CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Donald A. Bailey

American politician (1945–2020)

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 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ5293918
Source-derived summary

Donald Allen Bailey (July 21, 1945 – March 9, 2020) was an American lawyer and politician from Pennsylvania. He was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983, Auditor General of Pennsylvania from 1985 to 1989, and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States Senate and Governor of Pennsylvania. His Congressional District (PA-21) included all of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania with a sliver of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, prior to the 1981 redistricting.

Early life, education, and early career

Bailey was born in Allegheny County to Glenn and Anna Bailey. He was raised in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. He graduated from Greensburg High School in 1963. He completd a BA (1967) at the University of Michigan. He played college football at the guard position for the Michigan Wolverines football team from 1964 to 1966. He played in the 1965 Rose Bowl and North/South All Star Game.

After college, he entered the United States Army, serving with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions in Vietnam.

Editorial summary

“Donald A. Bailey” enters the record as american politician (1945–2020). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Donald, Bailey and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 2020, 1979, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1945-07-21. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Donald, Bailey and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Donald A. Bailey” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Donald, Bailey and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

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 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5293918. VIAF identifies the subject as 251008272. The Library of Congress control number is no2012079744. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2020, 1979 and 1983.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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 “Donald A. Bailey”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Donald A. Bailey primary sources, Donald A. Bailey archive and Donald 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 “Donald A. Bailey”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Donald A. Bailey” 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.