James Michael Curley

James Curley
53rd Governor of Massachusetts
In office
January 3, 1935 – January 7, 1937
LieutenantJoseph L. Hurley
Preceded byJoseph B. Ely
Succeeded byCharles F. Hurley
Mayor of Boston
In office
January 7, 1946 – January 2, 1950
Preceded byJohn E. Kerrigan (acting)
Succeeded byJohn Hynes
In office
January 6, 1930 – January 1, 1934
Preceded byMalcolm Nichols
Succeeded byFrederick Mansfield
In office
February 6, 1922 – January 4, 1926
Preceded byAndrew James Peters
Succeeded byMalcolm Nichols
In office
February 2, 1914 – February 4, 1918
Preceded byJohn F. Fitzgerald
Succeeded byAndrew James Peters
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts
In office
January 3, 1943 – January 3, 1947
Preceded byThomas A. Flaherty
Succeeded byJohn F. Kennedy
Constituency11th district
In office
March 4, 1911 – February 4, 1914
Preceded byJoseph F. O'Connell
Succeeded byJames A. Gallivan
Constituency10th district (1911–1913)
12th district (1913–1914)
2nd President of the United States Conference of Mayors
In office
1933
Preceded byFrank Murphy
Succeeded byT. Semmes Walmsley
Acting Chairman of the Boston Board of Aldermen
In office
1909
Preceded byLouis M. Clark
Succeeded byFrederick J. Brand
Member of the Boston Board of Aldermen
In office
1905–1909
Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
from the 4th Suffolk district
In office
1902–1903
Member of the Boston Common Council
In office
1901
Personal details
Born(1874-11-20)November 20, 1874
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedNovember 12, 1958(1958-11-12) (aged 83)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouses
Mary Herlihy
(m. 1906; died 1930)
Gertrude Casey
(m. 1937)
Children9 children
2 stepsons

James Michael Curley (November 20, 1874 – November 12, 1958) was an American Democratic politician from Boston, Massachusetts. He served four terms as mayor of Boston from 1914 to 1955. Curley ran for mayor in every election for which he was legally qualified. He was twice convicted of criminal behavior and notably served time in prison during his last term as mayor. He also served a single term as governor of Massachusetts. He is remembered as one of the most colorful figures in Massachusetts politics.

Curley also served two terms, separated by 30 years, in the United States House of Representatives and, in his early career, served in the Boston Common Council, Boston Board of Aldermen, and Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Curley was immensely popular with his fellow working class Roman Catholic Irish Americans. During the Great Depression in the United States, he enlarged Boston City Hospital, expanded the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, funded projects to improve roads and bridges, and improved the neighborhoods with beaches and bathhouses, playgrounds and parks, public schools, and libraries, all the while collecting graft and raising taxes.

He was a leading and at times divisive force in the Massachusetts Democratic Party, challenging Boston's ward bosses and the party's white Anglo-Saxon Protestant leadership at the local and state levels. His political tactics, which tended to drive businesses and economically successful people from the city, damaging the local economy, have become an object of study for economists and political scientists.[1] A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Curley as the fourth-worst American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.[2]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Glaeser & Shleifer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Holli, Melvin G. (1999). The American Mayor. University Park: PSU Press. ISBN 0-271-01876-3.