John Hoover Rothermel (March 7, 1856 – August 1922) was an American lawyer and politician who served four terms as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania from 1907 to 1915.
Biography
John H. Rothermel was born in Richmond Township, Pennsylvania. He pursued an academic course at Brunner's Business College in Reading, Pennsylvania. He taught school in Blandon Township, Pennsylvania, from 1876 to 1881. He served as a member of the faculty at Brunner's Scientific Academy. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1881 and commenced practice in Reading.
Early career
Rothermel worked as an assistant district attorney of Reading from 1886 to 1889. He served as county solicitor of Berks County, Pennsylvania from 1895 to 1898. He was an unsuccessful candidate for judge of the court of common pleas in 1899.
Congress
Rothermel was elected as a Democrat to the Sixtieth and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving from 1907 to 1915.
He served as the chairman of the United States House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor during the Sixty-second Congress, and of the United States House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce during the Sixty-third Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1914.
Later career and death
He resumed the practice of law, and died in Reading in 1922. Interment in Reading's Charles Evans Cemetery.