John Purroy Mitchel (July 19, 1879 – July 6, 1918) was the 96th mayor of New York, in office from 1914 to 1917. At 34, he was the third-youngest mayor of the city, and was sometimes referred to as the "Boy Mayor of New York". Mitchel won the 1913 mayoral election in a landslide, but lost the Republican primary in 1917 and came in second place in the general election as an Independent. He is remembered for his short career as leader of anti-Tammany Hall reform politics in New York, as well as for his early death as an Army Air Service officer during a training flight in Louisiana amid World War I. Former President Theodore Roosevelt, endorsing Mitchel's re-election bid in 1917, stated that he had "given us as nearly an ideal administration of the New York City government as I have seen in my lifetime." His maternal grandmother, Catherine Dillon, was Irish by birth. The Purroy family also included leading politicians in the Bronx.

John graduated from Fordham Preparatory School in the late 1890s, obtaining a bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1899 and graduating from New York Law School in 1902 with honors. Mitchel then pursued a career as a private attorney.

Early career

In December 1906, Mitchel was hired by family friend and New York City corporation counsel William B. Ellison to investigate the office of John F. Ahearn, borough president of Manhattan, leading to Ahearn's dismissal. Mitchel began his career as assistant corporation counsel and then became a member of the Commissioners of Accounts, from which he investigated city departments. Mitchel gained results and recognition for his thorough and professional investigations into various city departments and high-ranking officials. Mitchel, with the help of Henry Bruere and other staff members of the Bureau of Municipal Research turned the insignificant Commissioners of Accounts into an administration of importance. After nine ballots, Mitchel was nominated as a candidate for mayor. During his campaign, Mitchel focused on modernizing and fighting corruption in the city government. His administration was neutral during garment and transportation worker's strikes in 1916.

Mitchel's early popularity was soon diminished due to his fiscal policies and vision of education. Mitchel was heavily criticized for combining vocational and academic courses in the Gary Plan, and he began to trim the size of the Board of Education and attempted to control teachers' salaries.

Death

After losing re-election, Mitchel joined the Army Air Service as a flying cadet, completing training in San Diego and obtaining the rank of major. On the morning of July 6, 1918, while returning from a short military training flight to Gerstner Field near Lake Charles, Louisiana, his plane suddenly went into a nosedive, causing him to fall from his plane due to an unfastened seatbelt.

Mitchel's body was returned to New York City. His funeral was held at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, and he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx on July 11, 1918.<blockquote> He was one of the ablest mayors in the judgments of many and provided an outstanding administration, but was exasperatingly guilty of every blunder that could be attributed to youthful stubbornness, unnecessary asperity, and poor judgment both by himself and his advisers.</blockquote>

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts, conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois Chicago, ranked Mitchel as the seventeenth-worst American big-city mayor to have served since 1820.

Mitchel Air Force Base on Long Island was named for him in 1918. A bronze memorial plaque with Mitchel's likeness is affixed between the two stone pylons at the western end of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. A plaque of his likeness is located on an entrance to the base of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir jogging track in Central Park.

The Fire Department of New York operated a fireboat named John Purroy Mitchel from 1921 to 1966.

American singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom's 2015 song "Sapokanikan" references Mitchel and the circumstances of his death.

See also

  • Mitchel Square Park
  • William Brown Meloney (1878–1925), author of an unpublished manuscript on Mitchel's life
  • List of mayors of New York City

Footnotes

Further reading

  • Bruere, Henry. "Mayor Mitchel's administration of the city of New York." National Municipal Review 5 (1916): 24+ online.
  • Burke, Mary M. "Meet the Forgotten New York Mayor, Grandson of an Irish Nationalist." RTE (Irish public broadcaster) Brainstorm (2025), online
  • Cerillo Jr., Augustus. Reform in New York City: A Study of Urban Progressivism PhD History Dissertation, (1991)
  • Cerillo Jr., Augustus. "Mitchel, John Purroy" American National Biography (1999), online
  • McClymer, John. "Of 'Mornin Glories' and 'Fine Old Oaks': John Purroy Mitchel, Al Smith, and Reform as an Expression of Irish American Aspiration," in Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds. The New York Irish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp.&nbsp;374–394.
  • Mohl, Raymond A. " Schools, Politics, and Riots: The Gary Plan in New York City, 1914-1917," Paedagogica Historica 15.1 (1975): 39–72.
  • Skolnik, Richard S. "The Crystallization of Reform in New York City, 1890–1917" (Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ. 1964); ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1964. 7101773).
  • “Mitchel Inherited Fighting Qualities,” New York Times, 7 July 1918, obituary