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Robert B. Chiperfield

American politician (1899-1971)

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 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ7341692
Source-derived summary

Robert Bruce Chiperfield (November 20, 1899 - April 9, 1971), son of United States Congressman Burnett Mitchell Chiperfield, was an Illinois lawyer and 12-term U.S. Representative from Illinois. He served as chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs during the early years of the Eisenhower administration.

Early life and education

Born on November 20, 1899, in Canton, Illinois, Robert B. Chiperfield was the second of three children and the older of the two sons of Burnett M. Chiperfield and Clara Louise Ross. Robert Chiperfield's father served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Illinois' at-large congressional district from 1915 to 1917 and Illinois's 15th congressional district from 1930 to 1933. Robert's mother was a granddaughter of Ossian M. Ross, who was a prominent Illinois pioneer and the founder of Lewistown, Illinois. Robert's younger brother, Claude Burnett Chiperfield, served as a U.S. consul in Athens, Greece in 1938.

Robert Chiperfield received his early education in the public schools of Canton, Illinois, and also in Washington, D.C., during the years that his father served in Congress. Robert attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire from 1916 to 1918. He served as a private in the U.S. Army during World War I. Chiperfield attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois for one year, before transferring to Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he received a Bachelor's degree in 1922. He attended Harvard Law School for two years, and then received his law degree from Boston University in 1925.

Editorial summary

“Robert B. Chiperfield” enters the record as american politician (1899-1971). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Robert, Chiperfield 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—1899, 1971, 1915, 1917—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1899-11-20. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Robert, Chiperfield and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

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

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7341692. VIAF identifies the subject as 143152261513717180009. The Library of Congress control number is no2018040309. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1971, 1915 and 1917.

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 “Robert B. Chiperfield”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert B. Chiperfield primary sources, Robert B. Chiperfield archive and Robert 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 “Robert B. Chiperfield”?
  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 Robert B. Chiperfield” 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.