stormdog: (Geek)
MeghanIsMe ([personal profile] stormdog) wrote2015-11-06 06:24 pm
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Historical Political Candidates Who Bend Space and Time

The guy I'm currently researching is a Winnetka, Illinois man, Carl Zeiss, who ran for congressman-at-large for Illinois in 1932. Write-ups in the Oak Park Oak Leaves say that:

He spent his years as a boy and young man on an Illinois farm. He spent a year farming in Michigan, too. But he also attended Harvard preparatory schools, attended the University of Chicago, graduated from Princeton at the age of 19, did his law degree at Harvard and Northwestern University, enlisted with the Navy during World War I and served with the Atlantic fleet, became a partner in a law firm (Kelly, Pratt, and Zeiss), lectured at Northwestern on tenant and landlord law, and was on the Winnetka board of governors *and* the Winnetka park board.

I'm skeptical. Could this guy bi-locate? How do you grow up on a farm and spend a year as a farmer out of state while simultaneously attending prep school and graduating from Princeton at 19? The paper was unambiguously endorsing his candidacy. I wonder if they didn't stretch things a little bit. As far as I can tell, his dad was an exporter and businessman in meat packing and/or the grain trade who lived at an exclusive south-side address that no longer exists, but was gorgeous in its time. (You can find a few images by Googling Chicago and Aldine Square.) I wonder if his "time on a farm" was actually spent managing some of his dad's operations.