Brain Trust

The "Brain Trust" was the name given to a group of diverse academics who served as advisers to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the early period of his tenure. The group acted as an informal Cabinet and was first suggested in March 1932 by Roosevelt's legal counsel Samuel Rosenman. The Brain Trust included Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and Adolf Berle of Columbia University, attorney Basil O'Connor, economist Bernard Baruch and later Felix Frankfurter of Harvard Law School (who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Roosevelt in 1939). These men played a key role in shaping the New Deal for relief from the Great Depression, and although they never met together as a group after Roosevelt's inauguration, most of them served in official posts during his presidency. This group of men inspired many of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies leading to the legislation, but the credit for those ideas still lies with President Roosevelt.