Burnet Rhett Maybank was born on March 7, 1899 in Charleston, S. C. He was the son of Joseph Maybank, a physician, and Harriet Lowndes Rhett Maybank. The Maybank family had contributed five colonial and state governors to South Carolina before the Civil War.
Maybank graduated from the Porter Military Academy and served in both the South Carolina naval militia and the United States navy during World War I before receiving the B. S. degree from the College of Charleston. He then entered a cotton brokerage firm headed by his uncle, and remained associated with cotton factoring for almost twenty years.
He was first elected city alderman of Charleston in 1927; in that position he developed a program of financial reform that he was able to implement when he was chosen mayor in 1931. He balanced the city's budget and reduced taxes by 25 percent. When he sought a second term in 1935, he was the first mayoral candidate in nearly thirty years to run unopposed. During his second term Maybank secured federal appropriations for slum clearance and public housing projects, thus becoming the first Southern mayor to accept an allocation under the United States Housing Act of 1937. He also served on the State Board of Bank Control in 1932 and 1933, and was chairman of the South Carolina Public Service Authority from 1935 to 1939. The latter agency sponsored a power project on the Santee River that was known as South Carolina's "little TVA. " In 1937, Maybank declined President Franklin D. Roosevelt's offer of a post on the Federal Power Commission. After a difficult primary fight, Maybank was elected governor of South Carolina in 1938, with the backing of Senator James F. Byrnes. As governor he retained his interest in public power, pressing for hydroelectric development to attract industry to South Carolina; he also showed great concern for the problems of the state's cotton farmers. Maybank was regarded as a conservative supporter of New Deal and Fair Deal measures. When President Roosevelt named Senator Byrnes to the United States Supreme Court in 1941, Maybank ran for the unexpired portion of Byrnes's Senate term and, in a special runoff Democratic primary, was elected to the Seventy-seventh Congress. The following year he won a full term, and he was reelected in 1948. Maybank was running unopposed when he died during the 1954 campaign. As a senator Maybank supported American intervention in World War II, maintained an internationalist position on support for the United Nations, and was a leader of the successful fight to continue selective service after the war.
During the Korean conflict he wrote the Defense Production Act, which established economic controls, and was cochairman of a joint congressional "watchdog" committee to oversee administration of that law. He was a member of the Armed Services Committee from 1944 until his death, of the board of visitors of the United States Naval Academy, and of the American Battle Monuments Commission. Maybank was chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee from 1949 to 1952, and served on its treasury and post office subcommittees; as a member of the housing subcommittee he helped draft the Wagner-Ellender-Taft Housing Bill. Long a champion of the "total approach" to housing legislation, particularly for middle-income groups, Maybank supported legislation for slum clearance and for the construction of private dwellings and public housing. In addition, he backed the Lanham Act, the Landis Act, Public Law 874 for the operation and maintenance of public schools, and Public Law 815 for aid in schoolhouse construction. As a member of the Appropriations Committee (and chairman from 1951 to 1954) Maybank helped draft bills for both wartime and peacetime government expenditures, and he also implemented passage of anti-inflationary measures at the conclusion of World War II. Maybank served as a delegate from South Carolina to all Democratic city, county, state, and national conventions after 1930. He represented his state on the Democratic National Committee from 1940 to 1944 and headed the South Carolina delegation to the Democratic presidential nominating convention in Chicago in 1944. In general, he voted with the Democrats in the Senate, supporting the party in 82 percent of votes taken in the Seventy-ninth Congress, for example. But like most Southern Democrats, he opposed the administration-backed antipoll-tax bill and the permanent Fair Employment Practice Committee. He also defected from the party majority when he supported the Taft-Hartley Act. Elizabeth Maybank died in 1947, and the following year Maybank married Mary Randolph Pelzer Cecil, widow of Rear Admiral Charles P. Cecil. He died at his summer home at Flat Rock, N. C.
Maybank served as a United States Senator from South Carolina from 1941 until his death in 1954. Also served as a Mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, Delegate to the Democratic National Convention from South Carolina in 1936, and 1944, and Governor of South Carolina from 1939 to 1941. Numerous places have been named for Maybank throughout Charleston and the state. Some notable examples are Maybank Highway (linking James, John's and Wadmalaw Island), the Burnet Maybank Bridge (over the Wappoo Cut in Charleston), and Maybank Hall at the College of Charleston. The Burnet R. Maybank Scholarship was established in his honor at the University of South Carolina Law School.
A Democrat, Maybank never lost a political race.
Quotes from others about the person
"You know, an old governor of yours, Burnet Maybank, once wrote an essay entitled, 'Who Is the South Carolinian?' And here's what it said. He said, there's a deal - there is a deal of kindness about him, describing the South Carolinian. He feels favored when asked for personal assistance. A neighborly spirit prompts him to render service with a scorn for remuneration. " - Joe Biden, Vice President
In 1923 he married Elizabeth de Rossett Myers; they had three children.
8 December 1868 - 2 January 1942
20 May 1872 - 17 September 1935
1916 - January 1920
11 July 1908 - 27 April 1956
11 October 1910 - 21 December 1999
22 January 1902 - 19 August 1988
22 February 1909 - 22 May 1950
8 January 1906 - 6 August 1998
July 1903 - 7 December 1906
20 April 1901 - 5 October 1947
25 January 1927 - 24 September 1995
2 May 1924 - 25 October 2016
