Having served as head of the Farm Credit Administration in 1933, Henry Morgenthau (1891 - 1967) was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934, continuing briefly under President Harry Truman. As Roosevelt's Secretary, Morgenthau was instrumental in setting up the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works of Art Project in the 1930's. To finance World War II, Morgenthau initiated an elaborate system of marketing war bonds. He arranged that the Federal Reserve would support Treasury borrowing and would purchase bonds not bought by the public at an agreed rate. The War Bond program raised 49 billion dollars towards the cost of the war.

Sec. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. David Silvette Oil on canvas 1936 51 1/2 x 47 1/4 x 1 3/4" P.1935.1

Morgenthau made his most significant contribution as Chairman of the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, in 1944. This Conference, the keystone of postwar international finance, established the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and pegged all international currencies to the dollar, which was in turn pegged to gold. Morgenthau resigned shortly after the accession of Truman to the Presidency.