US Congressman, Presidential Cabinet Secretary. Born in Vermont but raised in Ohio, he was a lawyer and Whig party loyalist who represented the Buckeye State in Congress from 1845 to 1847. When the Whig Party folded he became a Republican actively backing Abraham Lincoln's 1860 presidential run. In 1862 he lost, by two votes, a bid to become a member of the United States Senate. However, he successfully ran again for the United States House of Representatives, serving in Congress from 1865 to 1869. He was commissioner of Internal Revenue from 1869 to 1870 and was appointed Secretary of Interior by President Ulysses S. Grant in November of 1870. Although he served in this position longer than any other nineteenth-century incumbent, the scandals which plagued the Grant administration forced him to resign his position in 1875. He returned to Mount Vernon, Ohio where for the next twenty years he practiced law, served as a bank president and promoted higher education. The town of Delano, California was named in his honor in 1873.
A distant relative of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Delano has also been "strongly criticized" by historians for his "weak oversight of the Interior, allowing rampant corruption, and for his treatment of Native Americans and endorsement of the Plains Indian bison slaughter." Delano's refusal to protect the bison that the Plains tribes relied on for their very survival was featured in Ken Burns's 2023 PBS TV documentary "The American Buffalo." However, the creation of Yellowstone Park "is considered Delano's greatest achievement, where bison and other wildlife were legally protected. He was viewed as an effective first administrator of America's first national park. While in office, Delano was an outspoken supporter of black American rights and opponent of the Ku Klux Klan."
A distant relative of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Delano has also been "strongly criticized" by historians for his "weak oversight of the Interior, allowing rampant corruption, and for his treatment of Native Americans and endorsement of the Plains Indian bison slaughter." Delano's refusal to protect the bison that the Plains tribes relied on for their very survival was featured in Ken Burns's 2023 PBS TV documentary "The American Buffalo." However, the creation of Yellowstone Park "is considered Delano's greatest achievement, where bison and other wildlife were legally protected. He was viewed as an effective first administrator of America's first national park. While in office, Delano was an outspoken supporter of black American rights and opponent of the Ku Klux Klan."
US Congressman, Presidential Cabinet Secretary. Born in Vermont but raised in Ohio, he was a lawyer and Whig party loyalist who represented the Buckeye State in Congress from 1845 to 1847. When the Whig Party folded he became a Republican actively backing Abraham Lincoln's 1860 presidential run. In 1862 he lost, by two votes, a bid to become a member of the United States Senate. However, he successfully ran again for the United States House of Representatives, serving in Congress from 1865 to 1869. He was commissioner of Internal Revenue from 1869 to 1870 and was appointed Secretary of Interior by President Ulysses S. Grant in November of 1870. Although he served in this position longer than any other nineteenth-century incumbent, the scandals which plagued the Grant administration forced him to resign his position in 1875. He returned to Mount Vernon, Ohio where for the next twenty years he practiced law, served as a bank president and promoted higher education. The town of Delano, California was named in his honor in 1873.
A distant relative of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Delano has also been "strongly criticized" by historians for his "weak oversight of the Interior, allowing rampant corruption, and for his treatment of Native Americans and endorsement of the Plains Indian bison slaughter." Delano's refusal to protect the bison that the Plains tribes relied on for their very survival was featured in Ken Burns's 2023 PBS TV documentary "The American Buffalo." However, the creation of Yellowstone Park "is considered Delano's greatest achievement, where bison and other wildlife were legally protected. He was viewed as an effective first administrator of America's first national park. While in office, Delano was an outspoken supporter of black American rights and opponent of the Ku Klux Klan."
A distant relative of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Delano has also been "strongly criticized" by historians for his "weak oversight of the Interior, allowing rampant corruption, and for his treatment of Native Americans and endorsement of the Plains Indian bison slaughter." Delano's refusal to protect the bison that the Plains tribes relied on for their very survival was featured in Ken Burns's 2023 PBS TV documentary "The American Buffalo." However, the creation of Yellowstone Park "is considered Delano's greatest achievement, where bison and other wildlife were legally protected. He was viewed as an effective first administrator of America's first national park. While in office, Delano was an outspoken supporter of black American rights and opponent of the Ku Klux Klan."
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