Henry Morgenthau Sr.

Henry Morgenthau was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was one of the most prominent Americans who spoke about the Armenian genocide of which he stated, "I am firmly convinced that this is the greatest crime of the ages". 

Morgenthau was the father of the politician Henry Morgenthau Jr. His grandchildren include Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney of Manhattan for 35 years, and Barbara W. Tuchman, a historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for her book The Guns of August. 

Morgenthau was born the ninth of 11 living children, in Mannheim, Baden (present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany), in 1856 into an Ashkenazi Jewish family. His father was a successful cigar manufacturer who had cigar factories at Mannheim, Lorsch and Heppenheim, employing as many as 1,000 people (Mannheim had a population of 21,000 during this period). His business suffered a severe financial setback during the American Civil War, due to an 1862 tobacco tariff on imports, which closed German tobacco exports to the US forever. 

The Morgenthau family immigrated to New York in 1866. There, despite considerable savings, his father was not able to re-establish himself in business. His development and marketing of various inventions and his investments in other enterprises failed. Lazarus Morgenthau staved off failure and stabilized his income by becoming a fundraiser for Jewish houses of worship. Henry attended City College of New York, where he received a BA, and later graduated from Columbia Law School. 

He began his career as a lawyer, but he made a substantial fortune in real estate investments. In 1898, he acquired 41 lots on New York's Lower East Side from William Waldorf Astor for $850,000. A few years later, he led a syndicate that bought a swath of undeveloped land in Washington Heights around 181st Street, anticipating the construction of the first subway through the area. 

Morgenthau married Josephine Sykes in 1882 and they had four children: Helen, Alma, Henry Jr. and Ruth. His daughter Alma married financier Maurice Wertheim. 

Morgenthau built a successful career as a lawyer and served as the leader of the Reform Jewish community in New York. 

Morgenthau's career enabled him to contribute handsomely to President Woodrow Wilson's election campaign in 1912. He had first met Wilson in 1911 at a dinner celebrating the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Free Synagogue society and the two "seem to have bonded", marking the "turning point in Morgenthau's political career". His role in American politics grew more pronounced in later months. Although he did not gain the chairmanship of Wilson's campaign finance committee, Morgenthau was offered the position of ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He had hoped for a cabinet post as well, but was not successful in gaining one. 

As an early Wilson supporter, Morgenthau assumed that Wilson would appoint him to a cabinet-level position, but the new President had other plans for him. Like other prominent Jewish Americans, Oscar Straus and Solomon Hirsch before him, Morgenthau was appointed as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Wilson's assumption that Jews somehow represented a bridge between Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians rankled Morgenthau; in reply Wilson assured him that the Porte in Constantinople "was the point at which the interest of American Jews in the welfare of the Jews of Palestine is focused, and it is almost indispensable that I have a Jew in that post". Though no Zionist himself, Morgenthau cared "fervidly" about the plight of his co-religionists. He initially rejected the position, but following a trip to Europe, and with the encouragement of his pro-Zionist friend Rabbi Stephen Wise, he reconsidered his decision and accepted Wilson's offer. Appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1913, he served in this position until 1916. 

  
Morgenthau died in 1946 following a cerebral hemorrhage, in New York City, and was buried in Hawthorne, New York. His son Henry Morgenthau Jr. was a Secretary of the Treasury. His daughter, Alma Wertheim, was married to banker Maurice Wertheim and was the mother of historian Barbara Tuchman. His daughter Ruth Morgenthau was married to banker George W. Naumburg (son of Elkan Naumburg), and then John Knight.