Alva M. Lumpkin

Who was Alva M. Lumpkin?

Alva Moore Lumpkin was a United States Senator for less than one month from South Carolina. Born in Milledgeville, Georgia, he moved with his parents to Columbia, South Carolina in 1898. He attended the public schools of both towns. Two of Lumpkin's younger sisters writers: Grace Lumpkin, a novelist, and Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, a sociologist. He graduated from the law department of the University of South Carolina, was admitted to the bar the same year, and commenced the practice of law in Columbia. He was assistant clerk of the South Carolina Senate from 1906 to 1908, and was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1911 to 1913. In 1914 he was a member of the Conciliation Commission for Advancement of Peace between the United States and Uruguay, and was acting assistant attorney general of South Carolina in 1918. In 1922 – 1923 he was a member of the state board of pardons, and he was an acting associate justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court from 1926 to 1934.

On May 17, 1939, Lumpkin was nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt to the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of South Carolina, to a seat vacated by J. Lyles Glenn.