Adlai Ewing Stevenson

23rd United States Vice President, U.S. Congressman. A member of the Democratic Party, he was twice elected to represent Illinois' 13th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving first from 1875 to 1877, then from 1879 to 1881, then he was chosen to be Grover Cleveland's running mate when he successfully ran for U.S. President in 1892. He was born into a family of tobacco farmers and at age 16, he moved with his family to Bloomington, Illinois, where his father operated a sawmill. After attending college at Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington, and Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, he returned home and studied law, admitted to the bar in 1858 and established a law practice in Metamora, Illinois. In 1864, he entered politics and was elected as district attorney and following the end of his 4-year term, he moved back to Bloomington and continued to practice law. In 1874, he was nominated to run for U.S. Congress and was elected, serving from March 1875 until March 1877. In 1876, he lost his bid for a second congressional term, but was elected in 1878, serving from March 1879 until March 1881. He failed to be reelected in 1880 and 1882. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland nominated him as the 21st First Assistant U.S. Postmaster General and served in that position from August 1885 until March 1889. In 1892, he was nominated by the Democratic Party on the first ballot as Cleveland's Vice President. He was considered the Democratic candidate in the 1896 Presidential election, but it ultimately fell to William Jennings Bryan. He later was the Vice-Presidential candidate in 1900 on the ticket headed by William Jennings Bryan. Following the 1900 Presidential election, he returned to his law practice and in 1908, he ran for Governor of Illinois and lost by a narrow margin. He then retired from politics and his law practice and died six years later at the age of 73. His grandson Adlai E. Stevenson II, served as the Democratic Governor of Illinois from 1949 until 1953, and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Presidency against Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.