Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870-1965) served the United States as an economic planner during both World Wars, and was the author of the Baruch Plan, a post-World War II proposal for international control of atomic energy. Born in Camden, he was raised in New York, where he entered business and amassed a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange by 1916. Woodrow Wilson appointed him Chairman of the Allied Purchasing Commission, which made all purchases for the United States and its Allies during World War I. In 1918 he became head of the War Industries Board, virtually controlling all industrial production in the United States. An advisor to presidents on economic issues between the wars, he was again appointed as special advisor to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes (see Governor James Byrnes) on war mobilization during World War II. Roosevelt made Baruch his representative on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission in 1946. Although he purchased a sea island plantation, Hobcaw Barony, and made it into a wildlife preserve that is still funded by the Baruch Foundation, he spent the remainder of his life as a citizen of New York, where he died in 1965. This photograph was taken near the beginning of World War II.
Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
