Newton D. Baker, Jr. was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia in 1871. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1892. He finished the normal two year course in the School of Law at Washington and Lee University in nine months, receiving his B.L. in 1894.

He practiced law in Martinsburg before moving to Washington as secretary to the Postmaster General in President Cleveland's second administration. In 1897, Baker returned to the practice of law in his hometown, moving later to Cleveland, where he served two terms (1912-16) as mayor. In 1902 he married Elizabeth Leopold of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Baker, who had played an important role in Woodrow Wilson's nomination in the Democratic National Convention of 1912, was appointed Secretary of War by President Wilson and remained in the Cabinet to the end of Wilson's term of office.

These scrapbooks document in newspaper clippings Baker's political career in Cleveland and his time as Secretary of War. In the later position, he presided over the mobilization of more than four million men during World War I.