Kenneth F. Simpson

Who was Kenneth F. Simpson?

Kenneth Farrand Simpson was a one-term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. He was elected in November 1940 and died of a heart attack on January 25, 1941 after having served less than a month in office.

Simpson was born in New York City. He graduated from Yale University in 1917, where he was an initiate into Skull and Bones, and Harvard Law School in 1922. He served in World War I. He was a delegate to the 1936 Republican National Convention and the 1940 Republican National Convention. He was elected to Congress in 1940 and served from January 3, 1941 until his death in New York City.

Simpson was the son of Dr. William Kelly Simpson, a noted ear nose and throat specialist in New York City and Professor at Columbia University. Dr. Simpson's connections opened doors for his Scotts Irish son who was graduated from the Hill School. Simpson went on to Yale where he was named editor of the Yale Daily News and was then the "last man tapped" for a secretive fraternity of note . Simpson served in the Allied Expeditionary Force as a captain and was decorated by the French government for his service. Simpson also assisted the French after the war in seeking return of art and other assets taken by the Germans during hostilities. Simpson's passions, first for politics, included the worlds of contemporary arts & culture. He was active in the ex-pat art world of post war France; as an attorney in private practice he later represented many of his close friends from this era including Picasso, Alexander Kerensky, Edmund Wilson, and Gertrude Stein. He married Helen Louise Knickerbacker a society girl from Montclair, NJ who was also very active in the Paris arts scene of the 1920s as a close friend of Anias Nin. They maintained an apartment in Paris and a residence in New York City's 17th Congressional District, a district that Simpson would later represent in Congress. Simpson was also an assistant federal district attorney for the Southern District of New York under Thomas Dewey. Simpson was a stalwart supporter of the Fusion Republicans who were engaged in a dire battle for the heart of the Republican Party in New York as fairly liberal progressives pitted against more conservative party interests both in New York City and upstate. Simpson's congressional campaign materials depict him leaning on a statue of his friend Gertrude Stein and smoking a pipe under a Lurcat in his living room. Simpson formed alliances with FDR and Fiorello La Guardia and was an early critic of Hitler and US business interests that were seen as sympathetic to the Nazi Regime. Simpson had four children: Dr. William Kelly Simpson, a noted Egyptologist, Yale professor, and husband of Marilyn Milton Simpson, Mrs. Helen-Louise Simpson Seggerman, Mrs. Elizabeth Carroll Simpson Bennett of Washington, DC, and Sally Simpson French