Emil Seidel

Emil Seidel (December 13, 1864 – June 24, 1947) was a

Emil Seidel
prominent German-American politician. Seidel was the mayor of
Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. The first Socialist mayor of a
major city in the United States, Seidel became the Vice
Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America in the
1912 presidential election.

Contents
Biography
Early years
Political career
Later years
Death and legacy
See also
References 36th Mayor of Milwaukee
Works In office
Further reading 1910–1912
Preceded by David Rose
External links
Succeeded by Gerhard A. Bading
Personal details
Biography Born December 13, 1864
Ashland,
Pennsylvania, U.S.
Early years
Died June 24, 1947
Seidel was born December 13, 1864 in the town of Ashland in
(aged 82)
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, the son of ethnic German
Milwaukee,
emigrants from Pomerania.[1][2][3]. His family moved to
Wisconsin, U.S.
Wisconsin in 1867, living first in Prairie du Chien before moving
Political party Socialist
to the state capital of Madison.[1] Seidel's father, Otto Seidel, was
a carpenter, and his mother, Henrietta Knoll Seidel, was a
homemaker.[1]

Seidel attended public school up to the age of 13, when he dropped out to become a woodcarver.[1] He
continued to study after leaving school, reading extensively.[1] At the age of 19 he started a trade union
of local woodworkers, becoming the organization's first secretary.[1]

At the age of 22, Seidel went abroad to refine his skills as a woodcarver.[3] He lived for six years in
Berlin, working at his trade during the day and attending school at night.[3] It was in this period that
Seidel first became an active socialist.[4]
In 1895, Seidel married the former Lucy Geissel.[3] They had one son, Lucius, who died in infancy, and
one daughter, Viola. The pair would ultimately divorce in 1924.[5]

Political career
When Seidel returned to the United States in 1892 he joined
the Socialist Labor Party of America.[6] Seidel was a charter
member of the first SLP branch in Milwaukee.[3] He also
became an active member of the Pattern Makers Union.[3]

Seidel later joined the Social Democracy of America

(established 1897), the Social Democratic Party of America
(established 1898), and the Socialist Party of America
(established 1901) in turn. He resided briefly in Washington
state, serving as the first secretary of Local Redmond SPA in
the fall of 1901.[7]

In 1904 Seidel was one of nine Socialists to win electoral

victory as Milwaukee city aldermen, elected in the city's 20th
ward.[3] He served two terms in that position before making New Milwaukee mayor Emil Seidel
his first mayoral run in 1908.[4] He was returned as a city celebrated in an April 1910 editorial
alderman at large in the election of 1909.[4] cartoon from the socialist press.

In 1910, Seidel was elected mayor of Milwaukee,

becoming the first Socialist mayor of a major city in
the United States.[4] During his administration the
first public works department was established, the
first fire and police commission was organized, and a
city park system came into being. Seidel cleaned up
the town with strict regulation of bars and the closing
of brothels and sporting parlors (modern-day
casinos). During his administration Seidel employed
the noted American poet and author Carl Sandburg
as his personal secretary.[8] Seidel's socialist
inclinations had attracted Sandburg to Milwaukee.
Campaign poster from the 1912 Presidential
In his Spring 1912 bid for re-election, Seidel faced campaign, where Seidel ran as a running mate with
the combined forces of the Democratic and Eugene V. Debs

Republican parties, who ran a single candidate in

order to defeat Seidel and the Socialists.[9] Despite
winning more votes in 1912 than in 1910, Seidel was defeated by Gerhard Bading, a local doctor,
professor of surgery, and commissioner of health.[9]

Freed of his mayoral duties by electoral defeat, Seidel became a logical choice as the Socialist Party's
nominee for Vice President of the United States on the ticket with Eugene V. Debs. The pair won 901,551
votes in the 1912 presidential election, 6% of the total vote.
Seidel tried to win re-election as mayor of Milwaukee in 1914, but was soundly defeated.[5] He was
returned to the city council as an alderman at large in the city election of 1916.[5] He won re-election in
1918, remaining at the post until 1920.[5]

Seidel, an opponent of World War I, voted against Milwaukee's purchase of Liberty bonds to help finance
the war effort.[10] He also was an outspoken opponent of a proposed Milwaukee "loyalty ordinance".[10]
In the superheated wartime political climate, marked by political repression of the anti-war movement,
Seidel ran afoul of the law when he was arrested on November 12, 1917, in Horicon, Wisconsin
following a speech he made there.[10] Charged with "tending to provoke an assault or breach of peace
during an address", he was fined $50.[5]

In 1932 Seidel ran for a seat in the United States Senate from Wisconsin, winning 6% of the vote. He
served a final four-year stint as a Milwaukee city alderman from 1932 until 1936.[11]

Later years
Seidel retired from political life in the middle 1930s. He remained a resident of Milwaukee, living on the
northwest side of the city, passing his time painting, composing music, creating poetry, and writing his
autobiography.[10]

Death and legacy

Seidel died in Milwaukee on June 24, 1947, following an illness of several months' duration related to
complications from a heart condition.[10] He was 82 years old.

Seidel's unpublished memoirs reside in Madison at the Wisconsin Historical Society, where they are
available to scholars on microfilm.

See also
Daniel Hoan
Frank P. Zeidler
Social-Democratic Party of Wisconsin

References
1. Edward S. Kerstein, Milwaukee's All-American Mayor: Portrait of Daniel Webster Hoan.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966; p. 68.
2. [1] (https://books.google.com/books?id=8uxfTF4Lm-kC&pg=PA753&dq=emil+seidel+germa
n&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT7JbTzcjiAhUhT98KHdssCmsQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=
emil%20seidel%20german&f=false)"...born in Pennsylvania of Pomeranian immigrants,
lived in Germany from 1886 to 1892..."
3. "Our Candidates Emil Seidel", Cleveland Socialist, whole no. 48 (September 21, 1912), pg.
2.
4. Kerstein, Milwaukee's All-American Mayor, p. 69.
5. Kerstein, Milwaukee's All-American Mayor, p. 70.
6. "Our Candidates: Emil Seidel" notes that Seidel's was one of only two "Socialist" votes in
his precinct in 1892 — a year in which the Socialist Labor Party was the sole socialist party
in America.
 7. "A Remarkable Growth," Appeal to Reason [Girard, KS], no. 311 (Nov. 16, 1901), p. 3.
8. Kerstein, Milwaukee's All-American Mayor, p. 59.
9. Kerstein, Milwaukee's All-American Mayor, p. 67.
10. Kerstein, Milwaukee's All-American Mayor, p. 71.
11. Wisconsin Historical Society. Dictionary of Wisconsin History "Seidel, Emil 1864 - 1947" (htt
p://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=2729&search_term
=seidel)

Works
What We Have Done in Milwaukee. Chicago, IL: National Office of the Socialist Party, 1911.
Which Must Go? America or Private Ownership of Railroads? Milwaukee: Socialist Party of
Wisconsin, 1923.
Thy Kingdom Come: Sketches from My Life: Autobiography of Emil Seidel. (https://archive.o
rg/details/44seidelmemoir) [1944] Madison, WI: State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Joining the Socialist Movement. (https://archive.org/details/JoiningTheSocialistMovement)
Corvallis, OR: 1000 Flowers Publishing, 2013.
Building the Social Democratic Party. (https://archive.org/details/BuildingTheSocialDemocra
ticParty) Corvallis, OR: 1000 Flowers Publishing, 2013.

Further reading
Benoit, Edward A. III (2009). A Democracy of Its Own: Milwaukee's Socialisms, Difference
and Pragmatism (https://archive.org/details/ADemocracyOfItsOwn-MilwaukeesSocialisms)
(MA thesis). University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

External links
Emil Seidel (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/180684423) at Find a Grave

Political offices
Preceded by Mayor of Milwaukee Succeeded by
David Rose 1910–1912 Gerhard A. Bading

Party political offices

Socialist nominee for Vice
Preceded by Succeeded by
President of the United States
Ben Hanford Kirk Kirkpatrick
1912

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