Date: 1882.

Biography/History:

Thomas Pryor Gore was born in Embry, Webster County, Mississippi, on December 10, 1870. He was the son of Thomas Madison and Caroline (Carrie) Elizabeth Wingo Gore. At the age of eight, an accident caused blindness in Gores left eye. He attended public schools in Walthall, Webster County, and at the age of eleven, received an appointment as a page in the Mississippi legislature. While living in Jackson, Mississippi, Gore had an accident with a crossbow that injured his right eye. He returned to Walthall, and with the assistance of his family, including siblings Mollie F. (b. ca. 1868), Ellis E. (b. ca. 1874), and Richard, and fellow classmates, Gore was able to resume his studies and graduate from high school in 1888. Gore received his teaching license in 1890 and taught school in Cadaretta, Webster County, for a year. He also became totally blind in his right eye around this time.

Gore enrolled in Cumberland University School of Law in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1891. He graduated with a bachelor of laws degree in 1892 and was admitted to the Mississippi bar. Gore returned to Walthall and joined his fathers law practice. While practicing law in Webster County, Gore became involved with the Populist Party. He helped establish the newspaper, Mississippi Populist, in 1894. Gore was also invited by Populist Party members to assist in an election in Navarro County, Texas. He and his brother, Ellis, moved to Corsicana, Texas, in 1895 and soon established a law practice there. Gore campaigned for various Populist Party candidates in Mississippi and Texas until he joined the Democratic Party in 1899.

On December 27, 1900, Gore married Nina Kay of Palestine, Texas. Seven months later, Gore traveled to the Oklahoma Territory with his father, Thomas Madison Gore, and settled in what later became the town of Lawton. Nina Kay Gore joined her husband in Lawton in 1901. The Gores had two children: Nina, mother of writer Gore Vidal, and Thomas Notley, father of United States senator Albert Arnold Gore, Sr., and grandfather of United States senator and vice-president Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Active in Oklahoma politics, Gore served on the territorial council from 1903 to 1905. He was elected to the United States Senate after Oklahoma became a state in 1907 and served until March 3, 1921. Gore later ran for another term in the senate in 1930 and took office on March 4, 1931. He lost his bid for reelection and returned to private life in January of 1937. He practiced law in Washington D.C., until his death on March 16, 1949. Gore was interred in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of a five-page handwritten narrative of Thomas Pryor Gore of Webster County, Mississippi. He wrote the narrative while serving as an eleven-year-old page in the Mississippi legislature in 1882. The narrative contains two entries documenting Gores trip to Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, and his first days serving as a page from December of 1881 to February of 1882. He mentions learning all of the senators names, attending the governors inaugural ball, and visiting such places as the state deaf and dumb asylum and the state penitentiary. Gore also mentions living in the home of former Confederate brigadier general and United States senator James Zachariah George. There are annotations in pencil by Gores mother, Caroline Elizabeth Wingo Gore. They indicate when the narrative was written and when Gore lost his eyesight. Also included is a page of mathematical figures written in an unknown hand.

Series Identification:

Series 1: Papers. 1882. 1 folder.