Thomas R. Donovan, who served as the patronage chief of Mayor Richard J. Daley's Chicago political machine before guiding the Chicago Board of Trade through the most disruptive transformation in its history, died on 14 June 2026 at his home in Palos Park, Illinois.
He was 88. Donovan was born on 13 September 1937 in the Bridgeport neighbourhood of Chicago, the South Side enclave that produced Daley himself and formed the geographic and cultural core of the city's Democratic organisation.