Presidential Cabinet Secretary, US Senator, US Congressman, Nobel Prize Laureate. Serving as Secretary of State in the first three administrations of President Franklin Roosevelt, for a total of eleven years, he held the longest term in that office in American history. His diplomatic efforts during World War II was crucial to the ultimate Allied victory, and he was a driving force in the establishment of the United Nations, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945. Recognized internationally, he received 31 nominations for the Nobel candidacy. He previously represented Tennessee's 4th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from 1923 to 1931, and a Democratic Senator from Tennessee to the United States Senate from 1931 until he resigned on March 4, 1933 after being confirmed as United States Secretary of State. While in the House of Representatives, he served 18 years on the House Finance Committee. Born the son of a farmer and timber merchant, he was one of five sons. He started his education in a rural one-room schoolhouse, but eventually attended in succession the Montvale Academy at Celina, Tennessee; the Normal School at Bowling Green, Kentucky; and the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio. He received a law degree in 1891 after completing a one-year course at Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee. He began practicing law at the age of 19 and knew he wanted to be a candidate for state legislature as soon as he was of age. From 1893 to 1897 he was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives. He served as a captain in the Spanish-American War with the Fourth Tennessee Regiment, but saw no combat. Returning to his law practice after the war, in 1903 he was appointed judge of the Fifth Judicial District until 1907, when he became a candidate for United States House of Representatives. At the end of November of 1944, he resigned as Secretary of State with a "precarious state of health." Hull nonetheless served as a member of and senior adviser to the American delegation to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco in 1945. Too ill to personally accept the Nobel Prize, Hull sent a brief acceptance speech delivered by Lithgow Osborne, the United States ambassador to Norway. The Nobel Prize committee referred to him in their statement as "father of the United Nations". At 6 foot 2 inches, he was described as humble, shy, and lacking the talent of giving a great speech, yet had the power to that comes to one who is thoroughly convinced of the rightness of his political and economic policies for peace and justice. Besides his 1948 two-volume "The Memoirs of Cordell Hull," many of his speeches have been published. The Cordell Hull Foundation, a non-profit organization, has been authorized by the United States Department of State since 1962 to sponsor exchange visitor J-1 visas for foreign teachers to work in the United States in private and public elementary and secondary schools.