Quick Facts
Biography
John J. Carson was a 20th-century American politician who served in the Truman Administration as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission from 1949 to 1953.
Background
Carson was born in Smith Valley, Indiana, south of Indianapolis, where he then grew up.
Career
Carson's first job was as a messenger boy for the president of the American National Bank of Indianapolis. He then worked for the Van Camp Packing Company as bookkeeper and accountant. By 1912, he had gone into journalism and was became city editor in Indianapolis.
In 1918, he took a job in Washington, DC, as assistant correspondent for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper and moved shortly thereafter to the St. Louis Republic newspaper. Then, he moved to the Baltimore Sun, where he came to know H. L. Mencken and then the Scripps-Howard Evening Sun through 1922.
His term overlapped closely with that of Stephen J. Spingarn.