Politics and Civic Leadership
Biddle served as mayor of Detroit in 1827 and 1828. He was elected a Delegate from the Territory of Michigan to the Twenty-first Congress and served from March 4, 1829 until his resignation on February 21, 1831. He was president of the convention that framed the State constitution for Michigan in 1835, even though his Whig Party was in the minority. He ran unsuccessfully as the Whig candidate for election to the United States Senate and later for Governor of Michigan. Biddle was a member of the Michigan State House of Representatives in 1841 and served as speaker, and was a Trustee of the University of Michigan.
Biddle was president of the Michigan Central Railroad. He also served as the first President of Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank, and was a bank Director from 1829 through 1838. He was also active in the civic life of Detroit, being elected Vice President of the Detroit Athenaeum, active in the Association for Promoting Female Education in the City of Detroit, and Vice President (1828–1837) and President (1837) of the Historical Society of Michigan.
Read more about this topic: John Biddle (Michigan Politician)
Famous quotes containing the words politics, civic and/or leadership:
“The one thing sure about politics is that what goes up comes down and what goes down often comes up.”
—Richard M. Nixon (19131995)
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadership in industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877?)