Life and Career
Corning was born in Albany, New York, the son of Louise (née Maxwell) and Edwin Corning. His mother was born in Cawnpore, India, where her father was serving as a missionary, to American parents. He was educated at The Albany Academy and Groton School before attending Yale University. After earning his college degree, Corning started an insurance company and soon entered politics with his election to the New York State Assembly in 1935. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 1936.
Corning won the first of his 11 terms as mayor in 1941 - easily defeating the Republican candidate, Benjamin R. Hoff, by nearly 46,000 votes. Corning was re-elected in landslides for most of the rest of his career. The most notable exception was 1973 when a prominent businessman and reform candidate, Carl Touhey, ran a well-financed campaign and came within 3,200 votes of defeating the mayor.
Touhey's campaign was not the first major challenge to Corning's administration. Shortly after his first term began, the newly elected Governor Thomas E. Dewey had the powerful Albany Democratic political machine, run by "Boss" Daniel P. O'Connell, investigated. The investigations proved largely unsuccessful and left Corning and O'Connell unscathed. This political machine proved to be one of the most durable in American history, even outlasting the Daley family machine in Chicago.
During Governor Dewey's investigation, Corning was drafted into the United States Army and served as a private in World War II; he did not seek to use his official status to avoid service or to get any favorable treatment. During his absence, Frank Harris, a councilman, served as Acting Mayor, appointed to this post by Corning.
In 1946, Corning ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York with James M. Mead for Governor, but they were defeated by the incumbent Republicans Dewey and Joe R. Hanley.
Corning served ten full consecutive terms after his return from the war. His insurance firm profited from being the sole bidder on Albany County insurance contracts for many years. Corning defended this apparent conflict of interest by noting that he himself was not a county official.
His last mayoral re-election came in 1981. During his last term he began to show health problems and, on May 28, 1983, he died of heart failure at University Hospital in Boston. He is interred in Albany Rural Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Erastus Corning 2nd
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or career:
“The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Death does determine life.... Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death.”
—Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)