Richardson Dilworth, 1902
Richardson Dilworth at age three or four in 1902. Photo: Dilworth family
Richardson Dilworth & brother Dewees
Richardson Dilworth several years later with his only sibling, older brother Dewees. The family lived in Pittsburgh until Dilworth was eight, when his father fell ill and they moved to New York City. Photo: Dilworth family
Allegheny County Courthouse
William Dilworth, Richardson’s great grandfather, built the first major bridges across the rivers at Pittsburgh in the early 19th century and also built the Allegheny County Courthouse, one of the finest buildings on the frontier when it went up in 1834.
Annie Wood Dilworth
Annie Wood Dilworth was "a terribly hard-driving woman--very attractive but very domineering,: according to her younger son Richardson. Photo: Dilworth family
W. Dewees Wood
Dilworth’s maternal grandfather, W. Dewees Wood, was “the best known and best liked man” in McKeesport, near Pittsburgh, Pa., where his steel mill employed some 1,000 workers. Revered by his employees and rewarded with solid profits, Dewees Wood managed his mill from the 1850s until his death in 1899 “with wonderfully good results—by human touch,” according to writer M.G. Cunniff.
Schuylkill Iron Works
The Wood family was a powerful force in the steel industry for more than a century. Their Schuylkill Works near Philadelphia, later known as Alan Wood Iron and Steel, survives as a branch of the multinational Mittal Steel Co. in Conshohocken, Pa.
Woodmont, Gladwyn Pa
Woodmont, designed by William Lightfoot Price for Alan Wood, Jr. and completed in 1894 for a reported $1 million, was sited on 400 hilltop acres in Gladwyne, Pa., overlooking the Schulykill River and the Wood family steel operation in Conshohocken. Photo: Dilworth family
At Southampton, 1914
Dilworth in Southampton, NY, in 1914, the summer he turned 16. A beach town at the eastern tip of Long Island, Southampton was (and remains) a summer resort for the wealthy. Dilworth met his future running mate Joe Clark on the playing fields there at about this time. Photo: Dilworth family
With St. Marks friends
Dilworth (top right) and friends from the elite St. Mark’s prep school in Southborough, Mass., where he attended from 1911-1917. He did “reasonably well” in studies and was captain of the baseball team. Photo: Dilworth family
Dilworth and friends
In June, 1917, the month of his graduation from St. Mark’s, Dilworth (center, left) and some friends strike a rakish pose on a visit to Revere Beach, Mass. Photo: Dilworth family
Sgt. Michael Fitzgerald
When Dilworth and six friends—five fellow freshmen from Yale, one from Princeton—enlisted together in the Marines in February, 1918, they entered the purview of Sgt. Michael Fitzgerald at the 23rd Street recruiting station in Manhattan.
Leatherneck Marines at the Argonne
Dilworth’s unit saw some of the heaviest and most decisive action of World War I at the Battle of Belleau Wood in June, 1918. This photo shows Marines in the Battle of the Argonne Forest several months later.
Dilworth at Yale, circa 1920
Dilworth returned to Yale after the war, and although he sustained a severe gunshot wound to the shoulder at Belleau Wood, he became a starting end on the varsity football team and rowed on the crew team. Photo: Dilworth family collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Bobbie Brockie
Elizabeth Brockie, known as Bobbie, was the girlfriend of Dilworth’s close friend Wells Cumings, who was killed in action at Belleau Wood. After the war Dilworth paid a condolence visit to Brockie and several years later the two married. Photo: Dilworth family
W. G. Warden
Dilworth’s father-in-law, William Warden, was a wealthy industrialist in Philadelphia. Warden’s father, W.G. Warden, had been among John D. Rockefeller’s closest associates, making him very rich and, in some quarters, reviled.
Dilworth with kids
Dilworth had eight children all told—four with Bobbie Brockie, his first wife; two with Ann Kaufman, his second wife; and two step-children from Ann’s first marriage, to Crawford Hill, Jr. Here, in 1936 or ‘37, Dilworth holds baby Deborah and is surrounded by (clockwise from right) Marie, Pat, Anne, Warden, Louis Hill, and Brockie. Deborah’s brother, Dickie, was not yet born.
Moses Annenberg at tax evasion trial
Dilworth’s great break as a lawyer came in 1936 when Moses Annenberg bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and hired him to fend off a lawsuit from a rival paper. After Moses Annenberg (seen here at his tax evasion trial in 1940) died in 1942, his son Walter took on his father’s vast holdings—and his lawyer. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
At Guadalcanal, WWII, 1945
Within a few months of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dilworth obtained a commission as a captain in the Marines and shipped out to the South Pacific. His unit saw intense fighting against the Japanese on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands northeast of Australia. Photo: Bachrach Studio, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
At Guadalcanal, 1942
Dilworth’s smile belies the harshness of combat and conditions in the equatorial heat on Guadalcanal. Photo: Dilworth family
With captured Japanese soldiers
Captain Dilworth (far right) accompanied a pilot on a night mission to pick up 18 Japanese prisoners on the coast of Australia.
Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Dilworth campaigns, 1947
In his first run for mayor, in 1947, Dilworth lost badly but began to hone his skills as a streetcorner speechmaker, attacking incumbent Republican Bernard Samuel relentlessly and drawing larger and larger crowds. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Defending self at libel trial, 1948
A tiger in the courtroom as well as on the campaign trail, Dilworth here took his own defense at a 1948 libel trial stemming from accusations he made against Philadelphia’s deeply entrenched and deeply corrupt Republican political machine. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
With Sherriff Austin Meehan, 1949
In the summer of 1949, Dilworth debated Philadelphia County Sherriff Austin Meehan (left), a wealthy paving contractor and a powerful force in the GOP. Dilworth resumed his attacks on Republican corruption, accusing Meehan of racketeering and bribing the police. Photos: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Audience at Austin debate, 1949
The Academy of Music was packed for their debate and some 200,000 people followed it on radio and television. The Bulletin called it “one of the rowdiest exhibitions in Philadelphia’s political history.” Photos: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
With Hubert Humphrey, 1950
Dilworth introduced Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey (left) as guest speaker at the Philadelphia chapter of Americans for Democratic Action in 1950. Dilworth and Clark were among the founders of the Philadelphia ADA, and the organization helped propel them to power.
With Joe Clark, 1951
An elated Joe Clark (left) and Dilworth on November 7th, 1951, a day after winning election as mayor and district attorney, breaking a 67-year Republican stranglehold on political power in Philadelphia.
District Attorney, 1952
Dilworth digs into the stacks of cases facing him as Philadelphia’s newly sworn-in district attorney in 1952. Helping out are the children of his second marriage, Deborah and Dickie.
With Longstreth, landslide election
Thacher Longstreth (left), Dilworth’s lanky young Republican opponent in the race for mayor in 1955, took a historic drubbing but managed to smile afterward. The dapper, well-born Dilworth, Longstreth said, displayed “the most instinctive thrust for the jugular of any man I’ve known.”
Andrea Doria, 1956
Dick and Ann Dilworth were among 1,134 passengers on the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria when it was rammed by another ship in the fog and sank off Nantucket in August, 1956. All but 46 passengers were saved. Dilworth, who helped Ann into a lifeboat and stayed on the ship to help others, was described by one passenger as “calm and confident,” soothing those “who seemed about to panic.” He was among the last to leave the sinking ship. Photo: Loomis Dean, Life Magazine
After rescue at sea
With Ann Dilworth after Andrea Doria rescue at sea. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
After the Andrea Doria rescue at sea
Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
With Gov. George Leader, 1957
Pennsylvania Governor George M Leader (right), with Dilworth in Philadelphia for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1957. Leader pushed for Dilworth to be the Democratic Party’s pick to succeed him as governor in 1958, but was outmaneuvered by Philadelphia party chairman Bill Green, who secured the nomination for Pittsburgh Mayor David Lawrence. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Monitoring election returns, 1959
Incumbent Mayor Dilworth with Philadelphia Democratic Party leaders Jim Clark (center) and Bill Green (right) monitoring election returns the night Dilworth prevailed in the Democratic primary for mayor in 1959. A year earlier, Clark and Green had been “vehement against Dilworth” as their party’s candidate for governor, ruining his chances.
Debate with Harold Stassen, 1959
Harold Stassen (left), former governor of Minnesota and former president of the University of Pennsylvania, was the Republican candidate for mayor of Philadelphia in 1959. Dilworth won in a landslide, 66% to 34%. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
With President Eisenhower, 1960
President Eisenhower, in the last days of his second term, is met by Mayor Dilworth at Philadelphia International Airport in late September, 1960. Two years later, Eisenhower would prove pivotal in convincing William Scranton to run against Dilworth for governor of Pennsylvania.
Out for a stroll
The mayor and his poodle out for a stroll were a familiar sight in Philadelphia. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Ann Dilworth
Ann Kaufman Hill met Dick Dilworth in the early 1930s when both were married with children. When they divorced their spouses and got married, it caused an enduring scandal in Philadelphia. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Breaking ground, 1961
One of the most successful projects of the Dilworth era was the development of Society Hill, where dilapidated Colonial and Federal-era houses were renovated and interspersed with new construction. Here, Mayor Dilworth (in white suit) breaks ground on the project with (from left) developer William Zeckendorf, real estate tycoon and controversial Planning Commission Chairman Albert M. Greenfield, and City Council President James H. J. Tate. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple Univ.
Dilworth House, Society Hill, 1961
Ann and Dick Dilworth led the renaissance in Society Hill by building this Colonial Revival house there in 1961. In recent years, despite standing as a symbol of the rebirth of the area, the house has been threatened with demolition. Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA
Prev
Next