Samuel Davis Wilson (31 August 1881-19 August 1939) was Mayor of Philadelphia (R) from 6 January 1936 to 19 August 1939, succeeding J. Hampton Moore and preceding George Connell.
Biography[]
Samuel Davis Wilson was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1881, and he moved to Philadelphia in 1905 and served as campaign manager for Gifford Pinchot's 1930 Republican gubernatorial campaign. He was elected as city controller in 1931, and he explored a Democratic gubernatorial bid in 1931 before running for Mayor in 1935 as a Republican. He ran against John B. Kelly Sr., employing anti-Semitic rhetoric by accusing Kelly of being beholden to Jewish interests. In 1937, he re-registered as non-partisan and broke from his party, and he failed in a US Senate bid as a Democrat. He died in office in 1939.