Senator Thomas Staples Martin led a Democratic political machine in Virginia for decades in the late 19th and early 20th century, which later became known as the Byrd Organization for Swanson's successor as U.S.

A Swedish ancestor had moved from Philadelphia to southwestern Virginia in the 17th century to farm, as well as trade tobacco (and supply farmers with goods they needed).

Another family financial crisis led him and his brother to work in Danville as clerks in John Carter's grocery.

[2] The young orator Claude Swanson had drawn the attention of Democratic party politicians in Richmond when he was studying in Ashland just up the railroad line.

During the 1893 depression, Swanson became Virginia's most outspoken congressman endorsing William Jennings Bryan's inflationary fiscal reforms, i.e. allowing both silver and gold as legal tender.

By 1896, Swanson had allied himself with Henry D. Flood, James Hay, Francis Lassiter and Thomas Staples Martin (whom he helped elect to the Senate in 1893).

Although his family's mercantile background had shown Swanson the importance of credit, his views (and those of his allies) outraged the conservative creditor class.

Railroad developer Joseph F. Bryan, who owned the Richmond Times analogized Swanson to communists, anarchists and repudiators of debt.

Also, as noted by one study, “Requiring that federal sanitary standards be followed, Swanson ordered Saunders to indict reluctant bakery owners who failed to meet them.”[10] In addition, a number of labor laws were introduced.

[11] However, this was also an era of increased racial polarization in Virginia, and under Swanson and his lieutenant governor James Taylor Ellyson, African American schools received far fewer funds, and the state's eugenics program would flower in the 1920s.

In August 1910, his successor as governor William Hodges Mann appointed Swanson to fill the vacancy until the end of Daniel's term on March 3, 1911.

Fellow Progressive Virginian Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 Presidential election, so Swanson supported successful reforms in child labor and banking laws, reduced tariffs and federal funding of highway construction.

He and Virginia's other Senator Thomas Staples Martin also supported expansion of the Norfolk Naval Base and the League of Nations.

His familiarity with the 1922 Washington agreements and those of the London Treaty (1930) led President Herbert Hoover (though of the opposing political party) to appoint Swanson as an American delegate to the unsuccessful Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1932.

When the Great Depression hit and voters elected Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt President, Swanson became Secretary of the Navy, serving from 1933 until his death in 1939.

Ill for several months, Swanson died at Herbert Hoover's Rapidan Camp (which was then available for use by the Roosevelt Administration) in Criglersville, Madison County, Virginia, on July 7, 1939.