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Higher Office(s) Served: Senator

ROBERT DAVIS CAREY, the son of Governor and U.S. Senator Joseph M. Carey, was born in Cheyenne and graduated from the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and from Yale University. In 1912, he switched from the Republican to the Progressive Republican Party and was a delegate to the Progressive National Convention in 1916. He returned to the Republican Party, however, which nominated him for governor in 1918, an act that helped heal the rift between state Republicans and Progressives. As governor, he inaugurated a state highway system and established the first executive budget. He asked for--but was denied by the state legislature--an income tax and an eight-hour day for women. He is credited with reviving the State Board of Immigration to encourage settlement in Wyoming, and nearly ten million acres of land were secured under the Homestead Laws over the next decade. Carey was defeated for reelection in the Republican primary of 1922. However, he was elected U.S. Senator in 1930, a position in which he opposed President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, supported high protective tariffs, and favored less federal control over western lands. He was defeated for reelection to the Senate in the Democratic landslide of 1936.

Sources:

The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 29. New York: James T. White & Company.

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 4. Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.

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