Urbain Ledoux had a colorful and eventful life, yet many in the community don’t know who he was, what he did, or that his roots were here in Biddeford, ME.  Urbain’s parents had immigrated to the US. but they returned to Canada when his mother was pregnant with him, due to the Panic of 1873 and mill closures. Ledoux was born in Canada but the family returned to the US, settling in Biddeford, Maine, where he grew up, before his first birthday. 

Although he was an avid reader and eager to learn, Ledoux had to quit school at the age of nine to help support his family when his father became ill.  He continued to further his education, mostly self taught. The family lived down the road from St. Joseph Church, where Urbain served as an altar boy and sold rosaries after mass to make money for the family. He aspired to become a priest, entering a seminary at 15 years old, but he quit two years later after witnessing a case of priest abuse. 

Urbain Ledoux had a quest to serve humanity from a very young age. By 1893, at the age of 19 years old, he was publishing a much-needed French weekly in Biddeford called L’Indépendance. He worked for a law firm and other businesses, using this experience to further his mission of helping others. He became involved in local politics and the Republican Party. He helped immigrants from Canada to register to vote, and then encouraged them to do so.   

At 21 years old, Urbain Ledoux became the youngest person ever appointed to the U.S. Consular Service, assigned to Three Rivers, Quebec and also serving in Prague. Ledoux left the consular service, returning to the U. S. in 1910 to further his humanitarian efforts, working to raise awareness of the plight of the unemployed in New York and Boston, and with the growing peace movement. He followed the Bahá’í faith, and credited their principles on his decision to spend his life helping others. His intent was “to awaken the slumbering conscience of the people” to the plight of the homeless, the unemployed, veterans, and hobos.

After World War I, Ledoux worked with veterans to help them find housing and jobs. Under the auspices of his organization Inter-Urbain Unity Hostelries, Ledoux opened up several facilities in New York for those in need, including the Unity Hotel near Greenacre and the Stepping Stone breadline. Although he focused on down and out veterans, he worked on behalf of all who needed help. His first New York breadline, the Stepping Stone in the Bowery, opened in 1919. He then launched a soup kitchen called The Tub, which according to him “one of the cleanest little restaurants in New York, where you can get meals for 5 cents—all you can eat.” The Tub  was also an employment agency, with many patrons employed there, and regularly made newspaper headlines as a place that served up the best holiday and turkey dinners around. 

The stunts Urbain pulled in his lifetime were meant to bring attention to the plight of others, not to himself, and it worked. His radical tactics were covered on the front pages of many newspapers nationwide, and his public performances often landed him in hot water or jail. He used the nickname “Mr. Zero,” saying he didn’t want the attention on him, for he was nothing.

 In 1921 he held a live public auction of unemployed men, many veterans of World War I, reminiscent of a slave auction, in which 150 men found jobs. He also started the Hoboes Union. He met with a few presidents through the years, including Warren G. Harding, in his humanitarian efforts. He walked around holding a lantern, shouting that he was “looking for an honest man” or “a Christian delegate” who would address the wrongs in society. The stunt ended with Ledoux passing his lantern to former presidential candidate, Eugene Debs.  

In 1915, Urbain was not accepted to be part of the mission of the Peace Ship, which was financed by Henry Ford. The expedition was tasked with trying to end World War I.  When the ship set sail that December, he jumped off the pier and began to swim after it, bringing more attention to Mr. Zero with front page coverage.

Ledoux furthered his advocacy for the unemployed during the Great Depression. As more men and women fell behind in society, he worked even harder to provide them with care and dignity, drawing attention to hunger and homelessness in cities. Ledoux earned a reputation as an agitator, and he wasn’t warmly welcomed by city officials when he made his way to Manhattan after World War I, where he took up the cause of poor veterans. Some of his actions such as the slave auctions, and rallying for tickets to President Harding’s inaugural ball so he could bring a contingent of poor people—were seen by some as publicity stunts, but this brought the spotlight on the thousands of people sleeping in parks and scrounging for food in the modern New York of the 1920s.

In 1932, he again focused his efforts on unemployed veterans, leading another picket line to the White House. He ran for mayor of New York City in 1933. Ledoux worked almost 25 years to help the poor and downtrodden. He was well aware of the apathy society felt towards them, and the ways in which they were denounced and excluded from normal society. In 1934 he led a rally of unemployed men who were asking to be treated as good as animals, drawing attention to just how poorly these men were treated. As New Deal programs were enacted to help those in need, and the depression came to an end, Ledoux’s work made headlines less often.