Nicholas Longworth IV

Nicholas Longworth was born on November 5, 1869, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the great-grandson of Nicholas Longworth, one of the wealthiest men in the United States by 1850 and a leading horticulturalist.

Longworth grew up in Cincinnati and attended the Franklin School, before he enrolled in Harvard University. Longworth graduated from this institution in 1891, and he immediately enrolled in the Harvard Law School. He left Harvard in 1892 and enrolled in the Cincinnati Law School, graduating with his law degree in 1894.

Longworth began to practice law in Cincinnati upon graduating, but he quickly embarked upon a political career as well. City voters elected Longworth to the board of education. At the urging of George Cox, the city boss of Cincinnati, Longworth successfully won election to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1898. He served in the House from 1899 to 1901. In 1900, voters elected Longworth to the Ohio Senate, a position that he held from 1901 to 1903.

In 1902, Longworth successfully won election to the United States House of Representatives from Ohio. He served from 1903 to 1913. During Longworth's first stint in the United States House of Representatives, on February 17, 1906, he married Alice Lee Roosevelt, President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter. The couple married in the White House. In 1912, Longworth failed to win reelection to the House of Representatives, but his absence from Congress was short-lived. In 1914, his district voters elected him back to the House of Representatives. Longworth remained in the House for the next sixteen years. From 1925 to 1931, he served as the Speaker of the House.

Longworth died on April 9, 1931, while on a trip in South Carolina.