Anna Rosenberg was born into a prominent Jewish family in
Budapest, Hungary, in 1902. Her father ran a successful
furniture factory and her mother wrote and illustrated children's
books. The family immigrated to the United States when her
father lost his business after a large customer cancelled
his order. They settled in the Bronx borough of New York
City in 1912 and in 1919, she became a naturalized American
citizen and married Julius Rosenberg.
Anna M. Rosenberg would eventually shatter the glass
ceiling that had divided women from the senior national
military
establishment when she was appointed assistant secretary
of defense in 1950. Rosenberg began her political involvement
in the early 1920s and quickly developed a reputation for
expertise on personnel and labor issues that brought her
into contact with Democratic politicos. It was during this
period of time that Rosenberg first met the Roosevelts,
and in 1928 FDR sought
her advice on labor policy in his campaign for governor.
In Albany, as in Washington, FDR continued to seek Rosenberg's
counsel, and throughout the 1930s he continually tapped
her to serve the federal government in a variety of labor-related
positions.
Although Rosenberg spent a considerable amount of time
in Washington during this period, she remained active in
New York state politics as well, serving as chairwoman of
the New York State Constitutional Committee in 1937 and
as a member of the New York City and state war councils.
Rosenberg began her specific association with defense-related
labor issues in the early 1940s with appointments to the
Manpower Consulting Committee of the Army and Navy Munitions
Board and the War Manpower Commission. This experience was
deepened in July 1944 when President Roosevelt sent her
to Europe to make manpower observations about the American
military. For her service to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman,
Rosenberg would be awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1945
and the United States Medal for Merit in 1947. Even after
the war was over, however, Rosenberg remained active in
the defense community, eventually serving as an advisor
to Air Force Secretary W. Stuart Symington and then as assistant
secretary of defense from 1950 to 1953. While at the Pentagon,
Rosenberg worked hard to bring about the effective implementation
of the National Security Act, took steps to promote racial
integration of the services, and lent support to legislation
that would safeguard the rights of minorities in the military.
As a prominent Democrat, Rosenberg returned to private
life after the Republican victory in 1952, briefly returning
to government service at the end of the Johnson administration
to serve on the Commission on Income Maintenance. In 1962,
the Rosenbergs divorced and she married Paul G. Hoffman,
the first administrator of the Marshall Plan and a top United
Nations official. Anna Rosenberg Hoffman died in 1983, at
the age of 81.
Sources:
Brody, Seymour. "Anna M. Rosenberg." The
Jewish Virtual Library. Internet on-line. Available From http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/ARosenberg.html.
MacGregor, Morris J. Jr. History of the Integration
of the Armed Forces. Center for Military History.
Internet on-line. Available From http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/integration/IAF-fm.htm.
Social Security Administration. "Anna M.
Rosenberg."
Social Security Pioneers. Internet on-line. Available From http://www.ssa.gov/history/annar.html.