As an educator he taught in the schools of Coal, Atoka, Bryan, and Pittsburg Counties in Oklahoma from 1914 to 1926. During World War I he served as a private in the Student Army Training Corps in 1917 and 1918. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1917. He was graduated from the law department of the University of Oklahoma at Norman in 1920. Afterwards he began a law practice in McAlester, Oklahoma. Additionally he took postgraduate work at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. He served as member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1914 to 1918, and then as a member of the State Senate from 1918 until 1922. Cartwright was a vocational adviser for disabled veterans at McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1921 and 1922. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in 1922 and 1924, and served as Superintendent of schools at Krebs, Oklahoma from 1922 to 1926.
His two daughters were Wilburta May Cartwright and actress Lynn Cartwright.
His nephew, Jan Eric Cartwright, was the Oklahoma Attorney General from 1979 to 1983.
His siblings were Floyd, Gerty, McKinley, Shafter, Dewey, Cecil, Keith, and Clifford (Buck). The last two were also Oklahoma state legislators.
His father, Jackson Robert Cartwright, was a Baptist preacher and served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1929 and 1931.
United States Congress
Cartwright was elected as a Democrat to the Seventieth and to the seven succeeding Congresses. He served as chairman of the Committee on Roads (Seventy-third through Seventy-seventh Congresses). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1942. Cartwright was a supporter of the New Deal public works projects in his district.
Cartwright was elected to a single four year term as Secretary of State of Oklahoma in 1946 and State Auditor in 1950. In 1954, Cartwright resigned as Auditor to be appointed State corporation commissioner by Governor Johnston Murray, and was elected for a full six-year term later that year as well as in 1960 and 1966. In 1970 he attempted to win the nomination for Governor, but placed last in a field of four, only gaining an eighth of the vote in the Democratic primary. He was a resident of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma until his death there on March 14, 1979. He was interred in I.O.O.F. Cemetery, Norman, Oklahoma.
United States
United States Army
Major
