Fitzgerald, Frank Dwight, 1885-1939

Frank D. Fitzgerald, Republican governor of Michigan 1935-1936 and from January 1 to March 16, 1939, was born January 27, 1885 in Grand Ledge, Michigan. He attended Ferris Institute taking business courses but did not graduate. He began his career as post office clerk in Grand Ledge (his father was postmaster). He held this positions from 1906 to 1911. In 1912, he was elected as a Republican to the county board of supervisors. In addition, over the next several years Fitzgerald would hold a variety of positions in state government. In 1913, he became committee clerk in the Michigan State Senate. In 1915, he became a proof reader in the House of Representatives and in 1917 a bill clerk in the House.

During the period when the legislature was not in session, Fitzgerald sought other employment, one of these was as clerk in the office of Michigan Secretary of State. During World War I, he accepted the position of executive secretary of the Michigan Food Administration serving from 1917 to 1919. In 1919, he was chosen deputy secretary of state, but remained only a year to go into private business with an automobile dealership in Tennessee. The business did not flourish and Fitzgerald returned to Michigan accepting in 1923 the position of business manager in the Michigan State Highway Department.

In 1931, Fitzgerald was elected to the office of Michigan Secretary of State. During his tenure, Fitzgerald advocated the restructuring of the gas and weight taxes, and sought exemptions from the sales tax for products used in farm production and industrial manufacture. Although both were Republicans, Fitzgerald and Governor Wilber Brucker were at odds over several issues. In the election of 1932, Brucker went down to defeat to William A. Comstock while Fitzgerald was barely reelected in this decidedly Democratic year.

In 1934, Fitzgerald was elected governor of Michigan defeating Arthur Lacy who had defeated Governor Comstock in the primary. As governor, Fitzgerald called for a balanced budget and the need to streamline state government. In the 1936 Roosevelt landslide victory, Fitzgerald was defeated by Detroit mayor Frank Murphy. He returned to different business ventures but his real aim was to return to the governor's chair. Running on an anti-New Deal platform which contrasted his fiscal management with Murphy's, Fitzgerald defeated Murphy in 1938. He would served only a few weeks of his second term as he died March 16, 1939.

From the guide to the Frank Dwight Fitzgerald papers, 1928-1944, 1930-1939, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)