Royal Samuel Copeland (7 November 1868-17 June 1938) was a Democratic US Senator from New York from 4 March 1923 to 17 June 1938, succeeding William M. Calder and preceding James M. Mead.
Biography[]
Royal Samuel Copeland was born in Dexter, Michigan in 1868, and he taught school in Sylvan Township at the age of 20, practiced medicine in Bay City from 1890 to 1895, served as the Republican Mayor of Ann Arbor from 1901 to 1903, and moved to New York City in 1908 for his medical career. He became President of the New York City Board of Health in 1918 and kept the city calm during the Spanish Influenza outbreak. Copeland went on to serve in the US Senate from 1923 to his death in 1938. He was backed by the city's Tammany Hall machine and was a conservative Democrat who was not particularly supportive of his fellow New Yorker Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs. He launched a failed primary bid during the 1937 mayoral election, and he died in office in 1938.