Ernest Whitworth Marland, known as E. W. Marland (May 8, 1874 – October 3, 1941), was an American lawyer, oil businessman in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and politician in Oklahoma. He was elected to the US Congress from northern Oklahoma in 1932 and as the tenth Governor of Oklahoma in 1934. As a Democrat, he initiated a "Little Deal" in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, working to relieve the distress of unemployed people in the state, and to build infrastructure as investment for the future.
Marland made fortunes in oil in Pennsylvania in the 1900s and in Oklahoma in the 1920s, and lost each in the volatility of the industry and the times. At the height of his wealth in the 1920s, Marland built a mansion known as the Palace of the Prairies in Ponca City, after introducing fox hunts (and red foxes) and polo games to the local elite society. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The Marland-Paris Mansion, his former home on Grand Avenue, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Marland and his first wife Virginia did not have any children. To share their wealth and help her sister Margaret Roberts and her family, in 1916 they adopted their two children, George and Lydie, who were then 19 and 16 years old. The Marlands sent them to private school and gave them other advantages. Two years after Virginia's death in 1926, Marland had Lydie's adoption annulled. He married Lydie Roberts that year, and she later accompanied him to Washington, DC and the governor's mansion.
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