Bertha Knight Landes

Bertha Knight Landes (October 19, 1868 - November 29, 1943) was the first female mayor of a major American city. Landes served as mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1926 to 1928. She was born in Ware, Massachusetts to Charles Sanford Knight and Cordelia Cutter. Her father, a veteran of the Union Army, moved the family to Worchester in 1873. She attended Indiana University, where she received a degree in history and political science in 1891. After three years of teaching at the Classical High School in Worcester, she married geologist Henry Landes, with whom she had two children and adopted one.

She served on the Seattle City Council 1922–1926, the last two years as council president, before becoming mayor. [ [http://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/Facts/councilchron.htm Seattle City Council Members, 1869-Present Chronological Listing] , Seattle City Archives. Accessed online 19 July 2008.]

She died in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the house of her son, in 1943. Today, the largest meeting room at Seattle City Hall is named in her honor.

Further reading

Sandra Haarsager, "Bertha Knight Landes of Seattle: Big-City Mayor" (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994).

Notes

External links

* [http://www.seattle.gov/CityArchives/Exhibits/Women/panel5.htm Municipal Archives exhibit]
* [http://www.anb.org/articles/06/06-00794.html American National Biography Online ] at www.anb.org