On This Day In Alabama History: Marie Bankhead Owen Was Born

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

September 1, 1869

Marie Bankhead Owen was born into a prominent Alabama family on Sept. 1, 1869 on the old Bankhead plantation in Noxubee County, Mississippi. She was the daughter of future Alabama congressman and Sen. John H. Bankhead and Tallulah J. Brockman Bankhead. Her three brothers were John H. Bankhead Jr., who served in the U.S. Senate; William B. Bankhead, who became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and Henry M. Bankhead, an Army officer. She married Thomas McAdory Owen, who in 1901 became the first director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) and settled the family in Montgomery. It was there that she briefly cared for her young niece and future actress Tallulah Bankhead. Marie Bankhead Owen succeeded her husband as ADAH director after his death in 1920 and served in that role for 35 years.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.

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