Person:Ralph Becker (2)

Ralph E. Becker was a Washington lawyer and was active in politics. In 1936, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention from New York. He served in the Judge Advocate Corps attached to the 30th Infantry Division in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Ralph Becker began collecting political memorablia as a teenager in high school. He was employed in one of the oldest law offices in Westchester County, New York. His boss and later law partner, Benjamin I. Taylor took him to the state capitol at Albany, New York for court appearances or for political reasons. Ralph Becker began his collecting in on these trips. Eventually he amassed the largest collection of political Amercana in the United States,

In 1958, he began to donate his collection to the Smithsonian Institution. The collection is known as the Ralph E. Becker Collection of Political Americana.

Ralph Becker contributed a chapter on the collecting of political memorabilia to the book "Hail to the Candidate: Presidential Campaigns from Banners to Broadcast".

He was a sponsor of the Antarctic-South Pole Operation Deep Freeze Expedition in 1963. A mountain in Antarctica is named for him.

Ralph Becker helped create the National Center for the Performing Arts, which later became the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Ralph E. Becker served as ambassador to Honduras from 1976 to 1977, under President Gerald Ford.

    In 1981. Ralph E. Becker, attorney, was living in Washington D.C. at 1819 H Street, N.W. and his phone number was 202-293-1919.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ralph Elihu Becker.

1.   Stern, Malcolm H., compiler, "First American Jewish Families: 600 genealogies, 1654 - 1988" (Baltimore, MD, Ottenheimer Publishers, 1991).
2.   Index to Politicians: Becker, The Political Graveyard online (http:/thepolitcalgraveyard.com/bio/becker/html), accessed October 13, 2008.
3.   Keith Melder, Hail to the Candidate Presidential Campaigns from Banners to Broadcasts (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
   page 1.
4.   Ralph Elihu Becker, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.