David Sholtz

Sholtz was born to Jewish parents [1] in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Yale, where he was a member of the Acacia fraternity, he earned a law degree from Stetson University Law School in 1914. This enabled him to become a Florida lawyer without having to take the bar examination, as Florida then adhered to the diploma privilege. With his law degree, he started a law practice in Daytona Beach, Florida. He married Alice May Agee, with whom he had three children. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War I.

Sholtz entered politics when he became a one-term member of the Florida House of Representatives in 1917. After that, he was a State Attorney from 1919 to 1921, and he became a city judge in 1921. Taking the oath on January 4, 1933, he became governor during the Great Depression. During his tenure as governor, he established the Florida Park Service and Florida Citrus Commission, passed a workers' compensation law, mandated free textbooks in public schools, and funded salaries for public school teachers. While in office, he was a strong advocate of governmental restructuring.

After leaving the Governor's Mansion on January 5, 1937, Sholtz unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1938, losing the Democratic primary to Claude Pepper. He spent most of his time in New York after his term as governor, but he retained his residency in Florida. He died while visiting Key West, Florida in 1953 and is buried at the Cedar Hill Memory Gardens in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Sholtz.

• Official Governor's portrait and biography from the State of Florida
• National Governors Association
• Pepper v. Sholtz v. Wilcox, Time Magazine, Monday, May. 02, 1938
• David Sholtz at Find a Grave