Charles S. Dewey

Charles Schuveldt Dewey (November 10, 1880 – December 27, 1980) was a banker and politician from Illinois. The cousin of George Dewey, Charles S. Dewey entered the real estate business in Chicago, Illinois, in 1905. He served in the United States Navy during World War I. In 1920, he began a career in banking as vice president of the Northern Trust Company of Chicago. Four years later, Andrew W. Mellon appointed Dewey an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. A committee led by Dewey standardized the portraits and dimensions of American currency; the dimensions are still in use today.

Dewey resigned from the Treasury in 1927 to take a role as a financial adviser to the Polish government. Returning to Chicago in 1931 to join the Colgate-Palmolive Peet Company, Dewey remained in the city after the company moved to New York City. Overseeing the Milwaukee Avenue Bank, Dewey ran for election to the United States House of Representatives in 1938. Although defeated, Dewey managed to be elected in the two subsequent elections to Illinois's 9th congressional district. After another defeat in 1944, Dewey took a position as vice president with Chase National Bank. In 1948, Dewey served on a Marshall Plan committee. He retired from public life in the 1950s and oversaw the early stages of the Washington Hospital Center merger.

Biography Charles Schuveldt Dewey, a cousin of George Dewey, was born in Cadiz, Ohio, on November 10, 1880, to a prominent family. Dewey moved in infancy to Chicago, Illinois. He attended public schools, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and Yale University, where he contributed to campus humor magazine The Yale Record and was a member of St. Anthony Hall. After graduating from Yale in 1904, he engaged in the real estate business in Chicago, Illinois, from 1905 to 1917 served in the United States Navy from 1917 through 1919, being honorably discharged with the rank of senior lieutenant. He served as vice president of the Northern Trust Company of Chicago from 1920 to 1924. Dewey simultaneously served as national treasurer of the American National Red Cross in 1926 and 1927. His son, A. Peter Dewey, was accidentally shot and killed by Viet Minh in 1945, making him (arguably) the first person killed in the Vietnam War. Another son, Charles, Jr., who died at age 65 in 1974, also served in World War II, with the Office of Strategic Services in China, and was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Dewey's house in North Chicago, Illinois, seized by the government in 1918, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. In 1959 he married the former Elizabeth Zolnay Smith. He was a stepfather to Lucinda Luce Smith and Melissa Tyler Smith, and a grandfather to Charles E, Lucinda K, and John Tyler Treat. His grandson David Alger was killed in the 9/11 attacks.