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John S. Fine

American politician (1893–1978)

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 revisionJul 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ883525 ↗
Source-derived summary

John Sydney Fine (April 10, 1893 – May 21, 1978) was an American lawyer, judge, and politician. A Republican, he served as the 35th governor of Pennsylvania from 1951 to 1955.

Early life

Fine was born in Newport Township, Pennsylvania, one of nine children of Jacob W. and Margaret (née Croop) Fine. In 1895, the family moved to nearby Nanticoke, where Fine received his early education at local public schools. He milked cows and plowed fields on a coal company farm as a young boy, and he later reported on local community news for the Wilkes-Barre Record as a teenager.

After graduating from Nanticoke High School as valedictorian in 1911, Fine studied at the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, earning his law degree in 1914. He was admitted to practice law in Luzerne County (1914) and before the Superior Court of Pennsylvania (1915). He opened his own practice in Wilkes-Barre. From 1916 to 1920, he served as Republican chairman of the Fourth Legislative District of Luzerne County.

Military career

During World War I, Fine served with the 23rd US Army Engineers, reaching the rank of sergeant.

Editorial summary

“John S. Fine” enters the record as american politician (1893–1978). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Fine 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—1893, 1978, 1951, 1955—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1893-04-10. Its strongest next move is a source search built around John, Fine and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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

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 Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q883525. VIAF identifies the subject as 14638305. The Library of Congress control number is nr92044481. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1893, 1978, 1951 and 1955.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “John S. Fine”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John S. Fine primary sources, John S. Fine archive and John 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 “John S. Fine”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John S. Fine” 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.