Ernest Henry Gruening (6 February 1887-26 June 1974) was the Democratic Governor of the Alaska Territory from 6 December 1939 to 10 April 1953 (succeeding John Weir Troy and preceding B. Frank Heintzleman) and a US Senator from Alaska from 3 January 1959 to 3 January 1969 (preceding Mike Gravel).
Biography[]
Ernest Henry Gruening was born in New York City, New York in 1887, the son of German-Jewish immigrant parents. He trained as a medician before becoming a journalist, working for several publications in Boston during the 1910s, serving in the US Army field artillery during World War I, editing The Nation from 1920 to 1923, and editing the New York Post in 1934. Gruening became a supporter of the New Deal and served in various territorial administrative positions under President Franklin D. Roosevelt before serving as Governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 to 1953, supporting halving loan rates for veterans, declaring a state of emergency during the 1946 tuberculosis epidemic, and supported the protection of Alaska's wildlife. In 1945, he oversaw the passage of America's first anti-discrimination law, the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, which criminalized racial discrimination (especially against Alaska Natives). Gruening became a prominent advocate of Alaskan statehood, and he served as one of the state's inaugural US Senators from 1959 to 1969, opposing the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War and being one of only two senators (the other being Wayne Morse, D-OR) to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. He was defeated for re-election in 1968 by Mike Gravel, and he died in Washington DC in 1974.