Background
Curtis Guild was born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 2, 1860, the son of Curtis and Sarah Crocker (Cobb) Guild.
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Curtis Guild was born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 2, 1860, the son of Curtis and Sarah Crocker (Cobb) Guild.
Curtis Guild Jr. was educated at Miss Lewis’s School, in Roxbury, the Chauncy Hall School, and at Harvard College, where he graduated with highest honors in 1881. Curtis Guild Jr. had served as class orator as well as editor of the Crimson and the Lampoon.
Having been an officer in the Harvard Rifle Corps, in 1891 he joined Troop A of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia and was elected second lieutenant May 7, 1895.
In 1897 he was appointed to the staff of Governor Roger Wolcott with the rank of brigadier-general.
On the day after the blowing up of the Maine (Feb. 15, 1898), Guild filed his name as a volunteer in the expected war with Spain and was shortly sent by the Governor on a special mission to Washington to ascertain what was to be required of Massachusetts.
In April, after the declaration of war, he became adjutant of the 6th Cavalry, with the rank of first lieutenant, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel and inspector-general, VII Army Corps, later being made inspector-general of the Department of Havana.
In these capacities he inaugurated a system of weekly inspection reports, helped break up the “fever camp” at Miami, Florida, prepared camp sites at Savannah, Georgia, and reformed slaughter-house practices in Havana.
His record won him the commendation of the inspectorgeneral of the army and of the War Department.
Guild entered politics as president of the Republican State Convention in 1895. He was a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention of 1896, was made one of its vicepresidents, and was active in securing a gold plank in the platform. He was a campaign speaker in both 1896 and 1900 and was founder and first president of the Massachusetts Republican Club in 1901. He was elected, November 4, 1902, lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts on the ticket with John L. Bates.
In 1905 he was elected governor by a plurality of 22, 558 votes and was reelected for two additional terms.
As governor he interested himself in labor legislation, urged measures providing for the better sanitation and ventilation of factories, a hospital for the feeble-minded, and new laws for the insane.
It has been authoritatively stated that he initiated more legislation than any previous governor, and he unquestionably brought about many reforms.
In 1908 he received seventy-five votes for the Republican nomination for vicepresident.
In 1910 he was sent by appointment of President Taft as special ambassador to the Mexican Centennial, and, on July 21, 1911, as ambassador to Russia.
He retired to private life in 1913, after the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson.
He was one of the most efficient and popular governors in the history of Massachusetts. He initiated more legislation than any previous governor, and he unquestionably brought about many reforms. He was one of the most efficient and popular governors in the history of Massachusetts. In 1908 he was made a Grand Officer of the Crown of Italy in recognition of legislation effected by him for the protection of immigrants from fraudulent bankers, and in 1909 the University of Geneva, at its 350th Jubilee, gave him the degree of S. T. D. for “services in the promotion of public morality. ” He received the Grand Cordon of the Order of St. Alexander Nevski from the Czar of Russia. Also he was awarded for steps taken by Guild to minimize the swindling of Italian immigrants.
Guild was a Republican.
Guild was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Order of Foreign Wars, the Sons of the American Revolution, and was an occasional contributor to magazines.
He was an active Freemason and a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 1897 he became a compatriot of the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Curtis Guild Jr. had married, on June, 1892, Charlotte Howe Johnson, of Boston.
