WASHINGTON, HAROLD

born April 15, 1922, Chicago, Ill., U.S. died Nov. 25, 1987, Chicago Washington American politician who gained national prominence as the first African-American mayor of Chicago (1983-87). Washington graduated from Roosevelt University (B.A., 1949), earned a law degree from Northwestern University (1952), and established a private law practice in Chicago. He succeeded his father, a part-time Methodist minister, as Democratic precinct captain before working as a city attorney (1954-58) and a state labour arbitrator (1960-64). He then served in the Illinois House of Representatives (1965-76), the Illinois State Senate (1976-80), and the U.S. House of Representatives (1980-83). During his second term in Congress, Washington was persuaded by black leaders to enter the 1983 mayoral race in Chicago. Campaigning for reform and an end to city patronage, he won the Democratic nomination by upsetting incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley, the son of four-term mayor Richard J. Daley. In the general election Washington narrowly defeated Bernard Epton, a virtually unknown white Republican, in a record voter turnout tinged with racial overtones. Washington was often unable to implement his programs during his first term in office because the opposition in City Council controlled a majority of the 50 council seats. After a court ruled that several ward boundaries violated the law by disfranchising minority voters, new elections in those wards finally gave him control of the council in 1986. The following year he was easily reelected to a second term even though he had pushed through an unpopular $70 million property tax increase. Additional reading Alton Miller, Harold Washington: The Mayor, the Man (1989); Paul Kleppner, Chicago Divided: The Making of a Black Mayor (1985); Malvin G. Holli and Paul M. Green, Bashing Chicago: Harold Washington's Last Campaign, Chicago, 1987 (1989); Gary Rivlin, Fire on the Prairie: Chicago's Harold Washington and the Politics of Race (1992). History The early frontier When Europeans first explored the Washington area, they encountered a number of Indian tribes, the most prominent being the Chinook, the Coast Salish, the Nez Perc, and the Yakima. The early history of Washington and of the Northwest is intertwined with efforts to find the Northwest Passage, the development of the fur trade with the Orient, and the attempts of Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries to convert the Indians. Spaniards had sailed along the coast earlier, but the wealth of sea otter skins secured from the Indians on one of the voyages of Captain James Cook in 1778 marked the start of real exploration and of the maritime fur trade. George Vancouver, sent by Britain in 1792, tried to find the Northwest Passage and to map the coast. Robert Gray was the first trader from the United States; his explorations resulted in the discovery of the Columbia River in 1792. By 1812, the United States almost completely dominated the fur trade. The British Hudson's Bay Company, however, maintained areas of dominance into the 1840s. Missionaries were generally welcomed by the Indians, though often not so much for Christian salvation as for the knowledge and material advantages the whites could bring. Among the most famous missions were those of the medical missionary Marcus Whitman and the Reverend Henry Spalding, established in 1836 in southeastern Washington, and the Roman Catholic missions established by Pierre-Jean DeSmet in northeastern Washington. The Protestant missionaries felt that white civilization was necessary for the Indian and thus encouraged white settlement. With the opening of the Oregon Trail the first large group, about 1,000 people, reached the Northwest in 1843. These and others following first went mainly into the Willamette valley of what became the state of Oregon, and later into the area north of the Columbia River (in present-day Washington), then still dominated by the Hudson's Bay Company. The Indians were initially receptive but the settlers' inconsistent dealings with the Indians led to such conflicts as the Cayuse War (1848-50), the Yakima War (1855-58), and the Nez Perc War (1877). By the end of the 19th century most of the Indians had been settled on reservations, representing three principal tribal groups: Coast Salish, Interior Salish, and the Sahaptin. Anthropologists have identified numerous distinct tribes on the basis of language and other local cultural characteristics. Among the larger tribes of western Washington are the Makah, Quinault, Lummi, Snohomish, and Puyallup; tribes of eastern Washington include the Okanogan, Yakima, Klickitat, Kalispel, and Spokane. Territory and state Until the 1840s citizens of both the United States and Britain by agreement could settle and trade in what was still known as the Oregon country. In 1846 the two countries agreed on the present boundary between the United States and Canada, and in 1848 Congress established the Oregon Territory including all of the present-day states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and parts of Wyoming and Montana. This enormous area was difficult to govern from the territorial capital in the Willamette valley. As the population around Puget Sound grew, agitation arose to form a separate territory of the area north and west of the Columbia. In 1853 Congress created the Washington Territory-named for the first president of the United States-and extended it east of the Columbia River to the crest of the Rockies, including parts of present-day Idaho and Montana. Different rates of population growth and difficulties of communication continued to cause problems, and various movements called for the creation of a separate territory in eastern Washington and even the creation of an independent Pacific Republic. In the 1870s and '80s the extension of the telegraph and the railroads to the Northwest strengthened ties with the United States, and attention turned to seeking statehood, granted in 1889. Gold discoveries in the interior in the 1850s made Walla Walla the centre of eastern Washington for a time, but these were merely a prelude to Washington's role in provisioning the gold seekers who set out for the Alaskan and Yukon strikes of the late 1890s. The gold stimulated the trade of cities on Puget Sound, and the new prosperity was celebrated at the Alaska-Yukon Exposition in 1909. Possibly the greatest stimulus to the state's progress in the 20th century was initiated by the development of the Columbia Basin and related projects, which greatly increased hydroelectric power and provided the basis for increased irrigation and flood control. A navigation improvement project was authorized as early as 1911, and work began on the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams in 1933. Construction was completed on Bonneville in 1937 and on the main structure of Grand Coulee in 1941. The first two Grand Coulee power plants were completed in 1951, and a third power plant began operation in 1975. Washington's prosperity and its growing role in the commerce of the Pacific were among the features celebrated in the Seattle World's Fair of 1962, named the Century 21 Exposition. Developments in the latter half of the 20th century were increased urbanization, consolidation of agricultural landholdings, improved transportation networks, and expanded trade with the Pacific Basin countries. Increasing concern for the environment led to a series of laws to regulate the impact of a growing population. Eugene Clark Howard J. Critchfield History The early period The idea of a national capital city seems to have originated at a meeting of the Congress in June 1783 in the Old City Hall in Philadelphia. The War of Independence had but recently been concluded, the treasury was empty, the nation had no credit, and it was heavily in debt to its soldiers for back pay. There was no president, and, though the 13 colonies were free, they remained a gathering of semi-independent sovereignties with divergent interests. On June 20 a large body of unpaid soldiers invaded Philadelphia to present their grievances to Congress. Conception, siting, and design No actual violence occurred, but a number of congressmen started a movement to establish a federal city where the lawmakers could conduct the business of government without fear of intimidation. Several locations were considered over the next six years, but Northern and Southern disagreements prevented decision until 1790. Although the decision to locate the capital on the Potomac was largely a political compromise, selection of the exact site for the city was left to the newly elected president, George Washington. The chosen district, or territory as it was first called, was 10 miles square. Georgetown to the north and Alexandria to the south were both in the original district, while a third village, Hamburg, lay by the riverfront swamps in a part of Washington known traditionally as Foggy Bottom. Important to Washington in his selection was the site's commercial potential. The river was navigable to Georgetown, an important tobacco market. The construction of a canal from there across the Cumberland Gap to the "western frontier" would tap the produce of the vast country beyond that was being opened to settlement. The President had established a private canal construction company before the final decision had been reached, but he immediately relinquished his interests in it. While in Philadelphia, Washington negotiated with Pierre-Charles L'Enfant to lay out a plan for the new city. A volunteer in the Revolution whose democratic idealism was unquestioned, a well-trained engineer, and an artist who had designed the setting for the President's inaugural ceremonies in New York City, L'Enfant was highly respected and admired. Apparently sensing the historic significance of his appointment, he conceived his plan on a grand scale. The Capitol's cornerstone was laid by Washington in September 1793, and construction was begun on the White House, designed by an Irishman, James Hoban, and on a modest cluster of nearby office buildings to house governmental departments. In October 1800 the archives, general offices, and officials of the government were moved to Washington from Philadelphia. Pres. John Adams took up residence in the White House, and the Congress met for the first time in the newly completed Senate wing of the Capitol.