Democratic governor, U.S. Senator and Earth Day founder Gaylord Anton Nelson was born on June 4, 1916 in Clear Lake in northern Wisconsin. His father was Dr. Anton Nelson, a practicing physician prominent local Progressive, and his mother was a nurse. After graduating from local public schools Nelson attended San Jose State College in California, graduating in 1939, and the University of Wisconsin Law School from which he received his law degree in 1942. During World War II Nelson served in the U.S. Army, and while he was stationed on Okinawa he met Carrie Lee Dotson whom he married on November 14, 1947. The Nelsons became the parents of three children: Gaylord, Cynthia, and Jeffrey.
After the war Nelson returned home and began practicing law. In 1946 he ran unsuccessfully for the Legislature as a Progressive Republican in Polk County. Afterwards, he relocated to Madison and became a member of the Democratic Party. In 1948 Nelson was a leader in the formation of the Democratic Organizing Committee which reoriented the state Democratic Party along liberal political lines. Nelson ran for the State Senate in 1948. This time, thanks in part to President Truman's coattails, Nelson was successful, making him the first Democrat elected to that house in the twentieth century. He was re-elected in 1952 and 1956. During his tenure in the Wisconsin Senate, Nelson was the Democratic floor leader (1948-1952) and later the assistant floor leader.
Having announced his candidacy over a year in advance, Nelson was elected governor in 1958, garnering 54% of the vote. In 1960 he was re-elected to a second term, but by a much narrower vote. Nevertheless, Nelson's election as governor echoed the fundamental change in Wisconsin's political alignment first noted in the 1957 special election. His election marked only the second Democrat elected to that position in Wisconsin in the 20th century.
As governor, Nelson oversaw an extensive reorganization of state government, accelerated construction at the state institutions, and managed the first thorough reexamination of Wisconsin's tax structure in fifty years. Additional accomplishments included a $50 million conservation land acquisition program (ORAP), which made Nelson a national leader in the emerging environmental movement, and a $5 million state fund for loans to college students. State Historian William F. Thompson argues that these achievements constitute the most ambitious and far-reaching legislative program of Wisconsin's post-war years.
In the 1962 election Nelson successfully challenged the incumbent U.S. Senator Alexander Wiley. Nelson's career as senator, which is documented at the State Historical Society in his separately-accessioned manuscript collection, mixed fiscal conservatism and
support for liberal social and foreign policy issues, but the issue on which he remains best known is his introduction of Earth Day in 1969. Nelson was reelected handily in 1968 and 1974, but defeated by Robert Kasten in 1980. Since leaving the Senate Nelson has been a counselor for the Wilderness Society.
