Politics / Law
Mary V. Beck
1908–2005 · lawyer, politician
Ukrainian-American lawyer of Lemko descent who in 1949 became the first woman elected to Detroit's city council and later served as its president and as acting mayor.
- Born
Ford City, Pennsylvania- Died
Clinton Township, Michigan
aged 96- Birth name
- Mary Virginia Beck
- Also known as
- Mary Beck
- Detroit years
- 1940s–2005
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Beck was born in Pennsylvania in 1908 to Lemko Ukrainian immigrants, Mykhailo and Hanna Bek, and spent part of her youth in Galicia, attending the gymnasium in Kolomyia from 1921 to 1925. Back in the United States she earned her degrees at the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a juvenile court investigator and social worker before settling in Detroit, where she joined the Michigan bar in 1944 and practiced law. In the 1949 election she became the first woman elected to Detroit's Common Council, taking office in 1950, and she served for two decades, until 1970. Her colleagues elected her council president, and during Louis Miriani's term she repeatedly served as acting mayor. A conservative voice on crime, she ran for mayor in 1969 and won 22 percent in the primary. She was also a prominent figure in Ukrainian-American organizations. She died in Clinton Township in 2005 and was buried at the Ukrainian Orthodox cemetery in South Bound Brook, New Jersey.
Highlights
- First woman elected to the Detroit city council (1949)
- Council member, 1950–1970
- Council president and acting mayor under Louis Miriani
- Ran for mayor in 1969, winning 22 percent in the primary
- Member of the Michigan bar from 1944