Charles Sinclair Weeks (June 15, 1893–February 7, 1972), better known as Sinclair Weeks, was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1944 and as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1953 until 1958, during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration.
President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him the United States Secretary of Commerce from January 21, 1953, until November 10, 1958. Among the signature initiatives of the Eisenhower administration with which Weeks was involved was the Interstate Highway system of 1956. As Secretary of Commerce, he was charged with securing funding for the project.
In the 1960s, Weeks worked with his friend and Republican colleague New Hampshire Governor Sherman Adams and others to ensure that Interstate 93 did not destroy the fragile environment of Franconia Notch State Park through which the Interstate was intended to run. As a result, Interstate 93 is transformed into the unique eight-mile long scenic Franconia Notch State Parkway before reverting to a major US Interstate. He died on February 7, 1972, at age 78, in Concord, Massachusetts. He is buried in Summer Street Cemetery in Lancaster, New Hampshire.
Personal life
Weeks married the former Beatrice Lee Dowse of Newton MA on December 4, 1915. She was the daughter of William Bradford Homer Dowse, Esq., President of Reed & Barton Silversmiths and granddaughter of Henry Gooding Reed, co-founder of Reed & Barton Silversmiths (1824 - 2015), They had three sons and three daughters, Frances Lee Weeks Hallowell Lawrence, John Wingate Weeks III, Martha Sinclair Weeks Sherrill, Sinclair Weeks Jr, William D. Weeks and Beatrice Weeks Bast. His wife died July 10, 1945, in Lancaster NH. Weeks married Jane Tompkins Rankin of Nashville TN on January 3, 1948. In 1968 he married Alice Requa Palmer Low of San Francisco, CA - widow of Admiral Francis S. Low. He had no children by his second or third wives.
In 1941, he and his sister Katherine Weeks Davidge had given their father's summer estate on Mt. Prospect in Lancaster to the State of New Hampshire to be a State Park. They intended the historic Arts & Crafts-style 1913 Lodge and 1912 Observation Tower on the summit to educate the public about sustainable forestry management. Today Weeks State Park, with its historic 1910 NH Scenic Byway road to the top, Lodge and Tower, attracts thousands of visitors annually to enjoy a panoramic 360-degree view of the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Due to the illness of his second wife, in 1958 Weeks retired to his farm in Lancaster, New Hampshire.
