Collection on Luther Youngdahl

Luther Youngdahl was Governor of Minnesota (1947-1951) and a federal judge. He was born on May 29, 1896 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and died on June 21, 1978 in Washington, D.C. He attended Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, where he played football until World War I interrupted his studies. After serving briefly in the Army and attaining the rank of second lieutenant, he received a B.A. in 1919 from Gustavus, and a LL.B. from the Minnesota College of Law in 1921. He practiced law, served as a municipal and then a district judge, and won the election for associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1942.

Youngdahl was elected Governor of Minnesota on the Republican ticket in 1946 and became known for his progressive approach to humane and moral policies, including welfare services, public health and housing, youth “conservation,” as well as his staunch antigambling and antiliquor stance. He was re-elected twice. He resigned toward the middle of his third term (1951) to accept a federal district judgeship under Harry S. Truman’s administration. He is probably best known for his May 2, 1953, ruling in United States v. Lattimore, in which Youngdahl dismissed the indictment, in defiance of widespread anticommunist sentiment, of a professor accused of perjury for having denied being a communist sympathizer. He retired in 1966.