Born: Aug. 8, 1908; Chicago, Ill.
Educated: Northwestern University, Bachelor of Science in Law, 1929; JSD, 1930
Married: July 18, 1931, Dorothy Kurgans
Nominated: Aug. 29, 1962, by President John F. Kennedy
Commissioned: Sept. 25, 1962
Dates of Service: Oct. 1, 1962 to July 25, 1965
Died: Jan. 19, 1990

Arthur Joseph Goldberg, the youngest of eight children, was born in the west side of Chicago to Russian immigrant parents, Joseph and Rebecca Perlstein Goldberg. Goldberg's father was a peddler, delivering produce by horse-drawn wagon until his death in 1916. After his death, the older children were forced to quit school and go to work to support the family. As the youngest, Arthur Goldberg was able to continue his education.

By the age of 12, he was working at odd jobs, such as wrapping fish, selling shoes, and selling coffee to Cub fans at Wrigley Field during the prohibition years. His interest in legal matters was set before he graduated from high school, prompted by the well-publicized 1923 murder trial of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

In 1926, he began his study of law at the Northwestern University School of Law. He received a Bachelor of Science in Law from Northwestern, magna cum laude, at age 19 in 1929. In 1930, Northwestern awarded him the JSD (Juris Scientiae Doctor) degree.

On July 18, 1931, Goldberg married Dorothy Kurgans, an art student at Northwestern University. They had two children: Barbara in 1936, and Robert in 1941.

Goldberg began his legal career in 1929 as an associate in the firm of Kamfner, Horowitz, Halligan, and Daniels, but resigned when he was assigned to foreclose mortgages on other people's property. As he saw the Great Depression taking its toll on the working American, Goldberg's interest in labor law increased. He opened his own law practice under the name of Arthur J. Goldberg in 1933.

In 1938, on behalf of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, Goldberg represented the Chicago newspaper employees striking for higher wages and better working conditions. For eight months, Goldberg represented the strikers without charge, spending many days in court defending arrested picketers. In the end, the newspapers recognized the union, and Goldberg was considered a workingman's hero.

During World War II, Goldberg served as a captain and major in the U.S. Army. In 1948 he was appointed general counsel for the CIO and the United Steelworkers of America. Later, he participated in and was a legal advisor on the merger of American Federation of Labor and the CIO in 1955.

By this time, Goldberg had established a name for himself in the Democratic Party and was becoming an important figure in national politics. It was no surprise when President John F. Kennedy appointed him to be Secretary of Labor in 1961, where he was considered among the most energetic members of the Cabinet. Some called him the "Davey Crockett of the New Frontier," and Hubert Humphrey referred to him as the "vitamins" of the Kennedy Administration.

Then, just 20 months later, after Felix Frankfurter resigned from the Supreme Court, Kennedy nominated Goldberg to fill the empty seat. After Senate confirmation, Goldberg took his place on the bench in September 1962.

Goldberg joined the Court just as the Civil Rights movement was beginning to shake America, and many of the decisions made by the Court were related to this issue. Among the noteworthy cases argued before the Court during Goldberg's tenure were Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (1963), and Zemel v. Rusk (1965).

Three years after Goldberg took his seat on the Supreme Court, President Lyndon Johnson asked him to step down and accept an appointment as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. At first, Goldberg declined the offer, but after much prodding by Johnson, he finally accepted.

Goldberg's change of mind was prompted by his sense of duty to the country during the war in Vietnam. He said, "I thought I could persuade Johnson that we were fighting the wrong war in the wrong place, [and] to get out…. I would have loved to have stayed on the Court, but my sense of priorities was [that] this war would be disastrous." On July 26, 1965, Goldberg assumed the responsibilities of Ambassador to the UN.

As the war continued despite his efforts, the ambassadorship proved frustrating for Goldberg. He came to believe that he could affect American foreign policy better as a private citizen than through a governmental position, and on April 23, 1968, he resigned from the ambassadorship.

In 1970, he unsuccessfully ran for governor of New York and eventually returned to his farm in Marshall, Va., and to the private practice of law in Washington, D.C.

Goldberg wrote two books, AFL-CIO: Labor United (1956) and Equal Justice: The Warren Era of the Supreme Court (1972). A collection of his papers was published as Defenses of Freedom: The Public Papers of Arthur J Goldberg, edited by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1966). He also wrote numerous articles concerning legal matters, foreign affairs, and diplomacy. He received several awards and honors from a variety of organizations and institutions, including his alma mater, Northwestern University.

Goldberg also participated in many different advisory committees, community groups, and legal organizations, such as the American Bar Association, the American Jewish Committee, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Jewish Center for the United Nations and the International Judicial Conference.

Goldberg died of a heart attack Jan. 19, 1990. This was his second heart attack since the death of his wife in 1988. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to his wife and near his friend, Chief Justice Earl Warren.