William Jennings Bryan was born in Salem, Marion county, Illinois,
March 19, 1860. He got an elementary education at home from his
mother until he was ten, and then attended public school until his
fifteenth year, studying thereafter for two years at Whipple academy,
Jacksonville, which he left in order to enter Illinois college. During
his college course he was prominent in literary and debating societies
and on his graduation, in 1881, delivered the valedictory of his class.
For the next two years he studied law in the Union law college, and
in the office of Lyman Trumbull, and upon his admission to the bar
began to practice at Jacksonville. In 1884 he removed to Lincoln,
Nebraska, and became a member of the law firm of Talbot & Bryan. He
soon became active in politics, his first public reputation being made
in the campaign of 1888. In 1890 he was sent to congress. In 1892 he
was renominated and again elected. In 1896 he was a delegate from
Nebraska to the national convention of the Democratic party at Chicago,
where his brilliant speech in defense of free silver caused his
nomination as candidate to the presidency of the United States. After
a most remarkable campaign he was defeated. He was a colonel of the
Third Nebraska Volunteers during the Spanish-American war, and at its
termination returned to Nebraska, resuming his political activities. He
edits and publishes The Commoner, a weekly periodical, in which he sets
forth his political principles. Mary E. Baird, of Perry, Illinois, whom
he married in 1884, has borne him three children.