William Claflin - Life and Career

Life and Career

Claflin was born in 1818 in Milford, Massachusetts. After some education at Brown University, Claflin returned to his father Lee Claflin's shoe manufacturing company. He opened his own boot and shoe manufacturing firm in St. Louis, but became a partner in the family's Massachusetts business five years later.

Claflin had a significant political career in Massachusetts. He was a founder of the Free Soil Party, served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1849–1853, and was elected to the Senate in 1859. By this time he had switched to the United States Republican Party and later served on its national committee. He became Senate President in 1861. After serving as Lieutenant Governor for Alexander Hamilton Bullock, Claflin was elected to the Governor's office in 1868.

While Governor, Claflin promoted women's suffrage and extended women greater rights under the law. During his administration, he advocated prison reform and established the state's first board of public health. Claflin also created the Massachusetts Indian Commission with social activists Wendell Phillips and Helen Hunt Jackson. In 1869, Claflin chartered Boston University, a Methodist institution, which his father co-founded. He served for three terms, each one year in length, but declined to run for a fourth.

Claflin returned to business and supported philanthropic activities. Along with his father, Claflin donated funds to purchase land for Claflin University, the historically black, Methodist university in South Carolina. The University was founded in 1869. Elected as a Republican, he later served two terms as a member of the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses (from March 4, 1877 to March 3, 1881). He died in 1905 in Newton, Massachusetts.