page_title: William B. Bankhead
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: William B. Bankhead / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Team photo of the 1892 University of Alabama football team
context_page_description: William Brockman Bankhead was an American politician who served as the 42nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940, representing Alabama's 10th and later 7th congressional districts as a Democrat from 1917 to 1940. Bankhead was a prominent supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of pro-labor union legislation, thus clashing with most other Southern Democrats in Congress at the time. Bankhead described himself as proud to be a politician, by which he meant that he did not neglect matters that concerned his district or reelection. He was the father of actress Tallulah Bankhead.
  Bankhead died on September 15, 1940, from an abdominal hemorrhage, while still in office.
context_section_description: Bankhead was born at the Bankhead plantation in Lamar County, Alabama. His father, John H. Bankhead, was an active politician who had served in the Alabama legislature, and later as US Representative and Senator. His mother was Tallulah James Brockman, granddaughter of South Carolina state Senator Thomas Patterson Brockman, and he was raised as a Methodist. Bankhead's brother, John H. Bankhead II, also served in the Senate.
  William Bankhead attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and played on the university's first football team, organized in 1892. He studied law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, graduating in 1895.
  He was immediately admitted to the bar in Alabama, and practiced law in Huntsville.
caption: William Bankhead (#9) with the 1892 Alabama football team
exif: {}