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CULLOM, Shelby Moore (1829-1914)
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Senate Years of Service: 1883-1913

CULLOM, SHELBY MOORE, (nephew of Alvan Cullom, nephew of William Cullom), A Representative and a Senator from Illinois; born in Wayne County, Ky., November 22, 1829; moved with his father to Tazewell County, Ill., in 1830; received an academic and university training; moved to Springfield, Ill., in 1853; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1855 and commenced practice in Springfield; elected city attorney in 1855; member, State house of representatives 1856, 1860-1861, and served as speaker of the house during the second year; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first Congresses (March 4, 1865-March 3, 1871); chairman, Committee on Territories (Forty-first Congress); member, State house of representatives 1873-1874, and served as speaker in 1873; Governor of Illinois 1877-1883, when he resigned; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1882; reelected in 1888, 1894, 1900, and 1906 and served from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1913; chairman, Committee on Expenditures of Public Money (1885-87), Committee on Interstate Commerce (1887-93; 1895-1901; 1909-11), Committee on Foreign Relations (1901-11), Republican Conference Chairman (1911-13); Regent of the Smithsonian Institution 1885-1913; chairman and resident commissioner of the Lincoln Memorial Commission in 1913 and 1914; member of the commission appointed to prepare a system of laws for the Hawaiian Islands; died in Washington, D.C., January 28, 1914; interment in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Ill.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
Springfield, IL
Papers: 1880-1914. Ca. 2 feet. Chiefly from his years as U.S. senator (1889-1892, 1905, 1909) and primarily concerns political matters, including his unsuccessful bid for the 1892 Republican presidential nomination and intra-party struggles resulting in the 1912 split of the Illinois Republican party. Also letters and commissions as U.S. senator and governor of Illinois and photographs. Finding aid.
Additional Papers: Correspondence in John McAuley Palmer papers, 1811-1906.
Chicago Historical Society
Chicago, IL
Papers: 1865-1911. .5 foot. Correspondence with various individuals about congressional and political matters; and the manuscript copy of his Fifty Years of Public Service.
Indiana State Library
Indianapolis, IN
Papers: Correspondence in Anna W. Wright papers, 1855-1911.
Knox College
Seymour Library
Galesburg, IL
Papers: 2 letters (September 6, 1889; October 12, 1889) in Post family papers, 1857-1895; and 1 letter (December 7, 1899) in Seymour autograph collection, 1750-1945.
University of Illinois
Illinois Historical Survey
Urbana, IL
Papers: In Edmund J. James letterbooks, 1904-1906.
University of Michigan
Bentley Historical Library
Ann Arbor, MI
Papers: Correspondence in Howard Hyde Russell papers, 1840-1946; Thomas McIntyre Cooley papers, 1850-1898; and Lyman Edgar Cooley papers, 1865-1917.

  • Converse, Henry A. "The Life and Services of Shelby M. Cullom.'' In Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1914, pp. 55-79. Illinois State Historical Library, publication no. 20. Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1914.
  • Cullom, Shelby M. Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom. 1911. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969.
  • Neilson, James Warren. Shelby M. Cullom, Prairie State Republican. Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, vol. 51. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962.
  • Pitkin, William A. "Shelby M. Cullom: Presidential Prospect.'' Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 49 (Winter 1956): 375-86.