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Dec 10, 2009
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History and GovernmentCongressional BiographiesNew York

PLATT, Thomas Collier

(1833—1910)

Senate Years of Service: 1881-1881; 1897-1909
Party: Republican; Republican

PLATT, Thomas Collier, a Representative and a Senator from New York; born in Owego, Tioga County, N.Y., July 15, 1833; was prepared for college in the Owego Academy and attended Yale College in 1849 and 1850; in 1852 engaged in business as a druggist and continued for twenty years; president of the Tioga National Bank; interested in the lumbering business in Michigan; clerk of Tioga County 1859-1861; elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877); elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1881, and served from March 4, 1881, to May 16, 1881, when he resigned because of a disagreement with President James Garfield over federal appointments in New York; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate to succeed himself; chairman, Committee on Enrolled Bills (Forty-seventh Congress); secretary and director of the United States Express Co. in 1879 and elected president of the company in 1880; member and president of the Board of Quarantine Commissioners of New York 1880-1888; member of the Republican National Committee; elected to the United States Senate in 1896; reelected in 1903 and served from March 4, 1897, to March 3, 1909; not a candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard (Fifty-fifth Congress), Committee on Printing (Fifty-sixth through Sixtieth Congresses), Committee on Cuban Relations (Fifty-ninth Congress), Committee on Interoceanic Canals (Fifty-ninth Congress); died in New York City, March 6, 1910; interment in Evergeen Cemetery, Owego, N.Y.


Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography ; Gosnell, Harold. Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Others . 1924. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1969; Platt, Thomas Collier. The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt . Edited by Louis J. Lang. 1910. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974.

Alexander, De Alva Stanwood. Four Famous New Yorkers: The Political Careers of Cleveland, Platt, Hill, and Roosevelt ; Forming Volume Four of the Political History of the State Of New York, 1882-1905. 1923. Reprint. New York: I.J. Friedman, 1969.

Gosnell, Harold F. Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Others . 1924. Reprint. St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, 1971.

___. “Thomas C. Platt—Political Manager.” Political Science Quarterly 38 (September 1923): 443-69.

Lang, Louis J., ed. The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt . 1910. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974.

McCormick, Richard L. “The Thomas Collier Platt Papers.” Yale University Library Gazette 50 (July 1975): 46-58.

Russell, Francis. “The Easy Boss: Thomas Collier Platt.” In The President Makers: From Mark Hanna to Joseph P. Kennedy , pp. 43-86. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1976.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present

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