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Fred A. Seaton

American politician (1909-1974)

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 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ371052 ↗
Source-derived summary

Frederick Andrew Seaton (December 11, 1909 – January 16, 1974) was an American newspaperman and politician. He represented the U.S. state of Nebraska in the U.S. Senate and served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration.

Early life and education

Seaton was born in Washington, D.C., on December 11, 1909, the son of Dorothea Elizabeth (née Schmidt) and Fay Noble Seaton. He attended the Manhattan High School in Manhattan, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University in 1931, and married Gladys Hope Dowd (November 5, 1910 – January 5, 1999) in the same year. They had four children: Donald Richard, Alfred Noble, Johanna Christine, and Monica Margaret Seaton. In 1937, Seaton moved to Hastings, Nebraska, where he was for many years the publisher of the Hastings Tribune.

Political career

Seaton was active in Republican politics. He served in the unicameral Nebraska Legislature from 1945 to 1949. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate on December 10, 1951, by Gov.

Editorial summary

“Fred A. Seaton” enters the record as american politician (1909-1974). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fred, Seaton and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1909, 1974, 1931, 1910—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1909-12-11. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Fred, Seaton and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Fred A. Seaton” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fred, Seaton 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 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q371052. VIAF identifies the subject as 283557368. The Library of Congress control number is n94079488. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1974, 1931 and 1910.

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 “Fred A. Seaton”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Fred A. Seaton primary sources, Fred A. Seaton archive and Fred 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 “Fred A. Seaton”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Fred A. Seaton” 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.