CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Allen E. Ertel

American politician (1937-2015)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ4731622
Source-derived summary

Allen Edward Ertel (November 7, 1937 – November 19, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served three terms as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district from 1977 to 1983.

Early life and military service

Allen Ertel was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He graduated with an AB from Dartmouth College in 1958, an MS from the Thayer School of Engineering and MBA from the Tuck School of Business in 1959, and a LL.B. Yale Law School in 1965.

He served in the United States Navy from 1959 to 1962.

Career

He clerked for Chief Judge Caleb Wright of the Federal District Court of Delaware from 1965 to 1966, and was the Lycoming County district attorney from 1967 to 1977. He was a delegate to Democratic National Convention in 1972.

Ertel was elected in 1976 as a Democrat to the 95th, 96th, and 97th Congresses. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1982.

Later career

Rather than seek reelection to his House seat in 1982, Ertel was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. After his unsuccessful run for governor, he unsuccessfully sought the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General in 1984, before returning to the practice of law in Williamsport.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Allen E. Ertel” is american politician (1937-2015). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Allen, Ertel and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1937, 2015, 1977, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1937-11-07. For this dossier, Allen, Ertel and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american politician (1937-2015)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4731622. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2015, 1977 and 1983.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Allen E. Ertel”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Allen E. Ertel primary sources, Allen E. Ertel archive and Allen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Allen E. Ertel”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Allen E. Ertel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.