UO Second Age

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Born in Childersburg, Alabama, he moved with his parents to Pauls Valley, Oklahoma (which was then Indian Territory), and then to Kiowa County, near Hobart, in 1901. He attended the public schools of Hobart and Rocky, Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Baptist University at Shawnee. He was a teacher in the public schools of Rocky from 1911 to 1913 and was a coach of athletics and teacher of public speaking at the Oklahoma Baptist University, 1913–1915; he graduated from the University of Oklahoma at Norman in 1917, and received a graduate degree in political science from Columbia University in 1924, and a law degree from Cumberland School of Law at Cumberland University (Tennessee) in 1925.

During the First World War, Joshua Lee served overseas as a private in the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Infantry, Thirty-fourth Division, in 1917 and 1918. From 1919 to 1934, he was head of the public speaking department of the University of Oklahoma, and was also an author and lecturer; he owned and operated a ranch in western Oklahoma and a farm near Norman.