Oil on canvas, Howard Chandler Christy, 1937, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

BANKHEAD, William Brockman, (son of John Hollis Bankhead, brother of John Hollis Bankhead 2d, and uncle of Walter Will Bankhead), a Representative from Alabama; born in Moscow, Lamar County, Ala., April 12, 1874; attended the country schools; was graduated from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, 1893 and from the Georgetown University Law School at Washington, D.C., in 1895; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Huntsville, Ala.; member of the State house of representatives in 1900 and 1901; city attorney of Huntsville, 1898-1902; moved to Jasper, Walker County, Ala., in 1905 and continued the practice of law; solicitor of the fourteenth judicial circuit of Alabama, 1910-1914; unsuccessful candidate for nomination to the Sixty-fourth Congress in 1914; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-fifth and to the eleven succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1917-September 15, 1940); chairman, Committee on Rules (Seventy-third Congress); majority leader (Seventy-fourth Congress), Speaker of the House of Representatives (Seventy-fourth to Seventy-sixth Congresses); delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1940; died on September 15, 1940, in Washington, D.C.; funeral services were held in the Hall of the House of Representatives; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Jasper, Ala.