De Alva Stanwood Alexander and Anne Bliss Alexander

The late Mrs. Anne Bliss Alexander established a scholarship fund in honor of her husband, De Alva Stanwood Alexander (1846-1925), an American journalist, lawyer, historian and member of the United States House of Representatives. A native of Maine, at 15 Alexander enlisted in the army, serving from 1862 through the end the Civil War. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1870, then worked as a newspaper editor in Indiana, where he befriended Sen. Benjamin Harrison. Alexander studied law and was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1877. Harrison was elected as the 23rd president of the United States, and in 1888 named Alexander the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York. Alexander married Anne Gerlach Bliss, his second wife, in 1893, several years after moving to Buffalo. In 1896, Alexander was elected as a U.S. representative to Congress for New York’s 33rd district, and served for seven terms. He wrote Political History of the State of New York, a four-volume work completed in 1923.