The City of Chicago was established in 1837 but it took 142 years to elect its first female mayor.

Jane Byrne grew up on the North Side of Chicago in the 1930s. She married William Byrne, a Marine, but was soon widowed when he died in a plane crash, leaving her to care for their infant daughter. 

Determined to make a name for herself, she became involved in politics. She started as secretary-treasurer for the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign’s Chicago office. While there, she met Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was well known for his “machine” style of politics. It was a system where those who worked for the city were expected to provide votes for the Democrats in office, among other favors. Daley reportedly told Jane, “Politics is like any big business. We are no different from General Motors. … Their product is cars. Our product is people. We sell candidates.” 

Unsure how far she wished to go in such a “business,” Jane continued to volunteer for the Party and worked her way up to Chicago’s head of Consumer Affairs Department. Then, in 1975, she became co-chair of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee and the first woman in the mayor’s cabinet. 

The death of Mayor Daley the following year changed everything for Jane, though. Removed from her position by the new mayor, Michael Bilandic, she spoke her mind about the machine politics and announced her intention to run for mayor in the next election, which would take place in two years. She was considered a “hopeless underdog” recalled one reporter who covered her campaign.

In 1978, Jane remarried, this time to journalist Jay McMullen. At this time in America, no female had been elected the mayor of a major city, so her campaign manager knew it would not be easy to get her elected. Anything which would give her the appearance of having a feminist agenda was avoided, including turning down endorsements from women’s organizations. Decisions made by Mayor Bilandi further isolated minority voters and turned the tide toward Jane. She won the primary with 51 percent of the vote. Then on election day in 1979, the support for Jane only grew. She lost only two of 3000 precincts, giving her a better turnout than Daley had ever received and making her the first female mayor of a major U.S. city.

Jane served one tumultuous term as mayor of Chicago. She did some good but was unable to keep many campaign promises. She hired Chicago’s first African-American schools superintendent and was the first Chicago mayor to recognize the gay community. Jane also instituted the city’s Jazz Fest and the event which became Taste of Chicago. Other accomplishments include boosting tourism and extending the elevated train line from the city to O’Hare International Airport. Additionally, she allowed the filming of major motion pictures in the city, including The Blues Brothers. For three weeks in 1981, she and her husband moved into the gang-riddled housing project known as Cabrini-Green, which was seen mostly as a gimmick and did not accomplish much. She lost in 1983 to Harold Washington, who would become the city’s first African-American mayor. 

When she died in 2014, she was still the only woman to have been mayor of a city as large as Chicago, and the only female mayor of Chicago, which changed when Lori E. Lightfoot was elected in 2019. The city renamed the Circle Interchange the Jane Byrne Interchange in 2014, just prior to her death. 

Read more about her and the other women featured this month in my bookshop here. This is an affiliate link; thank you for supporting my work.