Joseph S. Clark, Jr.

Joseph Sill Clark, Jr. (October 21, 1901 – January 12, 1990) was a U.S. lawyer and Democratic Party politician in the mid-20th century. He served as the mayor of Philadelphia from 1952 until 1956, and as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1957 until 1969. Clark was the only Unitarian Universalist elected to a major Pennsylvania office in the modern era.

Biography

Clark was a native of Philadelphia. He was the son of Joseph Sill Clark, Sr. and Kate Richardson Avery, grandson of financier Edward White Clark, and great-grandson of Joseph Sill and Jane Todhunter,^[1] social reformers and leaders in the antebellum Philadelphia benevolence movement (1820–1860).

After graduating from Middlesex School, he received his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1923 and his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall, in 1926. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a member and Vice-President of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In 1924 Clark, who had spent time at the Bar B C Dude Ranch in Jackson Hole, became a partner in the Double Diamond Dude Ranch.^[2]

Clark began his career as a lawyer when, in 1941, he was called up to military service for World War II, rising to colonel in the United States Army Air Forces before mustering out in 1945. He won the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, and an honorary OBE for his wartime service in the China-Burma-India theater.

After the war, Clark became involved in Philadelphia city politics as a reform Democrat. Running against a long-entrenched and openly corrupt Republican machine, he won the city comptroller position in 1949, then moving up to mayor three years later. His Administration was distinguished by a new Home Rule Charter, and by a newly-active Philadelphia City Planning Commission, led after 1949 by Edmund N. Bacon. On the strength of his mayoral record, he won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1956, and went on to beat incumbent James H. Duff in the general election by approximately 18,000 votes out of nearly 4.5 million cast. Clark was succeeded as mayor by his reform colleague Richardson Dilworth.

Clark won re-election to the Senate in 1962, defeating Congressman James E. Van Zandt by a 51% to 49% margin. Clark's relatively liberal record, including opposition to the Vietnam War, and support for gun control after the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., caused his defeat in the 1968 senatorial election to Republican Richard Schweiker, whose career in the Senate was as a liberal Republican.

After his defeat, Clark became president of World federalists USA until 1971. He lived the rest of his life in Philadelphia, dying at age 88 on January 12, 1990.

Family

Clark had a younger brother, Avery B. Clark. He had two children, Joseph S. Clark III, and Noel (Clark) Miller (née Clark).^[3]

Writings

• The Senate Establishment (1963)
• Congress: The Sapless Branch (1964)

References

Further reading

• Who's Who in America. Chicago : Marquis, 1984.
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: Clark, Joseph Sill

External links

• Joseph S. Clark, Jr. at Find a Grave
• The Joseph Sill Clark Papers, including reports, articles, news releases and some correspondence, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.