Sheila Dixon
American politician and Mayor of Baltimore from 2007 to 2010 (born 1953)
Sheila Ann Dixon (born December 27, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 49th mayor of Baltimore, Maryland, after mayor Martin O'Malley was sworn in as governor on January 17, 2007. Dixon, then president of the Baltimore City Council, served out the remaining year of her term and won the mayoral election in November 2007. Dixon was the first African-American woman to serve as president of the City Council, Baltimore's first female mayor, and Baltimore's third black mayor.
On January 9, 2009, Dixon was indicted by a grand jury on twelve felony and misdemeanor counts, including perjury, theft, and misconduct. The indictment alleged the personal use of gift cards, donated by two prominent Baltimore real estate developers, Patrick Turner and Ronald Lipscomb. In December 2009, the trial jury delivered a guilty verdict on one count of "fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary" and acquitted her on two counts of felony theft, and one count of misconduct in office. As part of a plea agreement made in December 2009, Dixon received probation in exchange for stepping down as mayor. She was succeeded by then City Council president, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
Dixon has remained active in the Baltimore community and sought reelection for mayor in 2016. She was defeated in the Democratic Primary by then State Senator Catherine Pugh, who received 2,408 more votes than Dixon.
“Sheila Dixon” enters the record as american politician and Mayor of Baltimore from 2007 to 2010 (born 1953). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sheila, Dixon and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Sheila Dixon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sheila, Dixon and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3481746. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 2007, 2009 and 2016.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sheila Dixon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sheila Dixon primary sources, Sheila Dixon archive and Sheila research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sheila Dixon”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sheila Dixon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.