Harry Benjamin Wolf (June 16, 1880 – February 17, 1944) was an American politician and

Congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

from

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Formation

Born in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

from Jacob Wolf and Mollie Furstenberg Wolf, he had two other siblings. Wolf attended the public schools of the city. To earn money, he was a

paperboy A paperboy is someoneoften an older child or adolescentwho distributes printed newspapers to homes or offices on a regular route, usually by bicycle or automobile. In Western nations during the heyday of print newspapers during the early 20th ...

and sold fruit, before he and his brother bought a horse and a wagon in order to sell bananas bought on the waterfront to Baltimore shopkeepers, earning an important sum of money. He graduated from the law department of the University of Maryland, Baltimore in 1901.

Law career

He was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced the practice of law in Baltimore, specialising in criminal cases, and also engaged in the

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

business and hotel-property investments, even creating a successful

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

company. In 1922, defending 19-year-old Walter Socolow, one of the five persons arrested for the murder of William Norris, Wolf saved him from hanging, while being held guilty by the jury, by conspiring with one of Socolow's accomplices to destroy the confession of another accomplice, who had turned State's evidence. Wolf was held guilty of obstructing justice, disbarred, fined and placed on probation. From 1911, Wolf, along with other lawyers, was involved in a scheme to get cheaper housemaids for prominent Baltimore families by using

Habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

writs for

Rosewood Center The Rosewood Center was an institution for people with developmental disabilities located on Rosewood Lane in Owings Mills, Maryland. It was established in 1888 as the Asylum and Training School for the Feeble-Minded. From 1912 to 1961, it was k ...

mentally challenged inmates. Once released into the custody of these families, they were often mistreated, with a low or even no pay, and sometimes abandoned in the streets when these families complained about their low productivity, or else dying from the poor labor conditions. This scheme was denounced by

Leo Kanner Leo Kanner (; born Chaskel Leib Kanner; June 13, 1894 – April 3, 1981) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist, physician, and social activist best known for his work related to autism spectrum disorder. Before working at the Henry Phipps Psychi ...

in 1937.

Politics

Wolf served as a member of the

Maryland House of Delegates The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the legislature of the State of Maryland. It consists of 141 delegates elected from 47 districts. The House of Delegates Chamber is in the Maryland State House on State Circle in Annapolis, ...

from 1906 to 1908. He was nominated by the local section of the Democratic party, and was elected as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

to the Sixtieth Congress, serving from March 4, 1907 to March 3, 1909. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1908 to the

Sixty-first Congress The 61st United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from March 4, 1909, to ...

, being beaten by John Kronmiller, and resumed the practice of his profession and other business interests in Baltimore.

Personal life

He married Sara and they had four sons, Frederick S. Wolf, Edwin J. Wolf, Harry B. Wolf Jr. and Alan M. Wolf. Sara died on August 12, 1964. He was named grand master of the Independent Order of B'rith Shalom.

Death

He died in Baltimore, and is interred in the Hebrew Friendship Cemetery.

Notes and references

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, Harry Benjamin 1880 births 1944 deaths Burials at Hebrew Friendship Cemetery Politicians from Baltimore Democratic Party members of the Maryland House of Delegates University of Maryland, Baltimore alumni Jewish members of the United States House of Representatives Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Maryland 20th-century American politicians Disbarred American lawyers