Harry Streett Baldwin (August 21, 1894 – October 19, 1952) was a

U.S. Congressman 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 ...

who represented the second congressional district of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

from 1943 to 1947.

Early life

Harry Streett Baldwin was born on August 21, 1894, at the family farm in

Baldwin Baldwin may refer to: People * Baldwin (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Places Canada * Baldwin, York Regional Municipality, Ontario * Baldwin, Ontario, in Sudbury District * Baldwin's Mills, ...

Baltimore County, Maryland Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland. The county is part of the Central Maryland region of the state. Baltimore County partly surrounds but does not include the independent cit ...

. His father was a farmer and a canner. He attended a one-room schoolhouse. Baldwin graduated

Towson High School Towson High School is a high school#United States of America, high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, founded in 1873. The school's current stone structure was built in 1949. Located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson, ...

in 1912. He attended the

Maryland Agricultural College The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Universi ...

, but left school after his father died from an accident at the cannery. He was a descendant of Lieutenant Colonel

John Streett John Streett (1762 – 1836/1837) was an American politician and military officer from Maryland. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates, representing Harford County from 1799 to 1800 and from 1805 to 1812. He served as a lieutenant colone ...

Career

Baldwin ran dairy farms for seven years before turning to

truck farming A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to so ...

. He then specialized in farming

green bean Green beans are young, unripe fruits of various cultivars of the common bean ('' Phaseolus vulgaris''), although immature or young pods of the runner bean ('' Phaseolus coccineus''), yardlong bean ( ''Vigna unguiculata'' subsp. ''sesquipedali ...

s. He turned to politics after getting involved locally in the 1928 presidential campaign of

Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was the 42nd governor of New York, serving from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1923 to 1928. He was the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party's presidential nominee in the 1 ...

, and the local Democratic headquarters considering him as a candidate for the

Maryland House of Delegates The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. It consists of 141 delegates elected from 47 districts. The House of Delegates Chamber is in the Maryland State House ...

. He represented Baltimore County's 11th district in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1931 to 1935. Baldwin served on Baltimore County's Board of County Commissioners from 1934 to 1942. He led a reform drive to modernize the police department, fire, sewage, garbage disposal, and purchasing operations in the county. Opposition in the board to his reform plan led him to run for president of the board in 1938. His campaign was successful and he served as president from 1938 to 1942. Baldwin was elected as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (Cyprus) (DCY) **Democratic Part ...

to the Seventy-eighth and

79th United States Congress The 79th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 19 ...

, serving from January 3, 1943, to January 3, 1947. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1946, but was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Maryland gubernatorial nomination against Preston Lane and Millard Tawes in the 1946 election. After his tenure in Congress, he resumed agricultural pursuits, and was again elected to the board of county commissioners in 1950 and was serving as chairman at the time of death.

Personal life

Baldwin married Mary Virginia Smith of Sunnybrook, Maryland in 1916. Together, they had four sons and one daughter: * Harry Wallace Baldwin - fighter pilot and Lieutenant, shot down during the

Tunisian campaign The Tunisian campaign (also known as the battle of Tunisia) was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces from 17 November 1942 to 13 May 1943. Th ...

* John Streett Baldwin - died in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

during a test flight of a

B-29 The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined Propeller (aeronautics), propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to ...

* Maurice W. Baldwin * William S. Baldwin * Mrs. Robert H. Price

Death

Baldwin suffered an

intracerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into Intraparenchymal hemorrhage, the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its Intraventricular hemorrhage, ventricles, or into both. An ICH is ...

on October 9, 1952, at his home in Hydes. He died shortly after on October 19, 1952, at

Union Memorial Hospital MedStar Union Memorial Hospital is a non-profit, acute care teaching hospital located in the North Central section of Baltimore, Maryland. The hospital is a member of MedStar Health, a community-based network of Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area ho ...

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

. He is interred in Chestnut Grove Cemetery of

Jacksonville, Maryland Phoenix is an unincorporated community located in Baltimore County in the State of Maryland, United States. It is located at latitude 39°30'59" North, longitude 76°36'59" West. The United States Postal Service has assigned Phoenix the ZIP code ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Harry Streett 1894 births 1952 deaths Politicians from Baltimore County, Maryland Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Maryland Democratic Party members of the Maryland House of Delegates County commissioners in Maryland 20th-century members of the Maryland General Assembly 20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives