Livingston L. Biddle, Jr.

Livingston Ludlow Biddle Jr. (May 26, 1918 – May 3, 2002) was an American author and promoter of funding of the arts, from a wealthy Pennsylvania family.

Life Livingston Ludlow Biddle was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on May 26, 1918. His mother was Rosalie Eugenia Carter Law and his father was Livingston Ludlow Biddle (1877–1959) of the Biddle family of Philadelphia, who published poems such as "The Understanding Hills". Ancestors included grandfather Edward Biddle (1851–1933) who married Emily Taylor Drexel (1851–1883), daughter of Anthony Joseph Drexel, and great-grandfather Nicholas Biddle (1786–1844), linking to two major banking families.

He went to work as a reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper until World War II broke out. Several of his cousins and uncles were military leaders, but due to his poor eyesight, he served in the American Field Service as an ambulance driver in Africa. After the war he wrote short stories and four novels set in Philadelphia. From 1963 to 1965 he worked as staff assistant to Senator Claiborne Pell, who was a classmate from both St. George's and Princeton. He helped draft the legislation creating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the third chairman of the NEA in 1977 and served until 1981.

He died on May 3, 2002, aged 83.

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