Pingree, Hazen S.

Hazen S. Pingree (1840–1901) was mayor of Detroit and governor of Michigan and, as such, was a leading urban reformer in the 1890s whose progressive social and political ideas influenced civic leaders around the United States.

A cobbler's son and one of eight children, Pingree lived throughout the New England area in search of steady work before settling in Massachusetts as a shoe factory apprentice at age 20. In 1862 he enlisted in the Union Army. He fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and in 1864, during the 5 months he spent as a captive in the Confederacy's Andersonville prison camp, he met fellow prisoners from Detroit who impressed him with their accounts of Detroit's growing economic opportunities. In 1865, following his army discharge, he arrived in Detroit and found work as a leather cutter in a shoe factory. Pooling his savings with partner Charles H. Smith's, Pingree bought antiquated shoe and boot manufacturing equipment at low prices and in 1866 opened his own shoe business. During the next 20 years, as his company enjoyed enormous success, he secured a place among Detroit's wealthiest and most influential citizens, joining groups like the Masons, the Grand Army of the Republicans, and the Michigan Club, which led to his 1889 mayoral nomination on the Republican ticket.

Pingree won the first of his four mayoral terms on a platform vowing to eradicate the corruption of the Democratic political machine and to support an 8-hour workday. During his first term, he delivered on many of his campaign promises, eliminating wasteful agencies, demanding honesty from his administration members, and enacting a number of structural reforms that made city government more efficient. He had the entire school board arrested on charges of bribery and corruption for mismanaging the school budget. A struggle against road companies to eliminate tolls on Detroit's poorly-maintained roadways in 1892 drew Pingree's attention to the idea of civic [Page 575]control over public works as well as municipal home rule.

Pingree fought on behalf of the public with a number of utility and transportation companies, anticipating many of the national reforms that would be enacted during the country's progressive impulse some years later. He broke the streetlight monopoly, and following a referendum, he established a Public Lighting Commission. After a series of lawsuits and threats of increased competition, he forced gas and telephone companies to reduce their rates and in some cases issue rebates for overcharging. He challenged rail companies and succeeded in building 50 miles of new streetcar tracks while reducing the railway fare from 5 to 3 cents, a plan emulated nationally. With nearly a third of Detroit's male workforce unemployed during the 1893 depression, he helped alleviate hunger by enacting a “potato patch plan,” convincing landowners to allow the city to use their vacant plots as public vegetable gardens. Pingree was elected to the first of his two terms as governor in 1896, but the combination of an antagonistic state legislature and scandals involving members of his administration limited the efficacy of his reform agenda. He died in England of peritonitis while completing a world tour.

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