Nathaniel Barksdale DIAL, Congress, SC (1862-1940)

DIAL, Nathaniel Barksdale, a Senator from South Carolina; born near Laurens, Laurens County, S.C., April 24, 1862, attended the common schools, Richmond (Va.) College, and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; studied law at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville; admitted to the bar in 1883 and commenced practice in Laurens, S.C.; mayor of Laurens 1887-1891 and again in 1895; declined the office of consul to Zurich, Switzerland, tendered by President Grover Cleveland in 1893; engaged in banking and in various manufacturing enterprises; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1912; elected in 1918 as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1919, to March 3, 1925; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1924; member of the commission to report on the use of the nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals, Ala., 1925; resumed the practice of law in South Carolina and Washington, D.C., and also his former manufacturing enterprises in South Carolina; died in Washington, D.C., on December 11, 1940; interment in Laurens Cemetery, Laurens, S.C.

Bibliography

Dial, Rebecca. True to His Colors: A Story of South Carolina’s Senator Nathaniel Barksdale Dial. New York: Vantage Press, 1974; Slaunwhite, Jerry L. “The Public Career of Nathaniel Barksdale Dial.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina, 1979.

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