Mayor McNair plays marbles with children in his office. Collection Overview
The City of Pittsburgh was incorporated 200 years ago in March of 1816 and the first mayor was elected in July. It took a while, but in 1879, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania was founded and began collecting valuable historical material. That collection is now housed in the Thomas & Katherine Detre Library & Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center. Assembled here are photographs, documents, and other ephemera meant to give you a snapshot of the History Center’s collections featuring 200 years of Pittsburgh’s mayors.
Read more: “Mayors of Pittsburgh” booklet
The following articles are from Western Pennsylvania History Magazine and include further information and research on 200 years of Pittsburgh’s mayors.
- Pittsburgh Bicentennial
- Records of the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Select and Common Council
- Allegheny Conference on Community Development photographs
- Photographs of Kenneth W. Scholter
- Montefiore Hospital records
- Richard E. Rauh photographs
- Dorsey and Turfley Family Photographs
- Carnegie Steel Company records
- Thomas J. Gallagher scrapbooks
- Joanne Mackay photographs
- Mayor Thomas J. Murphy Administration Photographs
- Sophie Masloff Papers
- Jewish Chronicle records
- Allegheny County Board of Commissioners minute books
- Allegheny (Pa.) Select and Common Council minutes
- Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce records
- “The Mayor’s Notebook,” a series of biographies by George Swetnam, The Pittsburgh Press, 1973
- “The Mayors and Recorders of Pittsburgh, 1816—1951: Their Lives and Somewhat of Their Times,” an unpublished manuscript by Allen Humphreys Kerr
200 Years of Pittsburgh’s Mayors
1816-1841
Ebenezer Denny
John Darragh
John M. Snowden
Magnus Miller Murray
Matthew B. Lowrie
Magnus Miller Murray
Samuel Pettigrew
Dr. Jonas R. McClintock
William Little
William W. Irwin
1841-1856
James Thomson
Alexander Hay
William J. Howard
Dr. William Kerr
Gabriel Adams
John Herron
Joseph Barker
John B. Guthrie
Robert M. Riddle
Ferdinand E. Volz
1856-1878
William Bingham
Henry A. Weaver
George Wilson
Benair C. Sawyer
James Lowry, Jr.
William C. McCarthy
James Blackmore
Jared M. Brush
James Blackmore
William C. McCarthy
1878-1903
Robert Liddell
Robert W. Lyon
Andrew “Andy” Fulton
William McCallin
Henry I. Gourley
Bernard J. McKenna
Henry P. Ford
William J. Diehl
Adam M. Brown
Joseph O. Brown
1903-1946
William B. Hays
George W. Guthrie
William A. Magee
Joseph G. Armstrong
Edward V. Babcock
William A. Magee
Charles H. Kline
John S. Herron
William N. McNair
Cornelius D. “Conn” Scully
1946-Present
David L. Lawrence
Thomas J. “Tom” Gallagher
Joseph M. “Joe” Barr
Peter F. “Pete” Flaherty
Richard Caliguiri
Sophie F. Masloff
Thomas J. “Tom” Murphy, Jr.
Robert E. “Bob” O’Connor, Jr.
Luke R. Ravenstahl
William Peduto