C. C. Young - Biography

Biography

Born in Lisbon, New Hampshire, Young moved to California at an early age, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1892. After his graduation, Young embarked on a career as a high school teacher, teaching in Santa Rosa from 1892 to 1893 and then at Lowell High School in San Francisco from 1893 to 1906, heading the school's English department. While at Lowell, Young actively participated in the National Education Association, attending and speaking at its conferences, including giving a speech entitled "The Use of a Library" at the association's conference in Los Angeles in 1899, arguing for greater cooperation between public schools and public libraries. Students at Lowell popularly nicknamed Young "C-Square," due to his initializing of his first and middle names, Clement Calhoun. In 1904, Young, along with Charles Mills Gayley, published The Principles and Progress of English Poetry. published and distributed by the Macmillan Company.

While teaching, he established his home in Berkeley, where he lived until his death, except for the years he served as governor.

Young was a close friend of realtor and conservationist Duncan McDuffie, and worked for Mason-McDuffie, a real estate general partnership based in Berkeley. Young would work or consult for Mason-McDuffie until 1944. He also helped McDuffie, who had served as president of the Save the Redwoods League and Sierra Club, establish the State Parks system upon his election as governor.

After his departure from Lowell in 1906, Young became involved in state politics. In 1908, he was elected to the California State Assembly for the district that included Berkeley. In the Assembly, Young became a political ally of Governor Hiram Johnson and quickly rose through the chamber's ranks, becoming Assembly Speaker in 1913. In the following year's legislative elections, Young was elected as a member of the Progressive Party. His flirtation with the party lasted for a single term before its dissolution in 1916 and he quickly returned to Republican ranks, though he remained sympathetic to the Progressive movement for much of the rest of his political career.

In the 1918 general elections, Young successfully won the race for Lieutenant Governor of California, a position to which he was re-elected in 1922. In the 1920 U.S. presidential election, Young was a member of the Electoral College.

By 1926, frustration within inner Republican ranks with the conservative governorship of Friend Richardson had reached its zenith. In the gubernatorial primary election, Progressives overcame conservative and corporate opposition to win the Republican nomination for Young, knocking Richardson out of the general election. In the general election campaign, Young earned vocal support from former governor Hiram Johnson and prominent banker Amadeo Giannini. Young won in a landslide, garnering 71.3 percent of the vote and crushing his rivals, who included Democrat Justus S. Wardell and Socialist author Upton Sinclair.