page_title: George McGovern
section_title: Early years and early education
hierarchical_section_title: George McGovern / Early years and early education
caption_attribution_description: English: Street view of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 75001716
context_page_description: George Stanley McGovern was an American politician, historian, U.S. representative, U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election.
  McGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country's entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe from a base in Italy. Among the medals bestowed upon him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his badly damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he earned degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a PhD, and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was a successful candidate in 1962.
  As a senator, McGovern was an example of modern American liberalism. He became most known for his outspoken opposition to the growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He staged a brief nomination run in the 1968 presidential election as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F.
context_section_description: McGovern was born in the 600‑person farming community of Avon, South Dakota. His father, the Rev. Joseph C. McGovern, born in 1868, was pastor of the local Wesleyan Methodist Church there. Joseph – the son of an alcoholic who had immigrated from Ireland – had grown up in several states, working in coal mines from the age of nine and parentless from the age of thirteen. He had been a professional baseball player in the minor leagues, but had given it up due to his teammates' heavy drinking, gambling, and womanizing, and entered the seminary instead. George's mother was the former Frances McLean, born c. 1890 and initially raised in Ontario; her family had later moved to Calgary, Alberta, and then she came to South Dakota looking for work as a secretary. George was the second oldest of four children. Joseph McGovern's salary never reached $100 per month, and he often received compensation in the form of potatoes, cabbages, or other food items. Joseph and Frances McGovern were both firm Republicans, but were not politically active or doctrinaire.
  When George was about three years old, the family moved to Calgary for a while to be near Frances's ailing mother, and he formed memories of events such as the Calgary Stampede. When George was six, the family returned to the United States and moved to Mitchell, South Dakota, a community of 12,000. McGovern attended public schools there and was an average student. He was painfully shy as a child and was afraid to speak in class during first grade. His only reproachable behavior was going to see movies, which were among the worldly amusements forbidden to good Wesleyan Methodists. Otherwise he had a normal childhood marked by visits to the renowned Mitchell Corn Palace and what he later termed "a sense of belonging to a particular place and knowing your part in it." He would, however, long remember the Dust Bowl storms and grasshopper plagues that swept the prairie states during the Great Depression. The McGovern family lived on the edge of the poverty line for much of the 1920s and 1930s. Growing up so close to privation gave young George a lifelong sympathy for underpaid workers and struggling farmers. He was influenced by the currents of populism and agrarian unrest and by the "practical divinity" teachings of cleric John Wesley that sought to fight poverty, injustice, and ignorance.
  McGovern attended Mitchell High School, where he was a solid but unspectacular member of the track team. A turning point came when his tenth-grade English teacher recommended him to the debate team, where he became quite active. His high-school debate coach, a history teacher who capitalized on McGovern's interest in that subject, proved to be a great influence in his life, and McGovern spent many hours honing his meticulous, if colorless, forensic style. McGovern and his debating partner won events in his area and gained renown in a state where debating was passionately followed by the general public. Debate changed McGovern's life, giving him a chance to explore ideas to their logical end, broadening his perspective, and instilling a sense of personal and social confidence. He graduated in 1940 in the top ten percent of his class.
  McGovern enrolled at small Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell and became a star student there. He supplemented a forensic scholarship by working a variety of odd jobs. With World War II under way overseas and feeling insecure about his own courage, McGovern took flying lessons in an Aeronca aircraft and received a pilot's license through the government's Civilian Pilot Training Program. McGovern recalled: "Frankly, I was scared to death on that first solo flight. But when I walked away from it, I had an enormous feeling of satisfaction that I had taken the thing off the ground and landed it without tearing the wings off." In late 1940 or early 1941, McGovern had pre-marital sex with an acquaintance that resulted in her giving birth to a daughter during 1941, although this did not become public knowledge during his lifetime. In April 1941 McGovern began dating fellow s
caption: The Corn Palace, a longtime sight of McGovern's hometown of Mitchell, South Dakota
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