Al Smith

A Tammany-trained New Yorker who left school young, Smith served four terms as governor in the 1920s and modernised the state: an executive budget, consolidation of over 180 agencies into about 20 departments, factory safety laws following the Triangle fire inquiry, and public parks and housing. He was the first Catholic major-party presidential nominee in 1928 and lost heavily amid anti-Catholic prejudice. Many New Deal ideas and staff, including Frances Perkins and Robert Moses, came from his administration.