Arthur Joseph Goldberg (1908-1990), a leading American lawyer and public official, was U.S. secretary of labor, ambassador to the United Nations, and activist Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Arthur J. Goldberg was born on August 8, 1908, the youngest of 11 children whose immigrant parents were Russian Jews. He worked as a delivery boy for a shoe factory while acquiring an education in the Chicago public schools. Goldberg at times labored with construction gangs as he attended first Crane Junior College of the City College of Chicago, then Northwestern University, from which he received a B.S.L. degree in 1929.

Following graduation Goldberg was admitted to the Illinois bar and worked as an associate lawyer in a Chicago law firm. Law practice provided an income which enabled him to earn a law degree from Northwestern University in 1930. Shortly thereafter--on July 18, 1931--the young lawyer married Dorothy Kurgans; in the...