Clinton P. Anderson Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Clinton P. Anderson (1895-1975, born in Centerville, South Dakota) was an American politician who served as a Congressman (1941-1945) and a Senator (1949-1975) from New Mexico and as Secretary of Agriculture under President Harry S. Truman (1945-1948). As a Senator, Anderson was a vocal supporter of the United States' space program and, as Chair of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences from 1963 to 1973, was important in funding NASA. His road to Washington was a winding and tortuous one. He had to leave college in 1916, after his father broke his back, to support his family. He worked as a newspaper reporter until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1917. Anderson was sent to a New Mexico sanitarium to recover and, after leaving in 1919, got a job as a reporter there. Unhappy with the Republican Party there, he befriended several state Democrats and, in 1919, began his political career as Executive Secretary to the state Public Health Association. After a brief stint in business, he returned to the public sector in 1928 as Chairman of the New Mexico State Party, and in 1933, the first of many state positions.