Tom L. Johnson
| Tom L. Johnson | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Mayor of Cleveland | |
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In office 1901–1909 |
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| Preceded by | John H. Farley |
| Succeeded by | Herman C. Baehr |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 21st district |
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In office March 4, 1891 – March 3, 1895 |
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| Preceded by | Theodore E. Burton |
| Succeeded by | Theodore E. Burton |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Tom Loftin Johnson July 18, 1854 Georgetown, Kentucky |
| Died | April 10, 1911 (aged 56) Cleveland, Ohio |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Profession | Industrialist and Politician |
Tom Loftin Johnson (July 18, 1854 in Georgetown, Kentucky – April 10, 1911 in Cleveland, Ohio) was an American industrialist, Georgist politician, and important figure of the Progressive Era and a pioneer in urban political and social reform. He was a U.S. Representative from 1891 to 1895 and Mayor of Cleveland 1901 to 1909. Johnson was one of the most well known, vocal, and dedicated admirers of Henry George's views on political economy and anti-monopoly reform.
Johnson's father, a wealthy cotton planter with lands in Kentucky and Arkansas, served in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. The war ruined the family financially, and they were forced to move to several locations in the South in search of work. By age 11, Johnson was selling newspapers on the railroads in Staunton, Virginia and providing a substantial part of the family's support. He worked all through his youth, and never had more than one complete year of formal education.
Johnson's break came through an old family connection with the industrial du Pont dynasty. In 1869, the brothers A.V. and Bidermann du Pont gave him a clerk's job on the street railway business they had acquired in Louisville. Johnson rose rapidly in the business, and discovered a taste for the mechanical side of it. He patented several inventions, including an improved type of streetcar rail, and the glass-sided farebox still used on many buses today.
By 1876, thanks partly to royalties from his farebox, Johnson was able to strike out on his own, purchasing a controlling share in the street railways of Indianapolis. In the 1880s and 90s he expanded his interests to lines in Cleveland, St. Louis, Brooklyn and Detroit, and also entered the steel business, building mills in Lorain, Ohio and Johnstown, Pennsylvania to provide rails for streetcar tracks. He moved to Cleveland in 1883 and soon afterwards bought a mansion on the 'Millionaire's Row' of Euclid Avenue.
Two chance events helped spark Johnson's interest in politics and social questions, and convert him from a conventional business tycoon to a radical reformer. The first was reading, on the suggestion of a train conductor, Henry George's Social Problems, in which the political philosopher expounded his belief that poverty and misery were a result of society's newly created wealth becoming locked up in increasing land values, and advocating a Single Tax on land in place of wastefully taxing the productive activity of capital and labor.
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Wikipedia