WWII WAR GOVERNOR CT HARTFORD FLOOD WPA BASEBALL HURLEY SIGNED POSTCARD PHOTO VF

Description

ROBERT A. HURLEY
(1895 - 1968)
73
rd
GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT DURING WWII 1941-1943 – A WAR GOV. WHO PLEDGED
"ALL OF THE INDUSTRIAL MIGHT AND RESOURCES OF CONNECTICUT
”
FOR THE WAR EFFORT AGAINST NAZI & JAPANESE AGGRESSION
,
1st PUBLIC WORKS COMMISSIONER OF CONNECTICUT – BATTLING CORRUPTION IN THE CT STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT 1937-1940,
FEDERAL COORDINATOR DURING THE DEVASTATING HARTFORD FLOOD OF 1936,
DIRECTOR OF THE WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA) IN CT APPOINTED BY GOV. WILBUR L. CROSS
&
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE STAR BASEBALL PLAYER – PITCHING A NO-HITTER!
The election of Robert Hurley marked the first time that Connecticut placed a Catholic into the office of governor. It had taken just over 300 years for the state's political process to move to the point where it would accept a non-Protestant for this position.
Hurley’s political career was highly successful.
He was one of the ‘
good
’ politicians in the annals of CT State history.
His career was marked by a Statewide reputation for honesty and integrity!
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HERE’S A RARE WORLD WAR 2 ERA POLITICAL CAMPAIGN POSTCARD PHOTO OF HURLEY, BOLDLY SIGNED BY HIM IN THE WHITE MARGIN BENEATH THE IMAGE:
“
Robert A. Hurley”
This postcard-sized document measures
3½” x 5½”
and is in VERY FINE, CLEAN & CRISP CONDITION.
A FINE PIECE OF CONNECTICUT POLITICAL HISTORY TO ADD TO YOUR AUTOGRAPH, MANUSCRIPT & EPHEMERA COLLECTION.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE HONORABLE
ROBERT A. HURLEY
Robert Augustine Hurley
(August 25, 1895 – May 3, 1968) was an American
politician and the
73rd Governor of Connecticut
.
Biography
Hurley, a second generation Irish-American, was born in
Bridgeport, Connecticut
on August 25, 1895 to Robert Emmet and Sabina O'Hara Hurley. He attended local public schools and
Cheshire Academy
. He studied at
Lehigh University
where he worked his way through school as a hod carrier in support of bricklayers. An accomplished athlete, he was a four-letter man and, as captain of the baseball team, once pitched a no-hit game. His nickname at Lehigh was "Scraps".
Career
In 1917, at the advent of America's involvement in World War I, Hurley enlisted in the U.S. Navy and became a radio electrician for the submarine fleet (the "pig boats") and on the battleship
Pennsylvania
. After the war, he played professional football and semiprofessional baseball before joining his father's construction firm. On January 22, 1925, he married Evelyn Hedberg, a nurse from Bridgeport. They had three children.
Hurley then founded his own successful construction and engineering firm of Leverty & Hurley in Bridgeport. Wilbur Lucius Cross, Governor of Connecticut at the time, appointed Hurley to the directorship of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He had distinguished himself as the federal coordinator during the devastating Hartford flood of 1936. Hurley then went on to become Connecticut's first Public Works Commissioner, where he ferreted out corruption in the state Highway Department and successfully supervised a multimillion-dollar public construction program. He held this post from 1937 to 1940, developing a statewide reputation for honesty and integrity. Though never having run for public office, he was drafted by New Deal Democrats to run against popular Republican Governor Raymond E. Baldwin. At a tumultuous Democrat convention at the Taft Hotel in New Haven, Hurley defeated the Old Guard, who had convinced former Governor Cross to enter the race, and won the nomination for governor.
Governor of Connecticut
Hurley, was elected the
Governor of Connecticut
in 1940. He was Connecticut's first Catholic governor after 300 years of Protestant political dominance. An enthusiastic supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, he successfully set out to reform the state's labor and employment laws and extend electrification to rural areas of the state.
However, other elements of his ambitious reform agenda were stymied by a Republican-controlled General Assembly. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he quickly mobilized the war production effort and forged a labor-management agreement called "Connecticut's Compact for Victory" that achieved a "no strike pledge" from labor for the unknown duration of the war, and gave the governor sole authority to arbitrate labor disputes during the conflict. The compact became a national model. A fierce opponent of discrimination, he developed a national reputation by integrating housing in the Connecticut National Guard. Hurley also named the first Jewish judges to the Connecticut bench. He ran unsuccessfully for re-election. He left office on January 6, 1943. He again ran unsuccessfully for governor again in 1944.
After completing his term, Hurley was active in the Democrat National Committee and was appointed by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
to be a member of the
Surplus Property Board
from 1944 to 1945. He then retired from public life.
Death and legacy
Hurley died on May 3, 1968. He is interred at Fairview Cemetery, West Hartford, Connecticut. Hurley Hall at the University of Connecticut and at Cheshire Academy are named for him.
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