John Sparkman
United States Senator from Alabama
In office November 6, 1946 – January 3, 1979
Preceded by	George R. Swift
Succeeded by	Howell Heflin
11th Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives
In office 1946–1946
Leader	John W. McCormack
Preceded by	Robert Ramspeck
Succeeded by	Leslie C. Arends
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama's 8th district
In office January 3, 1937 – November 6, 1946
Preceded by	Archibald Hill Carmichael
Succeeded by	Robert E. Jones, Jr.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
In office January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1979
Preceded by	J. William Fulbright
Succeeded by	Frank Church
Chairman of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
In office 1966–1975
Preceded by	A. Willis Robertson
Succeeded by	William Proxmire
Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Small Business
In office 1955–1966
Preceded by	Edward John Thye
Succeeded by	George Smathers
Personal details
Born	John Jackson Sparkman December 20, 1899 Hartselle, Alabama, USA
Died	November 16, 1985(1985-11-16) (aged 85) Huntsville, Alabama
Resting place	Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Ivo Sparkman
Alma mater	University of Alabama
Religion	Methodist
Military service
Service/branch	United States Army
Unit	Student Army Training Corps, World War I

John Jackson Sparkman (December 20, 1899 – November 16, 1985) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Alabama. A Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 1937 until 1979. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 U.S. presidential election.

Early life and education[link]

Sparkman was born on a farm near Hartselle, Alabama. He attended the rural schools and helped on the family farm. During World War I, he was a member of the Students Army Training Corps. He graduated from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1921 and from University of Alabama School of Law in 1923. Sparkman was a founding member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha.

Legal career[link]

From left: President Harry S. Truman, Senator Sparkman (1952 Vice Presidential nominee) and Adlai Stevenson II (Governor, 1952 Presidential nominee) in the Oval Office

John Sparkman was admitted to the bar in 1925 and commenced practice in Huntsville. He was an instructor at Huntsville College from 1925 to 1928. A Freemason, he was life member of Helion Lodge#1 in Huntsville. He was also member of the Huntsville Scottish Rite bodies and a recipient of the Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH).

Political career[link]

In 1970 Wernher von Braun (right) was honored for his career in Huntsville, Alabama, with the celebration of "Wernher von Braun Day." Among those participating were Sparkman (center) and Alabama Governor Albert Brewer (left).

Sparkman was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1936 election. He was reelected in 1938, 1940, 1942, and 1944, serving in the 75th, 76th, 77th, 78th, and 79th Congresses. In 1946 he served as House Majority Whip. He was reelected in the 1946 House election to the 80th Congress and on the same date was elected to the United States Senate in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John H. Bankhead II, for the term ending on January 3, 1949. Sparkman resigned from the House of Representatives immediately following the election and began his Senate term on November 6, 1946. He served until his retirement on January 3, 1979, having not sought reelection in 1978.

He was chairman of the Select Committee on Small Business (81st, 82nd, and 84th through 90th Congresses), co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Inaugural Arrangements (86th Congress), chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency (90th and 91st Congresses), co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Defense Production (91st and 93rd Congresses), Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (92nd and 93rd Congresses), and a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations (94th and 95th Congress).

The 1943 Sparkman Act, which allowed women physicians to be commissioned as officers in the armed forces, was named for him, after lobbying by Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer.

In 1949, Sparkman was instrumental in convincing the United States Department of the Army to transfer the missile development activities from Fort Bliss, Texas, to Redstone Arsenal. This brought Wernher von Braun and the German Operation Paperclip scientists and engineers to Huntsville, forming the foundation to what eventual became the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

Sparkman was a representative of the United States at the Fifth General Assembly of the United Nations in 1950.

In 1952, he was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President, running of the ticket of Adlai Stevenson. However, the election was won by the Republican candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Sparkman was slated against Richard M. Nixon, a senatorial colleague from California.

In 1956, Sparkman was one of 82 representatives and 19 senators who signed the Southern Manifesto in opposition to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education and racial integration. In 1956, the Democrats did not renominate Sparkman for vice president, opting instead for U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver of neighboring Tennessee.^{[citation needed]}

Later elections[link]

In 1960, Sparkman defeated the Republican Julian E. Elgin of Montgomery, who received 164,868 votes (29.8 percent) in the Senate contest. Six years later, Elgin ran again against Sparkman as an Independent but polled few votes.

In 1966, Sparkman defeated another Republican John Grenier, the former state GOP chairman and an attorney from Birmingham, who polled 39 percent of the vote. Sparkman benefited in 1966 from the successful Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Lurleen Burns Wallace, the surrogate candidate for her husband, term-limited Governor George C. Wallace. Lurleen Wallace defeated Republican U.S. Representative James D. Martin of Gadsden by an even greater margin than Sparkman topped Grenier.

Initially Grenier had planned to run for governor in 1966, and Martin was poised to oppose John Sparkman, as he had four years earlier against Sparkman's colleague, J. Lister Hill. However, The New York Times predicted that toppling the "tight one-party oligarchy" would be a herculean task. Though Sparkman trailed in some polls, The Times speculated that he would rebound because Alabamians were so accustomed to voting straight Democratic tickets.^[1]Several months later Martin made the crucial decision to run for governor, instead of the Senate, and Grenier also switched races in the process. The changed plans created friction between the two men that persisted for years afterwards.^[2]

In his last Senate race in 1972, Sparkman easily defeated President Nixon's former Postmaster General, the Republican businessman Winton M. Blount of Montgomery, originally from Union Springs.

In 1985, Sparkman died of natural causes in a nursing home in Huntsville, at the age of eighty-five. Survived by his wife and daughter, he was interred in Huntsville at the historic Maple Hill Cemetery.

Sparkman High School in Harvest, Alabama and Sparkman School in Somerville, Alabama, are named in his honor.

Electoral history[link]

1972 Alabama United States Senatorial Election

1966 Alabama United States Senatorial Election

1960 Alabama United States Senatorial Election

1954 Alabama United States Senatorial Election

1952 United States Presidential Election (Vice President's seat)

1948 Alabama United States Senatorial Election

1946 Alabama United States Senatorial Election

John Sparkman (D) Unopposed

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

A history of Senator Sparkman's career in the House of Representatives was written in 1990 by Dr. Henry Walker.

• John Sparkman at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• John Sparkman and the History Of Redstone Arsenal
• John Sparkman at Find a Grave
• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with John J. Sparkman" is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]

v t e United States Senators from Alabama Class 2 King Lewis Fitzpatrick Clemens C. Claiborne Clay Warner Goldthwaite Morgan Bankhead, Sr. Comer J. Heflin Bankhead, Jr. Swift Sparkman H. Heflin Sessions Class 3 Walker Kelly Chambers Pickens McKinley Moore McKinley C. Comer Clay Bagby King Fitzpatrick Spencer Houston Pryor Pugh Pettus Johnston White Underwood Black Graves Hill J. Allen M. Allen Stewart Denton Shelby

v t e Majority Whips of the United States House of Representatives Tawney Watson Dwight Bell Knutson Vestal McDuffie Greenwood Boland Ramspeck Sparkman Arends Priest Arends Albert Boggs O'Neill McFall Brademas Foley Coelho Gray Bonior DeLay Blunt Clyburn McCarthy

v t e Democratic Whips of the United States House of Representatives Underwood Lloyd Bell Oldfield McDuffie Greenwood Boland Ramspeck Sparkman McCormack Priest McCormack Albert Boggs O'Neill McFall Brademas Foley Coelho Gray Bonior Pelosi Hoyer Clyburn Hoyer

v t e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Banking and Currency 1913-1970 Owen • McLean • Norbeck • Fletcher • Wagner • Tobey • Maybank • Capehart • Fulbright • Robertson • Sparkman Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 1970-Pres. Sparkman • Proxmire • Garn • Proxmire • Riegle • D'Amato • Gramm • Sarbanes • Gramm • Sarbanes • Shelby • Dodd • Johnson

v t e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Sparkman • Thye • Sparkman • Smathers • Bible • Nelson • Weicker • Bumpers • Bond • Kerry • Bond • Kerry • Snowe • Kerry • Landrieu