James W. Dunbar

James Whitson Dunbar ( born October 17, 1860 in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana, † May 19, 1943 ) was an American politician. Between 1919 and 1931 he represented two times the state of Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

James Dunbar attended the public schools of his home, including the New Albany High School, where he graduated in 1878. After that he worked in the trade. He then became manager of the public utilities in New Albany and Jeffersonville. Between 1894 and 1906 he was Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of Western Gas Association. Thereafter, he served from 1906 to 1909 as secretary of the American Gas Institute; in the years 1908 to 1910, he headed the Indiana Gas Association.

Politically, Dunbar member of the Republican Party. In the congressional elections of 1918 he was in the third electoral district of Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of William E. Cox on March 4, 1919. After a re-election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1923 two legislative sessions. There were passed in the years 1919 and 1920, the 18th and the 19th Amendment. In 1922 Dunbar gave up for reelection.

In the elections of 1928, James Dunbar was re-elected in the third district of his state in Congress, where he replaced on March 4, 1929 Frank Gardner of the Democratic Party, which in 1923 became his successor. Since he lost in 1930 against Eugene B. Crowe, he could spend up to March 3, 1931 just another term in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was shaped by the events of the Great Depression. After his retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives to Dunbar withdrew from politics. He died on 19 May 1943 in his hometown of New Albany, where he was also buried.