Картер Генри Харрисон: Чикаго мэрі және саяхатшысы

American politician (1825–1893)

Carter Henry Harrison Sr. (February 15, 1825October 28, 1893) was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1879 until 1887 and from 1893 until his assassination. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives. Harrison was the first cousin twice removed of President William Henry Harrison, whose grandson, Benjamin Harrison, had also been president until just months prior to the assassination. He was also the father of Carter Harrison Jr., who would follow in his father's footsteps, and would serve five terms as the mayor of Chicago himself.

Harrison was born on a plantation on February 15, 1825, in Fayette County, Kentucky near Lexington, Kentucky to Carter Henry Harrison II and Caroline Russell. When Harrison was merely eight months old, his father died. Harrison invested in real estate in Chicago, The district in which he was nominated had a strong Republican lean. Harrison, while unsuccessful, had managed to greatly outperform previous Democratic nominees in the district.

During his first mayoralty, Harrison was elected mayor of Chicago for four consecutive two year terms (in 1879, 1881, 1883, and 1885). After he campaigned in 1879 with a pet eagle, he became affectionately nicknamed "the Eagle". During his first mayoralty, he surpassed his predecessor Monroe Heath's title as the longest serving mayor Chicago had had up to that time.

Harrison has been described as a practitioner of charismatic authority. However, it was still a developing city. Harrison also forced utility companies operating in the central business district to bury their wires.

Harrison was a delegate to the 1880 and 1884 Democratic National Conventions. Harrison was also alleged to have ordered the Chicago police to fill the convention hall's convention hall with as many men sympathetic to Cleveland's candidacy as they could find on the street.

On October 28, 1893, a few months into his fifth term and just two days before the close of the World's Columbian Exposition, Harrison was murdered in his home by Patrick Eugene Prendergast, an office seeker who had supported Harrison's re election under the idea that Harrison would reward him with an appointment to a post within his mayoral administration. Harrison was buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. As part of his funeral services, Harrison lay in state in the City Hall. A celebration planned for the close of the Exposition was cancelled and replaced by a large public memorial service for Harrison. Prendergast was sentenced to death for the crime and hanged on July 13, 1894. While Harrison died at a time when the elites, Protestants, and Republicans of all kinds greatly disliked him, he never lost his core supporters of labor unions, Catholics, immigrants, and the working class. He was Chicago's first mayor to be elected five times; eventually his son Carter Harrison Jr. was also elected mayor five times. Harrison's career and assassination are closely associated with the World's Columbian Exposition, and are discussed at some length as a subplot to the two main stories (about the fair and serial killer H. H. Holmes) in Erik Larson's best selling 2003 non fiction book The Devil in the White City.

Harrison was a populist Democrat. Harrison did not disapprove of liquor consumption or gambling. Together they had ten children, six of whom died at a young age.