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Submitted: 6/2/08 • Approved: 10/7/08 • Last Updated: 7/20/12 • R25829-G0-S3
Prosecuting Attorney
US Congressman
US Senator
17 October 1871 – 6 November 1931
Thaddeus Horatius Caraway was an Arkansas prosecuting attorney who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives four times and to the U.S. Senate twice. A champion of the poor, he challenged corruption while working to help Arkansas during the beginning of the Great Depression. He was born in Spring Hill, Missouri, to Tolbert and Mary Ellen Caraway. After his father’s death when Thaddeus was a young child, his mother struggled to support the family. In 1893 his mother moved the family to Clay County, Arkansas that was home to her relatives. Thaddeus left Arkansas to attend Dickson Normal College in Dickson, Tennessee. He worked his way through school doing manual labor jobs, including picking cotton. At Dickson he met his future wife, Hattie Wyatt, who was also a student there. Graduating in 1896, he returned to Arkansas and taught school from 1896 to 1899 prior to being admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1900. He began his law practice in Lake City, Arkansas and began publishing legal notices in the Lake City Sun Times and the Jonesboro Daily Tribune while building his practice. In 1902, he married Hattie Wyatt, and the couple moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas. They had three sons: Paul Wyatt, Forrest, and Robert Easley. Thaddeus won the race for the prosecuting attorney of the Second Judicial District of Arkansas in 1908. In this office, he gained a reputation as a tough prosecutor who worked long hours and for his vigorous pursuit of criminals. He won eleven capital cases during one session of the court, and the crime rate dropped in his district. He was reelected in 1910. His reputation as a prosecuting attorney assisted him in defeating the incumbent candidate in the Democratic primary race for the US House of Representatives in 1912, a seat he held until 1921. Thaddeus was noted for his support of President Woodrow Wilson’s World War I policies, the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and other progressive legislation, especially agriculture reform bills. In 1920, he ran for the US Senate against an incumbent in the Democratic primary. He won a hard fought and bitter race against the Democratic incumbent. With the Democratic nomination, Thaddeus easily won the Senate seat against his Republican opponent. As a senator, he served on the Agriculture and Forestry Committee, the Education and Health Committee, and the Judiciary Committee. Additionally, he focused on tariffs, the Tea Pot Dome scandal, regulation of lobbyists, the failed effort to convert the Ouachita National Forrest to a national park, and attempts to aid Arkansans during the early days of the Great Depression. After Thaddeus' tragic death in 1931 from complications of kidney stone operation in Little Rock, Arkansas, his wife, Hattie, was appointed by Arkansas Governor Harvey Parnell to finish his term in December and was confirmed in a special election on January 12, 1932, thus becoming the first woman elected to the Senate..
http Ref://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000139 (Accessed on October 6, 2008)
Encyclopedia Britannica
See Also: Hattie Ophelia Caraway, Famous Person Biography
Contributed on 6/2/08 by tiredtech3
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Record #: 25829