There have been four mayors in New York State history who have identified as socialists, with the latest being Benjamin Nichols of Ithaca, who served from 1989 to 1995 as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The first was George R. Lunn, a minister who viewed socialism as a material application of the Social Gospel, a theology designed to put the teachings of Christ into practice through advocating for the poor. In a letter to his father, Lunn wrote that socialism was “Christianity applied.”
Born in Iowa to a religious family, Lunn seemed destined for the pulpit. He earned a degree in Theology from Bellevue College in Nebraska, attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and became an ordained minister in 1901. After serving as an associate pastor in Brooklyn, Lunn accepted a position with the Dutch First Reformed Church in Schenectady in 1904. There, Lunn’s vision of “Christianity applied” began to manifest. Historian Bill Buell notes that Lunn openly supported General Electric workers striking in the city, an early sign of his sympathies with the working class before he formally joined socialist circles.
Lunn served as a full-time pastor for the First Reformed Church for five years. It was in the latter years that his sermons became more radical. He pushed the church to battle “social ills,” often attacking the capitalist system as it applied to Schenectady. Speaking at Union Theological Seminary—a speech later quoted in The New York Times—he criticized evangelical preaching for ignoring systemic injustice. As quoted in the June 1, 1909 edition of the Times:
When the average minister attempts to fight civic corruption and strike vigorously against it, he generally finds to his amazement that he has smitten some church official or prominent member. When he preaches against the evil conditions of the slums he will generally be admonished by some good brother that he should confine himself to the simple gospel. If he insists on further investigation he will probably discover the reason for such kindly admonition. Unless the Church is going to continue to be a prolific producer of Pharisees there must be an evangelistic preaching of a decidedly different type from that of the past. That doctrine of evangelism which seeks alone the individual, forgetting the great social wrongs, is not going. It has already gone, but unfortunately we have not yet buried its corpse. We need today a new evangelism which will produce something more than a mere emotional insurrection with an attendant obsession of the intellectual faculties. It must be an evangelism making its appeal to the heart and to the soul.
He did not stop at abstract critique. He went as far as calling out specific city politicians with charges of corruption and other unsavory deeds. The Evening World profiled him after two congregants admitted that they felt Lunn’s anti-capitalist sentiment was aimed directly at them. “He hit me with that sermon,” one wealthy landowner confessed. While Lunn’s pro-worker ideals and charismatic manner of speaking made him quite popular with the laboring masses of the city, some members of his congregation objected to his politicized use of the pulpit and disagreed with his criticisms of the city’s government and capitalism. After much consideration, Lunn resigned from First Reformed in April of 1909, effective the following January.
In early 1910, Lunn and supporters from First Reformed founded the non-denominational People’s Church. By May, he also established The Citizen, a newspaper dedicated to social issues. That December, Lunn joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA). Although there was some contention in the Schenectady branch of the SPA over whether Lunn’s ideals should be considered reformist rather than socialist, he remained a popular figure both in the party and throughout the city. Lunn’s popularity, Buell writes, was so great that he had received the party’s nomination in late September for mayor before he had even been in the SPA for a year. In November, still a newcomer to the socialist movement, Lunn won with over 6,500 votes.
As mayor, Lunn sought to implement his idea of socialism, “Christianity applied,” on a systemic level, focusing on improving working and living conditions for the city’s downtrodden working class. His administration pursued what came to be called “sewer socialism”: practical reforms for improving public spaces and utilities. Schenectady under Lunn’s socialist administration introduced free garbage collection, built new city parks, cut taxes on workers’ homes by $300,000, and raised wages for municipal workers. These efforts went beyond the purely economic, as one of the major goals was to tackle the health problems that came from the economic and social barriers created by capitalism. Public health initiatives, as detailed in a message Lunn sent to the city’s Aldermanic Council republished in The Progressive Dentist, included appointing a nurse to educate expectant mothers on postpartum hygiene, inspecting schools and factories for cleanliness, and launching citywide campaigns against tuberculosis.
Lunn’s Christian socialism wasn’t confined to Schenectady. In October of 1912, immigrant women employed by the textile mills in the nearby town of Little Falls went on strike after the passage of legislation that shortened working hours and cut pay. Lunn and other Schenectady socialists traveled to Little Falls to express their support, delivering speeches that drew from a range of texts including Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the Bible. Despite being arrested multiple times for violating a scantily enforced city ordinance that forbade public speaking without a permit, he and many others stood firm alongside the strikers.
Lunn served two non-consecutive terms as mayor of Schenectady under the banner of socialism. After his second term, Lunn left the Socialist Party for the Democratic Party, serving two more mayoral terms as a Democrat with stints as a Congressman and Lieutenant Governor of New York. He was eventually appointed to the state’s Public Service Commission, where he worked until retiring in 1942.
Lunn’s political vision aligned with what many today call municipal socialism. Its goals are twofold: to relieve the immediate suffering of the working class at a local level and to demonstrate what a society free of poverty and destitution could look like—an alternative to capitalism that champions community and cooperation over profit and unchecked growth. These ideals of municipal socialist governance found their most enduring American expression from 1910 to 1960 in Milwaukee, where the socialist administrations of Emil Seidel, Daniel Hoan, and Frank Zeidler achieved incredible heights for the city including raising the minimum wage for city workers and expanding public housing.
The municipal socialism of Lunn ought not to be forgotten. But would such political commitments still work today? In a rather optimistic piece on the potential of municipal socialism, socialist activist Henry L. Slobodin believed the goal for municipal economic autonomy could strengthen the socialist movement. As Slobodin wrote:
Economically, the municipality seems to lead an existence which is almost parasitic. Yet appearances are misleading. The municipality pays in kind, that is in labor, for all the labor which it consumes. It does depend upon the country for its raw material. The country could starve a city in short time. It would not be so, if the city were in control of the supply of the raw material. To achieve this end, the cities are now reaching out to control the supply of food stuffs and other raw material. These attempts are now in their infancy and weak. But they are bound to grow until the municipalities will be freed economically as well.
Lunn attempted to put these ideas into practice. He sought to establish a city-run grocery store and advocated for municipal control of the ice trade in an interview with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. And although Lunn didn’t seek the total elimination of capitalism in Schenectady, citing the various limitations of city government, some of Lunn’s practices as a socialist mayor fall in line with this quest for autonomy. While these projects ultimately were defeated or watered down in some way, they revealed Lunn’s commitment to extending socialism into everyday life.
Municipal socialism has its limitations. Marx, Engels, and even Lenin all recognized the difficulty of countering capitalism when a socialist city administration is forced to work within capitalist structures and the ordinances of the state and federal governments. Beyond the structural constraints, there was also political sabotage: redbaiting, fusion tickets, and coordinated opposition from entrenched elites to sabotage socialist campaigns. Lunn’s efforts reflected both the possibilities and the constraints of pursuing the Social Gospel at the local level.
Through his “Christianity applied” theology, Lunn mobilized religious conviction for socialist reform, advocating for workers, improving public health, and challenging corruption and entrenched power. Both at the pulpit and in his administration, he spoke out against the economic, political, and social institutions that created the need for such a political overhaul in the first place. He demonstrated the potential of municipal socialism in America that continues to resonate today. As Andrew Morris observed in Time, New York State may once again see a socialist mayor in Zohran Mamdani. Like Lunn, Mamdani faces both good- and bad-faith criticisms. And like Lunn, Mamdani stands a chance at making history for New York City, New York State, and the contemporary socialist movement as a whole. Lunn’s legacy shows us that socialist municipal victories are possible and those pursuing such victories can learn from his past experiment. Rather than capitulating to the political establishment, municipal socialist politics can ground a genuine and local fight against capitalism.
J.N. Cheney is a Marxist historian focusing on the labor movement, radical politics, and community action in New York State’s Mohawk Valley. His forthcoming book with Algora Publishing is entitled Women, Immigrants, and the Working Class Battle in Little Falls, New York: The Textile Strike of 1912-1913.