Caroline K. Simon
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Caroline Klein Simon(November 12, 1900,New York City– July 29, 1993,Manhattan,New York City) was an American lawyer and politician.
Life
[edit]She graduated fromNew York University Law Schoolin 1925.
District AttorneyThomas E. Deweyof Manhattan named her to a panel on revising the Domestic Relations Court Act. DuringWorld War IIshe served as theOffice of Civilian Defense's director of group activities in New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
Dewey, now Governor, appointed her to the New York State Workers' Compensation Board in 1944, and the temporary State War Council's Committee on Discrimination in Employment in 1943, serving in both posts until 1945. After the war, she helped draft the nation's first state law on job bias based on race, religion or nationality and became a founding member of the resulting New York State Commission Against Discrimination.
In 1956, GovernorW. Averell Harriman,aDemocrat,appointed her to the new New York State Youth Commission. The next year she ran forNew York City CouncilPresident as aRepublican,but she lost toAbe Stark.In 1958, she served as the legal advisor to the American delegation to theUnited Nations Human Rights Commission.
In 1959 GovernorNelson A. Rockefellerappointed herSecretary of State of New York,the second woman to hold that post afterFlorence E. S. Knapp.During her tenure she issued the nation's first regulations against "block busting", in which brokers manipulated property owners' fears about racial or ethnic changes in the neighborhood to provoke sales.
In 1963 she was appointed a judge of theNew York Court of Claims.
Family
[edit]She married Leopold K. Simon, a lawyer. Their children were Lee K. Simon and Cathy Simon Prince. They divorced in the early 1950s. She then married Irving W. Halpern (d. 1966), who was chief probation officer of the New York City Court of General Sessions.
Sources
[edit]External links
[edit]- Papers of Caroline K. (Caroline Klein) Simon, 1917-1993 (inclusive), 1950-1980 (bulk).Schlesinger Library,Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- 1900 births
- 1993 deaths
- New York University School of Law alumni
- Jewish American people in New York (state) politics
- Jewish women politicians
- Secretaries of state of New York (state)
- New York (state) state court judges
- 20th-century American lawyers
- Women in New York (state) politics
- New York (state) Republicans
- 20th-century American judges
- 20th-century American women
- 20th-century American Jews