Claude Ignatius Bakewell was a lawyer, United States. Representative from Missouri"s 11th congressional district, and United States. Postmaster for Saint Louis, Missouri.
Background
Claude Bakewell"s grandfather Paul Bakewell was a patent and trademark lawyer in the firm Bakewell & Church whose wife was a granddaughter of the first Missouri governor Alexander McNair, and Claude"s great-grandfather was Missouri judge Robert Armytage Bakewell, who was married to Nancy de Laureal.
Education
Claude Bakewell graduated from Saint Louis University High School and then in 1932 from Georgetown University. In 1935, he graduated from Saint Louis University School of Law and became a lawyer in private practice.
Career
Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, Bakewell was one of the five children of Paul Bakewell, Junior. and Mary Morgan Fullerton Bakewell. When she was to be married to Paul, Mary was reportedly "the richest girl" in Saint Louis. She was also a grand-niece of J. P. Morgan.
From 1944 to 1946, Bakewell served in the United States Navy.
Bakewell sat on the House Judiciary Committee while serving. In 1952, Bakewell was one of three representatives who opposed bringing an unamended bill by Representatives Joseph Bryson and Estes Kefauver to the House floor.
That bill would have required royalty fees for jukeboxes that played music on disks. Bakewell was the only Republican who signed the minority report of House Bill 4484, a quitclaim bill regarding tidelands, because he felt that it empowered to remove the sovereignty of United States. public lands rather than disposing of the lands themselves.
Responding to an anti-segregation plan by the Saint Louis Committee of Racial Equality by sending interracial dining groups to three mall restaurants, Bakewell wrote: "lieutenant appears utterly inconsistent that the department stores would welcome the patronage of a large segment of the population at all counters and in all departments but would arbitrarily exclude them from the dining facilities." Bakewell was elected as a Republican to the 80th United States in 1946.
However, Bakewell lost his 1948 re-election bid to John B. Sullivan, a Democrat. Following the death of Sullivan, Bakewell was re-elected to the 11th district seat in a special election in March 1951. However, Bakewell lost the regular 1952 election to Sullivan"s widow, Leonor K. Sullivan.
To date, he is the last Republican to represent a significant portion of Saint Louis in the House.
From 1958 to 1982, Bakewell was the postmaster for Saint Louis. He died in University City, Missouri on March 18, 1987 and was interred at Calvary Cemetery in Saint
Membership
In the 25th Ward, he served as member of the board of aldermen of Saint Louis, Missouri from 1941 to 1945 and was chairman of the legislation committee.