Home > Carnegie Center > Arizona Women's Hall of Fame > Inductees > Hance, Margaret Taylor
Margaret Taylor Hance
1923 – 1990
Inducted in 1991
Throughout her life, Margaret Taylor Hance followed the lesson she learned
as a child: if a person had a roof over his head and three square meals
a day, he owes service to the community. First as a volunteer and then
in the political arena, Margaret gave tirelessly to Phoenix, becoming the
city’s first woman mayor.
The youngest of three children, she was born on July 2, 1923, in Spirit
Lake, Iowa, to Glen C. and Helen (Kenny) Taylor. When Margaret was three
years old, the family moved to Mesa, Arizona, and in 1930 settled in Phoenix,
where her father became a senior vice president of Valley National Bank.
She enjoyed all school sports, particularly basketball and baseball. Margaret
also played tennis and golf and participated in a rodeo drill team in Prescott.
From 1942 to 1944, she attended the University of Arizona, and then enrolled
in Scripps College in Claremont, California, from which she graduated in
1945.
During these college years, she met Richard M. Hance, an aviation cadet
stationed at Luke Army Air Force Base in Arizona. They were married on
August 11, 1945. The couple lived in Amarillo, Texas, where Richard was
stationed, and then returned to Phoenix following his discharge. Richard
went to work for the Valley National Insurance Company, eventually becoming
its executive vice president.
The mother of three children, Margaret pursued many volunteer activities
while they were growing up, by helping the PTA, Cub Scouts, Little League,
and Trinity Episcopal Church. Later her community work expanded to include
St. Luke's Hospital Board of Visitors, the Junior League of Phoenix, the
United Fund, the Fiesta Bowl Committee, the Harrington Arthritis Center,
and the Arizona Kidney Foundation.
Besides volunteering, Margaret did documentaries of public affairs for
KINK television station and wrote and produced the Holiday World Travel
radio show. In 1970, Margaret's husband died, forcing her to pick a new
path for her future. She came to the conclusion that city government was
a place she could make a contribution. She had already served five
years as member and chair of the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Advisory
Board. She realized that she could do more to aid the park system and make
other improvements from a position on the city council. The Charter Government
Committee had controlled city politics since 1949, when a large group of
leading businessmen decided to back mayor and council candidates who would
end years of corruption and open the city to growth. Margaret knew she
needed the committee's support if she was to have a chance of winning her
first bid in the political arena. Sharing the committee's ideals, Margaret
was named to the charter's 1971 slate and easily won.
Councilperson Hance continued to improve the city's park system, and
she addressed one of the public's biggest concerns in the early 1970s:
the encroachment of development on mountains in the Phoenix area. Margaret
led those who urged the city to preserve these mountains by acquiring them
and adding them to the city's parks. Using a special bond election and
federal revenue sharing, the city bought Camelback Mountain, Squaw Peak,
and South and North Mountains to create the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. Margaret
gained the unofficial title “Mother of the Mountain Preserve,” due
to her determination to complete the project. In 1973, she ran successfully
for a second term on the charter slate and served as vice mayor.
The Charter Government Committee’s dominance of city politics was
beginning to fade during this period of Margaret's political career. In
twenty short years, Phoenix had grown from a medium sized city to a large
metropolis, and many felt that the charter committee was not changing with
the times. Single mindedly focused on clean government, it chose to ignore
the issues of ethnic and minority groups and the problem of inadequate
freeways.
In 1975, Margaret decided to try for the position of mayor. Convinced
that Phoenicians would not elect a woman for at least another ten years,
the charter committee backed her opponent. Margaret's decision to run as
an independent candidate illustrated her sensitivity to the changes in
Phoenix. Although her views on government had not changed, she realized
that charter sponsorship was now more of a liability than an asset. With
support from many, Margaret won the election along with five, out of seven,
independent council candidates. The results marked the end of the rule
of the Charter Government Committee.
As Margaret began her term as Phoenix's first woman mayor in 1976, she
led a city facing new problems. Margaret met greater opposition than
she had as a Council member, but she proved more than equal to the task,
winning four two year terms (1976-1983), a precedent. Mayor Hance kept
her humor in the process of governing the city. Her sardonic wit was unquenchable.
She answered questions directly and unapologetically presented her beliefs.
During the urban crisis of the middle and late 1970s, Margaret gave economic
development top priority. She worked to attract new industries to the city
and to revitalize downtown Phoenix. She initiated plans to expand the Civic
Plaza, create Patriot's Park, and construct the Herberger Theater and the
Arizona Science and Technology Museum. Private developers constructed new
housing downtown, and high-rise, buildings appeared along Central Avenue.
Many of these projects reached maturity after she had left office.
Mayor Hance believed that improving transportation was an essential step
toward economic prosperity. Despite its rapidly growing population, the
city had not developed freeways or maintained a mass transit system, concentrating
instead on arterial streets. During her tenure, Margaret got the route
and funding approved for the Papago Freeway and Squaw Peak Parkway (now
Piestewa Peak). Hundreds of miles of roads were paved and maintained, and
Sky Harbor Airport opened a third terminal building.
A 1975 report listed Phoenix as the city with the highest rate of crime
against property. Margaret made crime prevention another high priority,
supporting Neighborhood Watch programs. She viewed the Central Arizona
Project (CAP) as the best solution to the ever-present problem of water.
To control floods, she called for new dikes at Sky Harbor Airport and new
dams on the Salt and Verde rivers.
The Community recognized her service with a variety of awards. In 1978
she was named Woman of the Year by the Advertising Club. She also received
the Don Bolles Memorial Award from the Arizona Kachina Club, the Centennial
Award of the Salvation Army, and the University of Arizona's Alumni Achievement
Award. Perhaps her most amusing distinction was being named to Women
Sports Magazine's Tomboy's Who's Who in 1977.
Margaret Hance gained national prominence during her tenure. She acted
as a trustee at the U.S. Conference of Mayors and served on the board of
directors of the National League of Cities. In 1982 she became president
of the National Conference of Republican Mayors and Elected Officials.
Other positions included conference delegate to the OCED and treasurer
of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.
Margaret's abilities had attracted the attention of President Ronald
Reagan, who appointed her to the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations and the Presidential Federalism Advisory Committee. In 1983,
she became co-chair of Reagan’s reelection campaign. After Reagan's
reelection, the Reagan administration offered Margaret the post of director
of the General Services Administration. She rejected the offer, stating
that the job was heavy on administration and light on dealing with people.
Returning to Phoenix the next month, Margaret anticipated time for relaxation.
Soon, however, she was directing the Jon Kyle for Congress Committee, returning
a favor for his help in one of her mayoral reelection campaigns. She also
filled her time with public speaking, relishing graduation addresses in
particular. She spoke at her alma mater, Scripps College; at Orme Ranch
School in Dewey, Arizona; and at President Reagan's alma mater, Eureka
College, in Illinois, where she received an honorary doctoral degree.
Margaret maintained her link to national politics in 1987 by working
for the Fund for America's Future, the precursor of Vice President George
Bush's presidential campaign. The following year, Margaret chaired the
Bush campaign in Arizona. Surprisingly, she held no official position within
the state's Republican Party. In 1988, a year of controversy over Arizona
Governor Evan Mecham, Margaret served as head Arizona delegate to the Republican
Convention and succeeded in keeping herself free of what she called the "current
unpleasantness."
Soon after Bush's election as president, Margaret discovered that she
had cancer. As her health weakened, she withdrew from her various activities
but never lost her sense of humor. She died in Phoenix on April 29, 1990.
Many people sang the praises of this wonderful lady. Arizona Governor Rose
Mofford, former governors Jack Williams and Paul Fannin, and several former
Phoenix mayors paid their respects at her funeral. President and
Mrs. Bush, friends since the 1984 Reagan campaign, sent their personal
condolences. On May 8, 1990, the Arizona State Senate passed a resolution
enumerating her accomplishments. As a final tribute, in January 1991 the
city of Phoenix named the new park on the six-block deck of the downtown
tunnel of the Papago Freeway, Hance Park. It was a fitting memorial to
a dedicated advocate of "urban beauty, parkland, inner city revitalization,
and modern transportation."
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