before the primary election. He faced two-term Republican incumbent Homer S. Ferguson in the general election, during which McNamara criticized President Dwight D. Eisenhower's economic, labor, and farm policies. In November, he narrowly defeated Ferguson by a margin of 51%-49%. McNamara was reelected over Alvin Morell Bentley in 1960, serving from January 3, 1955, until his death in Bethesda, Maryland. In the Eighty-seventh Congress, he became the first chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. He also chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works in the Eighty-eighth and Eighty-ninth Congresses. The 1959 committee hearings which Pat McNamara called on the subject of the health of the elderly began a public debate which led to the creation of Medicare. McNamara died of a stroke at Bethesda Naval Hospital on April 30, 1966, aged 71, and was interred in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Detroit. McNamara was a member of Americans for Democratic Action. The Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building in Detroit was named for him. Legacy McNamara donated his archival papers to the Walter P. Reuther Library, where they are open to the public for research. The bulk of materials relate to his time in the Senate and his work on the Public Works Committee (chairman, 1963–66), Labor and Public Welfare Committee, Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Select Subcommittee on Poverty, and the Special Committee on Aging. Subjects covered include problems of the aged, civil rights, atomic energy, education, taxes, public works, federal highway acts, and labor. Correspondents include all major political figures of the period and many labor leaders. Bibliography U.S. Congress. Memorial Services Held in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, Together with Remarks Presented in Eulogy of Patrick V. McNamara, Late a Senator from Michigan. 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 1966. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967. See also List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99) References External links 1894 births 1966 deaths People from Weymouth, Massachusetts American people of Irish descent Michigan Democrats Democratic Party United States senators from Michigan Detroit City Council members 20th-century American politicians