Becker, Philip b.April 25, 1830; Oberotterbach on the Rhine d. July 4, 1898; Buffalo, New York
Philip Becker and Henry Overstolz of St. Louis, both elected in 1875, were the first German immigrants to serve as mayors of major American cities. Becker was a merchant and Republican mayor (1876—1877, 1886—1889) of Buffalo, New York.
He was a committed member and virtual leader of Buffalo’s German American community, socially, financially, and politically. His status as the “Uncle Philip” of the German community lasted from his effort to ensure the presence of German instruction in the schools in 1873 to his leadership of local German American opposition to William Jennings Bryan in 1896.Becker came directly to the emergent “Queen City of the Great Lakes” in 1847. Securing supervisory positions in Buffalo stores, he worked seven years before opening up his own Main Street grocery business. Over the next forty years, Becker became known as the “Merchant Prince.” His store was the leading wholesale grocery business of western New York during the last third of the century. One of his two other major concerns, the Buffalo German Insurance Company, also enjoyed remarkable success, erecting a massive building with soaring tent roofs that occupied the prestigious downtown corner of Lafayette Square.
Becker’s local fame rose quickly after the Civil War, during a period when he was thought to have become the city’s third millionaire. In the early 1870s he was the dominant force in a committee that built Buffalo’s City Hall, which remains one of the landmarks of nineteenth-century Buffalo, as the Erie County Hall. Becker became an activist in German circles. As an organizer of those who favored German- language courses on the Anglo-dominated west side of the city in 1873, he played a key role in the successful struggle to maintain German instruction in public schools. This success, his mayoral victory in 1875, and his role as president of the German Insurance Company from 1869 to 1893 made him a central philanthropist and political representative of German American societies.
As the very nature of the cultural associations known as Vereine moved away from purely cultural pursuits to a stronger business orientation, Becker became a leading voice in the key Verein of Buffalo. In 1883 he was elected president of the Sangerfest (Singer’s Festival) in Buffalo, which drew choirs from around the country. Becker contributed much to making the event memorable, including raising funds for the city’s first Music Hall and a triumphal arch over Main Street. He also intervened musically, helping to decide which singing societies would be most prominently displayed and eventually helping to oust a director of only local fame from his position. When a gas chandelier set the first Music Hall ablaze in 1885, Becker led the effort that resulted in the construction of a second one.Becker showed that a thick German accent and a willingness to promote German causes were not necessarily liabilities in the 1870s and 1880s. Had Buffalo attained the dominant influence in its state, as did St. Louis and Milwaukee, it is conceivable that Becker could have attained higher offices. In an age noted for the scale of civic corruption, Becker, with a youthful countenance and distinctive chin beard, haggled to reduce costs. His approach set a precedent for Grover Cleveland, a rival and later president, whose one-year stint as Buffalo’s mayor came after Becker’s first administration. Like Cleveland, Becker also convinced opponents of his integrity and gained local support for a gubernatorial bid. In 1891, a large delegation left Buffalo to ramrod Becker through as the Republican choice for New York’s governor. Boss
Thomas Platt, however, opposed the scheme, and despite the near unanimity of Buffalo’s Republicans and a two-day effort to out-shout downstate opponents, Becker’s allies were unable to secure his nomination.
Andrew Yox
See also Buffalo
References and Further Reading
Holli, Melvin G., and Peter Jones, eds.
Biographical Dictionary of American Mayors, 1820—1980. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981, 21.
Yox, Andrew P. “Decline of the German- American Community in Buffalo, 1855-1925.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1983, 144-240.