Biography:

Lawyer, state legislator, U.S. Senator. Born– May 6, 1862, in Louisville, Ky. Parents– Eugene and Frederica Virginia Underwood. Married– Eugenia Morris, October 8, 1896 (D. 1900).. Children– Two. Married– Bertha Woodward, 1904. Education– Rugby School, Louisville, Ky. (graduated 1879); University of Virginia. Admitted to the bar 1884; began the practice of law in Birmingham.  Chairman, Democratic Executive Committee of the 9th District, Alabama, and Chairman, Democratic Campaign Committee which adopted the Constitution of Alabama. Member– U.S. House of Representatives, 54th-63rd Congresses, 1895-1915, Leader of the House, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee, 62nd-63rd Congresses. Member– U.S. Senate, 1915-1927, Democratic Leader of the Senate, 1920. He was one of the leading contenders for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Conventions in 1912 and 1924 and one of four delegates to the International Conference on Limitation of Armaments, 1921-1922. Member– International (Peace) Commission between the United States and France, September, 1927.  Strong supporter of states’ rights and tariff reform;  opposed prohibition and women’s suffrage, and strongly denounced the Ku Klux Klan.  Died January 25, 1929.

Source:

National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. 21; Who Was Who in America, Vol. 1; Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 10 (1936).

Publication(s):

Drifting Sands of Party Politics. New York; Century, 1928.

Papers;

A collection of the papers of Oscar Underwood is held by the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery.