James Gillespie Blaine was among the most powerful American politicians of the second half of the nineteenth century. He served twice as secretary of state and was a presidential candidate on several occasions. He was born January 31, 1830, in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania. His father, Ephraim Lyon Blaine, was a lawyer and a county clerk. Blaine graduated from local Washington and Jefferson College in 1847. He took a teaching position at the Western Military Institute in Georgetown, Kentucky. While working there from 1848 to 1851, he courted Harriet Stanwood, a teacher at a nearby woman's seminary. They married on June 30, 1850, and would have seven children.

Blaine had a growing interest in politics, inspired by Whig Party leader Henry Clay, an influential senator from Kentucky. Leaving Kentucky in late 1851, Blaine taught at the Pennsylvania Institute for the Blind from 1852 to 1854. He also pursued legal studies while in Philadelphia. Through his...