March 19: Birthday of William Jennings Bryan (1860)
Prayer Idea
Pray for those who communicate with audiences through speeches, podcasts, and other media.
History Note
William Jennings Bryan was born in Salem, Illinois, in 1860. As a child, he enjoyed playing, reading books, and hunting rabbits. One of his chores was feeding the deer his father kept on the family farm. Bryan later said that the most pleasant memory of his childhood was of his mother, who taught him until he was ten years old.
Bryan went to college to become a lawyer. He graduated first in his class. At his graduation, he gave a speech about character. He told his audience: “The desire to seem, rather than to be, is one of the faults which our age, as well as other ages, must deplore.” In his life, Bryan tried to be a person of fine character rather than just seeming to be so.
Bryan married Mary Baird in 1884. She studied law so that she could be closer to her husband and help him in his career. They settled in Nebraska and had three children.
In 1890 Bryan ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Because of his talent for public speaking, people started calling him the Boy Orator of the Platte (the Platte is a river in Nebraska). He became a popular Chautauqua speaker, a movement that encouraged education and social interaction across the country.
In 1896 Bryan gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The speech, entitled “Cross of Gold,” is one of the most famous political speeches in American history. When Bryan finished, men and women screamed. They waved their hats and canes and threw their coats into the air. The applause lasted 30 minutes.
The Democratic Party nominated Bryan as their presidential candidate in 1896, 1900, and 1908. He lost each time. President Woodrow Wilson appointed Bryan to be secretary of state in 1913. He negotiated many treaties. However, since Bryan was a pacifist, he resigned when he believed that America was going to fight in the Great War.
In his later years, Bryan taught a Sunday School class that drew as many as 5,000 people. He wanted to encourage people in America to follow Jesus and trust the reliability of the Bible. In 1925 he participated in the trial of John Scopes in Dayton, Tennessee, which dealt with the teaching of evolution in public schools. Byran died a few days after the trial.
Five years after his death, a group called the Bryan Memorial Association founded Bryan College in Dayton. The first classes took place in the local high school. Bryan’s daughter Ruth followed in her father’s footsteps. She was elected to the House of Representatives from Florida. She became a Chautauqua lecturer and served as ambassador to Denmark.
William Jennings Bryan with two of his grandchildren (c. 1912). Photo by the Bain News Service, courtesy the Library of Congress.
Learn More
Listen to the words of William Jennings Bryan from a speech he gave in Indianapolis in 1900.
Find out more about William Jennings Bryan at Homeschool History.
