Background
Bartlett was born on April 20, 1904, in Seattle to Edward C. and Ida Florence (née Doverspike) Bartlett.
Bartlett was born on April 20, 1904, in Seattle to Edward C. and Ida Florence (née Doverspike) Bartlett.
He grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, and graduated from Fairbanks High School in 1922. An average student, Bartlett briefly attended the University of Washington, the University of Alaska, and the University of California at Los Angeles.
From 1924 to 1933 Bartlett worked as a reporter and editor for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. He also served as the Alaskan stringer for the New York Times during the early 1930's. On Aug. 14, 1930, Bartlett married Vide Marie Gaustad; they had two children. In 1933 Bartlett, a Democrat, was appointed secretary to Alaska's nonvoting delegate to the United States Congress. Feeling homesick for Alaska, he accepted an administrative position with the Federal Housing Administration in Juneau in 1934. He resigned from that position in 1936 to take over his parents' mining operation at Independence Creek.
After three difficult seasons, during which the mine produced low-grade ore, Bartlett gave up mining and the part-time jobs needed to support his family to accept the position as secretary of Alaska, an administrative position under the territorial governor. He held this office from 1939 until 1944, when he was elected Alaska's delegate to the United States Congress. He assumed his duties in Washington in early 1945 and served until 1959, lobbying effectively to obtain federal monies for the territory. Between 1945 and 1952 Bartlett authored sixty-one bills that were passed by Congress, more measures signed into law than could be claimed by any congressman then in office. While in Washington he had no hobbies, took no vacations, and became a workaholic. In addition to promoting various federal expenditures for Alaska, Bartlett worked in Congress to improve the health and housing of Alaska's Inuit population.
During the 1950's Bartlett labored tirelessly to gain statehood for Alaska. After numerous disappointments and delays, Congress passed the Alaska Statehood Act in 1958. On January 3, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the proclamation officially admitting Alaska as the forty-ninth state of the Union. It was a triumph for Bartlett, who had advocated statehood for many years. Bartlett and former territorial governor Ernest L. Gruening were elected United States senators from Alaska and began to serve in 1959. By virtue of a coin toss, Bartlett was designated the senior senator to serve a two-year term. He was reelected in 1960 and 1966. As senior senator, Bartlett was a loyal Democrat who largely supported the programs of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
In May 1964 President Johnson signed into law a Bartlett-sponsored bill that restricted foreign fishing in United States territorial waters and subjected violators to criminal penalties. Later Bartlett cosponsored a bill that in 1966 extended United States fishing rights to an area twelve miles from its coastline. He also supported a bill that promoted research and development of fish protein concentrate as a possible food source.
Bartlett and Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana were the first senators to call for a negotiated settlement in Vietnam. In March 1964 Bartlett maintained that a peaceful settlement in Vietnam was "neither passive nor surrender. It is more an attempt to combine active hope with cool realism. " He opposed extending the war into North Vietnam, arguing that an expansion of the conflict might lead to a major war. Although Bartlett voted for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964, he continued to criticize America's policy in Southeast Asia. He was among fifteen Democratic senators who sent a letter to President Johnson on January 27, 1966, asking for a continued pause in the bombing of North Vietnam.
heavy smoker and often a heavy drinker, Bartlett suffered a heart attack in 1966 and died in Cleveland in 1968, nine days after undergoing heart surgery. His biggest regret in life was being born outside the territory of Alaska.
Bartlett gained national prominence for his efforts to establish stricter regulations to reduce the levels of permissible radiation from medical and dental equipment and color televisions. In 1971, the state of Alaska commissioned Felix de Weldon to create a bronze statue of Bartlett which resides in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol. A substantial number of buildings, place names and more have been named after Bartlett in Alaska over the years. The most notable of these include Bartlett Regional Hospital (originally St. Ann's Hospital, and known for a time as Bartlett Memorial Hospital), the hospital serving Juneau, Alaska, as well as Bartlett High School in Anchorage and Bartlett Hall at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Bartlett described himself as "a liberal Democrat who is not remotely removed from a center position. " During his years in the Senate Bartlett was a strong supporter of the fishing and maritime industries, two enterprises that were important to Alaska. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, he advocated federal appropriations for both industries.
