Ernest Angell


Ernest Angell was an American lawyer and author who served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union for 19 years, from 1950 to 1969.

Early life

Angell was born in Cleveland on June 1, 1889, the son of Elgin Angell and Lily Angell. When he was 9 years old, his father was killed in the sinking of the SS La Bourgogne.
He graduated from Harvard College, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, in 1911 and from Harvard Law School in 1913. He received an LL.D. degree from Bard College in 1954.

Career

During World War I, Angell served as an infantry Captain in the American Expeditionary Force, a part of the U.S. Army, in Europe.
Beginning in 1920, he practiced corporation law in New York with Hardin, Hess, Eder & Freschi and Spence, Windels, Walser, Hotchkiss & Angell before joining the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a regional administrator for New York from April 1, 1936 to May 1, 1938, replacing Robert G. Page. He served as chairman of the National Economy League. Angell wrote a "short book on the Supreme Court", entitled Supreme Court Primer, and was the author of various magazine articles.
In 1941, he succeeded Charles Douglas Jackson as the second president of the Council for Democracy, which had been formed in 1940. In 1948, he was selected by the U.S. Civil Service Commission to be chairman of the Loyalty Board for the second region, covering New York and New Jersey.
From 1950 to 1969, Agnell succeeded Dr. John Haynes Holmes to serve as president of the American Civil Liberties Union. After his retirement in 1969, he was succeeded by Edward Ennis, who had been the general counsel of the ACLU since 1955.

Personal life

In 1915, he married his first wife Katharine Sergeant in Brookline, Massachusetts. Katharine, a Boston Brahmin, was a graduate of Miss Winsor's School and Bryn Mawr before becoming the fiction editor at The New Yorker. Before their divorce in 1929, they were the parents of:
After their divorce, his ex-wife remarried to writer E. B. White. In 1939, Angell remarried to Elizabeth Brosius Chapin, the former wife of Vinton Chapin, the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg. Before her death in 1970, they were the parents of two children together:
Angell died at 156 East 66th Street, his home in Manhattan, on January 11, 1973 at age 83, after suffering heart problems.