Image courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Audio/Visual Archives Collection, Photograph No. 60-9-68.

Abe Ribicoff

American, 1910 - 1998

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Abraham Alexander Ribicoff (b. April 9, 1910, New Britain, Connecticut-d. February 22, 1998, New York, New York) was a Representative and a Senator from Connecticut. Ribicoff graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1933 and was admitted to the bar the same year. He served as a member of the Connecticut legislature, 1938-1942; judge of Hartford Police Court 1941-1943, 1945-1947; chairman, assembly of municipal court judges for the State of Connecticut 1941-1942; member of the Charter Revision Commission of the city of Hartford 1945-1946; and hearing examiner, Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act, 1937-1939. Ribicoff was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses (January 3, 1949-January 3, 1953). He was the Governor of Connecticut 1955-1961, when he was sworn in as Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Cabinet of President John F. Kennedy. Ribicoff was elected to the United States Senate in 1962; reelected in 1968 and 1974 and served from January 3, 1963, to January 3, 1981. He served as chairman, Committee on Government Operations (Ninety-fourth and Ninety-fifth Congresses), Committee on Governmental Affairs (Ninety-fifth and Ninety-sixth Congresses).