Jesse Holman Jones

Jesse Holman Jones 1874-1956, U.S. Secretary of Commerce (1940-45), b. Robertson co., Tenn. A lumber magnate, banker, and millionaire of Houston, Tex., Jones was appointed (1932) by President Hoover as a member of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). He became (1933) its chairman under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and, with the merging of the RFC with other federal agencies, he was appointed (1939) federal loan administrator. Jones's performance in the RFC won such high praise that, after his appointment (1940) as Secretary of Commerce, Congress transferred the RFC from the Federal Loan Agency to the Department of Commerce. His close ties with the business community made him indispensable to the Roosevelt administration, and during World War II he was one of the most powerful men in Washington, D.C. He retired from government service in 1945.

Bibliography: See his Fifty Billion Dollars (1951).

Ford, Jesse Hill (1928–1996), Alabama‐born author, graduated from Vanderbilt University, for some time was a resident of Tennessee, the region where his fiction is set. Mountains of Gilead (1962), The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones (1965), The Feast of St. Barnabas (1969), and The Raider (1975) are novels, the last about a pre‐Civil War period marked by violence, part of it between blacks and whites. The Conversion of Buster Drumwright (1963) is a play later converted by him to a musical version, Drumwright (1982). Ford was co‐author of a film version (1969) of his second novel. Fishes, Birds and Sons of Men (1967) collects stories.

Folklore of the U.S., see American Folk‐Lore Society; Ballad; Beaver, Tony; “Big Bear of Arkansas” Billy the Kid; Boone, Daniel; Bridger, James; Bunyan, Paul; Carson, Kit; Casey Jones; “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” Crockett, Davy; Fink, Mike; Frankie and Johnny; Frontier; James, Jesse; John Henry; Pacing Mustang; Spiritual; Tall tale; Uncle Remus; “Yankee Doodle.”