Jeff DAVIS, Congress, AR (1862-1913)

DAVIS, Jeff, a Senator from Arkansas; born near Richmond, Little River County, Ark., May 6, 1862; attended school in Russellville, Ark., and graduated from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., in 1884; studied law; admitted to the bar in Pope County, Ark., and commenced practice in Russellville, Ark.; prosecuting attorney of the fifth judicial district 1892-1896; attorney general of the State 1898-1900; Governor of Arkansas 1901-1906; continued the practice of law at Little Rock, Ark., in 1906; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1907, until his death in Little Rock, Ark., January 3, 1913; chairman, Committee on the Mississippi and its Tributaries (Sixty-second Congress); interment in Mount Holly Cemetery.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Arsenault, Raymond. The Wild Ass of the Ozarks: Jeff Davis and the Social Bases of Southern Politics. 1984, Reprint. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988; Niswonger, Richard L. “A Study in Southern Demagoguery: Jeff Davis of Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 39 (Summer 1980): 114-24.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present