Angela Rose Canfield
Angela Rose Canfield | |
|---|---|
Angela Rose Canfield after being elected mayor. | |
| Born | 1840 |
| Died | August 23, 1925 |
| Known for | First female mayor in Illinois |
Angela Rose Canfield (1840 – August 23, 1925) was a politician, activist, and milliner in Illinois. In 1915, she was elected mayor of Warren, making her the first female mayor of the town as well as the first woman elected as a mayor statewide.
Biography
Angela Rose Canfield was born in 1840 in New York State.[1][2] Around the 1860s, she married O.J. Hildreth; she later remarried.[1]
During the Civil War, she served as superintendent of the U.S. Army messhouse in Nashville.[1] She then worked as a Pinkerton private police officer and combatted the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania in the late 1800s.[2]
Around 1881, Canfield settled in Warren, Illinois, where she became active in the statewide women's suffrage movement.[2][3] She was also affiliated with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and various other women's activism organizations.[3] In the early 1890s, she established a milliner's shop in the town.[3]
In April 1915, Canfield was elected mayor of Warren, Illinois.[1][2][3][4] She defeated two other candidates by a plurality of four votes.[1] On her election, at age 75, she became the first woman mayor in the town as well as across the entire state of Illinois.[2][3][5]
Canfield took office on May 1 of that year and served a two-year term.[1][2] She vowed to punish "boodlers and grafters," as well as law enforcement officers who didn't pull their weight.[2] She stepped down after finishing her term in 1917.[6]
Canfield died on August 23, 1925, in McMinnville, Oregon.[7][8]
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Illinois' First Woman Mayor". The North Platte Semi-Weekly Tribune. 1915-06-04. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Woman Made Mayor at 75". The Daily Journal-Gazette. 1915-04-22.
- ^ a b c d e "Woman Elected Warren Mayor First in State". The Joliet News. United Press. 1915-04-22. p. 9 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Woman Mayor of Warren, Ill". Decatur Herald. 1917-10-23. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "About Warren". Village of Warren. Retrieved 2025-02-11.
- ^ "Warren's Ex-Mayoress". Freeport Journal-Standard. 1917-07-20.
- ^ "This Was News". The Stephenson Farmer. 1940-09-19.
- ^ "The Oregon Country". The Oregon Daily Journal. 1925-08-31.