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Notable people · Mayor · Secretary

Newton D. Baker

Born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, Baker was Cleveland mayor 1912-1915 and Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of War 1916-1921. He died in Shaker Heights and is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Newton D. Baker
Harris & Ewing, photographer, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
1871-12-03
Died
1937-12-25
Education
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, to 1892, BA
Washington and Lee University School of Law, Lexington, VA, to 1894, LLB
Known as
Mayor, Secretary
Organizations
War Department

Life story

Newton Baker was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, the son of a physician who had served in the Confederate cavalry. He studied at Johns Hopkins and Washington and Lee law school.

He came to Cleveland in 1899 as a lawyer, then served as city solicitor under Mayor Tom Johnson (1901-1909), before being elected mayor himself in 1912.

President Wilson named him Secretary of War in March 1916, at age 44 the youngest member of the cabinet; he oversaw the US army through World War I.

Back in Cleveland he built a law practice (BakerHostetler traces to 1916) and argued for the League of Nations. He died in Shaker Heights on Christmas Day 1937.

Timeline

  • 1899-01: Junior partner in a Cleveland law firm (Cleveland, OH) source
  • 1901: Became Cleveland city solicitor (Cleveland, OH) source
  • 1912-01-01: Took office as mayor of Cleveland (Cleveland, OH) source
  • 1916-03-09: Appointed U.S. Secretary of War (Washington, DC) source
  • 1917-04: U.S. entered World War I (Washington, DC) source
  • 1924: Led the League of Nations fight at the Democratic convention (New York, NY) source
  • 1928: Named to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague) source
  • 1937-12-25: Died of a cerebral hemorrhage (Shaker Heights, OH) source

What Newton is known for

  • Mayor of Cleveland 1912-1915
  • Secretary of War 1916-1921
  • Frontiers of Freedom (1918)
  • War in the Modern World (1935 pamphlet)
  • Law firm BakerHostetler (1916)

Honors and things named for them

  • SS Newton D. Baker (Liberty ship)
  • Newton D. Baker School of Arts, Cleveland
  • Baker Hall, Ohio State University (1940)
  • Newton D. Baker House, Georgetown, WV (NRHP)

Family

  • spouse: Elizabeth Leopold Baker
  • son: Newton D. Baker III

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where Newton D. Baker was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

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