Theodore McKeldin

Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin (November 20, 1900August 10, 1974) was an American politician. He was a member of the Republican Party, and served as mayor of Baltimore twice, from 1943 to 1947 and again from 1963 to 1967. McKeldin was the 53rd Governor of Maryland, from 1951 to 1959. Early life McKeldin was born in Baltimore. His father had worked as a stonecutter and later was a Baltimore City police officer. He had 10 other siblings. McKeldin attended the noted academic all-male third oldest public high school in America at The Baltimore City College at night in the "Evening High School of Baltimore" program by the Baltimore City Public Schools while working as a bank clerk during the day. The City College was then located at the southwest corner of North Howard and West Centre Streets since 1875, then in the late 1910s when McKeldin attended until it moved in 1928. He graduated later from the University of Maryland Law School at the original campus of the University of Maryland in Baltimore in 1925, and passed into the Maryland Bar. Two years later, he began his political ascent when worked as a secretary to Mayor William F. Broening (1870–1953, served two terms as mayor, 1919–1923 and 1927–1931), one of the few Republican mayors of the city. McKeldin was also a vice president of the local chapter of the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce. In 1934, he was a founding member of Santa Claus Anonymous, a charity organization started during the "Great Depression" of the 1930s to support children in need, showing his early sense of social consciousness. Political career McKeldin challenged the Democratic incumbent mayor of Baltimore, Howard W. Jackson, in the 1939 election, but was defeated. He challenged the incumbent governor of Maryland, Democrat Herbert R. O'Conor, in 1942, and again lost in this heavily Democratic state. McKeldin's persistence paid off, and he was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1943. As mayor, he oversaw the construction of Friendship Airport (since renamed Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport). However, Baltimore saw hard times during this period following the Second World War, with the inner city decaying, ghettos forming, and racial prejudice still present in government policy-making. McKeldin ran a second time for governor in 1946, challenging William Preston Lane Jr., but was defeated again.