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Oil on canvas, Ella Sophonisba Hergesheimer, 1937, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
BYRNS, Joseph Wellington, (father of Joseph Wellington Byrns, Jr.),
a Representative from Tennessee; born near Cedar Hill, Robertson
County, Tenn., July 20, 1869; attended the common schools; was graduated from
Nashville High School in 1887 and from the law department of Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tenn., in 1890; was admitted to the bar in 1890 and
commenced the practice of law in Nashville; member of the State house of
representatives, 1895-1901; member of the State senate in 1901-1903;
unsuccessful candidate for district attorney general of Davidson County in
1902; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-first and to the thirteen succeeding
Congresses and served from March 4, 1909, until his death; chairman, Committee
on Appropriations (Seventy-second Congress); majority leader (Seventy-third
Congress), Speaker of the House of Representatives (Seventy-fourth Congress);
chairman of the Democratic National Congressional Campaign Committee 1928-1930;
was a nominee for reelection to the Seventy-fifth Congress at the time of his
death; died in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 1936; funeral services were held in
the Hall of the House of Representatives; interment in Mount Olivet Cemetery,
Nashville, Tenn.
BibliographyIrish, Ann B. Joseph W. Byrns of
Tennessee: A Political Biography. Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 2001.
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