Nathan Straus Jr.

Nathan Straus Jr.
Straus in 1938
BornMay 27, 1889
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedSeptember 13, 1961(1961-09-13) (aged 72)
Massapequa, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)Journalist
Politician
SpouseHelen Sachs
Children4, including R. Peter Straus
Parent(s)Lina Gutherz Straus
Nathan Straus
FamilyBernard Sachs (father-in-law)

Nathan Straus Jr. (May 27, 1889 – September 13, 1961) was an American journalist and politician from New York.

Life

He was the son of Lina (née Gutherz) and Nathan Straus (1848–1931), co-owner of Macy's department store. He attended Princeton University and Heidelberg University. He worked as a reporter for The New York Globe from 1909 to 1910 and was editor and publisher of Puck magazine from 1913 to 1917. During World War I he served as an ensign in the United States Navy.

After the war, Straus became Assistant Editor of the New York Globe, but left in 1920 because of the paper's support for Republican presidential candidate Warren G. Harding. Instead, he entered politics as a Democrat, and was a member of the New York State Senate from 1921 to 1926, sitting in the 144th, 145th, 146th, 147th, 148th, and 149th New York State Legislatures. He chaired the Committee on Agriculture from 1923 to 1924.

Straus was a founding trustee of the Palestine Endowment Fund, Inc. (1922) along with Julian Mack and Stephen Samuel Wise.[1]

He was New York State Administrator of the National Recovery Administration in 1934; a member of the New York City Housing Authority in 1936; and Administrator of the United States Housing Authority from 1937 to 1942. He published two books on housing issues: Seven Myths of Housing (1944), and Two-Thirds of a Nation – A Housing Program (1952).

Straus was chairman of the WMCA radio station until his death.

On September 13, 1961, Straus was found dead in a motel room in Massapequa, New York. He was buried at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

Personal life

He was married to Helen Sachs, daughter of Bernard Sachs, a neurologist for whom Tay–Sachs disease is named and member of the Goldman-Sachs family.[2] They had four sons: Nathan Straus III, Barnard Sachs Straus (married to Joan Paley), Irving Lehman Straus, and R. Peter Straus.[2][3] R. Peter Straus was director of the Voice of America under President Jimmy Carter and owned radio station WMCA in New York City.[4] In 1998, he Marcia Lewis, the mother of Monica Lewinsky.[4]

Congressman Isidor Straus and US Secretary of Commerce and Labor Oscar Straus were Nathan's uncles; New York Chief Judge Irving Lehman was his brother-in-law; and Ambassador Jesse I. Straus was his first cousin.

Anne Frank connection

When Straus attended Heidelberg University in 1908, he met a young art-history scholar named Otto Frank, who was the same age as him. The 20-year-old Frank accepted a job at Macy's, where he fell in love with New York and its brashness, but he returned to Germany after his father's death in 1909.

Frank, who was Jewish, later fled Germany with his family in the face of the severe antisemitism of Nazi Germany. They relocated to Amsterdam, where Frank enlisted Nathan Jr.'s assistance to help his family obtain visas to move to the United States. Despite receiving help from Nathan Jr. and other connections, the Franks were unable to gather all the needed paperwork before Nazi Germany ordered US consulates to close in German-occupied territory (including the Netherlands).[5] Ultimately, the entire Frank family was interned in Nazi concentration camps, with Otto the only member to survive the war.

In the years that followed, Otto published the diary of his daughter, Anne Frank, which described the family's life in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. That work, known in English as The Diary of a Young Girl or The Diary of Anne Frank, is one of the best-known books about the Holocaust. It has been translated into dozens of languages and adapted into plays and films.

References

  1. ^ Goodman, Philip (1989). 66 Years of Benevolence: The Story of PEF Israel Endowment Funds. PEF Israel Endowment Funds, Incorporated.
  2. ^ a b "Helen Sachs Straus, 95, Radio Station Official". New York Times. December 24, 1990.
  3. ^ "Anna M. Perper Is Wed to Irving L. Straus". New York Times. January 28, 1977.
  4. ^ a b Hinckley, David (2012-08-09). "R. Peter Straus, populist WMCA radio host and NYC fixture, dead at 89: Liberal Democrat radio icon made rock n' roll fun, too". The New York Daily News. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  5. ^ "German Bombs and US Bureaucrats: How Escape Lines from Europe Were Cut Off". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. July 2018.
New York State Senate
Preceded by New York State Senate
15th District
1921–1926 		Succeeded by