Charles Curtis

Charles Curtis was a Kansas lawyer and Republican politician who served in both houses of Congress, became Senate majority leader, and served as Herbert Hoover's vice president. He was of mixed European and Kaw ancestry and became the first person with significant Native American ancestry to reach either the presidency or vice presidency. He remains the only person of acknowledged Native American ancestry to serve as vice president.

Curtis was born on January 25, 1860, in North Topeka, Kansas. His mother, Ellen Papin, was of Kaw, Osage, Potawatomi, and French ancestry, while his father, Orren Curtis, was of English, Scots, and Welsh ancestry. Curtis was raised largely by his grandparents after his mother died when he was young. He learned English, French, and some Kaw and developed a strong connection to his mother's Kaw heritage.

Curtis studied law and was admitted to the Kansas bar in 1881. He became a successful attorney in Topeka and entered Republican politics. He served as county attorney of Shawnee County and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1892. He later became a U.S. senator from Kansas, serving from 1907 to 1913 and again from 1915 to 1929.

Curtis became one of the most powerful Republican legislators of the Progressive Era and 1920s. He served as Senate Republican whip and later as Republican floor leader and majority leader. He was instrumental in organizing Republican senators and played an important role in tariff and other economic legislation. In 1928, Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover selected Curtis as his running mate. The Hoover-Curtis ticket won the election, and Curtis became vice president on March 4, 1929.

As vice president, Curtis presided over the Senate during the opening years of the Great Depression. He had previously been one of the most powerful legislative leaders in the country, but his relationship with President Hoover was sometimes strained. Hoover and Curtis differed over political strategy and the extent of Curtis's role within the administration. The worsening economic crisis contributed to Hoover and Curtis's defeat by Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner in the 1932 election.

After leaving office in March 1933, Curtis remained in Washington and worked as a legal and political adviser. He did not hold another elected office. He died in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1936, at the age of seventy-six.

Curtis's legacy includes his long congressional career and his place in Native American and American political history. His ancestry made his vice presidency historically distinctive, while his decades in Congress made him one of the Republican Party's most experienced legislative leaders. His career also connects the political world of the Progressive Era with the Republican administration that governed during the opening years of the Great Depression.