John Purroy Mitchel (19 July 1879-6 July 1918) was the Republican Mayor of New York City from 1 January 1914 to 31 December 1917, succeeding Ardolph L. Kline and preceding John Francis Hylan. Of partial Venezuelan heritage, he was New York City's first Hispanic mayor.
Biography[]
John Purroy Mitchel was born in New York City, New York in 1879, the son of an Irish Confederate veteran and a Venezuelan-American mother, and the grandson of John Mitchel. He worked as a private attorney before becoming known as an anti-corruption crusader and serving as Mayor of New York City from 1914 to 1917, winning election at the young age of 34 and being nicknamed "the Boy Mayor of New York". Mitchel reformed the highly corrupt NYPD, maintained impartiality during strikes in 1916, combined vocational and academic courses, attempted to trim the size of the Board of Education, and advocated universal military training on the eve of World War I. He left office in 1917 and joined the US Army Air Service, only to fall out of his out-of-control plane over Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1918 due to his failure to fasten his seatbelt.