About Chicago
Jane Margaret Byrne
41st Mayor of Chicago
Party
- Democrat
Elected
- February 27, 1979 (primary)
- Defeated Michael A. Bilandic
- April 3, 1979 (general)
- Defeated Wallace D. Johnson (Republican) and Andrew Pulley (Socialist Workers)
Inauguration
- April 16, 1979: Inaugural Address
Term of Office
- 1979–1983
Birth
- May 24, 1934
- Chicago
Personal
- Maiden name Burke
- First married William Byrne, a pilot who died in 1959; together they had one daughter
- 1960: Asked by Mayor Richard J. Daley to work with the Democratic Party organization in Chicago
- 1969: Appointed commissioner of consumer sales
- 1971: Appointed co-chair of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee
- 1976: Also became commissioner of public vehicle licenses
- 1977: Fired by Mayor Michael A. Bilandic
- 1978: Married Jay McMullen, reporter for the Chicago Daily News, then the Chicago Sun-Times
- 1979: Elected Chicago’s first female mayor
Sources
- Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1978, p. B6.
- Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1979, p. 11.
- Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1979, p. B6.
- Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Reiff, editors. Encyclopedia of Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2004.