Biography
Born in Joplin, Missouri, Porter's family moved to Winchester, Kentucky when he was very young. He graduated from Kentucky Wesleyan College and attained a LL.B. from the University of Kentucky College of Law. While in law school, he worked as city editor for the Lexington Herald. Fresh from law school, he joined the law firm of Judge J.M. Banton, where he was assigned to work on the Al Smith presidential campaign in Clark County, where he lived. After the election, he joined General Newspapers, where he worked on acquisitions. He was married to Bessie Edgar Banton, a friend from childhood and the daughter of J.M. Banton; they had two children. The couple divorced in 1956, and Porter later married Kathleen Winsor.
Porter served as the Democratic National Committee's head of publicity for the party's successful 1944 election campaign, which saw Democrats increase their majority in the House of Representatives and the reelection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Prior to his work for the Democratic Party, Porter had held a number of jobs in the Roosevelt administration, starting with the Department of Agriculture, from 1933 to 1937. He left the government to work as Washington counsel for CBS, taking leave in 1940 to join the National Defense Council. In 1942, Porter left CBS to join the Office of Price Administration as deputy administrator, and then assistant director of the Office of Economic Stabilization under Fred M. Vinson.
Read more about this topic: Paul A. Porter
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)