J. Reuben Clark
American attorney, civil servant, and religious leader (1871–1961)
Joshua Reuben Clark Jr. (September 1, 1871 – October 6, 1961) was an American attorney, civil servant, and a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Born in Grantsville, Utah Territory, he was an attorney in the Department of State and was Undersecretary of State for U.S. President Calvin Coolidge until 1930, when he was appointed United States Ambassador to Mexico. In 1933, Clark was called to the LDS Church's First Presidency, serving as counselor to three of its presidents.
Clark received a bachelor's degree from the University of Utah, where he was valedictorian and student-body president. Clark received a law degree from Columbia University, where he also became a member of Phi Delta Phi, a prominent international legal fraternity in which he remained active throughout his life. Clark became an associate professor at George Washington University. Both the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University (BYU) are named in his honor.
Early family life
Clark was the first of ten children born to Joshua R. and Mary Louisa Woolley Clark. He was born and raised in Grantsville, Utah, 33 miles southwest of Salt Lake City in Tooele Valley.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11310570. VIAF identifies the subject as 32920260. The Library of Congress control number is n80067485. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1871, 1961, 1930 and 1933.
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This entry incorporates text from “J. Reuben Clark” 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.