Eugene Talmadge Private papers

Collection

Identifier: 0000-0149M

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Most of this collection contains private and unofficial papers relating to Eugene Talmadge's contested Senatorial Primary Election, 1938, against Walter F. George. Also included are a scrapbook of political newsclippings, invitations for Talmadge to speak, and three boxes of bank statements and check stubs. One box consists of Elsie Ray's private papers (1922 - 1930), who later became Eugene Talmadge's executive secretary.

Dates

1922 - 1941
Majority of material found in 1928 - 1938

Creator

Talmadge, Eugene, 1884 - 1946 (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Eugene Talmadge, born September 23, 1884, on the family farm near Forsyth, Monroe County Georgia, to Carrie Roberts (1864 - 1928) and Thomas R. Talmadge (1858 - 1931). After attending the University of Georgia and briefly teaching, Talmadge returned to Athens to earn a law degree (1907). He practiced law briefly in Atlanta before moving to Ailey and then Mt. Vernon (Montgomery County, Georgia) to start his own practice. In 1909 he married Mattie Thurmond Peterson in Montgomery County, Georgia, and the Talmadges later moved to a farm in Telfair County (listed in Telfair Conty in the 1920 U.S. Census). James Cook's Book "The Governor's of Georgia," mentions Talmadge farmed, owned a saw mill and continued to practive law.

After some early political defeats, Eugene Talmadge ran for and won the position or the commissioner of agriculture (1926) and as Georgia governor, from which he stayed 1933 to 1937 and was elected again in 1941 - 1943. A controversial and colorful politician, Eugene Talmadge played a leading role in the state's politics from 1926 to 1946. During his three terms as state commissioner of agriculture and three terms as governor, his personality and actions polarized voters into Talmadge and anti-Talmadge factions in the state's one-party politics of that era. Talmadge, a leading critic of the New Deal in the South, opposed the renomination of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Barred by the state constitution from running again after two successive two-year terms, Talmadge unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate against the incumbent Richard Russell in 1936. Two years later, his efforts to replace Senator Walter F. George also ended in failure. He finally returned to elective office with his successful gubernatorial bid in 1940.;Elsie Ray, Talmadge's secretary, was the daughter of Mary (Mamie) E. Holsenbeck and Gabriel Eugene Ray of Crawford Co., GA. She graduated from Fort Valley High School and worked in banks in Florida and Atlanta before going to work for Talmadge.

Eugene Talmadge died December 21, 1946 in Telfair County, Georgia.