Albert Sidney Johnson Carnahan (January 9, 1897-March 24, 1968) was an American politician.
Carnahan was born near Ellsinore, Missouri, and attended public schools in Ellsinore and Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Carnahan entered the Navy in 1918, serving for two years before returning home. He attended the Missouri State Teachers College in Cape Girardeau, now Southeast Missouri State University. Carnahan taught in southeastern Missouri for several years before enrolling at the University of Missouri, from which he graduated in 1934. For the next several years, Carnahan was a high school administrator, rising to the post of superintendent of schools in Ellsinore.
In 1944, Carnahan was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat. He served only one term before being defeated in 1946, but ran again in 1948 and won. Carnahan served in the House for six consecutive terms, but failed to win the Democratic Party's nomination for his own seat in 1960. In 1961, Carnahan was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as the first American ambassador to Sierra Leone; he retired from this post in 1963. Carnahan died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in 1968.
A.S.J. Carnahan was the father of Mel Carnahan, who went on to become the governor of Missouri and head up a family of noted state politicians.
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