Harry W. Bass (Pennsylvania politician)

Harry W. Bass (4 November 1866 – 9 June 1917) was an American politician from Pennsylvania.

Bass was a native of West Chester, Pennsylvania, born on 4 November 1866.[1][2][3] He earned a degree from Lincoln University in 1886, then attended Howard University before graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1896.[1][3] As a law student, Bass lived in South Philadelphia and ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the first time in 1896, while affiliated with the People's Legislative Party, and lost.[2][4] Bass contested the 1898 elections for state representative, again as a PLP candidate, and lost for a second time.[2][4] Shortly after completing his degree in law, Bass represented an African American tenant who, in 1900, had been evicted from his Bryn Mawr residence by the Methodist Episcopal Church, a church of white parishioners.[2] Bass later joined the Republican Party, and served multiple terms as an elected representative of the Republican State Committee from Philadelphia.[5] As a Republican backed by Boies Penrose,[2] he won two consecutive terms to the state house in 1911 and 1913,[1] and was the first African American member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.[6] He was a member of a commission convened to organize celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and credited with helping the commission secure $20,000 in funding via appropriations.[6] Bass was not a candidate during the 1915 election cycle.[1] He was appointed an assistant municipal solicitor by Philadelphia's municipal solicitor John P. Connelly in February 1916, and served until his death, when George Henry White succeeded him.[7][8] Bass died on 9 June 1917 in Philadelphia, and was buried in West Chester's Chestnut Grove Cemetery.[1]