According to biographer Peter O'Malley, he was chosen as mayor by a scandal-burdened Democratic machine that needed a reformer on top of the ticket.

He obtained federal aid for slum clearance and public housing projects and for new expressways construction.

He was the founder and first president of Allied Van Lines, an alliance that united independent local moving and storage companies under a single brand.

[6] Kennelly returned to the Bridgeport neighborhood and ran for mayor from an apartment in the predominantly Irish American working-class community of his childhood.

[11] Kennelly died from heart failure on November 29, 1961, at age 74, and was interred at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston, Illinois.