Harold Hitz Burton papers

Harold Hitz Burton (Bowdoin 1909) was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, on June 22, 1888. His father, Alfred Edgar Burton (Bowdoin 1878), Dean of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bowdoin Overseer (1905-1935), accompanied Robert E. Peary on several North Pole expeditions. His mother, Gertrude Hitz, was daughter of the first Swiss Consul General to the United States. Burton's older brother, Felix Arnold Burton (Bowdoin 1907), designed the Alpha Delta Phi House (1924) and the Class of 1907 Gateway at Bowdoin. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Burton practiced corporate law in Cleveland, Ohio, and elsewhere. He served as an Ohio State Legislator (1929); Mayor of Cleveland (1935-1940); U.S. Senator from Ohio (1941-1945); and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1945-1958). He taught for two years at Western Reserve University (1923-1925) and was a member of the Board of Overseers of Bowdoin College (1936-1964). In 1958 he was awarded the Bowdoin Prize. Burton married Selma Florence Smith in 1912. They had four children: Barbara, William (Bowdoin 1937), Deborah, and Robert (Bowdoin 1943). Harold Hitz Burton died of Parkinson's disease on October 28, 1964, in Washington, D.C.