biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1772–1864)
|
| biography:
| Public official and university president, born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, USA. He served four terms in the US House of Representatives (Federalist, Massachusetts, 1805–13), becoming the minority leader, but resigned following the American invasion of Canada. He returned to Boston and was elected to the state senate (1813–20). As six-term mayor of Boston (1823–9), he cleaned the streets, started work on water and sewer systems, separated paupers from criminals, prosecuted gambling and prostitution, filled pestilential tidal flats, and built the Faneuil Hall market. As president of Harvard University (1829–45), he improved food service and began calling students ‘Mr’, but occasional riots continued. He made notable appointments including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Benjamin Peirce, and greatly increased the faculty, endowment, and student body; he also wrote what became the standard history of Harvard, as well as other historical and cultural works. A lifelong Federalist and opponent of slavery, he supported President Abraham Lincoln and the war, especially in his last public speech at age 91. |
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