William Hammatt Davis

William Hammatt Davis (August 29, 1879 – August 13, 1964) was the Chairman of the War Labor Board (WLB) in the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt, where his job was keeping industrial peace between management and labor. He was also appointed US Economic Stabilizer in the last months of World War II, though Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman, soon eliminated this potentially powerful position. Davis also helped draft the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) of 1935, which gave labor unions the right to organize.

Born and raised in Bangor, Maine, Davis was the brother of Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Owen Davis. He graduated from Bangor High School and received a law degree from George Washington University in 1901. His first job was in the U.S. Patent Office, but he soon left to become a successful New York patent attorney. He returned to government service briefly in World War I, working in the War Department.

When Franklin Roosevelt formed the National Recovery Administration (NRA) early in the New Deal, Davis was tapped as Deputy Administrator. The NRA was declared unconstitutional and disbanded in 1937, and Davis returned to New York to head the state's Labor Mediation Board. He developed such a good reputation as a mediator between management and labor that Roosevelt brought him back to Washington in 1941 to join (and soon chair) the National Defense Mediation Board (NDMB), which became the War Labor Board (WLB) in early 1942. Davis ran the Board until March 1945, when, seeing the end of the war in sight, Roosevelt named him Director of Economic Stabilization, to manage the return to a peace-time economy.

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