William Darius Jamieson

Who was William Darius Jamieson?

William Darius Jamieson was a newspaper publisher and a Democratic U.S. Representative from Iowa's 8th congressional district. The only Democrat elected from that district in its ninety-year history, Jamieson served only a single term. He studied law at the National University Law School in Washington, D.C.. Jamieson edited and published the Ida Grove Pioneer in 1893 and 1894, the Columbus Junction Gazette from 1899 to 1901, the Shenandoah World from 1901 to 1916, and was also editor of the Hamburg Democrat.

He was elected as a Democrat to the Iowa State Senate in 1906, representing two Republican-leaning counties in southwestern Iowa.

In 1908, Jamieson ran for the U.S. House seat in Iowa's 8th congressional district. In a year of strong Republican victories in Iowa, Jamieson upset longtime Republican Congressman William P. Hepburn, winning majorities in eight of the district's eleven counties. The thirty-five-year-old's defeat of a Civil War and political veteran more than twice his age was attributed to "purely local conditions and local strife," such as anger over bank failures and Hepburn's choices for local postmasters.