Arthur W. Coolidge
American politician
Arthur William Coolidge (October 13, 1881 – January 23, 1952) was a Massachusetts politician who served multiple positions within the state government.
Early life
Coolidge was born in Cumberland County, Maine.
Career
Coolidge worked as a lawyer before becoming a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1937–1940) and of the Massachusetts State Senate (1941–1946). From 1947 to 1949 he was the 56th lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. He was the Republican nominee for governor in 1950.
From 1943 to 1947, Coolidge was head of a legislative commission (popularly known as the Coolidge Commission) to address the future of the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy). The commission proposed a number of suburban extensions – some of which were built over the following four decades – and created the plans to reform the BERy as the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the predecessor of the modern Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
A Unitarian and Freemason, Coolidge served as Grand Master of Masons (1943–1944) and a member of the American Bar Association and Theta Delta Chi. In 1951, he was elected as a member of the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Personal life
A fourth cousin to President Calvin Coolidge, he had one daughter, Dorothy Coolidge Cox and two sons: Robert Tilton Coolidge (1915–1955) and Arthur William Coolidge II. One of his grandchildren is film director Martha Coolidge.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Arthur W. Coolidge” as american politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4800556. VIAF identifies the subject as 4457160848424608210008. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1952, 1937 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arthur W. Coolidge” 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.