page_title: Huey Long
section_title: Childhood
hierarchical_section_title: Huey Long / Early life (1893–1915) / Childhood
caption_attribution_description: English: Huey Long as a traveling salesman c. 1910 - 1914
context_page_description: Huey Pierce Long Jr., byname "The Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. A populist member of the Democratic Party, he rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal from the left. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. Celebrated as a populist benefactor or conversely denounced as a fascistic demagogue, Long remains a controversial figure.
  Long was born in the poor north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and attending multiple colleges, Long entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a brief private legal career, in which he represented poor plaintiffs against corporations, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, Long often prosecuted large corporations, such as Standard Oil.
context_section_description: Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in the north-central part of Louisiana and the seat of Winn Parish. He was the son of Huey Pierce Long Sr. (1852–1937) and the former Caledonia Palestine Tison (1860–1913), and the seventh of the couple's nine surviving children. He would later claim that his heritage was a mixture of Dutch, English, French, Scottish, and Welsh. When he was young, Winn Parish was a deeply impoverished region whose residents, mostly modest Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise solidly Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the union: “Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?” In the 1890s it likewise was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs.
  The degree of poverty in Winn Parish was extreme, but was relatively wealthy compared to others in Louisiana. According to the 1930 census, one-fifth of white Louisianans were illiterate, with rates for black Louisianans being much higher because of underfunding of their education by racial discrimination. Having grown up in Winn Parish, Long absorbed all of the resentments of its people against the elite. While Long often told his followers that he came from the lowest possible social and economic stratum, Long's family were well-off compared to others in the largely destitute community of Winnfield. Although he later claimed to have been born in a log cabin, he was actually born in a "comfortable" farmhouse.
  For people of their time and socioeconomic standing, Long's parents were well-educated, and stressed often to their child the importance of learning. For many years, Long was home-schooled; he started attending local schools at about age 11. During his time in the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory. After growing bored with the required schoolwork, he eventually convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. When he was a student at Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow." The teachers at the school eventually learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school and its faculty's rules. Long continued to rebel, eventually writing and distributing a flyer that criticized both his teachers and the necessity of a recently state mandated twelfth grade. As a consequence, he was expelled in 1910. Long drafted a petition calling for the principal of Winnfield High School to be removed from his post. He convinced enough people in his town to sign it to gain the firing of the principal. Despite this success, Long never returned to high school, although he was awarded a diploma posthumously.
  In high school, Long proved himself to be a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). However, because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, he was unable to attend, as his family could not afford it. Long would later regret that he had been unable to pursue an education at LSU. Instead of trying to gain higher education, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural south.
caption: Long as a traveling salesman in the early 1910s
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