John F. Fitzgerald, “Honey Fitz”: ward politics, a “Bigger, Better, Busier Boston”

John Fitzgerald had enrolled at Harvard Medical School after graduating from Boston Latin School in 1884 when, a year later, his father died suddenly and he left to support his younger siblings. That decision, the National Park Service writes, led him into Boston politics. He became a state senator, a U.S. congressman and the first American-born Irish mayor of Boston, and he was the grandfather of President John F. Kennedy.

John Francis Fitzgerald in 1906. Photograph by Theodore C. Marceau, Library of Congress.

From the North End

Fitzgerald was born in Boston's North End on February 11, 1863. His parents, Thomas and Rosanna, had both fled Ireland during the Great Hunger. Thomas struggled as a field hand in Acton, Massachusetts before joining his family in Boston, where he worked as a fish peddler and then ran a grocery for the rest of his life; he earned enough to move the family to a larger home in 1866. One of twelve children, John was determined to stand out: he sought to be the most athletic among his peers, started a paper route and gave tours of the North End.

A framed photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald and five of their children, 1900. National Park Service (JOFI 27).

Ward politics

Boston around 1900 was divided into wards, each run by a boss with a machine, an organized network running the political process. Unlike Chicago or St. Louis, Boston had no unified machine. Bosses gave constituents jobs and aid in exchange for votes, and an Irish-American could count on the local boss more than on a city government that was often anti-Irish and anti-Catholic.

After his father's death Fitzgerald went to his ward boss, Matthew Keany, who hired him as a personal assistant. He rose in the ward, married Mary Josephine Hannon, and a year later the first of their six children, Rose Elizabeth, mother of President Kennedy, was born. When Keany died in 1892 Fitzgerald won enough support to become ward boss, and promptly ran for state senate. With the backing of Martin Lomasney, the most powerful ward boss in Boston, he won decisively; two years later the same combination, with energetic campaigning, took him to the U.S. House for the 9th district.

Mayor John F. Fitzgerald (second from right) at Fenway Park in 1912, walking with Charles Logue, original designer of the park. The uniformed officer and two men at far left are unidentified. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Mayor

Fitzgerald ran for mayor in 1905 on a promise of a "Bigger, Better, Busier Boston" and denounced the ward boss system, though he had risen through it. As mayor (1906 to 1908 and 1910 to 1914), he expanded the office and gave government positions and contracts largely to Irish-American supporters. By the end of his second term the source credits him with establishing Fenway Park, the Franklin Park Zoo and many public playgrounds and parks, and he was loved for opening public spaces to people who had been left out.

In 1913 he stood for election again, but rumors of an affair, the "Toodles Affair," broke, and he withdrew just three weeks after entering the race. His political career never recovered, though he stayed popular in Boston. The nickname "Honey Fitz" came from his love of singing songs such as "Sweet Adeline" at rallies.

John Fitzgerald holds his infant grandson, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., 1915. National Park Service, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS (JOFI 636).

Helping the next generation

Over the following decades he made several unsuccessful attempts to return to politics, but used his lasting popularity for his family. In 1920 he convinced Boston City Hospital to bend its residency rules and admit his grandson John F. Kennedy, who had scarlet fever, an action that possibly saved the boy's life. In 1946 Kennedy ran for Congress in Fitzgerald's old district; Fitzgerald worked on the campaign and appeared with him publicly, which the source counts among the factors in Kennedy's win of the Massachusetts 11th congressional seat.

John F. Kennedy votes in the 1946 Massachusetts primary, where he was on the ballot for the first time, with his grandparents John and Mary Fitzgerald. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Fitzgerald died on October 2, 1950, at 87. Three days later more than 3,500 mourners paid their respects at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, and people outside sang "Sweet Adeline" as the casket was carried to the cemetery. The NPS sums up that his rise to mayor changed Boston and its politics, and that his career and popularity laid the foundation for Kennedy's path to the presidency.

Sources

• National Park Service, John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, "John Fitzgerald: Mayor of a Bigger, Better, Busier Boston", https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/john-fitzgerald-mayor-of-a-bigger-better-busier-boston.htm; pictures from the Library of Congress, the National Park Service and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum; rewritten in hubnx's own words.