in the Alaska Statehood Act was large, with Sam Rayburn summing up his change in opinion with: "Two words. Bob Bartlett." == Personal life ==

Death Bartlett was a heavy smoker throughout his life, and his health started to fail in the months leading up to his death, with Bartlett receiving treatment for heart ailments. His health failures, despite Bartlett's good spirits, became obvious in campaign ads for Gravel. Eventually, Bartlett and his family decided to get a coronary bypass surgery performed. After the surgery, Bartlett went into cardiac arrest multiple times, but he eventually started to slowly improve, before beginning to decline again. Bartlett married his long-time companion and childhood friend, Vide Gaustad, the daughter of local newspaperman & miner O.P. Gaustad, who was politically active. Their marriage was witnessed by Territorial Senator (and later territorial delegate to the U.S. House) Anthony Dimond, who helped Bartlett further his political career. Bartlett had another daughter, Susie Bernice Bartlett, on December 9, 1940. as well as Bartlett High School in Anchorage and Bartlett Hall at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. == Electoral history ==

As delegate As U.S. Senator ==See also==