Selling Statehood

After the drafting of the state constitution, Alaska needed to convince Congress and the rest of the country that it was ready for statehood. Statehood proponents led by the publisher of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, C.W. Snedden, proposed a technique that Tennessee had used to win admission into the Union. Basically, Alaska would elect a Congressional delegation and send its members to Washington D.C. hoping to be recognized by Congress. Proponents called it “the Alaska-Tennessee Plan.” 

Delegates and voters endorsed the plan and chose Democrats Ralph Rivers, William Egan and Ernest Gruening as the delegation. Their job: to lobby Congress and President Eisenhower on behalf of Alaska. E.L. “Bob” Bartlett also used his connections in the U.S. House of Representatives to help win support for statehood. 

C.W. Snedden also convinced his friend Fred Seaton, Eisenhower’s Secretary of the Interior, that a young attorney named Ted Stevens, a Republican, would be ideal to serve as advisor to the Interior Department on Alaska issues. Stevens later became known as “Mr. Alaska” at the department, where he helped draft the Statehood act. Historian Terrence Cole recently argued that if it was not for Ted Stevens’ ability to convince Eisenhower’s Republican administration to admit the Democratic state of Alaska into the Union, statehood may not have been achieved in 1959.

With opposition waning from the Dixiecrats in the South, Alaska statehood began to gain national support. In 1958 the House approved a bill for Alaska Statehood by a 210 to 166 vote. After a crucial amendment that reduced the land grant to the state from 183 million acres to 104 million, the U.S. Senate concurred with the House bill by a vote of 64 to 20. On June 30, 1958, Congress finally approved the Alaska Statehood Act. The act required that Alaskans vote on the question, “Shall Alaska immediately be admitted into the Union as a State?” In a referendum held on August 26, 1958, there was no question that the people overwhelmingly supported statehood—the proposition was approved by 83.5 percent of voting Alaskans. The Anchorage Times summed up the events in a 6.5 inch headline that read:

“We’re In.”

On January 3, 1959, President Eisenhower signed the proclamation admitting the 49th state to the Union. With the official enactment of Alaska statehood the state Constitution went into effect, and the first law Alaska’s state citizens passed was to abolish fish traps. Alaskans everywhere celebrated; opportunities seemed limitless, but the future for the new state remained uncertain.

 President Eisenhower signing ceremony, Washington D.C., January 1959. 37 second film clip, color/silent, of President Eisenhower signing Alaska into statehood. Among the notables that can be identified are: are President Dwight Eisenhower,Vice President Richard Nixon,Senator Bob Bartlett,Senator Ernest Gruening and Representative Ralph Rivers. Edward Lewis Bartlett Papers, 1938-1970 Alaska Film Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks AAF-1402