Dean P. Taylor
Dean Park Taylor served as a United States Congressman from New York for nearly 20 years and came from a family long involved in public service to New York. Taylor was born in Troy, New York, on January 1, 1902, and attended the Troy public schools. He attended Colgate University and graduated from Albany Law School in 1926.
Taylor was admitted to the bar in 1926 and commenced practice in Troy, New York with his father, former Rensselaer County District Attorney John P. Taylor, and brother, Donald S. Taylor who went on to become a judge. Taylor served as Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York from 1927 to 1930. He was chairman of the Rensselaer County Republican Committee from 1938 to 1952 and served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1940. Taylor was also chairman of the New York State Republican Committee from 1953-1954. He served as trustee of Russell Sage College, as well as a director of the Union National Bank and the Niagara Mohawk Power Co.
Taylor was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1942 as a Republican to the Seventy-eighth and to the eight succeeding Congresses . He served on various committees, including Judiciary and Public Lands. Taylor also sat on the sub-committee of the Committee on Territories that evaluated Hawaii for statehood. Commencing in 1946, Taylor travelled to Hawaii, conducted hearings, and President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes on matters pertaining to statehood legislation which was enacted in 1959 as the Hawaii Admission Act. Taylor voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960.
Taylor was not a candidate for renomination in 1960 to the 87th United States Congress and retired to resume the practice of law. On September 30, 1960 at the Hendrick Hudson Hotel in Troy, N.Y., then Vice President Richard M. Nixon, campaigning for the presidency at the time, attended Taylor's retirement celebration, along with Senator Kenneth B. Keating and then New York Lieutenant Governor Malcolm Wilson. Nixon noted he was there "to pay my respects to Dean as an individual, as one who has been a close personal friend of mine from the time I came to the House 14 years ago; one who I always considered to be a 'dean' to a certain extent, he always seemed older to me some way, but as I get older he seems younger."
Taylor died in Albany, New York on October 16, 1977 and was interred at Oakwood Cemetery in Troy.
Taylor's papers are held by the Troy, New York, which also hosts the , opened in 1993.
