Al Smith

Alfred Emanuel Smith (1873–1944), known to millions as 'Al' Smith and the 'Happy Warrior of the Political Battlefield', was an American Democratic statesman who served four terms as Governor of New York. Raised in poverty in the immigrant tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side and working in the Fulton Fish Market, Smith was a self-taught master of state government.

Deeply shaken by the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Smith championed sweeping workplace safety regulations, women's maximum hour laws, workmen's compensation, and state housing reform alongside Frances Perkins and Robert Moses. In 1928, Smith made history as the first Roman Catholic nominated for President by a major party, breaking barriers for urban immigrant communities. Later, as president of Empire State Inc., he oversaw the construction of the Empire State Building during the Great Depression.