Rolph was born in San Francisco, the son of Margaret and James Rolph. He had four brothers and two sisters. After attending school in the Mission District, he went to work as an office boy in a commission house. He married Annie Marshall Reid and had at least one son: James Rolph, III. Rolph entered the shipping business in 1900, by forming a partnership with George Hind. Over the next decade, he served as president of two banks, one of which he helped establish. Although he was asked to run for mayor in 1909, he chose to wait until 1911 to run for mayor—a position that he would hold for nineteen years. As mayor, he was known as "Sunny Jim" and his theme song was "There Are Smiles That Make You Happy". In 1915 he appeared as himself in an early documentary film titled Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, which was directed by and starred Fatty Arbuckle. In 1924, Rolph appeared as himself in a Slim Summerville comedy short film, Hello, Frisco. Rolph knew of the power in San Francisco of the Roman Catholic Church. Italians, Irish, French and Germans made up the majority of the population of the City. He established a deep friendship with Archbishop Edward Joseph Hanna. In turn, Hanna would support Rolph in his 1930 election as governor of California. In addition to his mayoral duties and overseeing his shipping interests, he directed the Ship Owners and Merchants Tugboat Company and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. He also was vice-president of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and president of the Merchants' Exchange. He resigned in 1931 to assume the office of governor of California. Rolph received considerable criticism for publicly praising the citizens of San Jose following the November 1933lynching of the confessed kidnapper-murderers of Brooke Hart, a local department store heir, while promising to pardon anyone involved, thereby earning the nickname, "Governor Lynch." Four days before the lynching he had announced he would not call on the National Guard to prevent the lynching, which was already being discussed locally. After violence erupted during the San Joaquin cotton strike in October 1933, Governor Rolph appointed a fact-finding committee to investigate the deaths of several strikers. When the committee met in Visalia on October 19, 1933, Caroline Decker, a labor activist who had taken part in other California agricultural actions, took testimony from the strikers who testified about the growers' assaults on striking workers.
Death
After suffering several heart attacks, he died in Santa Clara County on June 2, 1934, aged 64, three years into his term. Rolph was the second governor to die in office, the first being Washington Bartlett in 1887, who, like Rolph, had also been elected while mayor of San Francisco but died during his only gubernatorial term. He is buried at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Colma, California. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Frank Merriam in the Governor's Office.
