Robert P. Skinner

U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary Robert P. Skinner presents his credentials
to the Estonian Republic's State Elder Jaan Teemant and to Minister of Foreign Affairs
Jaan Tõnisson on April 2, 1932. Minister Skinner is standing in the front row on the far left.
U.S. Consul Harry E. Carlson is standing third from the right. (Eesti Filmiarhiiv)

Robert Peet Skinner was born in Massillon, Ohio on February 24, 1866 to Augustus and Cecilia Skinner. He attended high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. From 1886 to 1897, Skinner was the owner and editor of the Massillon Evening Independent, a local newspaper. On June 17, 1897, he married Helen Wales. At the end of 1897, he entered the U.S. Consular Service as a consul at Marseilles, France and by 1901 he was serving as the U.S. Consul General there.

In 1903, Skinner was appointed to be the U.S. Commissioner in charge of establishing relations between the United States and Ethiopia. Commissioner Skinner negotiated directly with King Menelik II and concluded a treaty establishing relations. He wrote a memoir called Abyssinia of Today based on his work and time in Ethiopia.

Skinner served as the U.S. Consul General at Hamburg from 1908 until 1912 when he was placed on special detail to adjust the claims of creditors against Liberia in Great Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands. This negotiation succeeded in reorganizing Liberia's finances.

Next, Skinner went on to become the U.S. Consul General in Berlin in 1913 before moving to London in 1914. In 1915, he was named the U.S. representative to the International Nitrate Executive Committee. This group met in London and decided the monthly price for nitrate of soda (an ingredient used in explosives) to be paid by the allied countries in order to control prices during the war. In 1919, Skinner was appointed as a delegate of the International Chamber of Commerce in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Skinner returned to France in 1924 where he served as the U.S. Consul General in Paris. In 1926, he became U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Greece.

On September 23, 1931, Skinner became the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He presented his credentials in Tallinn on April 2, 1932. Resident in Riga with his wife Helen, he departed post on April 29, 1933.

In 1933, Skinner received his final assignment as U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Turkey. Ambassador Skinner resigned from the Foreign Service on February 29, 1936. After his resignation, he moved to Belfast, Maine where he died on July 2, 1960 at the age of 94.