Theodore McKeldin

McKeldin was born in Baltimore. His father had worked as a stonecutter and later was a Baltimore City police officer. He had 10 other siblings. McKeldin attended the noted academic all-male third oldest public high school in America at The Baltimore City College at night in the "Evening High School of Baltimore" program by the Baltimore City Public Schools while working as a bank clerk during the day. The City College was then located at the southwest corner of North Howard and West Centre Streets since 1875, then in the late 1910s when McKeldin attended until it moved in 1928. He graduated later from the University of Maryland Law School at the original campus of the University of Maryland in Baltimore in 1925, and passed into the Maryland Bar. Two years later, he began his political ascent when worked as a secretary to Mayor William F. Broening (1870–1953, served two terms as mayor, 1919–1923 and 1927–1931), one of the few Republican mayors of the city.[4] McKeldin was also a vice president of the local chapter of the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce. In 1934, he was a founding member of Santa Claus Anonymous, a charity organization started during the "Great Depression" of the 1930s to support children in need, showing his early sense of social consciousness.

McKeldin challenged the Democratic incumbent mayor of Baltimore, Howard W. Jackson, in the 1939 election, but was defeated. He challenged the incumbent governor of Maryland, Democrat Herbert R. O'Conor, in 1942, and again lost in this heavily Democratic state.

McKeldin's persistence paid off, and he was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1943. As mayor, he oversaw the construction of Friendship Airport (since renamed Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport). However, Baltimore saw hard times during this period following the Second World War, with the inner city decaying, ghettos forming, and racial prejudice still present in government policy-making. McKeldin ran a second time for governor in 1946, challenging William Preston Lane Jr., but was defeated again.

McKeldin ran for governor a third time in 1950, defeating Lane in a rematch. As governor, McKeldin endeavored to improve the state highway system by establishing the Baltimore Beltway (now I-695), the Capital Beltway (I-495), and the John Hanson Highway (US 50 between Washington, D.C., and the state capital at Annapolis). He was a staunch supporter of interstate cooperation, saying once: "I rode by train over several state borders. I carried no passports. No one asked me to identify myself. No one had the right to. This is America." He was also an advocate for civil rights for African Americans, and received the Sidney Hollander Award for his pro-civil rights efforts.[5] He was also a supporter of Israel.

In 1952 McKeldin was a major figure among moderate East Coast Republicans who were instrumental in gaining the Republican presidential nomination for Dwight D. Eisenhower, former five-star general and World War II commander in Europe and later briefly president of Columbia University. Speaking in the stentorian tones that were common for the time, McKeldin delivered the principal nominating speech for Eisenhower at the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

In 1954, McKeldin was re-elected governor against Democratic nominee Harry C. "Curley" Byrd, president of the University of Maryland, College Park and a former player and coach for the school's Terrapins football team. Byrd had attracted white segregationist support for his resistance to enrollment of Black students at UMD. After his second term in Government House, McKeldin retired in 1959 from the governorship and returned to his law practice in Baltimore, succeeded by lower Eastern Shore Democrat J. Millard Tawes of Crisfield. In 1963, he returned to public service after being elected to a second non-consecutive term as mayor of his beloved hometown of Baltimore, focusing on the urban renewal of the Baltimore Inner Harbor. In 1964, McKeldin decided to support Democratic candidate Lyndon B. Johnson over conservative Republican Barry M. Goldwater in the presidential election due to Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[6] He saw the city council vote to condemn 700 homes of the Rosemont neighborhood in 1966 to build the East West Expressway "highway to nowhere" that he started as a project with Robert Moses in 1941.[7][8] McKeldin's second term as mayor ended in 1967, and he did not seek re-election.

To date, McKeldin is the last Republican mayor of Baltimore; indeed, he is the last Republican mayoral candidate to win even 25 percent of the vote. He is the first of only two Republican governors in Maryland to be re-elected, the other being Larry Hogan, who was reelected in 2018.

Theodore McKeldin was born in Baltimore, Maryland, attending Maryland public schools and later graduating from Baltimore City College. He furthered his education by earning his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1925 and with some graduate work at Johns Hopkins University. McKeldin married Honolulu Claire Manzer on October 17, 1924. They had two children, Theodore Jr. and Clara.

He died on August 10, 1974, and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery.

• McKeldin Center at Morgan State University
• McKeldin Library and McKeldin Mall at the University of Maryland, College Park
• Theodore McKeldin Gymnasium at Bowie State University
• McKeldin Building at Springfield Hospital Center
• McKeldin Beltway, though still widely known as the Baltimore Beltway or Interstate 695
• McKeldin Area, Patapsco Valley State Park
• McKeldin Planetarium at St. John's College

• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Theodore K. McKelden (SIC) (September 17, 1951)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Theodore R. McKeldin (November 7, 1952)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive