Henry Morgenthau Jr.

Henry Morgenthau Jr. (May 11, 1891 – February 6, 1967) was an American government official of German Jewish descent who served as the 52nd United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945 under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. Born in New York City to real estate developer and diplomat Henry Morgenthau Sr., he briefly studied agriculture at Cornell University before managing a farm in New York, where he developed a close friendship with Roosevelt. As Treasury Secretary, Morgenthau played a central role in financing the New Deal recovery programs, including the establishment of the Works Progress Administration, and mobilized massive war bond sales that raised tens of billions to fund the U.S. effort in World War II. He chaired the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which laid the foundation for the post-war international monetary system through the creation of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Morgenthau was instrumental in pressuring Roosevelt to form the War Refugee Board in 1944, an agency credited with rescuing up to 200,000 Jews and other refugees from Nazi persecution. His tenure is also defined by the controversial Morgenthau Plan, a proposal to deindustrialize and partition Germany into a primarily agricultural economy to prevent future aggression, which initially gained Roosevelt's support but was ultimately rejected amid opposition from military leaders and public backlash.

Henry Morgenthau Jr. was born on May 11, 1891, in an apartment at Central Park West and 81st Street in New York City, the only son among four children in a family of German Jewish descent. His father, Henry Morgenthau Sr., born April 26, 1856, in Mannheim, Germany, as the ninth of eleven children to Jewish parents, had immigrated to the United States and amassed wealth through real estate investments in the Bronx and Harlem. The elder Morgenthau's success as a lawyer and Democratic Party supporter elevated the family to prominence, providing young Henry with an affluent upbringing in secular Jewish traditions that emphasized assimilation and civic engagement over religious orthodoxy.

His paternal grandfather, Lazarus Morgenthau, had arrived in New York in 1866 amid financial hardship but built a real estate fortune that laid the foundation for the family's economic stability. This legacy of immigration, entrepreneurial recovery, and social mobility influenced Morgenthau Jr.'s early worldview, instilling a pragmatic approach to wealth accumulation and public responsibility amid the challenges faced by Jewish immigrants in late 19th-century America. The family's relocation within New York and exposure to urban development projects through his father's ventures further shaped his initial interests in land management, foreshadowing his later pursuits in agriculture.

Henry Morgenthau Jr. married Elinor Fatman, a Vassar College graduate from a prominent German-Jewish banking family with Lehman connections, in 1916. The couple settled in New York and later maintained a farm in Dutchess County, where they raised their three children: Henry Morgenthau III (born April 1917), Robert M. Morgenthau (born July 1919), and Joan Elizabeth Morgenthau (born 1922, died 2012). Elinor played an active role in Democratic politics and humanitarian causes, forging a close friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, which facilitated social and political gatherings at their Hyde Park-area farm involving the Roosevelts and other figures. Family correspondence and photographs depict a cohesive household engaged in leisure activities, such as walks and games, underscoring interpersonal bonds amid Morgenthau's rising public career.