Byrne, Jane, 1933-2014

Jane Margaret Byrne (née Burke; May 24, 1933 – November 14, 2014) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major city in the United States. She served as the 50th Mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April 29, 1983. Byrne won the Chicago mayoral election on April 3, 1979, becoming the first female mayor of the city, the second largest city in the United States at the time. Until the election of Lori Lightfoot in 2019, she was the only female mayor of Chicago. Prior to her tenure as mayor, Byrne served as Chicago's commissioner of consumer sales from 1969 until 1977.

Born Jane Margaret Burke on May 24, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois,she was raised on the city's north side, After graduating from Saint Scholastica High School and attending St. Mary of the Woods for her first year of college, she transferred to Barat College, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and biology in 1955. Byrne entered politics to volunteer in John F. Kennedy's campaign for president in 1960. During that campaign she first met then Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. After meeting Daley, he appointed her to several positions, beginning in 1964 with a job in a city anti-poverty program. In June 1965, she was promoted and worked with the Chicago Committee of Urban Opportunity.

In 1968, Byrne was appointed head of the City of Chicago's consumer affairs department. She served as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and chairperson of the DNC resolutions committee in 1973. Byrne was appointed co-chairperson of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee by Daley, over the objection of a majority of Democratic leaders, in 1975. The committee ousted Byrne shortly after Daley's death in late 1976. Shortly thereafter, Byrne accused the newly appointed mayor Michael Bilandic of being unfair to citizens of the city by approving an increase in regulated taxi fares, which Byrne charged was the result of a "backroom deal". Byrne was then dismissed from her post of head of consumer affairs by Bilandic.

Months after her firing as head of the consumer affairs department, Byrne challenged Bilandic in the 1979 Democratic mayoral primary, the real contest in the heavily Democratic Chicago. Narrowly defeating Bilandic, she was easily elected in the general election. Byrne made inclusive moves as mayor, such as shepherding the hiring the city's first African-American and female school superintendent Ruth B. Love, and she was the first mayor to recognize the gay community. However, during her tenure, Byrne drifted away from many of the progressive tenets she had campaigned on and gradually lost favor among the city's residents. In August 1982, Byrne decided that she would seek a second term as mayor; in the Democratic primary, she was narrowly defeated by Congressman Harold Washington. In 1987, she was again narrowly defeated by Washington.

Byrne next ran in the 1988 Democratic primary for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk, losing in the Democratic primary. In her fourth bid for Mayor in 1991, she received only 5.9 percent of the vote, a distant third behind Daley and Alderman Danny K. Davis. In 1992, she authored a book, My Chicago, that covered her life through her political career. Byrne entered hospice care and died on November 14, 2014 in Chicago, aged 81, from complications of a stroke she suffered in January 2013. She was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Evanston, Illinois.