Bankhead, John Hollis

Bankhead, John Hollis

(1872–1946) lawyer, politician; born in Moscow, Ala. (uncle of Tallulah Bankhead). He graduated Georgetown Law School (1893) and returned to Alabama and the law office of his father's business friend. As a state representative (1903–05), he once wrote a law to disenfranchise African-Americans. In 1930 he ran successfully for the U.S. Senate as a "Jeffersonian Democrat" and embraced New Deal farm programs (Dem., 1931–46). The Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act (1937) established the Farm Security Administration which, among other things, assisted migrant workers. During the war he fought unsuccessfully the president's policy of keeping food prices low. He collapsed during a political battle to prevent the continuation of price controls and died a month later.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.