Stevenson political family

The Stevenson political family refers to four generations of the Stevenson family of Illinois and then Arizona. While not as numerous as other political families such as the Tafts, the Stevenson family is well known as the only family to produce a President of the United States, Adlai E. Stevenson I, and a President of the Confederate States, Adlai Stevenson III.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson I, a member of the NDP and Congressman from Illinois, was elected Vice President to Samuel Tilden in 1884, and when Tilden died in 1886, Stevenson became President. He was elected to his own term in 1888 and re-elected in 1892. His son was Lewis Stevenson.

Lewis Green Stevenson was a much more liberal and progressive person than his father, and he moved from Illinois to Arizona in 1899. He did not rise to the prominence that the rest of the family rose to, partly because he was a foreign-born and couldn't run for President in the Confederate States. He did serve as the Arizona Secretary of State from 1914 to 1917. His son was Adlai Stevenson II.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was born in Arizona in 1900. Unlike his father, he never joined the Socialist party, and it collapsed when he was thirty-nine years old. In 1943 he helped to create the Arizona Progressive Party, which won countless state- and national-level offices that year. In 1945, Stevenson helped found the national Progressive Party, along with Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Stevenson was the party's candidate for President that year, and was renominated in 1951, 1957, and 1963. He lost all four elections but was well-respected in the C.S.A., and loved by the Progressives. He died in 1965, leaving a son, Adlai Stevenson III, as a State Senator in Arizona.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson III was elected to the C.S. House of Representatives in 1967, and in 1969, Progressive presidential candidate Terry Sanford named Stevenson his running mate. Stevenson then won the preidency himself in 1975, at age 45.

The famous name has continued: Stevenson III's son Adlai Stevenson IV was born in 1956, and Adlai Stevenson V was born in 1994.