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Office of the Attorney General

Attorneys General of the U.S., 1789 - Present
FRANCIS BEVERLY BIDDLE
Fifty-Eighth Attorney General 1941-1945

Portrait of Francis Biddle
Artist: George Biddle
BIDDLE was born in Paris, France, on May 9, 1886. He earned his B.A. degree from Harvard in 1909 and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1911. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1912, and to practice before the Supreme Court in 1927. From 1922 to 1926 he was special assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He served as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in 1934 through 1935 and from 1938 through 1939 was Class C director and deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. Also from 1938 to 1939 he was chief counsel of the special joint congressional committee to investigate the Tennessee Valley Authority. Biddle was judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, from 1939 to 1940. From 1940 to 1941 he was Solicitor General of the United States. President Roosevelt appointed Biddle Attorney General of the United States on September 5, 1941, and he remained in that office until June 30, 1945. At one time he was private secretary to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and wrote Mr. Justice Holmes as a result of this experience. He was a prolific author, principally on legal themes. He died on October 4, 1968, at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

About the Artist: George Biddle (1885-1973)

The artist was born in Philadelphia. He studied at the Julian Academy in Paris, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Among his works, in addition to the portrait of his brother, is a five panel mural on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice Building.



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