Herbert's father arrived from Rimpar, Germany, in 1848, settling in Montgomery, Alabama, where he engaged in the slave-era cotton business.

[2] After college, Lehman worked in textile manufacturing, eventually becoming vice-president and treasurer of the J. Spencer Turner Company in Brooklyn.

[citation needed] At the start of World War I, Lehman applied to attend a Citizens' Military Training Camp at Plattsburgh Barracks, New York.

While with the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General Staff as Chief of the Purchase Branch, member of the Board of Contract Adjustment, Chairman of the Advisory Board on Sales and Contract Termination, Member of the War Department Claims Board, and Assistant Director of Purchase, Storage, and Traffic, General Staff, Colonel Lehman's large business experience, breadth of vision, and sound judgment have been of inestimable value in formulating and in supervising the execution of the methods and policies followed in the cancellation of war contracts and obligations and in the settlement and adjustment of terminated obligations.

Elements of this program included an unemployment insurance system, an improved workmen's compensation plan, minimum wage standards for women and children,[2] and a "Little Wagner Act" to cover workers engaged in intrastate commerce.

[5] In 1934, Lehman refused to grant clemency to Anna Antonio, an Italian immigrant who was accused of hiring hitmen to kill her husband, who she claimed was abusive.

In October 1941, Lillian Hellman and Ernest Hemingway co-hosted a dinner to raise money for anti-Nazi activists imprisoned in France.

New York Governor Herbert Lehman agreed to participate, but withdrew because some of the sponsoring organizations, he wrote, "have long been connected with Communist activities."

On December 3, 1942, he resigned the governorship less than a month before the end of his term, to accept an appointment as director of the Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations for the U.S. Department of State.

Senator from New York in 1946 and also ran on the Liberal and American Labor tickets but was defeated by the Republican candidate, Irving Ives.

Lehman defeated John Foster Dulles, who had been appointed to temporarily fill the vacancy after Wagner's resignation, and he took his seat on November 9, 1949.

[6] On October 17, 1950, New York State Supreme Court Judge Ferdinand Pecora and Senator Lehman (D-NY) gave radio addresses on behalf of the CIO-PAC during prime (10:30-11:15 P.M.).

[7] In the campaign, he ran on the Democratic and Liberal tickets, with the American Labor Party urging their members not to vote for any candidate.

[8] After his retirement from the Senate, Lehman remained politically active, working with Eleanor Roosevelt and Thomas K. Finletter in the late 1950s and early 1960s to support the reform Democratic movement in Manhattan that eventually defeated longtime Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio.