John Hollis II BANKHEAD, Congress, AL (1872-1946)

BANKHEAD, John Hollis II, (son of John Hollis Bankhead, brother of William Brockman Bankhead, and father of Walter Will Bankhead), a Senator from Alabama; born on a farm near Old Moscow, Lamar County, Ala., July 8, 1872; attended the public schools; graduated from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1891 and from the law department of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., in 1893; admitted to the bar in 1893 and commenced practice in Jasper, Ala.; served in the Alabama National Guard with rank of major 1901-1903; member of the State house of representatives 1904-1905; president of the Bankhead Coal Co. 1911-1925; trustee of the University of Alabama 1917-1919 and 1931-1946; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1930; reelected in 1936 and 1942 and served from March 4, 1931, until his death in the United States Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Md., on June 12, 1946; chairman, Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation (Seventy-fifth through Seventy-ninth Congresses); interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Jasper, Ala.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Key, Jack B. “John H. Bankhead, Jr. of Alabama: The Conservative as Reformer.” Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1966; U.S. Congress. Memorial Services for John Hollis Bankhead, 2d. 80th Cong., 1st sess., 1947. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949.

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