John Foster Furcolo

Furcolo was an Italian American lawyer, politician, a democrat, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the sixtieth governor of the state of Massachusetts. He was the first Italian American governor of that state. Two other Italian Americans followed him, John Volpe 1961-1963, 1965-1969, and Paul Cellucci, 1997-2001.

Furcolo was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 29, 1911. His father was Charles Furcolo an immigrant and a physician, who attended Yale. His mother, Alberta Marie Foster was an Irish immigrant. He was their second child. The eldest was Charles Lawrence Furcolowe, Jr. Charles and Alberta divorced and she changed her name to Furcolowe. The name which John used at college. After graduating high school he went to Yale and graduated in 1933, he followed that with attending Yale College of Law graduating with an LL.B. in 1936.  During World War II, Furcolo served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy. After the war he ran for a seat in the 2^nd Congressional district, but lost to the incumbent.  He ran again in 1948 and won by a significant margin. In the next election a Polish American Republican, challenged him with the hopes of capturing the large number of Polish American constituent’s votes in the district.  Furcolo won by a noteworthy margin. He continued to serve until he resigned in 1952 to accept an appointment as the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Furcolo received notoriety when he was the first freshman representative invited to the Whitehouse under President Truman to discuss legislation. Furcolo was innovative in developing the idea of a people’s council, i.e. a group of individual from across the district to gauge proposed legislation. Congress John W. McCormack appointed him to the House Appropriations Committee along with John F. Kennedy, of which Kennedy was not happy. The two were at odds on a number of issues.

Before leaving the legislative office, Furcolo was on the committee to investigate the mass killings at the Katyn Forest of eastern Poland. From this experience Furcolo later wrote a novel concerning the killings, Rendezvous at Katyn.

In 1954 Furcolo ran for the U.S. Senate and lost. Kennedy refused to endorse him. In 1956 Furcolo ran in a bitter campaign against republican Lt. Governor Sumner Whittier of which Furcolo won and received endorsement from Senator Kennedy.  He held the office from 1957-1961, during his tenure he accomplished much. His most noted achievement was the establishment of community colleges throughout the state, thereby providing educational and training opportunities to the population at large. In 2008 in commemoration of Furcolo, Massachusetts amended its General Laws were to designate fifteen community colleges as the Governor Foster Furcolo Community Colleges. UMass also named its school of education the John Foster Furcolo School of Education

Furcolo fought for an increase in state worker’s wages, unemployment benefits, income tax, broad based sales tax, and influenced a number of local projects. When his terms as Governor were over he later ran for the Senate again. However, due to inherited corruption under his administration, which he failed to root out, his opponent capitalized on it and won.  

Furcolo decided to retire from politics and returned to private practice. However, political endeavors reemerged and in 1966 he ran for the nomination for Massachusetts attorney general but lost to Francis X. Bellotti. He then went into teaching law, and stayed active in supporting higher education. Furcolo died of a heart attack at the age of 83, on July 5^th, 1995. He is buried in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts. Furcolo was married three times, his first wife, Kathryn Foran, with whom he had five children, died in 1964, three years later he married Lucy Carra and separated from her in 1972, she later died in 1979. He married Constance Gleason in 1980.