Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)

Creator: Tom O’Connell

Hubert Humphrey, c.1968.

Hubert H. Humphrey, a giant of Minnesota politics, was one of the most influential liberal leaders of the twentieth century. His political rise was meteoric, his impact on public policy historic. His support for the Vietnam War, however, cost him the office he most sought: president of the United States.

Born in Wallace, South Dakota, in 1911, Humphrey was deeply influenced by his public-spirited father and the daily hardships of farming and small-town life in the Upper Midwest. When the Great Depression struck, the young Humphrey interrupted his college education at the University of Minnesota to help his father run the family drug store.

The experience made a lasting impression. Looking back in 1971, Humphrey declared he learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than in all his years in college. Though he valued the educational benefits of his early years, in the late 1930s Humphrey had bigger things in mind. Returning to the University of Minnesota, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science, added a master’s degree from Louisiana State University, and returned to Minneapolis. There, he began an almost instantaneous political rise.

Minnesota was in a time of political transition. The state’s Farmer-Labor Party, a coalition of progressives, populists, and socialists, had dominated politics for much of the 1930s. By the 1940s, it was in decline. The smaller Democratic Party lacked the strength to compete with the Republicans. Humphrey—outgoing, a gifted (if notoriously long winded) speaker, and possessing a sharp political intelligence—soon developed a following. He wasted no time applying a lesson he had learned in political science class: power goes to those who seek it.

In 1944, Humphrey took two crucial steps toward the power he sought. First, he was elected mayor of Minneapolis. He brought a reformer’s zeal to the office, establishing the city’s first fair-employment commission and effectively challenging the city’s ingrained discrimination against Jews. But it was the merger of the Democrats and Farmer-Laborites, a move he actively supported, that created an organization strong enough to support Humphrey’s larger ambitions.

The seeds Humphrey sowed in 1944 were fully harvested in 1948. His impassioned address to the Democratic National Convention, broadcast on nation-wide radio, won broad liberal acclaim (and a walkout by segregationist delegates). “The time has arrived,” he famously declared, “for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of state’s rights and walk forthrightly in the bright sunshine of human rights.”

Back in Minnesota, the two wings of the DFL split over the emerging Cold War. A staunch anti-Communist, Humphrey supported an aggressive approach to the Soviet Union and repression of Communists at home. Emerging victorious from the internal battle with the Farmer-Laborites, Humphrey was elected to the U.S. Senate, soundly defeating Republican incumbent Joseph Ball.

It was in this campaign that Minnesotans first encountered Humphrey as the “happy warrior”—an irrepressible politician with a genuine love of people and an uncanny talent for remembering the names and circumstances of folks from Grand Marais to Blue Earth and every place in between.

Humphrey’s arrival in the Senate as a rising liberal star was initially greeted with hostility by the Democrats’ entrenched Southern bloc. In response, Humphrey accepted the guidance of the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson. He proved an adept student. He developed relationships across political parties and ideologies and—without sacrificing his core principles—learned how to use the system.

From the 1950s until his selection as Lyndon Johnson’s vice president in 1964, Humphrey’s marriage of liberal conviction and political know-how yielded legislation on issues ranging from food stamps, civil rights, and the Peace Corps to arms control and humanitarian foreign aid. Near the end of his career, a poll of one thousand congressional staff named him the most effective U.S. senator of the previous fifty years.

This remains his greatest legacy. In 1968, the fierce division over the Vietnam War cost him the presidency and the respect of a new generation of political activists. Re-elected twice to the Senate, Humphrey persisted, an unabashed liberal in an era of diminished belief in government. Humphrey died from pancreatic cancer in 1978, honored by world leaders and mourned by thousands of Minnesotans.

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O’Connell, Tom. "Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. https://www3.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/person/humphrey-hubert-h-1911-1978

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Bibliography

Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Delton, Jennifer A. Making Minnesota Liberal: Civil Rights and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

Eisele, Albert. Almost to the Presidency: A Biography of Two American Politicians. Blue Earth, MN: Piper Press, 1972.

Haynes, John. Dubious Alliance: The Making of Minnesota’s DFL Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Shields, James. Mr. Progressive: A Biography or Elmer A. Benson. Minneapolis: Dennison, 1972.

Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. St. Paul: Borealis Books, 2003.

Related Resources

Primary

Audiotape #15
The Politics of Joy: A Radio Remembrance of Hubert H. Humphrey [audio cassette; St. Paul: Minnesota Public Radio, 1988.]
Audiovisual Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Radio program examines Humphrey's life through his speeches and interviews with family, friends, and former colleagues.

Film #B-75
What Manner of Man. St. Louis : Shelby, Storck, and Co., Inc., [1968].Audiovisual Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Twenty-nine-minute film produced for Citizens for Humphrey–Muskie on behalf of the Humphrey campaign for the U.S. presidency. It documents the life of Hubert H. Humphrey: his boyhood; his years in public service as a U.S. senator from Minnesota; his terms as vice president of the United States; and his then-current campaign for president. It includes his views on civil rights and his relationship with his granddaughter Vicky, who was born with Down syndrome.

Hubert H. Humphrey papers, [1883?]–1982 (bulk 1940–1978)
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00720.xml
Description: Includes several series of files detailing various aspects of his life and career, including his service as Minneapolis mayor (1945–1948), his first tenure as United States senator from Minnesota (1949–1964), his service as vice president of the United States (1965–1968), and materials pertaining to his family and personal life and his 1968 presidential and 1970 senate campaigns.

Hubert H. Humphrey papers: speech text files, 1941–1978
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00442.xml
Description: Copies of Humphrey's speeches in varying formats, including notes, drafts, speaking texts, printed copies, press releases, and transcripts delivered at public appearances and events, including formal speaking engagements, trips, campaign appearances, conferences, seminars, testimonials, award ceremonies, and banquets. Also present in this file are texts or transcripts of interviews, Humphrey's radio broadcasts, and appearances on television news commentary programs, as well as related material.

Hubert H. Humphrey papers: sound recordings, 1945–1978
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/01098.xml
Description: Sound reels, discs, and cassettes of numerous speeches, remarks, addresses, and appearances by Hubert Humphrey. Some recordings made by other politicians and family are also included. Some of the recordings have been digitized; the finding aid links to the digital content.

Hubert H. Humphrey papers: uncataloged record series, audio-visual
Description: Film and video recordings of campaign ads, television appearances, and speeches, as well as components filmed for What Manner of Man and other projects. For an inventory of the collection, consult the notebook labeled, “Hubert Humphrey Collection: audio tapes, films, and video tapes #1” in the Minnesota Historical Society library’s reading room.

Hubert H. Humphrey papers: vice presidential speech research and miscellaneous files, 1949–1967 Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00995.xml
Description: Files of research and background materials kept by staff members John G. Stewart and John E. Rielly for use in preparing Humphrey's speeches. Included are files of speech miscellany kept by staff members Robert C. Jensen, Norman Sherman, and William Welsh. Also present are some speech and article drafts, notes, and correspondence that either were unidentified or have not been correlated with specific text or occasion files.

Muriel Humphrey papers, 1924–1982
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00721.xml
Description: The Muriel Humphrey papers detail various aspects of her life and career, including her personal and public activities as the wife of Hubert Humphrey during his years as U.S. vice president (1965–1968) and senator from Minnesota (1971–1978), particularly her work in relation to the rights of those with mental retardation and the completion of her husband's incomplete Senate term following his 1978 death (1977–1978).

Sound Disc 7-A
Hubert Humphrey Speaks to the People: Campaign of 1964. [United States: s.n.], 1964
Audiovisual Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Forty-minute recording prepared by the Humphrey for Vice-President Committee.

Secondary

Berman, Edgar. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York: G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979.

Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.

Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.

Engelmayer, Sheldon. Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream. London: Routledge, Kegan & Paul, 1978.

Garrettson, Charles L., III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Politics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.

Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

Manfred, Frederick. “Hubert Horatio Humphrey: a Memoir.” Minnesota History 46, no. 3 (Fall 1978): 86–101.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/46/v46i03p086-101.pdf

Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

Nathanson, Iric. "A New Gladiator in the Political Arena: Hubert Humphrey’s First Campaign for Mayor." Hennepin History 66, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 4–17.

Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948. New York: New American Library, 1968.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.

Sherrill, Robert. The Drugstore Liberal. New York: Grossman, 1968.

Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006.

Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999.

Web

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Humphrey, Hubert Horatio, Jr. (1911–1978).
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=h000953

United States Senate. Hubert H. Humphrey, 38th Vice President (1965–1969).
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Hubert_Humphrey.htm

Related Audio

MN90: Into The Bright Sunshine Of Human Rights | Details

MN90: Into The Bright Sunshine Of Human Rights

Segment on on the career of Hubert H. Humphrey from MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.

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https://ampers.org/mn-in-90-seconds/mn90-into-the-bright-sunshine-of-human-rights

Articles

Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)

Related Images

Black and white photograph of Jimmy Durante (back left) and Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey sing along with two unidentified men, 1946.

Black and white photograph of Hubert Humphrey reading comics on the radio, August 1946.

Black and white photograph of Hubert Humphrey riding the merry-go-round at the Minnesota State Fair, 1947.

Black and white photograph of a “Hubert Humphrey for mayor” campaign worker rides his Cushman scooter before the Minneapolis mayoral election, 1947.

Black and white photograph of Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey throws out the first pitch of a baseball game played by the Minneapolis Millers at Nicollet Park in Minneapolis on April 27, 1948.

Black and white photograph of Hubert Humphrey delivering a speech on civil rights at the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Black and white photograph of Hubert H. Humphrey reading from a pile of telegrams the day after winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, November 3, 1948.

Black and white photograph of Hubert H. Humphrey says goodbye to the Minneapolis Mayor's office after winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, November 30, 1948.

Color image of Vice Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey with President Lyndon Johnson on the way to a landslide victory, 1964.

Black and white photograph of Vice President Humphrey discussing the Vietnam War with President Johnson and military officials, c.1965.

Black and white photograph of Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, c. late 1960s.

Black and white photograph of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey campaigning for president, 1968.

Color image of a pin-back button used during Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign.

Color image of a lunch box created in support of Hubert H. Humphrey's 1968 presidential campaign.

Color image of an anti-war march held in Chicago just before the Democratic National Convention, August 10, 1968.

Color image of anti-war delegates oppose Humphrey’s nomination at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19640904,00.html

Vice President Hubert Humphrey with Lyndon Johnson

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Articles

Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)

More Information

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention_protest_activity#/media/File:19680810_20_Anti-War_March.jpg

Anti-war delegates opposing Humphrey’s nomination

Anti-war delegates oppose Humphrey’s nomination at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

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Bettmann/CORBIS

Articles

Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)

More Information

http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2014/02/delegates-protesting-vietnam-war-P.jpeg

Procession with Hubert Humphrey’s coffin

Color Guard officers carry the body of Hubert H. Humphrey down the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, January 16, 1978.

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Minnesota Historical Society

Articles

Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)
Minnesota Massacre (1978 election)

More Information

https://www.mnhs.org/search/collections/record/0d60184e-bc6e-4a1c-82e7-ee0f4bde7502

Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, 1924–1944

McCarthy, Eugene (1916–2005)

Norwegian Immigration to Minnesota

Macalester College

Minneapolis Aquatennial

Anti-Vietnam War Movement, 1963–1973

Politics in Minnesota

Mondale, Walter (1928–2021)

Rolvaag, Karl Fritjof (1913–1990)

1976 Presidential Election in Minnesota

Turning Point

Humphrey’s historic civil rights speech to the 1948 Democratic National Convention establishes him as a rising star in national liberal circles.

Chronology

1911

Hubert Horatio Humphrey is born in Wallace, South Dakota, on May 27.

1931

Pharmacist’s license in hand, Humphrey returns to South Dakota to help run his father’s drug store. He develops compassion for the struggles of people suffering during the Great Depression.

1942

Having earned a masters degree in political science, Humphrey moves to Minneapolis and begins his public career as an administrator in a variety of war-time agencies.

1944

Regarded as a rising star in Minnesota’s Democratic Party, Humphrey plays a key role in the merger that creates the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL).

1945

Humphrey is elected mayor of Minneapolis. He runs an energetic reform administration, creating policies to counter the discrimination of Jews and African Americans.

July 1948

In a nationally broadcast speech that makes him a hero to liberals and enrages Southern segregationists, Humphrey urges the Democratic Party to renounce segregation and adopt a strong civil rights platform.

November 1948

In a major victory for the Democratic wing of the new Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, Humphrey is elected to the U.S. Senate, winning a decisive victory over Republican Joseph Ball.

1949

Humphrey begins the first of three consecutive Senate terms, effectively championing liberal legislation on issues as arms control, humanitarian foreign aid, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, civil rights, and the Peace Corps.

1950–1954

Reflecting the anti-Communist sentiment of the time, Humphrey supports legislation to repress “subversives” and make membership in the Communist Party a felony.

1960

Humphrey runs an energetic campaign for the Democratic nomination for president but is handily defeated by John F. Kennedy.

1964

By now the most powerful liberal in the Senate, Humphrey is instrumental in the passage of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1964

As President Lyndon Johnson’s running mate, Humphrey is elected vice president in November. Though he supports Johnson’s war policies in public, he keeps silent about his personal doubts.

1968

In a Democratic Convention bitterly divided over the Vietnam War, Humphrey wins his party’s nomination. In the general election, he loses narrowly to Richard Nixon.

1971–1972

After a brief return to private life as a college teacher, Humphrey is reelected to the U.S. Senate. In his last serious run for the presidency, he loses the Democratic nomination to anti-war candidate Senator George McGovern.

1978

In his final legislative achievement, Humphrey wins passage of the Humphrey–Hawkins Full Employment Act, mandating the Federal Reserve Board to address unemployment in its decision-making process.

Bibliography

Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Delton, Jennifer A. Making Minnesota Liberal: Civil Rights and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

Eisele, Albert. Almost to the Presidency: A Biography of Two American Politicians. Blue Earth, MN: Piper Press, 1972.

Haynes, John. Dubious Alliance: The Making of Minnesota’s DFL Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Shields, James. Mr. Progressive: A Biography or Elmer A. Benson. Minneapolis: Dennison, 1972.

Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. St. Paul: Borealis Books, 2003.

Related Resources

Primary

Secondary

Berman, Edgar. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York: G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979.

Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.

Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003.

Engelmayer, Sheldon. Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream. London: Routledge, Kegan & Paul, 1978.

Garrettson, Charles L., III. Hubert H. Humphrey: The Politics of Joy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993.

Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

Manfred, Frederick. “Hubert Horatio Humphrey: a Memoir.” Minnesota History 46, no. 3 (Fall 1978): 86–101.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/46/v46i03p086-101.pdf

Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

Nathanson, Iric. "A New Gladiator in the Political Arena: Hubert Humphrey’s First Campaign for Mayor." Hennepin History 66, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 4–17.

Ross, Irwin. The Loneliest Campaign: The Truman Victory of 1948. New York: New American Library, 1968.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.

Sherrill, Robert. The Drugstore Liberal. New York: Grossman, 1968.

Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006.

Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999.

Web

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Humphrey, Hubert Horatio, Jr. (1911–1978).
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=h000953

United States Senate. Hubert H. Humphrey, 38th Vice President (1965–1969).
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Hubert_Humphrey.htm

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