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E.H. Crump

Edward Hull Crump (1874–1954) was a Memphis, Tennessee insurance broker and political figure in the early 20th century.

Starting in the 1910s Crump began to build a political machine which came to have statewide influence. He was particularly adept in his use of what were at the time essentially two politcal minority groups in Tennessee, blacks and Republicans. Unlike most Southern Democrats of his era, Crump was not opposed to blacks voting -- as long as they always voted his way. Blacks were reliable Crump machine voters for the most part, serving roughly the same role for him that recent immigrants did in most Northern political machines. Crump also skillfully manipulated Republicans, who were numerically very weak in the western two-thirds of the state but dominated politics in East Tennessee. Often they found in necessary to ally themselves with Crump in order to accomplish any of their goals, and they often did.

Crump was very influential for nearly half a century. He preferred to work for the most part behind the scenes, serving only two terms of two years each as mayor of Memphis, but essentially naming the next several mayors. His statewide influence began to wane in the late 1940s however, when two of his opponents were elected to office in 1948, Gordon Browning, a onetime protege who had broken with him returning to become governor again, and Estes Kefauver being elected to the United States Senate. For the remainder of his life, the bulk of his influence was limited to Memphis.