Talk:List of elected socialist mayors in the United States

Change to List of Socialist mayors (United States)?
There've been so few, perhaps the article should be changed to include Socialist mayors belonging to other Socialist parties. This article mentions there's been twelve: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/21/1410236 Шизомби 14:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear from the website you list that they are referencing non-Socialist Party mayors. It may just be that this list is incomplete. For instance, I believe Oklahoma City had a SP mayor, maybe more than one, in the early 20th century, but they are not listed here. There may have also been smaller cities with Socialist mayors. Moreover, I'm not aware of any mayors from other Socialist parties. Have there been any? meyerlondon 23:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I actually don't know if the other ones they were referring to were of the same part or not. The guy I had added before I noticed the List was of the SP specifically was the recently deceased David Belgum, http://www.westbranchtimes.com/article.php?id=1655 author of Memoirs of Iowa's only socialist mayor Rose of Sharon Pub. House; Enlarged ed edition (1990) ISBN-10: 0874140730 ISBN-13: 978-0874140736 Don't know if Bernard Sanders would count?  There's a book about him ;;The Socialist Mayor: Bernard Sanders in Burlington, Vermont.'  Also not sure what party Ben Nichols of Ithaca, New York' (1989-1995) was http://cafeutne.org/towns/ithaca.html Шизомби 01:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Also Fred A. Hinkel of Hamlton, Ohio (1913-1915). Looks like Socialist Cities: Municipal Politics and the Grass Roots of American Socialism By Richard William Judd may have others. Шизомби 02:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be hard to come up with a list of mayors who simply had socialist ideologies because that is so difficult to define. It would be possible to expand this list to a general list of third party mayors, which would include Sanders who was a member of the Vermont Progressive Party as well as the handful of Green Party and other third party mayors. (I don't know about the guy from Iowa). However, I started this list because I thought it would be interesting to compile a list of Socialist Party mayors as the SP had over 2,000 local elected officials in the early 20th century (per James Weinstein) and I thought if I listed a few, others would add to the list--though that hasn't happened. meyerlondon 19:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, it would be impractical to analyze the policies of every mayor there ever was to determine if they could be labeled a socialist. Though if they self-identify as one, or are definitively described as one, that might not be so difficult. Шизомби 11:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Bias by SPUSA Member
David Schaich is attempting to use wrongly the history of SPA by associating it with SPUSA when it can only claim an equal third of such a pie along side DSA and SDUSA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.29.109 (talk) 13:40, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It is intentional misleading by a known SNC Chair of the SP-USA to act in such a way. It is also anti-socialist socialism to not share the whole truth. I lie is still a lie even if it is small in nature when the outcome is huge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.243.117.201 (talk) 15:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Unknown mayors?
What is the source for them? Шизомби (talk) 23:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC) Others include (not sure how many sources there are for these, but most come from Google news archive - and you'd think somebody must have compiled all these somewhere before?): Maybe there are articles on some of them already? There might not be enough to say about them, so when added I wouldn't necessarily recommend redlinking them. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 04:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Two harborsMN=Ernst Gottfrid Strand 1916
 * Couer d'AleneID=John T. Wood 1912
 * AnacondaMT=Frincke 1903
 * EdmondsWA=W.H. Cook
 * PascoWA ?
 * LackawannaNY=Gibbons
 * HaverillMA=Chase
 * BrocktonMA=Coulter
 * FairhopeAK=Johnston
 * HartfordAR=Peter Stewart 1912
 * RacineWI=Swoboda
 * DavenportIA=Barewald
 * CantonOH ?
 * Cuyahoga FallsOH ?
 * HamiltonOH ?
 * BarbertonOH ?
 * LorainOH ?
 * LimaOH=Shook
 * St Mary's OH=Wilkinson
 * ToledoOH=Jones
 * FlintMI=Menton
 * EurekaUT=Mitchell
 * ReadingPA=Stump
 * WestonWV=Holt
 * RockfordIL=Herman Hallstrom 1921-1933
 * RockfordIL=C. Henry Bloom 1933-1953
 * ButteMT=Clarence A. Smith
 * GirardKS=Richard Houghton
 * ElwoodIN=John G. Lewis 1917
 * Gas CityIN=Frank Leninaux 1917
 * HaledonNJ=William Breukman

Drafting
Drafting, since the article itself needs to be sorted out still:

James Weinstein's table
Have you seen the table of Socialist mayors in James Weinstein's The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1925 [Monthly Review Press 1967; Vintage 1969] (Chapter 2, Table 2, "Cities and Towns electing Socialist Mayors or Other Major Municipal Officials, 1911–1920") ? Unfortunately, it lists the city without giving the mayor's name, but it would be a useful checklist or starting-point. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:01, 15 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Since other estimates of the number of Socialist mayors have been given, I'll add Weinstein's numbers from 1911 to 1920. I (or someone else) could add in all the cities and towns in his list (which covers two and a half pages in normal type size, two columns per page) without very many names; but it's probably best to discuss the pro's and con's of that here first. —— Shakescene (talk)

J. Henry Stump's terms (1939 to 1935 and 1947 to 1943)
The table as I read it now has J. Henry Stump's middle term as Mayor of Reading, Penna., as beginning in 1939 and ending in 1935, and his last one as beginning in 1947 and ending in 1943. Are these just mistaken transpositions that can be fixed by  simple switches (1935-1939 and 1943-1947), or do they reflect some more complex and confusing situation? —— Shakescene (talk) 05:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I noticed this apparent transposition again today: does someone have a good source to fix the apparent transposition? I hesitate to make assumptions and re-transpose the years, since there may, for all I know, be some other intervening or succeeding terms whose dates got lost in the chronology, rather than a simple transposition within a single term. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

List of elected communist mayors in the United States
I have an article idea, List of elected communist mayors in the United States. I search every single letter in this page and I could not find any communist mayors. Maybe it could be a section of this page because communists are socialists. -- Some Dude With AUserName (talk with me!) 18:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

References adrift
Six footnotes refer to "Bedford 1966" without any anchor to a bibliographic source. I think without looking that it may be a book I've read about the workers and socialism in Massachusetts before 1900. I could search through the edit history for the source, but it might be more easily and surely restored by the editor who created the original citations. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed, I think. And to another user above, I don't think there have been any CP mayors.  I'd be very surprised! Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 20:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Vermont Progressive Party is not officially a socialist party but rather it states itself as progressive and social democratic
. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.87.104.236 (talk) 11:07, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Social democracy is a form of socialism. --TIAYN (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Bernie Sanders, I understand was a socialist mayor (he's been a vice-chair of Democratic Socialists of America) elected by a non-socialist (but not anti-socialist) coalition party. Not all of the parties listed, other than the Socialist Party of America, are themselves socialist parties. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

St. Petersburg, FL, March 4, 1902
I found reference in the Appeal to Reason no. 329 (March 22, 1902) pg. 1 about a Socialist Mayor in St. Petersburg, FL. As follows: "WHERE THE SOCIALISTS WON. For about two years some of the Appeal army have been piling in subscriptions and distributing literature in St. Petersburg, Fla. On March 5th, Comrade Williams writes me that on the day before at the city election, the Socialists had their first ticket in the field and elected every man from mayor down by good majorities...." Checking out the issue of the weekly St. Petersburg Times for March 8, 1902 indicates that R.H. Thomas won election on March 4 by a vote of 196 to 46 (St. Petersburg was a small town then!). It does not appear, however, that this was a partisan race. Here's THE ISSUE, story on pg. 1. Carrite (talk) 06:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Grand Junction, CO, Nov. 1909
I found reference in St. Louis Labor, vol. 6, whole no. 458 (Nov. 13, 1909), pg. 4 to a Socialist elected mayor of Grand Junction, CO. The name is not provided so I am not putting it in the table. The Mayor's race did not include party listings next to the names, the story indicates. Carrite (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Star City, WV, April 1915
I am seeing reference to the post-electoral disqualification of mayor-elect John F. Higgins of Star City, WV for failure to meet a property qualification for office — having been assessed or paid taxes on $100 worth of real estate or personal property. I see there is a Socialist mayor listed for Star City for these years; I don't know if this means the previous mayor continued in office or not. The article does not say. St. Louis Labor, whole no. 740 (April 10, 1915), pg. 4. Carrite (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

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Green mayors and others who were/are socialists
On my kind are mayors like Jason West (New Paltz), Mike Feinstein (Santa Monica), and possibly Satya Rhodes-Conway (Madison).

Also, Paul Soglin (Madison) was clearly a socialist in his first terms in the 1970s. OrangutanRue (talk) 14:15, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. He should be added. Skysong263 (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Term start filtering broken
Sorting the list by term start is broken: it puts the 2000s between the 1900s and the 1800s. I don't know enough about Wiki formatting to fix it, so I leave it up to whoever is reading this.Grabtharr (talk) 02:21, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Lumumba listed as socialists?
I know they are clearly left-wing but does Chokwe Antar Lumumba and did his father Chokwe Lumumba identify explicitly as socialists? Dsakey1978 (talk) 18:43, 15 June 2020 (UTC)