Governor of the State of South Carolina




James Francis Byrnes
74th Governor of the State of South Carolina 1951 to 1955

Date Born: May 2, 1882				Date Died: April 9, 1972
Place Born: Charleston, SC				Place Buried: Trinity Episcopal Churchyard in Columbia, SC
Residence: Aiken County, SC and Columbia, SC, at retirement				Occupation: Lawyer, Newspaper Editor

St Patrick's Parochial School, Charleston (withdrew at 14) Byrnes was awarded honorary LL.D. degrees from John Marshall College, University of South Carolina, Columbia University, Yale University, and Washington and Lee University US House of Representatives, 1911-1925 US Senate, 1931-1941 US Supreme Court, 1941-1942 US Secretary of State, 1945-1947 Byrnes accompanied President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference. Byrnes accompanied President Harry Truman to the Potsdam Conference in 1945. Byrnes authored Speaking Frankly and All In One Lifetime. The James F. Byrnes Foundation, which grants college scholarships, was established in 1948. 1950 - Byrnes was elected governor without opposition, receiving 50,633 votes. November 7, 1950 – At age 68, Byrnes was the oldest person ever to be elected governor of South Carolina June 19, 1953 – WCSC in Charleston, South Carolina's first television station, went on the air Byrnes, James Francis, a Representative and a Senator from South Carolina; born in Charleston, S.C., May 2, 1882; attended the public schools; official court reporter for the second circuit of South Carolina 1900-1908; editor of the Journal and Review, Aiken, S.C. 1903-1907; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1903 and commenced practice in Aiken, S.C.; solicitor for the second circuit of South Carolina 1908-1910; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second Congress, reelected to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1911-March 3, 1925); was not a candidate for renomination in 1924, but was an unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator; resumed the practice of law in Spartanburg, S.C.; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate on November 4, 1930; reelected in 1936 and served from March 4, 1931, until his resignation on July 8, 1941, having been appointed to the Supreme Court; chairman, Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense (Seventy-third through Seventy-seventh Congresses); Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from July 1941 until his resignation on October 3, 1942, to head the wartime Office of Economic Stabilization until May 1943; director of the Office of War Mobilization, May 1943 until his resignation in April 1945; Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Harry Truman 1945-1947; resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C.; Governor of South Carolina 1951-1955; retired and resided in Columbia, S.C., where he died April 9, 1972; interment in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Cemetery.

<< Last Governor - James Strom Thurmond				Next Governor - George Bell Timmerman >>