In the early-to-mid-20th century, "dollar-a-year men" were business and government executives who helped the government mobilize and manage American industry during periods of war, notably
World War I,
World War II, and the
Korean War. U.S. law generally forbids the government from accepting the services of unpaid volunteers, but specific authorities exist within some agencies. Those employed by the government had to be paid a nominal salary, and the salary establishes their legal relationship as employees of the government. During World War I, about 1,000 such people were employed by the United States. While they received only a dollar in salary from the government, most executives had their salaries paid by the companies. The first known such employee was
Gifford Pinchot, working for Theodore Roosevelt. After Pinchot, the
United States Department of Agriculture employed several dollar-a-year men. On June 19, 1933,
Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor appointed a five-member Labor Advisory Board, of whom two members came from the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers union, of whom one,
Sidney Hillman, was a dollar-a-year man. Progressive lawyer
Max Lowenthal was a dollar-a-year man as legal counsel on various congressional committees, befriended U.S. Senator
Harry S. Truman, and wound up as a dollar-a-year man in Truman's cabinet.
World War I Bernard Baruch was the first businessman employed for a one-dollar salary. During World War I, the Advisory Commission to the
Council of National Defense was staffed largely by dollar-a-year men, including Bernard Baruch,
Robert S. Brookings, and
Herbert Bayard Swope.
Interwar Massachusetts Governor
Alvan T. Fuller, wealthy in his own right, served in several government positions on such terms.
New Deal and World War II Kentucky's
Ashland Oil and Refining Company founder and CEO,
Paul G. Blazer (1890–1966), served twice as a government salaried dollar-a-year man: from 1933 to 1935 under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's
National Recovery Administration on the Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry as Chairman of the Blazer Committee and a second time during World War II as Chairman of District II Refining for Roosevelt's
Petroleum Administration of War.
Herman Wouk worked in Washington, D.C., as a dollar-a-year man writing radio scripts for the U.S. Treasury's Defense Bond Campaign beginning in June 1941. During World War II, socialite
Doris Duke worked in a canteen for U.S. sailors in
Egypt at such a salary. In Canada during
World War II,
C. D. Howe, Canada's "
Minister of Everything", created a rearmament program using "dollar-a-year men". An example was
John Wilson McConnell, the owner and publisher of the
Montreal Star, who was appointed Director of Licences for the
Wartime Trade Board, a position for which he served for free. Others include
E. P. Taylor and
Austin Cotterell Taylor. == Recent examples ==