US Congressman. Born in Washington, DC, he was the son of United States Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, and the brother of Diplomat Winthrop W. Aldrich. Educated in the public schools of Providence Rhode Island, he graduated from the Hope Street High School in 1902 and matriculated at Yale University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1906. He graduated with a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1909, and practiced law in New York City, New York before returning to his hometown of Providence in 1913. His first foray into politics saw him being elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives from the 1st District in Warwick in 1914, serving one 2-year term in the House before being elected to the Rhode Island Senate. After his term in the Senate expired he did not seek reelection, instead he volunteered in the American Red Cross during World War I and went to France, where he served in several areas including in the Argonne Forest at a triage sorting hospital. After the war he was soon active in Republican politics again and announced his candidacy for Rhode Island's 2nd District seat for the United States Congress. He was elected to represent that District in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1922 to 1933. Barely a year into his term he was accorded the nearly unprecedented honor of being named to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In 1924 Rhode Island Senator LeBaron B. Colt, and Richard Aldrich was offered the seat, but declined. In 1930, wishing to retire he announced he would not seek reelection, however, 71 of his colleagues, both Republican and Democrat, signed a petition to have him run again (he then remained in the Congress till 1933). In 1918 he had been elected as a director of the Providence Journal Company and continued to serve on its board till the close of his professional career. He also served on the boards of several banking and insurance companies, and was appointed as an Associate Fellow at Calhoun College at Yale University by then President James Rowland Angell. He died at the age of 57 in Providence.