Robert Cowles Taylor (August 12, 1893 – December 20, 1955) was the mayor of Newport News, Virginia from 1942 to 1955. As such, he was mayor of the city during World War II, at a time when the city's ports were used to send American troops to Europe to fight in the war. As was seen during World War I, this activity put a tremendous strain on the city's infrastructure, and Taylor was instrumental in seeing that the city continued to function despite the effort. At one point, several tens of thousand of homes, rooms and hotels would come under rent control imposed by Taylor. Taylor also held the dubious honor of being the only casualty of the celebrations that followed the end of the war - his car was stolen during a meeting of the Rotary Club.
He also served on the committee that planned the city's Golden Anniversary year in 1946 to celebrate the fiftieth anninversary of Newport News's incorpation as a city.
Famous quotes containing the word taylor:
“That, of course, was the thing about the fifties with all their patina of familial bliss: A lot of the memories were not happy, not mine, not my friends’. That’s probably why the myth so endures, because of the dissonance in our lives between what actually went on at home and what went on up there on those TV screens where we were allegedly seeing ourselves reflected back.”
—Anne Taylor Fleming (20th century)