Researching Ambrose Kennedy

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Kennedy attended parochial schools, Calvert Hall College, and Polytechnic Institute. He was employed as a clerk for an insurance company from 1909 to 1924, and engaged in the brokerage and insurance business in 1924. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1918, and served as member of the Baltimore City Council from 1922 to 1926. He served in the Maryland Senate in 1928 and 1929, and served as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1928 and 1932. He was appointed parole commissioner of Maryland in 1929 and served until elected to Congress.

Kennedy was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Charles Linthicum and on the same day was elected to the Seventy-third Congress. He was reelected to the Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, and Seventy-sixth Congresses and served from November 8, 1932, to January 3, 1941. In Congress, he served as chairman of the Committee on Claims (Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, and Seventy-sixth Congresses), but was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1940.

He resumed the brokerage and insurance business in Baltimore, as well as serving as a member of the State Unemployment Compensation Board from June 1943 to September 1945. In November 1943, he sought an appointment as the president of the Baltimore City Council but lost to C. Markland Kelly (a member of the Baltimore Park board) since 1935. By 1950, he was a senior vice-president of the insurance firm Poor, Bowen, Barlett and Kennedy. He died at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore at age 57, and is interred in the New Cathedral Cemetery. A Baltimore city park located at Valley Street and E. Chase Street is named in honor of Ambrose Kennedy, who lived nearby at 914 E. Biddle Street and attended the nearby St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church.

Born in Blackstone, Massachusetts, Kennedy attended the Blackstone public schools and St. Hyacinthe's College, Province of Quebec, Canada. He graduated from College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1897. He served as principal of the Blackstone High School 1898-1904 and as superintendent of schools 1906-1908. He graduated from the Boston University Law School in 1906. He was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He served as aide-de-camp on the personal staff of Gov. Aram J. Pothier with the rank of colonel 1909-1913. He was a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives 1911-1913, serving as speaker in 1912.

Kennedy was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-third and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1913 – March 3, 1923). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1922. He resumed the practice of law. He died in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, March 10, 1967. He was interred in St. Paul's Cemetery, Blackstone, Massachusetts.