Howard Henry Baker, Sr. (January 12, 1902 – January 7, 1964) was a United States Representative from Tennessee. He was a member of the Republican Party.
Baker was born in Somerset, Kentucky in 1902 to James F. Baker, an attorney and newspaper publisher in Huntsville, Tennessee, and Kentucky native Helen Keen Baker.[1]
The family moved to Huntsville, Tennessee, in 1909, and Baker spent most of his childhood in Scott County. The family moved to Knoxville in 1918, the same year that Baker entered the university there. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1922[1] and its law school in 1924, and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1923. Baker is an alumnus of the Epsilon Eta Chapter of Sigma Nu Fraternity. For a period he served as publisher of a weekly newspaper in Huntsville, Tennessee, the county seat of Scott County. In 1928 he was elected to a term in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and served on the Scott County Board of Education from 1931 to 1932. In 1934 he became district attorney general of the former 19th Judicial Circuit, serving until 1938 in that capacity.
In 1938 Baker made an unsuccessful bid for governor of Tennessee, losing in the general election to Democrat Prentice Cooper. In 1940 he ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate, losing to Democrat Kenneth McKellar. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1940, 1948, 1952, and 1956. He was vice president and general counsel to the former Oneida and Western Railroad in 1945, and was also on the board of directors of the First National Bank of Oneida. In 1950 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served in that body until his death, being reelected six times.[1]
Baker died unexpectedly from a heart attack in Knoxville on January 8, 1964. He was succeeded in office by his widow Irene,[1] who completed his final term as a caretaker and sought no further election.
Baker is probably best remembered as the father of Howard H. Baker Jr., a three-term U.S. senator from Tennessee and United States Senate Majority Leader who later served as White House Chief of Staff under Ronald Reagan and is the former United States Ambassador to Japan.
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Jennings, Jr. |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 2nd congressional district 1951 – 1964 |
Succeeded by Irene Bailey Baker |