Stephen Grover Cleveland March 18, β June 24, served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States , from to and again from to He was the first Democrat to win election to the presidency after the Civil War and the first of two U. Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in and governor of New York in While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the time.
During his first presidency , Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act of which made the railroad industry the first industry subject to federal regulation by a regulatory body, [ 4 ] and the Dawes Act which would lead to Native Americans ceding control of about million acres of land between and , which was around "two-thirds of the land base they held in After his loss, he returned to New York City and joined a law firm. In the election , Cleveland defeated Harrison in both the popular vote and electoral college, restoring him to the White House.
One month before his second administration began, the Panic of sparked the most severe national depression in U. By the end of his second term, he was severely unpopular, even among Democrats. After leaving the White House, Cleveland served as a trustee of Princeton University and continued to voice his political views.
Cleveland is typically ranked as an average or below-average U. His father's maternal grandfather , Richard Falley Jr. Cleveland, the fifth of nine children, was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time. He became known as Grover in his adult life. Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school and place him in a two-year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville.
The experience was valuable and brief, and the living conditions quite austere. Grover returned to Clinton and his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract. He took a new work assignment in Holland Patent, New York near Utica and moved his family once again. Grover was said to have learned about his father's death from a boy selling newspapers. Cleveland returned home to Holland Patent at the end of , where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he promised to become a minister.
