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ABERNETHY, Thomas Gerstle

ABERNETHY, Thomas Gerstle
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
ABERNETHY, Thomas Gerstle
1903–1998

Office

Representative

State/Territory

Mississippi

Party

Democrat

Congress(es)

78th (1943–1945), 79th (1945–1947), 80th (1947–1949), 81st (1949–1951), 82nd (1951–1953), 83rd (1953–1955), 84th (1955–1957), 85th (1957–1959), 86th (1959–1961), 87th (1961–1963), 88th (1963–1965), 89th (1965–1967), 90th (1967–1969), 91st (1969–1971), 92nd (1971–1973)

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Biography

ABERNETHY, Thomas Gerstle, a Representative from Mississippi; born in Eupora, Webster County, Miss., May 16, 1903; attended the public schools, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the University of Mississippi at Oxford, and was graduated from the law department of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn., in 1924; was admitted to the bar in 1924 and commenced practice in Eupora, Miss., in 1925; mayor of Eupora 1927-1929; moved to Okolona, Miss, in 1929 and continued the practice of law; district attorney of the third judicial district of Mississippi 1936-1942; delegate, Democratic National Conventions in 1956 and 1960; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-eighth and to the fourteen succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1943-January 3, 1973); chairman, Committee on Elections No. 1 (Seventy-eighth Congress); was not a candidate for reelection in 1972 to the Ninety-third Congress; died in Jackson, Miss., on June 11, 1998.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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External Research Collections

University of Mississippi Libraries
The Department of Archives and Special Collections

University, MS
Papers: 1943-1972, 445 boxes & 38 steel index card drawers. The Congressional papers of Thomas Abernethy include the following file series: academy appointments; agriculture; civil rights; constituent files; District of Columbia files; drainage, flood control, land acquisition, & Camp Shelby; general correspondence; government agencies (federal & Mississippi); invitations; legislation; Natchez Trace Parkway; political & campaign files; Post Office correspondence; public relations; subject files; Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway & Tombigbee River Food Control; trips; and voting records. The collection is open to researchers, and an on-line finding aid is available at http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM00001/.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division

Washington, DC
Oral History: Transcript in the Oral History Collection of the Association of Former Members of Congress. Restricted. Sound recording in the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

University of Southern Mississippi
McCain Library and Archives

Hattiesburg, MS
Oral History: 1973, 160 pages. An interview of Thomas Gerstle Abernethy by Orley B. Caudill conducted in Jackson, Mississippi on May 24, 1973.

University of Virginia
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library

Charlottesville, VA
Oral History: In the Howard Worth Smith Oral History Interviews, 1975-1984, 27 sound cassettes. The interviews include one with Thomas G. Abernethy by Bruce J. Dierenfield.
Papers: In the Bruce J. Dierenfield's Papers Relating to His Biography of Howard W. Smith [manuscript], 1978-1985, approximately 150 items. Persons represented include Thomas G. Abernethy.
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Bibliography / Further Reading

Wheadon, Augusta Austin, contestant. Contested-election case of Augusta Wheadon v. Thomas Gerstle Abernethy, from the First Congressional District of Mississippi, Eighty-ninth Congress. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1965.

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Office of the Historian: history@mail.house.gov
Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk: art@mail.house.gov, archives@mail.house.gov