Curley, James Michael

James Michael Curley (1874–1958) served four terms as mayor of Boston, one term as governor of Massachusetts, two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and two terms in jail. The controversial Curley dominated public life in Boston during the first half of the 20th century. Skilled at shaping popular perceptions, he helped define the social and political character of Boston in the 20th century.

Curley was born in the Roxbury section of Boston, the son of Irish immigrants. His father, Michael, was a laborer; his mother, Sarah, scrubbed floors. Michael Curley died when James was 10, leading the younger Curley to quit school to support the family. He took jobs as a newsboy, delivery boy, drugstore clerk, machine operator, and traveling salesman.

Politics served as Curley's way up. A gifted public speaker, he was drafted by local Democratic Party [Page 202]leaders to speak on street corners as a teenager. He won a seat on the Boston Common Council in 1899. By 1901 he had created his own organization, the Tammany Club, and established himself as the dominant politician in Roxbury's Ward 17. He even earned election to the Common Council in 1904 while serving a term in jail for impersonating a constituent on a civil service exam. The following year he rose to the Board of Aldermen and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1910. He was first elected to a 4-year term as mayor of Boston in 1914 and was reelected to 4-year terms in 1921, 1929, and 1945.

Curley succeeded by adapting to a changing political environment. He recognized that the power of party organizations was diminishing and appealed directly to a mass electorate. A selfstyled “Mayor of the Poor,” he cast himself as the tribune of the bluecollar Irish, carving shamrocks in the shutters of his home and responding fiercely and often humorously to even the mildest Brahmin slight. He also backed many social reforms, built municipal bathhouses and Boston City Hospital, and reputedly passed out thousands of dollars in cash to needy constituents. These gestures helped him deflect frequent (and often credible) charges of corruption. They also helped lift him to a 2-year term as governor of Massachusetts in 1935 and a second term in Congress in 1940.

Curley's image has overshadowed his performance. His cultivation of ethnic animosities fractured a political truce between Irish and Yankee leaders, bequeathing to 20th-century Boston a sharp sense of cultural conflict. His corruption, fiscal profligacy, and inability to work with the local business community helped undermine Boston's economy through the middle decades of the 20th century. Yet he is remembered fondly, as a benevolent boss whose generosity and humor made up for the corruption, inefficiency, and ethnic polarization that characterized his leadership. The 1956 publication of Edwin O'Connor's The Last Hurrah, a sentimental portrait of an aging machine politician that many readers took as a thinly disguised depiction of Curley, ensured that such a perception would remain fixed in the popular mind.