Attorney General: James P. McGranery
James Patrick McGranery was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 8, 1895. In 1917, he joined the U.S. Army and served in World War I as a balloon observation pilot. He graduated from Temple University Law School in 1928 and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar that same year. McGranery won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1936, representing Pennsylvania’s Second Congressional District until his resignation in 1943. His first period of service in the Department of Justice came in November 1943, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him Assistant to the Attorney General, in which role he supervised all major units of the Department. President Harry S. Truman appointed McGranery in October 1946 for a federal judgeship in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the Senate confirmed him unanimously. He was awarded a Medal of Merit the same year for his wartime contributions to national defense.
On May 27, 1952, President Harry S. Truman appointed McGranery as Attorney General of the United States. He served in that capacity until January 20, 1953. After leaving government service, McGranery practiced law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. He died in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 23, 1962.
Born in 1897, Irving Resnikoff fled Russia during the 1917 revolution. He painted hundreds of official portraits that were credited publicly to "Charles J. Fox," the pseudonym of a New York-based entrepreneur named Leo Fox. Fox paid Resnikoff between $250 and $300 to complete each commission, which he had secured for around 20 times as much. Although Fox's scheme was exposed in the late 1970s, Resnikoff-Fox portraits of prominent Americans can still be found in numerous government agencies, business headquarters, and institutions. He died in 1988.