David Levy Yulee

Common card · No. 340136

David Levy Yulee (born David Levy; June 12, 1810 – October 10, 1886) was an American politician and attorney who served as the senator from Florida immediately before the American Civil War. He also founded the Florida Railroad Company and served as president of several other rail companies, earning him the nickname of "Father of Florida Railroads." Yulee was born on the island of St. Thomas, then under British control, to a Sephardic Jewish family; his father was a trader from Morocco and his mother, also of Sephardi descent, was born in Sint Eustatius and raised in St. Thomas. The family moved to Florida when he was a child. He later served as Florida's territorial delegate to Congress. Yulee was the first person of Jewish ancestry elected to the United States House of Representatives as well as the first elected to the United States Senate. His historic status as the first Jewish senator is complicated by his extensive slaveholding and his conversion to Christianity, which many historians...

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