1899-1981
National Resources Manager

Rising to the Challenge.

Bon in Illinois of Czechoslovakiai larents, David Lilienthal gradua ed from Harvard Law School in 923, where he had studied with Felix Frankfurter, then a professor at the school. Lilienthal went t0 work in Chicago for a private lav firm. His personal interests centered around issues of conservation and development of natural resources. Following his successful handling of a difficult telephone rate case before the U.S. Supreme Court, he was appointed head of the State Utility Commission of Wisconsin in 1931. Two years later, on the advice of Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Lilienthal to join the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA. In April 1933 President Roosevelt asked Congress to create an agency to oversee the use, development, and conservation of the Tennessee River Valley. This proposal included safe navigation, reforestation...