Profile · Watertown, Wisconsin
Joseph Edward Davies
U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and first FTC chairman; born and first practiced law in Watertown
$17,500
Joseph Edward Davies was the Watertown valedictorian who became the first chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and Franklin Roosevelt’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. He was born in Watertown on November 29, 1876, to Welsh wagon-maker Edward Davies, whose shop sat at 311 South First, and evangelist Rachel Davies, known in Wales as Rahel o Fôn. He learned his letters from his mother at home, then attended the public schools and carted Globe Mill flour for her kitchen. Senior year he caught typhoid and lost every hair on his head; classmates voted to wear mortarboards at commencement so he would not stand out. He was valedictorian of the class of 1894. At the University of Wisconsin he was freshman-class president, law-class president, and commencement orator in 1901. He opened rooms over the post office, spent four years as Jefferson County district attorney, and planted flower beds on South Second before leaving for Madison and Washington. Woodrow Wilson made him first FTC chairman in 1915–16. Roosevelt sent him to Moscow from 1936 to 1938; Mission to Moscow sold widely. He married Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1935, sat at Potsdam at Truman’s elbow, and kept sending money home, including five hundred dollars for the Octagon House porches in 1941 and the Joe Davies scholarships that still walk out of Watertown High. He died in Washington on May 9, 1958. Birth, raise, and first practice are Watertown; the diplomatic career was national.