John James Duncan, Sr.

Congressman and Mayor of Knoxville John J. Duncan Sr. attended the university and majored in agriculture before joining the army to serve as a criminal investigator. He received the LLB degree from Cumberland University in 1947, and from 1948 to 1956, he served as assistant state attorney general. He began his political career with work in Howard Baker Sr.’s victorious campaign for Tennessee’s second congressional district. In 1959 he was elected mayor of Knoxville. In 1964 he won election to congress, filling the second congressional district’s seat that he had helped Howard Baker Sr. to win. He died in office in 1988 and was succeeded by his son, John J. Duncan Jr. His papers have been donated to the Special Collections Division of the university’s library.