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.

Marie Bankhead Owen, 1885. (C.M. Bell, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Wikipedia)

Marie Bankhead, ca. 1893. Bankhead attended an elite finishing school at St. Wards Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, prior to marrying Thomas M. Owen in April 1893. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)

Thomas and Marie Owen with Thomas Owen Jr. and his first wife, Mabel Hays, in 1918. Thomas Owen Jr. worked at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., as chief of the Division of Accessions and chief of the Division of Veteran’s Administration Records. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)

Marie Bankhead Owen was appointed director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History in 1920 and ran the agency for 35 years. She finished and published her husband’s four-volume “History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography,” published her own histories and textbooks, and successfully lobbied for the completion of the World War Memorial Building, which became the department’s new home in 1940. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)

Sen. John H. Bankhead’s daughter, Marie Bankhead Owen, and granddaughter, Tallulah Bankhead. Marie headed the Alabama Department of Archives and History for 35 years. Tallulah was an internationally renowned star of the stage and screen who spoke against racial injustice and inequality. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.