Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawai'ian, Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Kinjiro Matsudaira, first Asian American elected mayor in US


Kinjiro Matsudaira, born September 13, 1885 in Pennsylvania, was an American inventor and politician in Maryland.  He was the son of a Japanese father and an American mother.  In May 1912, he filed for a patent concerning the functions of a thermometric fire-detector and was granted the patent in September 1914. 

He entered politics and, in 1927, was elected as mayor of Edmonston, Maryland, a small community just outside of Washington, DC.  He is the first Asian American to be elected mayor in the US.  He was re-elected as mayor in 1943.

He passed away in October 1963 at the age of 78. 

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