She moved there in 1895 with her husband, Henry Landes, a professor of geology at the University of Washington.
She quickly showed she was not inclined to stay home, becoming a leader in the Women's University Club, the League of Women Voters and the president of the Seattle Federation of Women's Clubs.
In 1922, Landes decided to run for City Council and got plenty of support from her spouse. He said at the time: "It's simply the natural enlargement of her sphere. Keeping house and raising a family are woman's logical tasks, and, in principle, there's no difference between running one home and a hundred thousand."
Landes won election to the City Council in a landslide. Then, in 1926, she sought the mayor's office, using "municipal housekeeping" as a campaign theme and tapping into voter disgust with corruption and vice.
She also capitalized on new technology: radio broadcasts.
"If elected mayor I promise to wage a relentless warfare on all crooks, thieves, bandits, burglars, stick-up men and other law-defying characters," Landes vowed.
"Too many policemen are taking their orders from bootleggers."
Landes defeated incumbent Dr. Edwin J. "Doc" Brown by the largest margin the city had ever seen -- 5,898 votes.
She wasted no time once in office. She asked citizens to help crack down on corruption by reporting suspected bootleggers. She offered to pay $1 a year to people who took a pledge to report reckless drivers. And she made sure police enforced regulations in dance halls.
"Mrs. Landes demanded 'a clean city' and got it in large part," the Post-Intelligencer reported.
She made national headlines when she fired the chief of police, William B. Severyns, a man who had boasted loudly about corruption in the ranks of Seattle police.
