James Oliver (1895-1986) a U.S. Representative was born in South Portland on August 6, 1895. He attended the public schools, and earned an A.B. from Bowdoin College in 1917.
During the First World War, Oliver enlisted on June 4, 1917, attended the Plattsburg Barracks Training Camp, and was commissioned a captain on November 27, 1917. He was promoted to major of Infantry on October 9, 1918, and transferred to the Inspector General’s Department until honorably discharged on July 22, 1919.
Oliver engaged in the general insurance business in Portland from 1930 to 1937, and was a member of the board of aldermen of South Portland in 1932 and 1933. He was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-fifth, Seventy-sixth, and Seventy-seventh Congresses (January 3, 1937-January 3, 1943), but was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1942.
He served as a lieutenant commander in the United States Coast Guard from January 26, 1943, to April 23, 1946. In 1946 he engaged in the real estate and insurance business in Maine and California.
Oliver was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor in 1952 an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress in 1954 and 1956, and unsuccessfully contested the election of Robert Hale to the Eighty-fifth Congress in 1956.
Elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-sixth Congress (January 3, 1959-January 3, 1961), he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1960. Oliver was a delegate to Democratic National Convention, 1960 and real estate developer in Cape Elizabeth. He moved to Orlando, Florida where he died December 25, 1986.
Additional resources
James Oliver Congressional Biography: https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/O/OLIVER,-James-Churchill-(O000074)/