William Bacon Oliver (May 23, 1867–May 27, 1948) was a Congressman from Alabama.
He was born in Eutaw, Alabama, graduated from the University of Alabama in 1887 and from the law department in 1889. After additional courses at the University of Virginia in the same year, he was admitted to the Alabama bar, and set up a practice in Tuscaloosa.
He became dean of the law school of the University of Alabama in 1909, serving until 1913, then ran successfully for Congress in 1914, and remained there for eleven Congresses, not standing for reelection in 1936.
He then served as a special assistant to the United States Attorney General from 1939 to 1944, at which time he retired. He died in 1948, and is buried in the Eutaw Cemetery in Eutaw.
The William Bacon Oliver Lock and Dam on the Black Warrior River in Alabama is named after him, as is the Oliver Lake behind the dam.
Famous quotes containing the words bacon and/or oliver:
“The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all, has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out; but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known; I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise helps for the same.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)
“I have this very moment finished reading a novel called The Vicar of Wakefield [by Oliver Goldsmith].... It appears to me, to be impossible any person could read this book through with a dry eye and yet, I don’t much like it.... There is but very little story, the plot is thin, the incidents very rare, the sentiments uncommon, the vicar is contented, humble, pious, virtuous—but upon the whole the book has not at all satisfied my expectations.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)