Politics / Business & brands
Oscar Marx
1866–1923 · optical manufacturer, mayor of Detroit
Farm boy from the edge of Detroit who built the Michigan Optical Company and was mayor through the 1913–1918 auto boom, appointing James Couzens police commissioner.
- Born
Wayne County, Michigan- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 57- Birth name
- Oscar B. Marx
- Also known as
- Oscar B. Marx
- Detroit years
- 1866–1923
- Field
- Politics, Business & brands
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Oscar Marx was born in 1866 to German immigrants on a farm in Wayne County, near where Detroit and Hamtramck later spread over the fields. He attended the Detroit public schools and the German-American Seminary and farmed until his father sold the land and gave each son a stake. In 1891 Marx used his share to buy into the bankrupt Michigan Optical Company, which he built into one of the largest in the region. He served as the city's estimator-at-large, eight years as alderman from 1895 and as city assessor, and was elected mayor in 1912, serving three terms from 1913 to 1918 as Ford's five-dollar day drew workers from across the world. With Robert Oakman and John Dodge he controlled southeast Michigan's Republican Party in the 1910s. He named James Couzens to run the police department and in 1918 set up a committee to study the Outer Drive bypass. He died in 1923; Detroit News newsreels filmed his funeral.
Highlights
- Mayor of Detroit, 1913–1918 (three terms)
- President of the Michigan Optical Company
- Appointed James Couzens police commissioner
- Launched planning for Detroit's Outer Drive