Ernest Angell

Ernest Angell (June 1, 1889 – January 11, 1973) was an American lawyer and author who served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union for 19 years,

Early life Angell was born in Cleveland on June 1, 1889,

He graduated from Harvard College, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, in 1911, and from Harvard Law School in 1913. He received an LL.D. degree from Bard College in 1954. He served as chairman of the National Economy League. Angell wrote a "short book on the Supreme Court", entitled Supreme Court Primer, and was the author of various magazine articles. In 1948, he was selected by the U.S. Civil Service Commission to be chairman of the Loyalty Board for the second region, covering New York and New Jersey.

From 1950 to 1969, Angell succeeded Dr. John Haynes Holmes to serve as president of the American Civil Liberties Union. After his retirement in 1969, he was succeeded by Edward Ennis, who had been the general counsel of the ACLU since 1955.

Personal life In 1915, he married his first wife Katharine Sergeant (1892–1977) in Brookline, Massachusetts. Katharine was a graduate of Miss Winsor's School and Bryn Mawr before becoming the fiction editor at The New Yorker. Before their divorce in 1929, they were the parents of:

Roger Angell (1920–2022), a writer.

Katherine had had an affair with writer E. B. White and married him after her divorce from Angell. In 1939, Angell remarried to Elizabeth Brosius (née Higgins) Chapin, the former wife of Vinton Chapin, the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg. Before her death in 1970, they were the parents of two children together: Abigail Brosius Angell, who married Cass Canfield Jr. (1923–2013), son of Cass Canfield, in 1973. His younger brother Michael Canfield was the first husband of Lee Radziwill.

Angell died at 156 East 66th Street, his home in Manhattan, on January 11, 1973, at age 83, after suffering heart problems.