Scholarship
James Gillespie Blaine (American National Biography)
Allan Burton Spetter, "Blaine, James Gillespie," American National Biography Online, February 2000,http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00072.html.
In 1854 Blaine moved to Maine, where he became a newspaper editor and, in the political turmoil of the 1850s, served as one of the "founding fathers" of the new Republican party. More than any other political figure of his time, Blaine seemed to symbolize the success--and occasional failure--of the Republican party in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century. He launched his political career in 1858, winning a seat in the state legislature, and became chair of the Republican State Committee in 1859. He chose, as many others did, to hire a substitute when drafted for the Civil War.
West Brownsville, PA
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Augusta, ME
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James Gillespie Blaine (Congressional Biographical Directory)
Reference
“Blaine, James Gillespie,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000519.
BLAINE, James Gillespie, a Representative and a Senator from Maine; born in West Brownsville, Washington County, Pa., January 31, 1830; graduated from Washington College, Washington, Pa., in 1847; taught at the Western Military Institute, Blue Lick Springs, Ky.; returned to Pennsylvania; studied law; taught at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind in Philadelphia 1852-1854; moved in 1854 to Maine, where he edited the Portland Advertiser and the Kennebec Journal; member, State house of representatives 1859-1862, serving the last two years as speaker; elected as a Repu