Frank Zeidler
Frank Paul Zeidler (September 20, 1912 – July 7, 2006) was an American socialist politician and mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, serving three terms from April 20, 1948, to April 18, 1960. Zeidler, a member of the Socialist Party of America, is the last Socialist Party candidate to be elected mayor of a large American city.[1][2]
Frank Zeidler
July 7, 2006 (aged 93)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Early life and career[edit]
Zeidler was born in Milwaukee on September 20, 1912. He studied at both the University of Chicago and Marquette University, but was never able to graduate due to ill health. He became a socialist because of socialism's emphasis on peace and improving the conditions for workers.[3]
In an interview, Zeidler said he chose the ideology of socialism in 1933 "because of several things in its philosophy. One was the brotherhood of people all over the world. Another was its struggle for peace. Another was the equal distribution of economic goods. Another was the idea of cooperation. A fifth was the idea of democratic planning in order to achieve your goals. Those were pretty good ideas". He distanced himself from the beliefs of communism, especially communism linked in any way to the Soviet Union. Indeed, he was (and remained) an active Lutheran, a religious commitment which he saw as being fulfilled rather than contradicted by his Socialist activism.[4]
Later, however, he credited his adoption of socialism to reading left-wing literature, with the majority being written by Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas during the Great Depression.[5]
Zeidler became an active member of the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), the youth branch of the Socialist Party of America, he later became the leader of the Milwaukee branch of the Red Falcons during the 1930s.[6]
Mayoralty[edit]
During Frank Zeidler's administration, Milwaukee grew industrially and never had to borrow money to repay loans. During this period, Milwaukee nearly doubled its size with an aggressive campaign of municipal annexations: large parts of the Town of Lake and most of the Town of Granville were annexed to the city. The park system was upgraded. Zeidler spearheaded planning and construction of the beginning of Milwaukee's freeway system, and turned it over to Milwaukee County in 1954. A transportation advocate claims that Zeidler always maintained that the projected Milwaukee freeway system should have been built and that the city's competitiveness had been compromised by the failure to complete the planned system.[9]
Zeidler's plans for the city were only a partial success. Milwaukee doubled in area through annexation and it experienced very little decline in population during a period of American urban decline starting in the 1960s and lasting until about 1990. Suburban residents and governments fiercely resisted annexation and the politics of regional Milwaukee became highly factional. An attorney who sued to block annexation claimed Zeidler planted listening devices in his office. Zeidler, angry about the resistance to his plans, said in 1958: "The city consults with suburban governments, but we do not believe they have reason for existing."[8]
Zeidler faced the vexing issue of race relations as Milwaukee's African-American population tripled during the 1950s. Zeidler was a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement and his opponents tried to exploit this to their advantage. Zeidler's political enemies spread false rumors that Zeidler had put billboards in the South asking blacks to come north. Many workers in Milwaukee were threatened for supporting Zeidler. One manufacturer even threatened to fire employees who voted for Zeidler. Zeidler cited bad personal health and the race issue as reasons for not running for re-election in 1960.[8]
A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Zeidler as the twenty-first-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.[10]
Later years and death[edit]
After leaving office, Frank Zeidler worked as a mediator, as development director for Alverno College, and served in the administration of Wisconsin Governor John W. Reynolds. As a leader of the Public Enterprise Committee, Zeidler was a frequent and severe critic of his successor, Henry Maier.[11] He supported a number of unsuccessful attempts to defeat Maier in subsequent elections.
Zeidler was instrumental in re-forming the Socialist Party USA in 1973, and served as its National Chair for many years. He was the party's presidential nominee in 1976, getting on ten state ballots. The party had 400-600 members nationwide at the time. Zeidler agreed to run when other leading members of the SPUSA declined to do so. He and his running mate, J. Quinn Brisben, received 6,038 votes, including approximately 2,500 in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.[12]
On July 26, 2004, Zeidler appeared at the 2004 Green Party National Convention in Milwaukee to welcome delegates to the convention.[13]
He died on July 7, 2006, aged 93, and was interred at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. His mayoral and personal papers are archived at Milwaukee Public Library. Several additional boxes of his papers are archived at the Golda Meir Library of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.[14]
Writing, scholarship, and legacy[edit]
Zeidler wrote several books, including not only treatises on municipal government, labor law, socialism, and Milwaukee history, but poetry, renditions of four of Shakespeare's plays into present-day English, and children's stories. His 1961 memoir of his time as mayor, A Liberal in City Government, was published in 2005 by Milwaukee Publishers LLC, a local company formed for the purpose.[15]
On June 13, 1958, Zeidler was the first person to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.,[16] which now sponsors the Frank P. Zeidler International
Graduate Student Travel Award, a scholarship enabling a non-American scholar to study for a master's degree in American history at UWM.[17] The Wisconsin Labor History Society also sponsors an annual undergraduate Frank P. Zeidler Scholarship in labor history.[18]
The Milwaukee Public Library's historic collections are housed in the Frank P. Zeidler Humanities Room, named in his honor.
On May 21, 2006, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee.
An urban park in downtown Milwaukee bears Zeidler's name. Zeidler Union Park (originally named for priest and explorer Jacques Marquette)[19] now hosts the Westown Farmer's Market and other smaller festivals and gatherings. [20]
Family[edit]
Zeidler's daughter, Jeanne Zeidler, served as mayor of Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1998 until 2010, when she retired.[21][22]