Redden, Monroe Minor

24 Sept. 1901–16 Dec. 1987

Monroe Minor Redden, congressman and attorney, was born in Hendersonville, the son of John L. and Julia Trimble Redden. Educated in the public schools of Henderson County, he was graduated from the law school of Wake Forest College and was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1923.

Redden was elected to Congress from the Twelfth District in November 1946, when he defeated incumbent representative Zebulon Weaver on a platform that favored economy in government and reduction of taxes. Redden received the largest total vote and the largest majority of any congressional candidate in the state. Prior to his election he had been active in Democratic party politics, serving as chairman of the Henderson County Democratic Committee from 1930 to 1946 and as chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Executive Committee from 1942 to 1944. He was also a member of the State Board of Elections in 1938.

During his three terms in Congress between 1947 and 1953, Redden was on the District of Columbia Committee and was chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior and Insular Affairs. In 1950 he sponsored the amendment to the federal wage-and-hour law, which established seventy-five cents as the minimum wage for employees of firms engaged in interstate business. He resigned from Congress in 1953 to resume an active law practice with his two sons. Redden served as president of the Southern Heritage Life Insurance Company from 1956 to 1959. He had married Mary Belle Boyd in 1923, and they were the parents of two sons, Monroe M., Jr., and Robert M.