Winner of the Gulf South Historical Association's Michael V. R. Thomason Book Award

The sweeping story of an ambitious and once-powerful southern family
 
From Reconstruction through the end of World War II, the Bankheads served as the principal architects of the political, economic, and cultural framework of Alabama and the greater South. As a family, they were instrumental in fashioning the New South and the twentieth century American political economy, but now the Bankhead name is largely associated only with place names.
 
Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama is a deeply researched epic family biography that reflects the complicated and evolving world inhabited by three generations of the extremely accomplished—if problematic—Bankhead family of northwest Alabama. Kari Frederickson’s expertly crafted account traces the careers of five members of the family—John Hollis Bankhead; his sons, John Hollis Bankhead Jr. and William Brockman Bankhead; his daughter, Marie Bankhead Owen; and his granddaughter, Tallulah Brockman Bankhead.
 
A Confederate veteran and son of a slaveholder, John Hollis Bankhead held political office almost continuously from 1865 until his death in 1920, first in state-level positions and ultimately in Congress–in the House then in the Senate–for thirty-three years. Two of his three sons, John Jr. and William, followed in their father’s political footsteps. John Jr., a successful corporate attorney, was elected to the state legislature and then to the US Senate in 1930; William was elected to the House of Representatives in 1916 and chosen Speaker of the House in 1936. Together, father and sons played key roles in crafting and maintaining a conservative political culture, legal code, and economic system that facilitated economic opportunities for cotton farmers, coal barons, and emerging industries in Alabama and across the South while perpetuating White supremacy. Daughter Marie Bankhead Owen extended the family’s cultural power during her thirty-five-year tenure as director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. From this position and through her work with groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy, she embraced and disseminated a historical narrative steeped in Lost Cause mythology that validated the power and privilege of White elites and naturalized the second-class status of African Americans. William’s daughter, actress Tallulah Bankhead, benefited from her family’s rich political bloodlines and in turn lent them a touch of glamour and made the Bankheads modern. Frederickson’s meticulously researched examination of this once-powerful but now largely forgotten southern family is a sweeping and complex story of the region and its relationship with the wider world over the course of eight decades, from the wreckage of the Civil War to the dawn of the nuclear age.
 

Kari Frederickson is professor of history at the University of Alabama. She is author of Cold War Dixie: Militarization and Modernization in the American South and The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968.
 

“The title of the [introduction] of this fascinating book, ‘Family Biography as Regional History,’ says it all. Kari Frederickson’s account of how two generations of a powerful Alabama family spearheaded the twin projects of enlisting the federal government in the economic development of the South and excluding Blacks from the benefits of that project goes to the heart of southern and American political history from the New Deal to World War II. An engaging page-turner, Deep South Dynasty is set apart by its attention to how the female members of a male-dominated dynasty—the actor Tallulah Bankhead and her aunt, the longtime director of Alabama’s Department of Archives and History—both contributed to and, in the case of Tallulah, undermined the family project.
—Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, author of Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America
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“In this splendidly executed history of family, region, and nation, Kari Frederickson shows why she is a leading scholar in southern political studies. Her keen insight and no-stone-unturned research, presented in a vibrant narrative, delivers the sobering truth about the southern white power structure that has stifled social progress since enslaved Africans sowed the first cotton seeds in Alabama soil.”
—Jack E. Davis, author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in History

“An essential addition to Alabama history… Frederickson provides valuable context into how the South affected the Bankhead family and, also, how the Bankhead family impacted the South and the nation.… The Bankhead saga is a compelling and complex story that Frederickson examines with the detail and tact it deserves, offering valuable insights.… Frederickson’s book is exhaustively researched, clearly presented, and immensely readable.… Deep South Dynasty provides an integral overview of a part of American history spanning the Civil War and World War II. Its focus on one very powerful American family, with all of its conflicts and contradictions, gives an immediacy and vibrance that make Deep South Dynasty a compelling and welcome addition to American political history.”
—Alabama Writers' Forum— -