William H. Vanderbilt Gubernatorial Papers (Mss. Gr. 60)

Biographical note

William Henry Vanderbilt, descendant of the nineteenth century railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and governor of Rhode Island from 1939 to 1941, was born in New York City on November 24, 1901 to Albert and Ellen French Vanderbilt. He was educated at St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island and the Evans School in Mesa, Arizona and attended Princeton University for less than a year.

Vanderbilt ran as a Republican for the Rhode Island state senate in 1928. During his six years in the State Senate, he became an avid proponent of a statewide civil service system. In 1938 he ran for Governor of Rhode Island and defeated incumbent Governor Robert Quinn by 39,000 votes.

As Governor, Vanderbilt's first priority was to fulfill his campaign pledges. In the first six months of his term, he introduced and the General Assembly enacted laws creating one of the most comprehensive state civil service systems in the nation. His plan provided for government reorganization that eliminated a number of overlapping commissions and agencies. In addition, during his first year in office, he succeeded in reducing the state budget by over a million dollars and eliminated nearly 800 of the state's 4000 jobs. In a speech to the 1939 Governor's Conference, Vanderbilt described Rhode Island as a "little governmental laboratory" in which he was trying to prove that "good government is good politics".

Vanderbilt lost the 1940 Gubernatorial election to J. Howard McGrath after a wiretapping scandal broke out within his administration. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Vanderbilt moved to a farm in South Williamstown, Massachusetts which he had purchased as a vacation getaway during his term as governor. He dropped out of politics completely and rarely returned to Rhode Island during the remaining thirty-five years of his life. Vanderbilt died of cancer in South Williamstown on April 14 1981 at the age of 79.