Frederick M. Vinson
Centre College Class of 1911

Frederick Moore Vinson, a Representative from Kentucky; born in Louisa, Lawrence County, Ky., January 22, 1890; attended the public schools; was graduated from the law department of Centre College, Danville, Ky., in 1911; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Louisa; city attorney of Louisa in 1914 and 1915; served in the United States Army during the First World War; Commonwealth attorney for the thirty-second judicial district of Kentucky 1921-1924; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William J. Fields; reelected to the Sixty-ninth and Seventieth Congresses and served from January 12, 1924, to March 3, 1929; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1928 to the Seventy-first Congress; resumed the practice of law in Kentucky; again elected to the Seventy-second and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1931, to May 12, 1938, when he resigned, having been appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt an associate justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and subsequently designated by Chief Justice Stone on March 2, 1942, as chief judge of the United States Emergency Court of Appeals; served in each capacity until his resignation May 27, 1943, to become Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization, in which capacity he served until March 5, 1945; Federal Loan Administrator from March 6 to April 3, 1945; director of War Mobilization and Reconversion from April 4 to July 22, 1945; appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Harry S. Truman and served from July 23, 1945, to June 23, 1946; appointed and took the oath of office as Chief Justice of the United States on June 24, 1946, and served until his death in Washington, D.C., September 8, 1953; interment in Pinehill Cemetery, Louisa, Ky.

Source: "Vinson, Frederick Moore, 1890-1953" Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=V000106 (17 Dec. 2002).