Background
Homer Earl Capehart was born on June 6, 1897 on a farm near Algiers, Indiana, United States; one of three children of Alvin Thomas Capehart and Susan Kelso. His father, a farmer, had briefly been a cowboy in Colorado.
Homer Earl Capehart was born on June 6, 1897 on a farm near Algiers, Indiana, United States; one of three children of Alvin Thomas Capehart and Susan Kelso. His father, a farmer, had briefly been a cowboy in Colorado.
Although most of Homer's school years were spent in Indiana, Capehart graduated in 1916 from high school in Polo, Illinois, where his family had moved in 1915.
After high school Capehart worked at various jobs in Wisconsin and Indiana before enlisting in the United States Army in April 1917. At posts in Missouri, Arizona, California, and Washington, he became aware of the opportunities that the wider world offered. He was discharged with the rank of sergeant in1919. Upon returning to civilian life, Capehart worked as a cook in Rockford, Illinois, and then as a demonstrator of electric milking machines, but soon entered the world of salesmanship. His first sales job was with the J. I. Case firm of Racine, Wisconsin, selling a new-model tractor. Organizing plowing and tractor-pull contests against other makes of tractors, Capehart became the top Case salesman in his Nebraska territory. After the farm depression of 1921-1922 caused farm-equipment sales to nosedive, Capehart sold commercial popcorn machines for a company called Holcomb and Hoke out of Indianapolis, then had brief stints in advertising and hardware. By the mid-1920's, he had rejoined Holcomb and Hoke, first as regional sales manager working out of Minneapolis and then as general sales manager supervising 325 employees. In 1927 he returned to Indiana to launch the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corporation, which manufactured and sold what soon were known as jukeboxes.
In a decade after enlisting in the army, the former Hoosier farm boy, at five feet, eleven inches tall, weighing some two hundred pounds, and sporting an ever-present cigar, was an unquestioned business success and a recognized sales expert. Sales for his firm grew rapidly, but as the 1930's dawned, the corporation lost money, probably because Capehart shifted his market from commercial coin-operated machines to the home phonograph market and did not reduce prices as the depression deepened. In 1932, dismissed by his board of directors, Capehart was nearly bankrup. Undaunted, he soon joined forces with the Wurlitzer Company, a musical instrument firm, and moved to the firm's North Tonawanda, New York, headquarters. Capehart persuaded Wurlitzer to convert its phonograph to a coin-operated version. The resulting Wurlitzer jukebox quickly became a staple of American life. While the economy in general remained stagnant for several years, Wurlitzer, with Capehart's leadership, saw increasing profits throughout the 1930's. By 1940, Capehart had returned to Indiana to revive the Packard Manufacturing Corporation, formerly the Packard iano Company, which he had bought in 1932, and to pursue a political career. Although his focus was still on jukeboxes, he anticipated the coming demand for war production. In 1941 the firm began to produce cartridge slides for army carbines, tank battery boxes, and slip rings for tank and bomber turrets. Meanwhile, Capehart had begun to buy Indiana farmland, eventually owning more than 2, 500 acres. This asset became an important source of income and facilitated his entrance into politics. It also enabled him to host one of the most unusual events in American political history, the 1938 Cornfield Conference. Although his family had traditionally supported Democrats, by the mid-1930's, Capehart had aligned himself with the Republican party, which was staggering under its 1936 defeat. Following his usual marketing flair, he invited some ten thousand Republican officials, primarily from Indiana but many from across the nation, to a rally on an alfalfa field of his southern Indiana farm. Dozens of open tents, including one that would seat all in attendance, were erected to prepare and serve meals and accommodate the media. The conference, with its county-fair atmosphere, invigorated Republican forces and tabbed Capehart as a rising star in the party. Capehart became a sought-after speaker for Republican events and the focus of widespread speculation about his future leadership role in politics. He even enjoyed a brief flurry of support for the party's 1940 presidential nomination. After the 1940 election, he was selected Republican party chairman for his congressional district. With his customary energy he traveled throughout the district, drumming up support for Republican candidates. The Republican party began a comeback in the midterm elections in November 1940, nearly doubling its numbers in the House of Representatives and gaining a 50 percent increase in the Senate. The resurgence was especially marked in Indiana, which voted Republican in the election for president, after having voted Democratic in 1932 and 1936. In 1942, Republicans swept the Indiana congressional delegation and gained control of both chambers of the state legislature. As 1944 approached, Capehart announced he would seek a Senate seat that year. After a bitter contest for his party's nomination, he defeated Governor Henry Shricker by fewer than 22, 000 votes, trailing the other Republican candidates for major office. Capehart established the style he pursued in every campaign, traveling statewide, making several speeches a day. In 1950 he defeated Assistant United States Attorney General Alexander Campbell by more than 100, 000 votes, and more than doubled that margin in 1956 in defeating former secretary of agriculture Claude R. Wickard. In Congress, Capehart was identified with the Republican faction led by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.
But Capehart's links to McCarthy's ultraconservative point of view were never as close as those of his fellow Hoosier William E. Jenner. After 1953, Capehart aligned himself with the moderate wing of the party led by President Dwight Eisenhower, but he never denounced McCarthy and was critical of Eisenhower's foreign policy in the late 1950's. He endorsed housing legislation to aid middle-income home buyers and military families, and, after joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1953, he became an enthusiastic spokesman for trade with Latin America, where he traveled extensively. Capehart's defeat by less than 11, 000 votes in 1962 to the youthful Birch Bayh maintained Indiana's tradition of not letting its senators serve more than eighteen years. Never expressing any bitterness over his loss of office, Capehart moved to Indianapolis, where he headed a family business devoted to real estate and farming, and where he died and was buried.
After serving in the United States Army during World War I, he became involved in sales and launched the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corporation, which manufactured and sold jukeboxes. His name is also connected with the Packard Manufacturing Corporation. He is honored (along with Indiana Senator Sherman Minton) in the Minton-Capehart Federal Building near the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza in downtown Indianapolis. His name is also memorialized in the Capehart Room in the Old Dorm Block of Reed College, which once contained a record player that Capehart had donated to the college.
Although his family had traditionally supported Democrats, by the mid-1930's, Capehart had aligned himself with the Republican party.
He was elected as a Senator from Indiana to the United States Senate.
In 1929 he married Irma Mueller, a schoolteacher of Wrightstown, Wisconsin; the couple had two children.
