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Flanders was born on September 28, 1880 in Barnet, Vermont on September 28, 1880, the oldest of the nine children of Albert W. Flanders and Mary (Gilfillan) Flanders. When Flanders was six, his family moved to Lincoln, Rhode Island, where his father farmed while supervising in Pawtucket the construction and sale of a bookrack he designed. Flanders attended school in Providence and Central Falls, and was an 1896 graduate of Central Falls High School.
In his first years as a machinist and draftsman, he spent his vacations traveling by bicycle over country roads between Rhode Island and Vermont and New Hampshire. Later, he lived for a time in New York City where he edited a machine tool magazine, but after five years decided to move back to Vermont.
Flanders's career began with an apprenticeship, progressed into engineering, journalism, management, policy consulting, banking, finance, and finally politics when he was elected U.S. Senator from Vermont.
Flanders was noted for introducing a 1954 motion in the Senate to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy had made sensational claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government and elsewhere. He used his Senate committee as a nationally televised forum for attacks on individuals whom he accused. Flanders felt that McCarthy's attacks distracted the nation from a much greater threat of Communist successes elsewhere in the world and that they had the effect of creating division and confusion within the United States, to the advantage of its enemies. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led to his being discredited and censured by the United States Senate.
Flanders died on February 19, 1970.
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