Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who was the Mayor of Chicago for 21 years and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee for 23 years, holding both positions until his death in office in 1976. Daley was Chicago's third Chicago Mayor in a row from the working-class, heavily Irish American Bridgeport neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, where he lived his entire life.