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Charles Joseph Bonaparte (June 9, 1851 - June 28, 1921) was a grandson
of Jerome Bonaparte (the youngest brother of the French emperor Napoleon
I), and a member of the United States Cabinet.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was the son of Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-1870) and Susan May Williams (1812-1881), from whom the American line of the Bonaparte family
descended.
After graduating from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he would later be appointed a university
overseer, he practiced law in Baltimore and became prominent in municipal and national reform movements.
On September 1, 1875, Bonaparte
married Ellen Channing Day (1852-1924). They had no
children.
He was a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners from 1902 to 1904, chairman of the National Civil Service Reform League in 1904 and
appointed a trustee of the Catholic
University of America. In 1905, U.S. President Theodore
Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte to his cabinet as United States Secretary of the Navy. From 1906
until the end of President Roosevelt's administration he served as United States Attorney General. He was active in suits brought against the trusts and was
largely responsible for breaking up the tobacco monopoly. In 1908, Joseph founded the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI).
He was one of the founders, and for a time the president, of the National Municipal League.
Bonaparte died in Bella Vista, Baltimore
County, Maryland.
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