USA: Thomas G. Corcoran (1900-1981) with Judge Ferdinand Recora, Washington DC, c. 1935

Thomas Gardiner Corcoran (1900–1981) was one of several advisors in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's brain trust during the New Deal, and later, a close friend and advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Corcoran was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and educated at Brown University and Harvard Law School. He clerked for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. at the United States Supreme Court in 1926-27. In 1932, after practicing corporate law in New York, Corcoran joined the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

When Roosevelt began to take notice of his efforts, Corcoran was given a wider range of responsibilities than his official position as assistant general counsel allowed. He organized administrative agencies for various New Deal programs and assisted in drafting such legislation as the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

A protégé of Felix Frankfurter, Corcoran was considered the leader of the 'New Dealers', a group of young lawyers that became prominent within the Roosevelt administration in the wake of the renewed economic recession of 1937.

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