Claude Ignatius Bakewell (August 9, 1912 – March 18, 1987) was an American lawyer,

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

from

Missouri's 11th congressional district The 11th congressional district of Missouri was a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives in Missouri from 1873 to 1963. List of members representing the district References * * Congressional Biographical Dir ...

, and U.S.

Postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

for

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

Early life and career

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Bakewell was one of the five children of Paul Bakewell, Jr. and Mary Morgan (née Fullerton) Bakewell. Mary Fullerton was reportedly "the richest girl" in St. Louis, daughter of Joseph Scott Fullerton and a grand-niece of

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ...

. His grandfather, Paul Bakewell, was a patent and trademark lawyer in the firm Bakewell & Church whose wife was a granddaughter of the first Missouri governor Alexander McNair. Claude Bakewell's great-grandfather was a Missouri judge, Robert Armytage Bakewell, who was married to Nancy de Laureal. Claude Bakewell graduated from

St. Louis University High School St. Louis University High School (SLUH) is an all-male Jesuit high school in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1818, it is the oldest secondary educational institution in the United States west of the Mississippi River, and one of the largest pri ...

and then in 1932 from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

. In 1935, he graduated from St. Louis University School of Law and became a lawyer in private practice. In the 25th Ward, he served as member of the board of aldermen of St. Louis, Missouri from 1941–45 and was chairman of the legislation committee. From 1944 to 1946, Bakewell served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

Congress

Bakewell sat on the

House Judiciary Committee The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, f ...

while serving. In 1952, Bakewell was one of three representatives who opposed bringing an unamended bill by Representatives Joseph Bryson and

Estes Kefauver Carey Estes Kefauver ( ; July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the U.S. Senate from 1949 until h ...

to the House floor. That bill would have required

royalty Royalty may refer to: * the mystique/prestige bestowed upon monarchs ** one or more monarchs, such as kings, queens, emperors, empresses, princes, princesses, etc. *** royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen-regnant, and sometimes h ...

fees for

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays a user-selected song from a self-contained media library. Traditional jukeboxes contain records, compact discs, or digital files, and allow user ...

es that played music on disks. Bakewell was the only Republican who signed the minority report of House Bill 4484, a

quitclaim Generally, a quitclaim is a formal renunciation of a legal claim against some other person, or of a right to land. A person who quitclaims renounces or relinquishes a claim to some legal right, or transfers a legal interest in land. Originally a c ...

bill regarding

tidelands Tidelands are the territory between the tide line of sea coasts and lands lying under the sea beyond the low-water limit of the tide, considered within the territorial waters of a nation. In the United States, the upper limit of tidelands is ...

, because he felt that it empowered Congress to remove the sovereignty of U.S. public lands rather than disposing of the lands themselves. Responding to an anti-segregation plan by the St. Louis Committee of Racial Equality by sending interracial dining groups to three mall restaurants, Bakewell wrote: "It appears utterly inconsistent that the department stores would welcome the patronage of a large segment of the population at all counters and in all departments but would arbitrarily exclude them from the dining facilities."

Electoral history

Bakewell was elected as a Republican to the

80th United States Congress The 80th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met ...

1946 1946 (Roman numerals, MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1946th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 946th year of the 2nd millennium, the 46th year of the 20th centur ...

Phyllis Schlafly Phyllis Stewart Schlafly (; born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart; August 15, 1924 – September 5, 2016) was an American attorney, conservative activist, and anti-feminist, who was nationally prominent in conservatism. She held paleoconservative soc ...

, conservative activist and founder of

Eagle Forum Eagle Forum is a conservative advocacy group in the United States founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972. Focused on social issues, it is socially conservative and describes itself as pro-family. Critics have described it as anti-feminist, an ...

, managed Bakewell's 1946 campaign. However, Bakewell lost his 1948 re-election bid to John B. Sullivan, a Democrat. Following the death of Sullivan, Bakewell was re-elected to the 11th district seat in a special election in March 1951. Bakewell linked his Democratic opponent Harry Schendel to the political machine dominated by

Morris Shenker Morris A. Shenker (January 10, 1907 – August 8, 1989) was an American lawyer best known for his connections to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa and Teamster funding of Las Vegas in the 1960s. Shenker was a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in St. Lo ...

and Larry Callanan; Democrats whom they backed usually won most elections. As it was the midst of the

Second Red Scare McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United S ...

, Bakewell also labeled Schendel a "stooge" of the political action committee of the

Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of Labor unions in the United States, unions that organized workers in industrial unionism, industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in ...

, a committee he considered "

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

-inspired." Bakewell won the election by 6,187 votes, and his victory was hailed as a defeat of an otherwise powerful political machine. However, Bakewell lost the regular 1952 election to Sullivan's widow,

Leonor K. Sullivan Leonor Kretzer Sullivan (August 21, 1902 – September 1, 1988) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Missouri. She was a Democrat and the first woman in Congress from Missouri. Biography Born Leonor Kretzer in St. Loui ...

. To date, he is the last Republican to represent a significant portion of St. Louis in the House.

After Congress

From 1958 to 1982, Bakewell was the

postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

for St. Louis. He died in

University City, Missouri University City (colloquially, U. City) is an inner-ring suburb of the city of St. Louis in St. Louis County, in the U.S. state of Missouri. The population was measured at 35,065 by the 2020 census. The city is one of the older suburbs in th ...

on March 18, 1987, aged 74, and was interred at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bakewell, Claude Ignatius 1912 births 1987 deaths Politicians from St. Louis Georgetown University alumni Members of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen Missouri lawyers Saint Louis University School of Law alumni United States Navy personnel of World War II Missouri postmasters Morgan family Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Missouri 20th-century American lawyers Catholics from Missouri American anti-communists 20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives