Claude Augustus Swanson (March 31, 1862July 7, 1939) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Virginia. He served as U.S. Representative (1893-1906), Governor of Virginia (1906-1910), and U.S. Senator from Virginia (1910-1933), before becoming U.S. Secretary of the Navy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 until his death. Swanson and fellow U.S. Senator Thomas Staples Martin led a Democratic political machine in Virginia for decades in the late 19th and early 20th century, which later became known as the Byrd Organization for Swanson's successor as U.S. Senator, Harry Flood Byrd. Early and family life Claude Swanson was born to the former Catherine Rebecca Pritchett (1834-1873) and her husband John Muse Swanson (1829-1914) in Swansonville, Pittsylvania County, Virginia on March 31, 1862. His great-grandfather William Swanson had moved to Pittsylvania from Albemarle County, Virginia, had farmed a plantation using slave labor, represented Pittsylvania County in the Virginia General Assembly, and advocating for building a railroad between Richmond and Danville. John M. Swanson, who owned slaves in 1850 and 1860, served in the 5th Virginia Cavalry and 21st Virginia Infantry during the American Civil War. After the war, he worked with his brother as merchants and tobacco manufacturers, J.M. Swanson & Bro. in Swansonville. John and Catherine Swanson had three other sons who survived to adulthood, as well as three daughters: William Graves Swanson (1860-1934), John Pritchett Swanson and Henry Clay Swanson (1870-1952) and sisters Annie Blanche Swanson (1864-1948), Sallie Hill Swanson (1869-1950) and Julia Benson Swanson (1869-1933). Two siblings did not survive to adulthood. Claude Swanson married Elizabeth Deane Lyons on December 11, 1894 in the District of Columbia. She died on July 13, 1920. He married her widowed sister Lulie Lyons Hall (1867-1953) three years later, and she survived him. Swanson had met them both while studying at Randolph Macon Academy, for their mother ran a boardinghouse to support her family. Career Most Swanson men were Democrats and merchants in southwestern Virginia after the American Civil War. Commerce was the family business. A Swedish ancestor had moved from Philadelphia to southwestern Virginia in the 17th century to farm, as well as trade tobacco (and supply farmers with goods they needed). His grandfather had appeared as a "Tobacconist" in the 1850 U.S.Census, and the same label was used for his father in the 1860 census. His brother William G. Swanson later ran the wholesale Swanson Brothers Company, and served