Helen Florence Humphrey, 1909-1963

Helen F. Humphrey, attorney and government official, was born in Detroit, Michigan, on September 20, 1909, the daughter of D. Norman and M. Isabel (Scanlan) Humphrey. She majored in English at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), graduating magna cum laude in 1931. She then held jobs as map custodian at the William L. Clements Library and cataloguer at the law library at New York University. Believing that courses in law would be helpful, she studied at Brooklyn Law School, graduating in 1938.

In 1939 HFH went to Washington, D. C. to work for the National Labor Relations Board as an enforcement attorney responsible for preparing briefs and oral arguments before various Federal courts of appeal and the United States Supreme Court. Except for one year (1942) as a trial lawyer in the NLRB's New York office, HFH remained in Washington until 1944. From 1944 to 1946, HFH was chief law officer of the St. Louis regional office, the only woman chief law officer with the agency. She held the same post in Philadelphia (1946-1948) and New York City (1948-1951).

In March 1951 HFH accepted an assignment as chief of litigation for the Wage Stabilization Board of the Economic Security Agency, leaving after a few months (June) to become associate general counsel of the ESA in charge of enforcement. In July she was named chairman of the newly-created National Enforcement Commission of the Wage Stabilization Board of the ESA. This Commission acted as a final court of appeal and was empowered to enforce not only regulations of the WSB, but also the Railroad and Airline Wage Board and the Salary Stabilization Board. In November 1952 HFH entered private practice with Robert Denham, former general counsel of the NLRB, in Washington, D. C. She formed the firm Humphrey and Young, Washington, D. C., with Quentin O. Young in 1962, a partnership which continued until her death from cancer on August 24, 1963. HFH is buried at Dunedin, Florida.

From the guide to the Papers, 1942-1963, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)