William Lewis Douglas (22 August 1845-17 September 1924) was the Democratic Governor of Massachusetts from 5 January 1905 to 4 January 1906, succeeding John L. Bates and preceding Curtis Guild Jr..
Biography[]
William Lewis Douglas was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1845, and he served in the Union Army during the American Civil War before working as a shoemaker. After the war, he partnered at a shoe store in Golden, Colorado, and he sold his share in the store in 1868 and returned to Massachusetts, supervising a shoe store in Brockton for eight years and founding the W. L. Douglas Shoe Company. He acquired widespread name recognition through printing his likeness on all of his shoes, and he used this familiarity to win election to the State House from 1883 to 1885, to the State Senate from 1886 to 1887, as Mayor of Brockton from 1890 to 1891, and as Governor from 1905 to 1906. He supported improved labor practices, the creation of a labor mediation board, and the weekly pay of workers, drawing socialist workers away from the rising Socialist Party of America by advocating for pro-worker policies and receiving the AFL's support. Douglas was accused of anti-Catholicism due to his bypassing of Irish-Americans for patronage jobs, and the Republican media blackmailed him into not running for re-election after threatening to reveal his fraudulent honorable discharge from the US Army during the Civil War. He went on to cofound Brockton Hospital, and he moved to Brookline in 1918 and died in 1924.