August Heckscher II


August Heckscher II was an American public intellectual and author whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Woodrow Wilson.

Early life

Heckscher was born in Huntington on Long Island on September 16, 1913. He was the son of Gustave Maurice Heckscher and Frances Louise Vanderhoef. His parents divorced in 1927 and his mother remarried to John M. P. Thatcher in 1931. His brother was Gustave Maurice Heckscher, Jr.
He was also the grandson of capitalist August Heckscher, who emigrated from Germany in 1867. His maternal grandfather was Harmon B. Vanderhoef.
He attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He graduated from Yale in 1936 and later received a master's degree in government from Harvard University.

Career

During World War II, he worked for the Office of the Coordinator of Information in Washington as well as the Office of Strategic Services in North Africa. In addition, he worked with the United States at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in 1945.
In 1962, he began his service as the first White House Special Consultant on the Arts as the coordinator of cultural matters appointed by President John F. Kennedy. He was in this role until 1963.
In 1967, he was appointed by New York City Mayor John Lindsay as Parks Commissioner of New York City, succeeding Thomas Hoving, who left to become the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His tenure as Commissioner was noted for the 1967 concert in the park by Barbra Streisand, which was attended by 250,000 people, the first New York City Marathon, which was held in Central Park in 1970, and a number of very large-scale antiwar demonstrations, in the park, for which permits were issued. He resigned as Commissioner in 1972.

Personal life

In 1941, Heckscher was married to Claude Chevreux. Claude was the daughter of Charles Chevreux of Clermont-Ferrand, France, the Prefect of the Puy-de-Dôme at Clermont-Ferrand and formerly of the French legation in Algeria and French Morocco. As her parents could not attend the wedding, she was given away by her cousin, Pierre Landrieu. Together, they were the parents of:
Heckscher died on April 5, 1997 at New York Hospital. His widow, Claude, died in 2008.