Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1984 presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and popular vote landslide.
"Mondale" redirects here. For other uses, see Mondale (disambiguation).
Walter Mondale
Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota, and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1951 after attending Macalester College. He then served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War before earning a law degree in 1956. He married Joan Adams in 1955. Working as a lawyer in Minneapolis, Mondale was appointed Minnesota Attorney General in 1960 by Governor Orville Freeman and was elected to a full term as attorney general in 1962 with 60% of the vote. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Karl Rolvaag upon the resignation of Senator Hubert Humphrey following Humphrey's election as vice president in 1964. Mondale was elected to a full Senate term in 1966 and reelected in 1972, resigning in 1976 as he prepared to succeed to the vice presidency in 1977. While in the Senate, he supported consumer protection, fair housing, tax reform and the desegregation of schools; he served on the Church Committee.[1]
In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic presidential nominee, chose Mondale as his vice-presidential running mate. The Carter–Mondale ticket defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford and his running mate Bob Dole. The economy worsened during Carter and Mondale's time in office, and they lost the 1980 election to Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In 1984, Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination and campaigned for a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment, an increase in taxes, and a reduction of U.S. public debt. His vice presidential nominee, U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro from New York, was the first female vice-presidential nominee of any major party in U.S. history. Mondale and Ferraro lost the election to the incumbents Reagan and Bush, with Reagan winning 49 states and Mondale carrying only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.
After his defeat, Mondale joined the Minnesota-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (1986–1993). President Bill Clinton appointed Mondale U.S. Ambassador to Japan in 1993; he retired from that post in 1996. In 2002, Mondale became the last-minute choice of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party to run for Senate after Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash less than two weeks before the election. Mondale narrowly lost the race to Saint Paul mayor Norm Coleman. He then returned to working at Dorsey & Whitney and remained active in the Democratic Party. Mondale later took up a part-time teaching position at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs.[2]
Early life
Walter Frederick Mondale was born on January 5, 1928, in Ceylon, Minnesota,[3] to Theodore Sigvaard Mondale, a Methodist minister, and Claribel Hope (née Cowan), a part-time music teacher.[4][5] Walter's half-brother Lester Mondale became a Unitarian minister.[6] Mondale also has two brothers, Clarence, known as Pete (1926–2014), and William, known as Mort. His paternal grandparents were Norwegian immigrants, with some distant German ancestry.[7] Mondale's paternal grandfather Frederik Mundal had emigrated from Norway with his family in 1856, eventually settling in southern Minnesota in 1864.[8] The surname Mondale derives from that of Mundal, a valley and town in the Fjærland region of Norway.[9] His mother was born in Iowa, the daughter of an immigrant father, Robert Cowan, who was born in Seaforth, Ontario; she was of Scottish and English descent.[10]
In his youth, Mondale's family thought the names "Walter" and "Frederick" were too stilted for a boy, so they called him "Fritz", a common German and Scandinavian diminutive form of Friedrich or Frederick.[11] Due to the Great Depression, Mondale grew up in poverty. His family moved from Ceylon to Heron Lake in 1934, and to Elmore in 1937.[12] Throughout his youth, Mondale was influenced heavily by his father's religious beliefs, including support for the civil rights movement.[13] In 1948, his father died of a stroke.[14] Mondale attended public schools and then Macalester College for two years before transferring to the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1951.[15]
As Mondale could not afford to attend law school, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1951, shortly after graduating.[16] He served with the 3rd Armored Division Artillery at Fort Knox, Kentucky, during the Korean War, first as an armored reconnaissance vehicle crewman, and later as an education programs specialist and associate editor of the unit's newsletter, Tanker's Dust.[16][17] He attained the rank of corporal and was discharged in 1953.[16] Mondale enrolled at the University of Minnesota Law School, aided by the G.I. Bill, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Laws in 1956. In law school, he served on the Minnesota Law Review and as a law clerk for Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Thomas F. Gallagher. In 1955, Mondale married Joan Adams, whom he met on a blind date. He then practiced law in Minneapolis for four years before entering politics.[18]
Records
In the "Walter F. Mondale Papers" at the Minnesota Historical Society, digital content is available for research use. Contents include speech files, handwritten notes, memoranda, annotated briefings, schedules, correspondence, and visual materials. The collection includes senatorial, vice presidential, ambassadorial, political papers and campaign files, and personal papers documenting most aspects of Mondale's 60‑year-long career, including all of his public offices, campaigns, and Democratic Party and other non-official activities.[96]
The University of Minnesota Law Library's Walter F. Mondale website is devoted to Mondale's senatorial career. Mondale's work is documented in full text access to selected proceedings and debates on the floor of the Senate as recorded in the Congressional Record.[97]