Date Died: February 6, 1947

Place Buried: Sunset Cemetery in Shelby, NC

Occupation: Lawyer

Oliver Maxwell Gardner (22 March 1882 -- 6 February 1947) was the Democratic governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1929 to 1933.

Prior to becoming Governor, Gardner was elected as a state senator from Cleveland County, North Carolina (serving one term as President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina Senate) and as Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina (1917-1921). In 1920, he lost the Democratic primary runoff for Governor to Cameron Morrison.

After leading North Carolina through the early years of the Great Depression as governor, Gardner practiced law in Washington, D.C. and was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt chairman of the advisory board to the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion and later a member of the Joint Anglo-American Commission on Palestine. He was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to be ambassador to the United Kingdom, but died before ever arriving in London.

Gardner was part of the influential "Shelby Dynasty" or "Cleveland Dynasty" of related politicians, which included Governor Clyde Hoey.

Gardner was the only person ever to captain the football teams of both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

In 1929, he was elected Governor. His major focus areas were establishing voting by secret ballot, doubling the allotment to schools, creating a Tax Commission, and showing the farmers the advantage of raising foodstuff and livestock rather than relying for money on cash crops of tobacco and cotton. This latter project was called the "live-at-home program" and was the reason many North Carolina farmers survived the Depression. In the area of education, Governor Gardner achieved the consolidation of the colleges into the Greater University of North Carolina. The University of North Carolina of Chapel Hill, North Carolina State College in Raleigh, and the Woman's College at Greensboro were brought under one executive and one board.

Governor Gardner cut the budget by degrees during the Depression and still accomplished improvements in prison conditions and abolished chain gangs. After his term as Governor, O. Max Gardner practiced law in Washington, D.C., was president of the Sperry Corporation, and was appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James. He never filled this prestigious position. He died on February 6, 1947, within hours of sailing to England to assume the post.

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