Herbert H. Lehman
Herbert Lehman | |
---|---|
Fiorello H. LaGuardia | |
45th Governor of New York | |
In office January 1, 1933 – December 3, 1942 | |
Lieutenant | M. William Bray Charles Poletti |
Preceded by | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
Succeeded by | Charles Poletti |
Lieutenant Governor of New York | |
In office January 1, 1929 – December 31, 1932 | |
Governor | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
Preceded by | Edwin Corning |
Succeeded by | M. William Bray |
Personal details | |
Born | Herbert Henry Lehman March 28, 1878 New York City, U.S. |
Died | December 5, 1963 (aged 85) New York City, U.S. |
Resting place | Kensico Cemetery |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse | Edith Altschul |
Children | 3 |
Relatives | Mayer Lehman (father) See Lehman family |
Education | Williams College (BA) |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Branch/service | United States Army |
Years of service | 1917–1919 |
Rank | Colonel |
Unit | United States Army Ordnance Corps |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Awards | Army Distinguished Service Medal |
Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963) was an American financier and Democratic politician who served as the 45th governor of New York from 1933 to 1942 and represented New York in the United States Senate from 1949 until 1957.
Early life and career
He was born to a
He attended
Military career
At the start of
In September 1917, Lehman was commissioned as a captain in the United States Army's Ordnance Corps.[3] He was assigned as chief of the Ordnance Department's Equipment Section on the staff of the United States Department of War, and he was promoted to major in January 1918.[3] Lehman subsequently served as chief of War Department's Methods Section, then chief of its Purchase Branch, and he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in October 1918.[3]
After the end of the war in November 1918, Lehman took part in the army's demobilization as a member of the Board of Contract Adjustment, assistant director of the office of Purchase, Storage and Traffic, member of the War Department Claims Board, and chairman of the Board of Sales and Contract Termination.[3] He was promoted to colonel in April 1919, and was discharged in June 1919.[3] In July 1919, he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal.[3]
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Colonel (General Staff) Herbert H. Lehman, United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War I. While with the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General Staff as Chief of the Purchase Branch, member of the Board of Contract Adjustment, Chairman of the Advisory Board on Sales and Contract Termination, Member of the War Department Claims Board, and Assistant Director of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic, General Staff, Colonel Lehman's large business experience, breadth of vision, and sound judgment have been of inestimable value in formulating and in supervising the execution of the methods and policies followed in the cancellation of war contracts and obligations and in the settlement and adjustment of terminated obligations.
War Department, General Orders No. 103 (July 10, 1919)[3]
Early political career
Lehman became active in politics in 1920 and managed Governor
and resigned from Lehman Brothers upon taking office.Governor of New York
He then served four terms as
In October 1941, Lillian Hellman and Ernest Hemingway co-hosted a dinner to raise money for anti-Nazi activists imprisoned in France. New York Governor Herbert Lehman agreed to participate, but withdrew because some of the sponsoring organizations, he wrote, "have long been connected with Communist activities." Hellman replied: "I do not and I did not ask the politics of any members of the committee and there is nobody who can with honesty vouch for anybody but themselves." She assured him the funds raised would be used as promised and later provided him with a detailed accounting. The next month she wrote him: "I am sure it will make you sad and ashamed as it did me to know that, of the seven resignations out of 147 sponsors, five were Jews. Of all the peoples in the world, I think, we should be the last to hold back help, on any grounds, from those who fought for us."
On December 3, 1942, he resigned the governorship less than a month before the end of his term, to accept an appointment as director of the
United States Senator
Lehman was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from New York in
On October 17, 1950,
In the campaign, he ran on the Democratic and Liberal tickets, with the American Labor Party urging their members not to vote for any candidate. In 1950, Lehman was re-elected to a full term, running on Democratic and Liberal lines and opposed by the American Labor Party.[4]
Lehman was one of two U.S. senators who were opposed to nominating
Retirement and death
After his retirement from the Senate, Lehman remained politically active, working with Eleanor Roosevelt and Thomas K. Finletter in the late 1950s and early 1960s to support the reform Democratic movement in Manhattan that eventually defeated longtime Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio.[9] He also helped to found the Lehman Children's Zoo (now the Tisch Zoo) in Central Park.[10]
Lehman was the first, and until the 2007 inauguration of Eliot Spitzer, the only Jewish governor of New York.[11] During much of his Senate career, he was the only Jewish Senator as well. Unlike most of his Jewish constituents, who had immigrated to the US from eastern Europe, Lehman's family was from Germany.
Lehman spent much of the last two years of his life at his New York City home in increasingly poor health. He died of heart failure on December 5, 1963, at the age of 85. Lehman is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Personal life
On April 28, 1910, Lehman married Edith Louise Altschul (sister of banker
Honors
- In 1957, he received the Solomon Bublick Award from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- In 1963, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[4] He died the day before the ceremony.[17]
- University at Buffalo, Potsdam College (SUNY), and at Binghamton University.
- A ship on the Staten Island Ferry, The Governor Herbert H. Lehman, is named for him. She was retired in 2007 after forty-two years of service and has been sold for scrap.[19]
- There is a Herbert H. Lehman Center for Columbia University Libraries and are housed in the social sciences library – which is also named in his honor. In addition, Columbia has a Herbert Lehman Professorship of Government, whose current incumbent is Mahmood Mamdani. Columbia's sister school, Barnard College, formerly had a building named in honor of Adele Lewisohn Lehman, Herbert Lehman's sister-in-law, which housed the Wollman Library. Barnard also has a "Lehman Auditorium" in Altschul Hall. Williams College, Lehman's alma mater, named a dormitory after him in 1928.
- Lehman High School (established 1974) on Westchester Square in The Bronx, New York, is named in his honor.
- In 1974, Lehman was inducted into the Jewish-American Hall of Fame.[20]
- Liman, Israel, in northern Israel is named after him.
- A passage from testimony by Lehman for a United States House of Representatives subcommittee in 1947, "It is immigrants who brought this land the skills of their hands and brains, to make of it a beacon of opportunity and hope for all men," has been inscribed in his honor on several versions of US passport since 2004.[21]
See also
References
- ^ "History - Who We Are - Lehman Brothers". July 4, 2008. Archived from the original on July 4, 2008.
- ^ a b c d e "Life and Legacy of Herbert H. Lehman". Lehman Suite.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Williams College (1926). Williams College in the World War. New York, NY: Schilling Press. p. 185 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c d The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers. "Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site: Herbert Lehman (1928–1956)". Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt. Archived from the original on June 22, 2007. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
- ^ Ingalls, Robert P. Herbert H Lehman and New York's Little New Deal (1975) New York University Press, pgs 136-137
- ^ Congress History, 81st U.S. Congress Archived August 7, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "CIO Political Action Committee 1950-10-17 [sound recording]". Library of Congress. October 17, 1950. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
- ^ "Lehman, Herbert Henry, (1878–1963)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved November 9, 2005.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
- ^ "History of Central Park Zoos : NYC Parks". www.nycgovparks.org. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
- ^ Moss, Mitchell (February 4, 1994). "The Vanishing Jew". Forward. Archived from the original on February 18, 2006. Retrieved November 7, 2005.
- ^ HQ 4th Fighter Group, AAD STA F-356, AF Historical Archives
- ^ Columbia University Digital Archive: "1st Lieutenant Peter Gerald Lehman" February 15, 1953
- ^ "Lehman Son-in-law Former WPA actor; Boris de Vadetzky" Also Was a Research Worker Here". The New York Times. January 4, 1941.
- ^ a b c "Mrs. Hilda Wise, Daughter of Governor Lehman, Dies". The New York Times. May 6, 1974.
Her three marriages ended in divorce. Surviving besides her mother are two daughters Mrs. Deborah Sheridan and Stephanie Wise; a son, Peter L. Wise, and a brother, John R, Lehman.
- ^ "Mrs. Hilda Lehman Married to Major". The Berkshire Eagle. May 6, 1974.
- ^ Woolley, John T; Gerhard Peters. "Remarks With Under Secretary of State George W. Ball at the Presentation of the Medal of Freedom Awards, December 6, 1963". The American Presidency Project. University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
- ^ Office of Media Relations & Publications of Lehman College (September 26, 2005). "Remembering the Legacy of Herbert H. Lehman". Lehman E-News. Archived from the original on August 31, 2006. Retrieved November 5, 2005.
- ^ Gerber, David Paul and Wayne Whitehorne (December 2004). "Staten Island Ferry". Station Reporter. Archived from the original on February 10, 2006. Retrieved November 7, 2005.
- ^ "Jewish-American Hall of Fame -- Virtual Tour".
- ^ Swartz, Anna (February 3, 2017). "Your US passport has a hidden — and powerful — message about immigrants". Mic. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
because there are several versions of U.S. passports currently in use by the public, your passport might or might not contain the Lehman quote. The quote came from testimony Lehman gave before a House subcommittee in 1947 — and it was first added to U.S. passports as part of a redesign for passports issued after 2004, a State Department official told Mic in an email.
Further reading
- Nevins, Allan. Herbert H. Lehman and his era (1963) Scholarly biography. online
- Tananbaum, Duane. Herbert H. Lehman: A Political Biography, (2016) SUNY Press, Scholarly biography.
- Tananbaum, Duane. Herbert H. Lehman: A Jewish Patron Saint, The American Jewish Archives Journal LXXI : 1 (2019): 18–44.
- Ingalls, Robert P. Herbert H. Lehman and New York's Little New Deal, (1975) New York University Press, Scholarly history/evaluation of Lehman's governorship from 1933 to 1942.
External links
- United States Congress. "Herbert H. Lehman (id: L000224)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- The Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History at Columbia University, with pictures of Lehman.
- Lehman Special Correspondence Files Website at Columbia University Libraries.
- Lehman's opening speech at the 1939 History Channel's Speech Archive
- A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Herbert H. Lehman" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
- A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Sen. Herbert H. Lehman (April 16, 1952)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
- Newspaper clippings about Herbert H. Lehman in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW