John Wingate Weeks

JOHN WINGATE WEEKS was born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, on 11 April 1860; attended local schools and as a teenager taught school for a year; graduated from the United States Naval Academy, 1881; served as a midshipman in the Navy, 1881–1883; married Martha Sinclair, 1885; was assistant land commissioner of the Florida Southern Railway, 1886–1888; moved to Boston to enter the banking and brokerage business; became a partner in the firm of Hornblower and Weeks, 1888–1912; served with the Massachusetts naval militia on coastal patrol during the Spanish American War; retired from the naval reserve as a rear admiral, 1900; was elected alderman of his hometown of Newton, Massachusetts, 1900–1902; was mayor of Newton, 1903–1904; served as chairman of the state Republican convention, 1905; served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1905–1913; was appointed by the state legislature to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Winthrop M. Crane, and served from 1913 to 1919; was a member of the military affairs committee; was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, 1916; served as Secretary of War, 5 March 1921–13 October 1925; supervised the final transition from a wartime to a peacetime footing; established the Army Industrial College at Ft. McNair, 1923; appeared before Congress to defend the adequacy of U.S. air defenses against charges advanced by General Billy Mitchell; urged congressional authorization for special promotions of outstanding officers, not to exceed two percent of the number promoted on the basis of seniority; resigned the Army secretaryship because of ill health, 1925; died at Mount Prospect, Lancaster, New Hampshire, on 12 July 1926.


The Artist

Arthur Merton Hazard (1872–1930) was born in North Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He studied initially at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Cowles Art School in Boston before going to Europe to study under a number of leading instructors in Paris. He was best known for his war pictures which are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art and the American Red Cross in Washington, Temple Israel in Boston, and the Canadian Houses of Parliament in Ottawa. Hazard, who made his home in Hollywood, California, died while on a visit to France. He painted Secretary Weeks in the brief interval between the Army official’s resignation and his death.

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Portrait, John Wingate Weeks

JOHN WINGATE WEEKS
Harding and Coolidge Administrations
By Arthur Merton Hazard
Oil on canvas, 41˝" x 32˝", 1926


page created 6 March 2001


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