Meyer Kestnbaum

Meyer Kestnbaum (October 31, 1896 – December 14, 1960) was an American businessman and civic leader who was president of Hart, Schaffner & Marx, served as Chairman of President Dwight Eisenhower's Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (popularly known as the Kestnbaum Commission) in 1954–1955, and later was a special assistant to Eisenhower.

Life and career Meyer Kestnbaum was born in 1896 in New York City, where he grew up and attended DeWitt Clinton High School. Following high school he enrolled at Harvard University as a member of the class of 1918. In 1917 he interrupted his college education due to World War I, entering military service as a member of the American Expeditionary Forces. He was wounded in France while serving as a lieutenant in an infantry unit and was awarded a Purple Heart. He finished his undergraduate work at Harvard in 1919, but his B.S. degree carried the date of his original class of 1918.

After receiving an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1921, Kestnbaum joined the firm of Hart, Schaffner & Marx, a Chicago clothing manufacturer. His first assignment there was in labor relations. He became the company's treasurer in 1933, vice president in 1940, and president in 1941. As of 1960, the company had a history of "almost fifty years of uninterrupted, peaceful collective bargaining with its labor force". This achievement, which was unusual for the era, was attributed in large part to Kestnbaum's leadership. Some Commission members said that Kestnbaum was largely responsible for leading the Commission to settle on middle-of-the-road recommendations; they credited the moderate tone of the report to his leadership. chairmanship of the board of trustees of the Committee for Economic Development, membership on the Harvard Board of Overseers (1954 to 1960), and membership in the boards of trustees for the National Fund for Medical Education, the Institute for Philosophical Research, the Chicago Educational Television Association, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestral Association. Lawrence Kestenbaum, operator of the Political Graveyard website, is a great nephew of Meyer Kestnbaum.

Legacy An endowment fund in the field of industrial relations was established in Kestnbaum's honor at Harvard University in 1961 to sponsor lectures, conferences, and university visitors representing the fields of management, labor, and government. The gift was considered unusual in that the contributors included both a labor union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and a company, Hart, Schaffner & Marx.