Marie Bankhead Owen
Marie Bankhead Owen (born September 1, 1869 in Noxubee County, Mississippi; died March 1, 1958 in Selma, Dallas County) was a historian who succeeded her husband as the second director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH).
Marie was one of five children born to John Hollis Bankhead, a former Alabama state representative and Confederate officer, and the former Tallulah James Brockman at the Bankhead plantation in Mississippi. She attended Ward's Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. She spent the following winter with her father in Washington D.C. and later voyaged to Europe. She met Thomas McAdory Owen at his graduation from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1887. They were married on April 12, 1893.
Marie Owen was an active member and leader of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), while her husband was a founding member of the Alabama branch of the Sons of the Revolution. He was active in Democratic Party politics and served as a solicitor and justice of this peace. Soon his efforts to compile materials for a comprehensive history of Alabama caused his law practice to suffer. Through the intervention of his father-in-law, then a U.S. Senator, he was able to secure a position at the Library of Congress in 1894.
Marie accompanied her husband to Washington and assisted him in compiling bibliographies relating to the histories of Alabama and Mississippi. Thomas Owen reorganized the Alabama Historical Society in 1898 and successfully lobbied the Alabama State Legislature to create a state Department of Archives and History in 1901. He continued to research his planned history while amassing what became a significant collection of materials, many relating to the state's participation in the Civil War.
Marie contributed articles to Uncle Remus's Magazine and Southern Woman Magazine. In 1911 became was hired as society editor for The Montgomery Advertiser, and continued with the paper as a feature writer and editor until 1917. She was elected president of the League of Southern Writers in 1916 and chaired the National League for Woman's Service from 1916 to 1918. In her civic roles she primarily promoted the teaching of history in schools. She was also active in anti-suffrage activism through the Women's Anti-Ratification League, opposing the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, partially on the grounds that it might lead to future suffrage movements by African Americans.
Along with her personal interest in her family's history, Marie labored to promote the history of Alabama to the general public. She published stories and plays for children commemorating the state's centennial in 1919. After her husband's death at the age of 53 in 1920, she was appointed to succeed him as director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. With the help of the department's staff and other supporters she completed, edited and oversaw the 1921 publication of his life's work, a 4-volume History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography.
Owen served as Archives director for 25 years, during which time she served on numerous state commissions and authored a primary school textbook, Alabama: A Social and Economic History of the State. She was consulted on the design for a new Alabama Coat of Arms and proposed replacing the state's former motto, "Here We Rest", with a phrase taken from Sir William Jones' "Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus," which University of Alabama professor W. B. Saffold translated into Latin as, "Audemus jura nostra defendere."
Owen engaged with President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" programs on behalf of her department. She advised journalist Myrtle Miles in compiling the Federal Writers Project's "WPA Guide to Alabama", engaging in bitter exchanges before endorsing the final publication in 1941. Also, by leveraging the positions of her father and brother in Congress, she was able to help the state secure funds to construct a $650,000 "World War Memorial Building" opposite the state capitol as the home for the ADAH.
In addition to her non-fiction work, Owen published one novel, Yvonne of Braithwaite in 1927.
Owen chaired the women's division of the States Rights Democratic Party ("Dixiecrats"), which nominated Strom Thurmond for president at their 1948 convention in Birmingham. She retired from the department in 1955.
Owen died at the Dunn Rest Home in Selma in 1958 and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1975.
References
- Jackson, Harvey H. III (Spring 2000) "How Marie Bankhead Owen Almost Killed the WPA Guide to Alabama." Alabama Heritage
- Hébert, Rebecca Lapczynski (October 20, 2021) "Marie Bankhead Owen". Encyclopedia of Alabama - accessed March 22, 2022
- Whitmire, Kyle (February 16, 2022) "How a Confederate daughter rewrote Alabama history for white supremacy." The Birmingham News