RAINEY, Henry Thomas, a Representative
from Illinois; born in Carrollton, Greene County, Ill., on August 20, 1860;
attended the public schools and Knox Academy and Knox College, Galesburg, Ill.;
was graduated from Amherst (Mass.) College in 1883 and from the Union College of
Law, Chicago, Ill., in 1885; was admitted to the bar in 1885 and commenced
practice in Carrollton, Ill.; master in chancery for Greene County, Ill., from
1887 to 1895, when he resigned; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-eighth and to
the eight succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1903-March 3, 1921); unsuccessfully
contested the election of Guy L. Shaw to the Sixty-seventh Congress; engaged in
agricultural pursuits; elected to the Sixty-eighth and to the five succeeding
Congresses and served from March 4, 1923, until his death; majority leader
(Seventy-second Congress), Speaker of the House of Representatives
(Seventy-third Congress); died in St. Louis, Mo., on August 19, 1934; interment
in the Carrollton Cemetery, Carrollton, Ill.
Bibliography
DAB; Block, Marvin W. “Henry T. Rainey of Illinois.” Journal of
the Illinois State Historical Society 65 (Summer 1972): 142-57; Waller,
Robert A. Rainey of Illinois: A Political Biography, 1903-34. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1977.
-- Biographical
Data courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.