Senator Nathaniel Barksdale Dial

Nathaniel Barksdale Dial served as a Senator from South Carolina in the United States Congress from 1919 to 1925. A member of the Democratic Party, Nathaniel Barksdale Dial contributed to the legislative process during 1 term in office.

Nathaniel Barksdale Dial’s service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history. As a member of the Senate, Nathaniel Barksdale Dial participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of constituents.

Nathaniel Barksdale Dial (April 24, 1862 – December 11, 1940) was a United States senator from South Carolina from 1919 to 1925. Born near Laurens, he attended the common schools, Richmond College (Virginia) and Vanderbilt University. He studied law at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, was admitted to the bar in 1883, and commenced practice in Laurens. He was mayor of Laurens from 1887 to 1891 and again in 1895; he declined the office of consul to Zurich, Switzerland, tendered by President Grover Cleveland in 1893. Dial engaged in banking and in various manufacturing enterprises, and was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1912; he was, however, elected in 1918 as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1919, to March 4, 1925; he was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1924 and in 1925 was a member of the commission to report on the use of the nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He resumed the practice of law in South Carolina and Washington, D.C., and also his former manufacturing enterprises in South Carolina; Dial died in Washington, D.C., in 1940; and is interred at the Laurens City Cemetery.