Robert F. Wagner

Robert F. Wagner (born June 8, 1877, Nastätten, Hesse-Nassau, Germany—died May 4, 1953, New York, New York, U.S.) U.S. senator and leading architect of the modern welfare state.

Wagner arrived in the United States at the age of eight and settled with his parents in a New York tenement neighborhood. After graduating from the City College of New York in 1898, he went on to obtain a law degree from New York Law School in 1900. Later that year he was admitted to the bar and opened a practice.

But Wagner quickly abandoned law for Democratic Party politics. Starting as a ward heeler for Tammany Hall, he moved up the ranks until in 1904 he won a seat in the New York State Assembly. Four years later he was elected to the state senate. It was in the New York Senate—especially as an outgrowth of his investigation into industrial working conditions in New York City—that Wagner first won renown as a leader in formulating social legislation.

From 1919 to 1926 Wagner served as a justice of the New York Supreme Court. In 1926 he ran successfully for the U.S. Senate, a position to which he would be reelected three times. During his first term Wagner introduced legislation to assist labour and the unemployed, but his initiatives were rebuffed.

Not until the advent of the New Deal did Wagner’s legislative proposals become law. He helped draft the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), the Federal Emergency Relief Administration bill (1933), and the law establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933). An ally of President Franklin Roosevelt, Wagner firmly believed in the government’s duty to take an active role in promoting the public good.

In 1935 Wagner sponsored two major pieces of New Deal legislation: the Social Security Act (enacted 1936) and the National Labor Relations Act (better known as the Wagner Act). The latter bill established the National Labor Relations Board, guaranteed workers the right to bargain collectively without jeopardizing their jobs, and outlawed a number of unfair labour practices. In 1937 the Wagner-Steagall Act created the United States Housing Authority, an agency to provide loans for low-cost public housing.

As the New Deal lost momentum, Wagner persisted. He presented national health care and anti-lynching legislation, but both measures failed to gain passage. More successful were his drives to expand housing and social security programs, and in 1945 a weakened version of his full-employment bill became law. Wagner resigned from the Senate for health reasons in 1949. He lived out his last years at his home in New York City, devoting much of his time to supporting the creation of the new nation of Israel. His son, Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910–91), served as mayor of New York City from 1954 to 1965.