{{Infobox person | name = Angela Rose Canfield | image = Angela Rose Canfield.png | caption = Angela Rose Canfield after being elected mayor. | birth_date = 1840 | birth_place = New York | death_date = August 23, 1925 | death_place = McMinnville, Oregon | known_for = First female mayor in Illinois }}
'''Angela Rose Canfield''' (1840 – August 23, 1925) was a politician, activist, and milliner in Illinois. In 1915, she was elected mayor of Warren, making her the first female mayor of the town as well as the first woman elected as a mayor statewide.
== Biography == Angela Rose Canfield was born in 1840 in New York State.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=1915-06-04 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-north-platte-semi-weekly-tribune/4800244/ |title=Illinois' First Woman Mayor |work=The North Platte Semi-Weekly Tribune |page=2 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=1915-04-22 |title=Woman Made Mayor at 75 |work=The Daily Journal-Gazette}} </ref> Around the 1860s, she married O.J. Hildreth; she later remarried.<ref name=":0" />
During the Civil War, she served as superintendent of the U.S. Army messhouse in Nashville.<ref name=":0" /> She then worked as a Pinkerton private police officer and combatted the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania in the late 1800s.<ref name=":1" />
Around 1881, Canfield settled in Warren, Illinois, where she became active in the statewide women's suffrage movement.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite news |date=1915-04-22 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/herald-news/165236647/ |title=Woman Elected Warren Mayor First in State |work=The Joliet News |agency=United Press | page=9 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}</ref> She was also affiliated with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and various other women's activism organizations.<ref name=":2" /> In the early 1890s, she established a milliner's shop in the town.<ref name=":2" />
In April 1915, Canfield was elected mayor of Warren, Illinois.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=1917-10-23 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/herald-and-review/165237260/ |title=Woman Mayor of Warren, Ill. |work=Decatur Herald | page=1 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}</ref> She defeated two other candidates by a plurality of four votes.<ref name=":0" /> On her election, at age 75, she became the first woman mayor in the town as well as across the entire state of Illinois.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=About Warren |url=https://www.villageofwarren.com/community/about-warren/ |access-date=2025-02-11 |website=Village of Warren |language=en-US}}</ref>
Canfield took office on May 1 of that year and served a two-year term.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> She vowed to punish "boodlers and grafters," as well as law enforcement officers who didn't pull their weight.<ref name=":1" /> She stepped down after finishing her term in 1917.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1917-07-20 |title=Warren's Ex-Mayoress |work=Freeport Journal-Standard}}</ref>
Canfield died on August 23, 1925, in McMinnville, Oregon.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1940-09-19 |title=This Was News |work=The Stephenson Farmer}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1925-08-31 |title=The Oregon Country |work=The Oregon Daily Journal}}</ref>
== References == <references /> Category:1840 births Category:1925 deaths Category:20th-century American women politicians Category:Women mayors of places in Illinois Category:People from Warren, Illinois Category:20th-century mayors of places in Illinois