Herbert H. Lehman
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Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963) was a Democratic Party politician from the U.S. state of New York. He served as the Governor of New York from 1933 until 1942, and represented New York in the United States Senate from 1949 until 1957.
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Career
Lehman Brothers
Lehman, born in New York City in 1878, was the son of German Jewish immigrant Meyer Lehman, one of the three founders of the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm. Herbert Lehman attended what is now The Dwight School. A graduate of Williams College (Class of 1899), he became a partner of Lehman Brothers with his brother Arthur and cousin Philip in 1908.Template:Ref
Military and family
Lehman married Edith Louise Altschul in 1910. They had three children, Hilda, Peter, and John. All three served in the United States Military during World War II; Peter was killed while on active duty with the United States Air Force.Template:Ref label
Herbert Lehman became a colonel in the U.S. Army during World War I. He was appointed director of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations for the State Department in 1943. He served as Director-General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration from 1943 to 1946.Template:Ref
Politics
Lehman became active in politics in 1920, and became chairman of the finance committee of the Democratic Party in 1928Template:Ref label, as a reward for being a strong supporter of Alfred E. Smith. He resigned from Lehman Brothers upon becoming the lieutenant governor of New York in 1929. He then served four terms as the Governor of New York between 1933 and 1942. Unlike Smith, Lehman was a supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies and implemented a program in the same spirit in New York. He resigned in the final year of his last term and took up posts connected with refugee aid and relief in the State Department and later the United Nations,Template:Ref label among them as the director general of the UNRRA.
Herbert Lehman was the Democratic Nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1946 and also ran on the Liberal Party and American Labor Party tickets, but he was defeated by the Republican candidate Irving Ives in what was a very good year for GOP candidates. Afterwards, he was a Senator from New York from 1949 - 1957. In a special election, Lehman beat John Foster Dulles, who had been appointed to temporarily fill Robert F. Wagner's Senate seat. Lehman then served most of the remainder of Wagner's term, before winning a full term in the Senate in 1950.Template:Ref label He was not a candidate for renomination or reelection in 1956.Template:Ref
He was the first (and, despite a large Jewish population in the state, still the only) Jewish Governor of New York.Template:Ref During much of his Senate career, he was the only Jew in the Senate as well. Unlike most of his Jewish constituents, who came from Eastern Europe, Lehman's family was from Germany.
Honors
- Herbert H. Lehman passed away in 1963 and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.Template:Ref That year, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.Template:Ref label
- Lehman College of the City University of New York is named after him; a bust of Lehman, by sculptor John Belardo, was dedicated there in September 2005.Template:Ref College dormitories are named in his honor at Williams College, the University at Buffalo, and at Binghamton University.
- A ship on the Staten Island Ferry, The Governor Herbert H. Lehman, is dedicated to him. However, it was set to be retired in 2005.Template:Ref
- There is a Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History at Columbia University.
References
- Template:NoteTemplate:Note label"Life and Legacy of Herbert H. Lehman". Lehman Suite
- Template:NoteTemplate:Note labelTemplate:Note labelTemplate:Note labelTemplate:Note labelThe Eleanor Roosevelt Papers. "Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site: Herbert Lehman (1928-1956)". Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt. 2003. Accessed November 7, 2005.
- Template:Note"LEHMAN, Herbert Henry, (1878 - 1963)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed November 9, 2005.
- Template:NoteMoss, Mitchell. "The Vanishing Jew". Forward. February 4, 1994. Accessed November 7, 2005.
- Template:NoteKensico.org (Kensico Cemetery). "Historic & Scenic Tour: Herbert H. Lehman". Accessed November 7, 2005.
- Template:NoteOffice of Media Relations & Publications of Lehman College. "Remembering the Legacy of Herbert H. Lehman". Lehman E-News. September 26, 2005. Accessed November 5, 2005.
- Template:NoteGerber, David Paul and Wayne Whitehorne. "Staten Island Ferry". Station Reporter. December 2004. Accessed November 7, 2005.
External links
- The Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History at Columbia University, with pictures of Lehman. (Note that many pages there spell his name as both Herbert and Herman Lehman as of November 2005.)
- Lehman's opening speech at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, on The History Channel's Speech Archive
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