Nicholas Longworth

Ohio Republican Speaker of the 1920s whose name is on the Longworth House Office Building.

Overview

Longworth represented Cincinnati in the House for most of the period from 1903 to 1931 and in 1906 married Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, in a White House wedding. Rising through the party as majority leader, he became Speaker in 1925 and worked to restore the authority the office had lost after the revolt against Joseph Cannon, disciplining progressive Republicans who had backed Robert La Follette's third-party run in 1924. Genial and witty, he cultivated cross-party friendships, including with Democrat John Nance Garner. He died in 1931, and the second House office building was later named in his honor.