History Minute with Dr. Ken Bridges

John Steelman rose from a modest farm in South Arkansas to becoming one of the most influential men in the country. He worked as a professor, mediator, and eventually as Chief of Staff for President Harry S. Truman.

He was born on a farm outside Thornton, a remote, rural community in Calhoun County, in June 1900. Steelman, along with his two brothers, spent his youth working the farm and other various jobs in the area and attending local schools. After he graduated high school, the nation was in the midst of World War I. He enlisted in the army and served honorably.

After the war ended and he returned from battle, he began saving money in order to attend college. He worked in the local logging industry and also as an accountant. He enrolled at Henderson-Brown College in Arkadelphia, then a Methodist college (what is now Henderson State University). He graduated in 1922 and quickly enrolled at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he earned a masters degree in 1924. He then attended the University of North Carolina for his doctorate in sociology and economics, taking various teaching assignments along the way. He graduated in 1928.

Steelman soon took a job teaching at Alabama College (now known as the University of Montevallo) in Central Alabama, which was then an all-women’s college. He became active in mediating labor disputes across Alabama as it sunk deeper into the Great Depression. He earned a great deal of respect for his efforts, which soon came to the attention of the Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. Perkins gave a speech at Alabama College in 1934 and invited Steelman to join the United States Conciliation Service, a federal labor mediation board. Steelman accepted and became director of the organization in 1937.

During World War II, his work mediating labor disputes was considered especially critical to avoiding work stoppages that could delay vital war production. In 1944, he stepped down from his position and worked in the private sector for a time at a public relations firm. After the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, he went to work for President Harry Truman as a labor advisor and eventually as Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion.

In December 1946, with the Truman administration facing increasing criticism, Truman appointed Steelman to the new position of Assistant to the President, a position he held for six years. The increasingly complex and dangerous postwar world required more planning and expert advice than ever for a president, and Steelman’s job was to make sure Truman had the right people to talk to. Eventually, the position became known as the Chief of Staff.

Steelman continued to work closely advising Truman on a number of issues. In 1947, he completed a special report to the president, Science and Public Policy, outlining an ambitious policy of scientific research for the United States, from medicine to technology, to be sponsored by the federal government. With the Cold War developing, Truman moved to implement the report’s findings as a matter of national security.

When Secretary of Labor Lewis Schwellenbach died in June 1948, Truman offered the cabinet post to Steelman in appreciation of his work. He declined and stayed on in his position as assistant. However, Steelman continued to mediate labor issues on behalf of the White House. In 1950, he helped stop a railroad strike; and in 1952, he helped end a crippling steel strike that at one point prompted Truman to threaten to seize control of the steel mills.

When Truman left the presidency in 1953, he stayed on briefly to help Dwight D. Eisenhower adjust to the White House. Steelman spent the next several years working in the publishing industry in Maryland, Alabama, and Washington, DC, before he retired.

The role of Chief of Staff evolved in the coming decades. It never became an official cabinet position or one presidents were required to fill, but its importance as an organizer and advisor became obvious to future presidents. Where Eisenhower filled the Chief of Staff position, President John F. Kennedy had the Chief of Staff position as more of an appointments secretary. President Lyndon Johnson, however, kept the position effectively vacant until February 1965. President Jimmy Carter did not appoint a Chief of Staff until July 1979 as his administration became increasingly embroiled in a series of crises. The position has remained filled constantly since that time. Steadily, the Chief of Staff became an important position as advisor, more than just as an office manager or one who recommended appointments to certain positions. The Chief of Staff in the past few administrations has basically become a gatekeeper for access to the president.

Truman had left office as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern memory. However, Steelman had lived long enough to see historians reassessing the Truman presidency. His work as Truman’s “right-hand man” as Truman had called him, greatly aided in Truman’s decision-making as World War II ended and the Cold War began. A month after Steelman’s ninety-ninth birthday in July 1999, he passed away quietly at a retirement home in Florida. To this day, he still holds the record for the longest tenure as Chief of Staff.

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