William H. Davis, a prominent patent attorney in private life, had a long record of public service, most notably as the Chairman of the National War Labor Board during World War II. He held membership in an impressive number of private organizations devoted to the cause of human understanding in industrial relations and international relations. His services were employed by the state of New York at different times, and the federal government often called upon him in times of national emergency.
Born in Bangor, Maine on August 29, 1879, Davis spent much of his childhood there and in the coal-mining areas of Eastern Kentucky with his seven siblings, many of whom gained prominence in their own fields, and his parents Owen Warren Davis and Abigail (Gould) Davis. He attended the Corcoran Scientific School and received his law degree from George Washington University in 1901.
Davis began his career in 1902 as a Patent Examiner in the U.S. Patent Office, leaving shortly thereafter to join the law firm of Betts, Betts, Sheffield & Betts in New York. He then joined Pennie & Goldsborough in 1906 and that same year married Grace Greenwood Colyer with whom he had three children: Eaton Greenwood, Alida Pennie, and Patricia Gould. He became a partner in 1911 and eventually went on to be a senior member of Pennie, Davis, Marvin & Edmunds.
During World War I, Davis served first in the War Department's Division of Purchase, Storage and Traffic in the Contract Section and then as a member of the Appeals Board for the War Department Board of Contract Adjustment. After the war ended, Davis returned to private practice until 1933 when he joined the ranks of the National Recovery Administration, first as Deputy Administrator and later as National Compliance Director. After the demise of the NRA, he was appointed by President Roosevelt to the Committee of Industrial Analysis to evaluate the NRA experiment. In 1937, he served as a member of a Presidential Emergency Board under the Railway Labor Act. The following year, the president sent Davis and others to Great Britain and Sweden to study industrial relations in those countries. That same year Davis became the first Chairman of the New York State Mediation Board.
After the start of World War II, Davis became Vice Chairman of the National Defense Mediation Board (with Clarence Dykstra serving as Chairman) and later became the Chairman of the National War Labor Board after it was established on January 12, 1942. While serving as the Vice-Chairman of the National Defense Mediation Board, Davis took on the difficult Allis-Chalmers strike case and settled it within four days.
Toward the end of the war, Davis was appointed Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization, only to leave the position in September of 1945 amid much controversy regarding a supposed statement he had made concerning wages. Davis insisted that the statement was falsely reported. After returning to private practice, Davis took part-time assignments for the government. He was chairman of the Patent Panel of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Atomic Energy Labor Relations Panel, and the Special Commission for Rubber Research (under the National Science Foundation). He also took part in the Kheel Committee, the group of lawyers who fought to help Martin Luther King, Jr. when the state of Alabama took him to court, and the New York Hospital Strike of 1959.
Davis was a founder and member of the Board of Trustees of the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York. He also served as chairman for The New School of Social Research and was active in the Cornell Labor Relations Institute. Davis was chairman of the Twentieth Century Fund Labor Committee and actively participated in the United Nations Mediation Study. He also held membership on the boards of directors of the National Recreation Association, Sydenham Hospital, the Council on Foreign Relations, and numerous other organizations. He remained active both in these organizations and as a lawyer until his death in 1964.
