Herman Clarence Nixon

Herman Clarence Nixon was born in 1886 in Possum Trot, Alabama.[1] He was educated in the public schools of Jacksonville, Alabama and attended the Jacksonville State normal school, graduating in 1907.[2] He graduated from Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now known as Auburn University.[3] He went to graduate school at University of Chicago.[1] During World War I, he served in the United States Army in Europe.[1]

Nixon taught Political Science at Vanderbilt University from 1925 to 1928.[1] During that time, he joined the Southern Agrarians and contributed an essay to I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition.[1] From 1928 to 1938, he taught at Tulane University.[3] He then taught at Vanderbilt University again, from 1938 to 1955.[1]

Nixon served as the President of the Southern Political Science Association in 1944 and 1945,[4] though there was no meeting in 1945.[5] Additionally, he was a member of the Southern Regional Committee of the Social Science Research Council.[3]

Nixon served as the Chairman of the Southern Policy Committee from 1935 to 1937.[1] He lobbied in favor of the Bankhead–Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937.[1] By 1938, he became the Executive Secretary of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare.[1][4] Even though he quit by 1939, he felt threatened by the House Un-American Activities Committee.[1] Nevertheless, he joined the Americans for Democratic Action in 1947.[1]

Nixon had a son, John Trice Nixon, who served as a United States federal judge.[6] His daughter-in-law, Betty C. Nixon, served on the Nashville city council from 1975 to 1987 and later worked for Vanderbilt University.[6] His granddaughter, Mignon Nixon,[6] is a Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

He died in 1967.

• Forty Acres and Steel Mules (1938).
• Possum Trot: Rural Community, South (1941).
• Lower Piedmont Country (1946).