The Boston mayoral election of 1959 occurred on Tuesday, November 3, 1959, between former
Boston City Council member
John Frederick Collins and
President of the Massachusetts Senate John E. Powers. Collins was elected to his first term, and was inaugurated on Monday, January 4, 1960.
The nonpartisan municipal
preliminary election was held on Tuesday, September 22, 1959.
Collins' victory was considered the biggest upset in city politics in decades.
political scientist
Murray Levin
Murray Burton Levin (1927–1999) was a political science professor at Boston University from 1955 through his retirement in 1989. A progressive who once had been a member of the Communist Party USA, Levin was an unreconstructed radical througho ...
wrote a book on the race, titled ''The Alienated Voter: Politics in Boston'', which attributed Collins' victory to the voters' cynicism and resentment of the city's political elite. Collins had been widely viewed as the
underdog in the race
[O'Connor, T.H. (1997). ''Boston Irish: A Political History''. New York: Back Bay Books.] and Powers had been regarded as the
front-runner, making Collins' victory a political surprise. Collins had run on the slogan "stop power politics", and was widely seen as independent of any
political machine
In the politics of Representative democracy, representative democracies, a political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives (such as money or political jobs) and that is characterized by a hig ...
.
Candidates
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John F. Collins
John Frederick Collins (July 20, 1919 – November 23, 1995) was an American lawyer who served as the mayor of Boston from 1960 to 1968. Collins was a lawyer who served in the Massachusetts Legislature from 1947 to 1955. He and his children cau ...
, Member of the Boston City Council from 1956 to 1957, member of the
Massachusetts Senate from 1951 to 1955.
*
John E. Powers, member of the
Massachusetts Senate since 1940, Senate President since 1959.
Candidates eliminated in preliminary
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James W. Hennigan Jr.
James William Hennigan Jr. (March 17, 1927 – January 3, 2020) was an American politician who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1953 to 1955 and in the Massachusetts Senate from 1955 to 1965.
Hennigan graduated from Babs ...
, member of the
Massachusetts Senate since 1955 and the
Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1953 to 1955.
*
John P. McMorrow, member of the Boston School Committee.
*
Gabriel F. Piemonte
Gabriel Francis Piemonte (January 28, 1909 in Boston, Massachusetts – June 30, 1991 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American attorney and politician who was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1947 to 1952 and the ...
, member of the Boston City Council since 1952 to 1959.
Results
See also
*
List of mayors of Boston, Massachusetts
References
Further reading
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External links
Boston Mayor Race - Nov 03, 1959at ourcampaigns.com
Boston mayoral
Boston
Mayoral elections in Boston
Non-partisan elections
1950s in Boston
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