John Garland Pollard

John Garland Pollard

John Garland Pollard (born August 4, 1871 in King and Queen County , Virginia , † April 28, 1937 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician and governor of the state of Virginia from 1930 to 1934 .

Early years

John Pollard attended Richmond College until 1891 , which he had to leave early for health reasons. He then studied law at what is now George Washington University . He graduated there in 1893. In the following decades he worked alongside his political activities as a lawyer in Richmond . He also got into banking. It was also around the time that he was writing a treatise on the Pamunkey Indians, an ancient tribe that resided in what is now Virginia.

Political rise

Pollard was a member of the Democratic Party . Between 1902 and 1907 he chaired a commission that revised Virginia state legislation. From 1913 to 1917 he was Attorney General and a member of the Virginia Education Committee. In 1917 he ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination for governor. He then traveled to Europe , where he took care of social issues in France and Germany after the First World War . He also worked for the YMCA as an internal judge.

In the outgoing administration of President Woodrow Wilson , Pollard was appointed to the Federal Trade Commission from 1920 to 1921 . He was also a member of a War Department committee that dealt with controversial wartime claims. He then worked as a teacher at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg . There he was also dean of the Marshall Wythe School . Pollard also engaged in efforts to restore the city of Williamsburg as a colonial-style museum city.

Governor of Virginia

In 1929, John Pollard was elected the new governor of his state. He began his four-year term on January 15, 1930. His term of office was overshadowed by the global economic crisis of those years. To combat the crisis, the governor developed a program that included a 10% cut in his own salary. The crisis was gradually overcome in the further course of the 1930s, also with the help of the New Deal policy of the federal government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt . The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was also established during Pollard's reign . He later became its president.

Further life

After the end of his governorship on January 17, 1934, Pollard was appointed chairman of an appeal committee that dealt with the claims of war veterans. He held this office until his death. John Pollard died in April 1937. He was married twice and had three children from his first marriage to Grace Phillips. The second marriage to Elizabeth McDougall was childless.

Web links

• John Garland Pollard at the National Governors Association (English)
• John Garland Pollard in the database of Find a Grave (English)