Elbert Henry Gary (October 8, 1846 – August 15, 1927) was an American lawyer, county judge and business executive.

While he was working as a young corporate attorney for railroads and other clients in the years after the Great Chicago Fire, Gary was elected president of Wheaton three times, and when it became a city in 1892 he served as its first mayor for two terms.

In 1898 he became president of Federal Steel Corporation in Chicago, which included a barbed wire business, and retired from his law practice.

In November 1904, with a government suit looming, Gary approached President Roosevelt with a deal: cooperation in exchange for preferential treatment.

Roosevelt accepted this "gentlemen's agreement" because it met his interest in accommodating the modern industrial order while maintaining his public image as slayer of the trusts.

By 1923, however, he was the leader in building a big-business coalition to stop a widespread movement to impose strict restrictions on immigration, especially from Eastern and Southern Europe.

He told the National Association of Manufacturers that the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 was wrongheaded because "restrictions upon immigration should be directed to the question of quality rather than numbers."

[6] The first indication that his illness was affecting him came in May 1923, when Gary became faint while addressing the semi-annual meeting of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).

In 1914 he was made chairman of the committee appointed by the Mayor of New York, John Purroy Mitchel, to study the question of unemployment and its relief.

Through his connection with a business essential to producing munitions of war, he exerted great influence in bringing about cooperation between the government and industry.

In 1919, he was invited by President Woodrow Wilson to attend the Industrial Conference in Washington, and took a prominent part in it as a firm upholder of the "open shop", of which he was always a strong advocate.