Andrew J. Volstead

Andrew John Volstead was an American lawyer and Republican politician who represented Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives from 1903 to 1923, remembered chiefly for the Prohibition-enforcement act that bears his name but also a significant contributor to agricultural policy. Born in Kenyon, Minnesota to Norwegian American parents and educated at St. Olaf College, he practiced law and served as mayor of Granite Falls, Minnesota before his congressional career. In agriculture his lasting legacy is the Capper-Volstead Act, which he helped author to allow farmers to form locally owned marketing cooperatives without exposing themselves to prosecution under the Sherman Antitrust Act; the law remains in effect and continues to underpin the legal structure of American farm cooperatives. After losing his 1922 re-election bid he briefly served as legal adviser to the National Prohibition Enforcement Bureau before returning to private law practice in Granite Falls, where he died in 1947.