Hazen S. Pingree

Hazen Stuart Pingree ( born August 30, 1840 in Denmark, Oxford County, Maine, † June 18, 1901 in London ) was an American politician and from 1897 to 1901 the 24th Governor of Michigan.

Early years

Hazen Pingree attended the local schools of his home in Maine. After school, he worked for a time in a cotton mill and then in a shoe factory. During the American Civil War he was a member of an artillery regiment from Massachusetts. He participated in several battles and fell while in captivity. After six months, he managed to escape from a prison camp of the Confederates, after which he joined his regiment again.

Rise in Michigan

After the end of the civil war Pingree moved to Detroit in Michigan. There he founded in December 1866 with a partner in the shoe factory Pingree and Smith Shoe Co. The factory burned down in 1887, but was rebuilt. In the 1890s, this factory was one of the largest shoe manufacturers in Michigan. Pingree was a member of the Republican Party and was elected in 1889 as mayor of Detroit, a post he held until 1896. He fought against the monopoly of the electricity and gas suppliers in the city. He said the corruption in the awarding of contracts to the struggle and came to terms with the fares of urban tram, which he considered too high. During the economic depression of 1893, the mayor created jobs by he built schools, parks and public baths. Nationwide aroused his so-called " Potato Patch " projects sensation. He could invest in open areas of the city fields to produce food for the poor.

Governor of Michigan

In 1896, Pingree was elected as a Republican candidate for the new governor of Michigan. He took office on January 1, 1897, could exercise after a re-election in 1898 until 1 January 1901. The attempt to simultaneously remain mayor of Detroit, was declared by the country's Supreme Court of Justice. Therefore, he had to give up his office in Detroit. In his four-year tenure as governor, he pushed for the direct election of U.S. senators, a law that was introduced in 1913 nationwide through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The income tax laws were reformed. Pingree also called for a better taxation of railway companies. At that time the eight-hour day in Michigan was introduced.

Further CV

The beginning of 1901 Pingree went with his son and the U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt on an African safari. He retired to peritonitis, which broke out on the way back to London. Although the personal physician of King Edward VII took care of the patients, it could not be helped. He died in June 1901, six months after the end of his governorship, in the British capital. Hazen Pingree was married to Francis Gilbert, with whom he had three children.