Conover, Milton, 1890-1972

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Milton Conover: school teacher, 1909-1915; professor of political science and government, Indiana University, 1916-1917, University of Pennsylvania, 1919-1920, New York University, 1922-1924, Yale University, 1924-1935; Senatorial candidate of the Independent Republican Party, 1932; prohibitionist and temperance activist.

Milton Conover (1890-1972) was born near Swedesboro, New Jersey, on August 16, 1890, to Samuel Shull and Atlantic (Attie) Dean Moore Conover. He attended Montpelier Seminary in Vermont and was employed as a correspondent by the Boston Herald from 1908-1909. Conover then taught in the public schools of Swedesboro from 1909-1910.

Conover graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1913 and subsequently moved to Burlingame, California, where he taught at St. Mathews Episcopal School from 1913-1915. In 1916 Conover earned an M.A. from the University of Minnesota, where he studied political science. Later that year he was admitted to the Indiana bar and he studied as a fellow in the political science department at Indiana University from 1916-1917. Conover also served as a bill draftsman for the Indiana legislature in 1917.

Military service in World War I began with Conover's enlistment as a private with the Third New Jersey Infantry in 1917. He was promoted to corporal with the 104th Engineers and eventually achieved the rank of second lieutenant with the 42nd (Rainbow) Division during the Argonne drive. Conover also served as diplomatic courier to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace. This duty sent him to Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and Greece. Before returning to the United States Conover was a delegate to the Founder's Convention of the American Legion in Paris in 1919.

After the war Conover resumed his academic career and accepted positions at the University of Pennsylvania (1919-1920) and New York University (1920-1924). Conover also served as a staff member (1921-1922) and associate (1922-1932) of the Institute for Government Research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Additional activities included service as an editorial consultant for the Encyclopedia of Social Science and work on President Hoover's Commission on Social Trends. Conover also continued his own studies in the 1920s and 1930s. He did postgraduate work in politics at the University of Oxford, the University of Munich, and at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1924 Conover joined the political science department at Yale University as an instructor and from 1925-1930 he was an assistant professor. Conover was promoted to Associate Professor of Government in 1930, a position he held until his departure from the university in 1935. While at Yale Conover used his political expertise in a variety of ways.

Conover was an adamant believer in prohibition and in 1932 he joined with other alienated republicans to form the Independent Republican Party. The "Independents" or "Drys" were upset with the Republican Party's stand on the alcohol issue and they organized a slate of candidates for offices in Connecticut. Conover was the party's candidate for United States senator against the incumbent Republican Hiram Bingham and the Democratic nominee Augustine Lonergan. Newspaper accounts of the election reported political maneuvering by Republican Party officials and the attempt to prohibit the names of Independent candidates from appearing on election ballots became a serious campaign issue.

Conover tallied 10,621 votes, not nearly enough for victory. The total did insure the defeat of Hiram Bingham, however, as the incumbent lost to Lonergan by only 4,266 votes. The defeat of Bingham was a great solace to Conover and his supporters and they looked forward to the 1934 elections. The campaign thrust Conover into the forefront of the prohibition cause and he began to explore broader avenues of service to the prohibition movement. Conover assumed the presidency of the National Temperance and Prohibition Council (N.T.P.C.) in 1934 and investigated the feasibility of unifying temperance and prohibition forces across the nation. Tentative inquiries, often in the form of questionnaires, were made to state and national leaders in organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) and the American Anti-Saloon League. Conover's hope was to organize a national third party, preferably under the name he had selected as most appropriate for such an organization, the "Commonwealth Party". No unification was possible, however. The combination of the repeal of the eighteenth amendment late in 1933 and the elections of 1934 convinced Conover of this. His personal committment to prohibition did not waver, although his active participation in the movement seems to have ended in 1935.

Conover was not wanting for other interests to pursue. He served as president of the American Immigrant Institute of Connecticut from 1934-1935. This body grew out of the Americanization Committee of New Haven, which was affiliated with the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare.

The year 1935 marks a turning point in Conover's life. For reasons which are unknown. Conover left Yale in 1935, and he toured Germany, India, and Arabia from 1935-1937. From 1938-1939 Conover was a seminarian at Princeton and at Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in Philadelphia. In 1939-1940 Conover's travels included Alaska and the Strait of Magellan. Conover continued to travel throughout 1940-1942, as he observed "Negro self-government" in Haiti (1940-1941) and French and Indian communities in Canada (1941-1942).

Conover held research positions from 1942-1944, at Catholic University (1942-1943) and at the Middle American Research Institute in New Orleans (1943-1944). After a brief term engaged in legal practice in Chicago (1944-1945), Conover served as a law adjudicator in Newark, New Jersey, from 1946-1948. In 1948 Conover accepted the duties of seminarian in law at Columbia University, a position he maintained until 1953. He also lectured in finance at Rutgers University in 1949.

Conover held faculty appointments at Seton Hall University from 1947-1972. He was named associate professor of law in 1955, professor of law in 1960, and professor emeritus in 1968. Milton Conover died on May 6, 1972, and is buried in Swedesboro, New Jersey.

From the guide to the Milton Conover papers, 1898-1936, (Manuscripts and Archives)

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
creatorOf Milton Conover papers Yale University Library
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Abrahamson, Alfred. person
associatedWith Beard, Charles Austin, 1874-1948 person
associatedWith Blake, Edward Everett, 1875-1947 person
associatedWith Callahan, Patrick Henry. person
associatedWith Coleman, Nellie Scott. person
associatedWith Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pa.) corporateBody
associatedWith Dinwiddie, Edwin Courtland, 1867-1935 person
associatedWith Estelle, Helen G. H., b. 1887 person
associatedWith Hart, Albert Bushnell, 1854-1943 person
associatedWith Holmes, Howard L. person
associatedWith Howard, Clinton Norman, 1868- person
associatedWith Lévitt, Albert, 1887- person
associatedWith Lincoln, Allen Bennett, b. 1858 person
associatedWith Mendhall, Raymond E. person
associatedWith Pape, William Jamieson, 1873- person
associatedWith Republican Party (Conn.) corporateBody
associatedWith Russell, Howard Hyde, 1855-1946 person
associatedWith Shuler, Robert Pierce, b. 1880 person
associatedWith Smith, Ida B. Wise, 1871- person
associatedWith Stone, Nathan B. person
associatedWith Varney, William Frederick, 1884-1960 person
associatedWith Welles, Mary. person
associatedWith Yale University. Dept. of Political Science. corporateBody
associatedWith Yale University. Faculty. corporateBody
Place Name Admin Code Country
United States
Subject
Elections
Occupation
Educators
Activity

Person

Birth 1890

Death 1972

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