Wolf, Herman

Epithet: Chief Physician to Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000354.0x000389

Herman Wolf was born in Far Rockaway, Long Island, New York on 22 January 1912 . He graduated from the Woodmere Academy in Long Island in 1929. After attending the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania for two years, he spent one year at the University of Chicago from which he graduated in 1933 with a B. A. in Economics. From 1935 to 1939 he attended the New School for Social Research in New York, as well as New York University .

As a young man, Wolf was deeply interested in reform movements, and while at the University of Pennsylvania was an active member of the Socialist Party . From 1934-1941, Wolf was a labor newspaper editor and publicity agent. He wrote publicity articles, speeches, press releases, radio broadcasts, and pamphlets for such organizations as the Textile Workers Union, the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the American Labor Party, the New York State Department of Labor, and the Greater New York Fund . He also spent some time editing weekly newspapers, working on the New York Journal of Commerce, and writing articles for Time, Nation, and Survey Graphic . From 1937-1941, he operated his own public relations firm in New York City.

During the Second World War, Wolf's governmental employment was extensive. He directed labor-public relations for the British Management-Labor Commission, wrote a war handbook entitled Labor Defends America, a discussion of labor's role in production, morale, war controls, and training, promoted U.S. War Bonds for the Treasury Department in his writings for the labor press, and directed a staff of fifteen for the War Production Board which supplied 5,000 war plant Labor-Management Production Committees with ideas and material for improving efficiency.

After the war, Wolf spent two years as a director of a staff of seventy employees for the Fuller Houses Inc. of Wichita, Kansas, a corporation created to promote the building of R. Buckminster Fuller 's Dymaxion Dwelling Machine (the Fuller House). This began a longtime association between Wolf and Fuller.

In 1946, Wolf moved to Connecticut and began a public-relations firm, Herman Wolf Associates, that would eventually serve over 100 clients. From 1947-1950, he was editor of several of the supplements for the Sunday edition of The Bridgeport Herald . It was at this time that Wolf became actively involved in Connecticut Democratic politics. He was a chief campaign aide in the successful gubernatorial campaigns of Abe Ribicoff in 1954 and 1958, John Dempsey in 1966, and Ella Grasso in 1974. He acted as executive aide to Governor Ribicoff from 1955-1958, and took part in Ribicoff's successful campaigns for the U. S. Senate in 1962 and 1968.

Herman Wolf participated actively in numerous campaigns for Senate, Congress, state legislature, and municipal office over a period of thirty years. In the course of his political public relations work, he met seven Presidents of the United States.

In 1972, Wolf closed down his public relations firm for a brief time to become Executive Vice-President of the Design Science Institute of Washington D. C., a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the philosophy and works of R. Buckminster Fuller . Wolf is a member of the National Press Club, the Public Relations Society of America, and the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce . His first wife, Emily Elsas Wolf, whom he married in 1936, died in 1954. They had three children: David, born in 1942; Louise, born in 1944; and William (Bill), born in 1949. His second wife was Helen Neilson Wolf . In 1973, Wolf married Monica Estes . They have one daughter, Fay, born in 1978.

From the guide to the Herman Wolf Papers, undated, 1926-1981., (Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries)