H. CARL ANDERSEN:

H[erman] Carl Andersen was born on January 27, 1897, the son of Charles Carl (1858-1940?) and Lorena Nielson (1868-1946). Charles C. Andersen emigrated from Denmark in the late 1870s and worked in the coal mines of Illinois, eventually becoming an assistant superintendent. He married Karen Lorena Nielson in 1889 and moved to New Castle, Washington, where H. Carl was born. In 1901 the family moved to a farm near Tyler, Minnesota. However, the elder Andersen returned to mining and became superintendent of a large coal mine owned by Northern Pacific Railway at Red Lodge, Montana, where H. Carl graduated from high school in 1913.

In 1916 H. Carl received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy where he spent a year and four months. While aboard the battleship "Wyoming" in 1917, a gun blast partially impaired his hearing and he was unable to qualify for further service. He spent the next seven years on the farm near Tyler. From 1926 to 1928 he was employed in the Muscle Shoals area of Alabama, where he married Martha Elder (1906- ) in May 1927.

They returned to the Tyler farm and in 1935 Andersen was elected from the twelfth district to the Minnesota House of Representatives. In 1938 he was elected a Republican representative to Congress from the seventh district. He represented that district continuously until 1962, when the seventh district became part of the first district and he lost the subsequent election. During his congressional service, Andersen became the ranking member of the agriculture subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee and also served on the Public Works and Atomic Energy committees.

Andersen had two sons: Charles Carl and Alfred Eugene. He died on July 28, 1978.

Biographical information was obtained from the papers and from the Minneapolis Tribune, July 28, 1978.

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The majority of the papers are from the 1950s and 1960s. The congressional materials are supplemented by some personal and family correspondence and miscellany.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. H. Carl Andersen Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples

Accession Information:

Accession number: 12,458

Processing Information:

Processed by: Bonnie Beatson Palmquist, March 1986; Deborah Kahn, May 2004

Catalog ID number: 990017151960104294

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The congressional correspondence is scattered, with the majority dating from the 1950s and 1960s. Issues relating to agricultural policy are the main theme throuughout his correspondence. Campaigns, other Congress members, his purchase of a home (1951), the governor of Guam (1952), support of the post office reclassification bill, tornado damage, and support for the National Guard armory project (1955) are other topics.

During the 1950s much of the correspondence (both general and subject-oriented) is concerned with the Soil Bank Act, flood control, and the Rural Electrification Administration. In the 1960s he was involved in the FBI's investigation of Billie Sol Estes because he had sold stock in a family-owned coal mine to Estes.

When the papers were received from Congressman and Mrs. H. Carl Andersen, many of the subject files were found to be incomplete. Correspondence from these files was interfiled into the series of chronologically arranged congressional correspondence. Consequently, while most of the congressional correspondence concerns his constituents, there is some business and personal correspondence in the series.

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Speeches delivered in person, on radio, and (later) television. The subjects generally concerned agriculture and attendant legislation; taxes and bureaucracy; public housing budgets; socialism (1950); the Brannan Plan (agriculture 1950); Korea (1950); the Rural Electrification Administration (1952-1962); conservation (1956); an alleged conflict of interest (guardianship of brother, 1957); and fiscal responsibility, seniority (1962), Billie Sol Estes (1962), and flood control. Many are campaign speeches relating to issues raised by his opponents and many are to various political groups. During World War II many had patriotic themes.

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The photographs relate to Andersen's congressional activities and to his family. The congressional photographs document events attended, places visited, and other official duties, as well as selected projects, subjects, speeches, and trips for which there are also specifically identified paper files.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Agriculture -- United States.

Nuclear weapons -- Testing.

Flood control -- Minnesota.

Soil conservation -- Minnesota.

Soil bank program.

Agriculture and state -- United States.

Persons:

Andersen family.

Estes, Billie Sol.

Organizations:

Coal, Inc. (Bellevue, Wash.).

Independent-Republicans of Minnesota.

United States. Rural Electrification Administration.

United States. Congress. House.

Places:

Minnesota -- Politics and government -- 1945-1980.

United States -- Politics and government -- 1945-1989.

Tyler (Minn.).

Document Types:

Campaign literature.

Photographs.

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