Senator Burnet R. Maybank papers

Burnet Rhett Maybank was born in Charleston on March 7, 1899, a son of Dr. Joseph and Harriet Lowndes Rhett Maybank. He was a great-grandson of South Carolina Governor William Aiken and a great-grandson of United States Senator R. Barnwell Rhett.

Maybank attended the High School of Charleston and Porter Military Academy and entered the College of Charleston in 1914. He withdrew from the College when the United States entered World War I and enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve. When the war was over he returned to the College and graduated with first honors in the class of 1919.

After college, Senator Maybank went to work for his uncle, John F. Maybank, in the cotton export business, eventually going into business for himself. He served as president of the Charleston Cotton Exchange from 1926-1927 and was the vice president of the Atlantic Cotton Association. He also became a member of the city's aldermanic board in 1927 and served four years as a member of the city council, serving as vice-chairman of the ways and means committee.

He announced his candidacy for mayor April 6, 1931, on an independent ticket. In the Democratic primary of that year he defeated his opponent by a majority of almost two to one and assumed office on December 14, 1931. During his tenure as Mayor he was appointed to the State Board of Bank Control and appointed the chairman of the State Public Service Authority for the Santee-Cooper project. He had been a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention which nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt and he cast his vote for him again for a second term four years later. His friendship with the President and with other national figures associated with the New Deal administrations were an enormous help to Charleston in Washington D. C.

In 1949 he was selected as the state's Governor. The first governor from Charleston since the Civil War. Maybank served as governor from 1939 until 1941 when he was appointed to the United States Senate as a Democrat to fill the unexpired term of James F. Byrnes, who had left the Senate to take his place on the United States Supreme Court. Senator Maybank was re-elected to the Senate in 1942 and again in 1948.

Maybank's principal Senatorial interests were government finance and national defense. Throughout the early 1950s, Maybank served as chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee and chairman of the Joint Committee on Defense Production in addition to his longstanding service as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He also worked hard on the local level to bring in projects that benefited South Carolina including new projects and improvements for the Charleston Naval Shipyard, the Santee-Cooper Hydroelectric and Navigation project, and the Savannah River Site atomic plant.

Throughout his career in the Senate, Maybank worked to oppose civil rights legislation including the removal of the poll tax, desegregation, and the implementation of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FPEC) citing such legislation as a violation of states' rights.

Burnet R. Maybank married Elizabeth deRosset Myers, a daughter of District Judge Frank K. Myers, on June 28, 1923. They had three children together: Burnet Rhett Maybank, Jr., Roberta Macon Maybank (married William F. Prioleau), and Elizabeth deRosset Maybank (married Theodore B. Guerard). His first wife passed away in October of 1947. In December of 1948, Senator Maybank remarried the widow of Rear Admiral Charles P. Cecil, Mary Roscoe Randolph Pelzer Cecil.

Burnet R. Maybank died, while in office, at his summer residence in Flat Rock, North Carolina, on September 1, 1954 at 55 years of age.