Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,841

This is the grave of Carter Harrison.

Born in 1825 in Fayette County, Kentucky, outside of Lexington, Harrison grew up in the Old South elite. In fact, his family went way back to the founding families of Virginia. Although his father died when his son was just a baby, the family had a lot of money and Harrison got all the good private tutors and then was off to Yale, graduating in 1851. Then came the Grand Tour of Europe until 1853, where he made it all the way to Syria. He then went to Transylvania University for a law degree, which he earned in 1855.

While everything about Harrison suggests long-term Kentucky elite, when he got married, also in 1855, he traveled north to the new city of Chicago for his honeymoon. He liked it so much that he decided to make his life there. He was also deeply ambivalent about slavery. He owned slaves. In fact, he owned about 100, due to his family inheritance. But he sold the plantation so he wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. What I am unsure about is whether he sold the slaves or freed them. Most accounts that I have read here say he was disgusted by the institution, but they are cagey on what actually happened to the slaves. The fact that he was very rich after selling the plantation leads me to believe that he may well have sold the slaves, because the human property was much more valuable than the land in the antebellum South.

In any case, Harrison moved to Chicago and became a millionaire due to the money he brought to the table, plus smart investments. Real estate and the law added to his portfolio. He became involved in politics after the Great Chicago Fire, when he won a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners. He was a Democrat but ran on a unity ticket that downplayed partisan politics, probably related to the kind of thing that led to the Liberal Republicans endorsing the disastrous Horace Greeley run for president in 1872. Harrison may have been disgusted by slavery but that was very different than supporting a vigorous Reconstruction or Black rights in the North. He stayed in that office until 1875 when he went to Congress. He had run for Congress initially as a Democrat in 1872, but lost that race. It was a strong Republican district. But he won a rematch in 1874. A big reason for his new viability was Republicans coming out against alcohol, never popular in the Land of Malort. In fact, he was vacationing in Europe during the election. For that matter, he went to Europe again during Congress, where his wife died. He was still there during his 1876 reelection too. Committed legislator!

Harrison lost his 1878 reelection bid, perhaps to someone who would show up to the job. But he ran for mayor in 1879 and won and a dynasty was born. Now, Harrison had a way about him in terms of governing and that way was called open corruption. He was a bought and sold man of whoever was paying. People in Chicago were already used to corruption (there’s something with staying power!) and Harrison gained a good bit of popularity by not being a Gilded Age Republican prude. His position was drink where you want, go to the blue light districts if you want, I do not care what you do with your personal time. Creating a strongly patrolled vice district worked for everyone–the vice operators, the Republicans who didn’t want to see it, the people (often the same Republicans) who wanted those services but didn’t want mom and wife to know, the cops getting paid, and Harrison, also very much getting paid. Soon, saloon licenses were 12 percent of Chicago’s municipal revenue. He built up significant ethnic machine operations as well, being close with both the large German and Irish communities in the city. He did enough work with the small but growing Black community to bring them in to some extent as well, though of course he was patronizing as hell in the process.

Moreover, Harrison was pretty good on labor issues. He was willing to talk to labor leaders and give them good municipal jobs too. He generally supported the eight-hour day. But after the Haymarket incident, his softness toward labor led to him realizing he would lose his reelection race in 1887, so he chose not to run. In fact, anarchists had focused on the city, thinking they could have more of a voice there due to Harrison’s leniency. That fact did not help him. He also spoke in defense of socialism after the bombing, saying correctly that socialists didn’t have anything meaningful in common with anarchists. On top of this, despite his corruption, Harrison did do a lot of work to improve an extraordinarily chaotic city. This included paving streets and forcing power companies to bury their wires in downtown. He tried to clean up the city’s horrible air too, pushing for coal users to burn anthracite instead of bituminous. I’m not sure he succeeded at that one though. He also pushed for better public water, though I don’t think that got accomplished during his tenure either. Still, these things can take time.

Harrison did have higher office in mind anyway, but lost an 1884 bid to become governor. Illinois was still a Republican state after all. So after his mayoral time, he did more traveling and wrote about it to raise his name for whatever office he might get. He also bought the Chicago Times in 1891 to serve as his personal platform. He lost both the Democratic nomination and an independent run to become mayor again in that year. But he did win in 1893, just as the World Columbian Exposition was getting underway. Upon his return to power, he stated:

“When years ago I stood before you, aldermen of Chicago, and took the oath which fitted me for this high office, Chicago had less than half a million population; to-day it is the sixth city on the face of the globe, the second in America in population, and the first city on earth in pluck, energy, and determination. Standing thus, I feel deep anxiety lest I may not fulfill the expectation of the vast majority of my fellow citizens who have honored me.’

But shortly after his return to power, just two days before a very successful Exposition ended, a disgruntled office seeker named Patrick Prendergast, walked into his. home and assassinated him. He was 68 years old. His son Carter would succeed him as mayor in 1897. He is buried here too and we will get to him in a subsequent post. Interestingly, his paper would remain quite pro-union and was the only major publication in Chicago to support the Pullman Strike and denounce the government repression of it.

Carter Harrison is buried in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois.

If you would like this series to visit other famous mayors, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. James Michael Curley is in Roslindale, Massachusetts and Edward Crump is in Memphis. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.