Newt Gingrich - Early Life, Family, and Education

Early Life, Family, and Education

Newton Leroy McPherson was born at the Harrisburg Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 1943. His mother, Kathleen "Kit" McPherson (née Daugherty; 1925–2003), and father, Newton Searles McPherson (1923–1970), married in September 1942, when she was 16 and McPherson was 19. The marriage fell apart within days. He is of German, English, Scottish, and Irish descent.

In 1946, his mother married Army officer Robert Gingrich (1925–1996), who adopted Newt. His father, a career officer, served tours in Korea and Vietnam. In 1956 the family moved to Europe living for a period in Orleans, France and Stuttgart, Germany.

Gingrich has three younger half-sisters, Candace Gingrich-Jones, Susan Gingrich, and Roberta Brown Gingrich was raised in Hummelstown (near Harrisburg) and on military bases where Robert Gingrich was stationed. The family's religion was Lutheranism. He also has a half-sister and half-brother, Randy McPherson, from his father's side. In 1960 the family moved to Georgia at Fort Benning during his junior year in high school.

In 1961, Gingrich graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia. He had been interested in politics since his teen years while living in Orléans, France, where he visited the site of the Battle of Verdun and learned about the sacrifices made there and the importance of political leadership. Choosing to obtain deferments granted to college students and fathers, Gingrich did not enlist in the military, and was not drafted during the Vietnam War. He expressed some regret about that decision in 1985, saying, "Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over."

Gingrich received a B.A. degree in history from Emory University in Atlanta in 1965. He then proceeded to earn an M.A. (1968) and PhD (1971) in modern European history, both from Tulane University in New Orleans. He spent six months in Brussels in 1969–70 working on his dissertation, "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945–1960". In 1970, Gingrich joined the history department at West Georgia College as an assistant professor. In 1974 he moved to the geography department and was instrumental in establishing an interdisciplinary environmental studies program. Denied tenure, he left the college in 1978.