Philip Hart

Philip Aloysius Hart (December 10, 1912 – December 26, 1976) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States senator from Michigan from 1959 until his death from cancer in 1976. He was known as the "Conscience of the Senate". The Hart Senate Office Building is named in his honor.

Early life and family The grandson of Irish immigrants, Philip Hart was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to Philip Aloysius and Ann (née Clyde) Hart. His father was a banker who served as president of the Bryn Mawr Trust Company. He received his early education at Waldron Academy, and then attended West Philadelphia Catholic High School.

Hart studied at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he was the student body president and an award-winning debater. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Georgetown in 1934.

In June 1943, Hart married Jane "Janey" Briggs, the daughter of Walter and Jane Cameron Briggs. Her father was by then a philanthropist and had owned the Detroit Tigers. Jane was an aviator who was the first female helicopter pilot in Michigan. She later qualified in the 1960s as one of the Mercury 13 group. The couple met through her brother, who was Hart's roommate at Georgetown. They have four surviving sons and four daughters. Hart's namesake, Philip Jr., died as a toddler. He was buried in a family plot, followed decades later by his father nearby.

Early career Hart was admitted to the State Bar of Michigan in 1938 and became an associate in the Detroit firm of Beaumont, Smith & Harris. It would have been the first federal government building named after someone still living. The vote was 99–0, with Hart abstaining. He died of melanoma a few days later, just a week before his term would have expired. Donald W. Riegle, Jr., who had just been elected to the seat for the next term, was named to fill Hart's seat for the remaining days of the congressional session.

Hart is interred in St. Anne's Catholic Cemetery on Mackinac Island in a family plot near his namesake son, who died as a toddler.

Honors In 1982, the Hart Senate Office Building, the third to be constructed, was officially dedicated and named for him. Other buildings named after Hart include the Hart–Dole–Inouye Federal Center in Battle Creek, Michigan; the Philip A. Hart Plaza along the Detroit International Riverfront; the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Empire, Michigan; Hart Middle School in Rochester Hills, Michigan; and the Hart–Kennedy House in Lansing, the headquarters of the Michigan Democratic Party. The Philip Hart Memorial Scholarship was established at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as a full scholarship, to be awarded to a student who exemplifies the ideals and goals of the Senator. The moot court room at Georgetown University Law Center is named in his honor. The visitor center at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is named after Hart, who first introduced the bill in Congress to establish the park in 1961.