Henry Morgenthau

Born in Germany in 1856, he immigrated to New York as a boy and built a successful career as a lawyer and real estate investor. His rise in business helped bring him into national politics, and he became a supporter of Woodrow Wilson.

In 1913, he was appointed United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, he witnessed the persecution of Armenians and used his position to report what he was seeing, making him an important contemporary voice on one of the century's great human tragedies.

After leaving diplomacy, he remained active in public life and wrote Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, the memoir that made his name widely known. He died in 1946, leaving behind a record that still matters to historians of diplomacy, war, and human rights.