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Matthew M. Levy

American lawyer and politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ133049865 ↗
Source-derived summary

Matthew Malitz Levy (March 1, 1899 – September 4, 1971) was a Polish-born Jewish American lawyer, politician and judge who served as a justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1951 until his death in 1971. He previously served as a special assistant attorney general in 1927 and 1937, then was appointed a judge of the New York City Municipal Court by mayor Fiorello La Guardia, serving in 1938.

Biography

Matthew Malitz Levy was born on March 1, 1899, in Brest-Litovsk, Congress Poland, the fourth of eight children. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1903, settling in Savannah, Georgia. He first became interested in the law as a youth, skipping school to go to the courthouse and watch Confederate veteran and judge Peter Meldrim. After graduating high school, he enrolled in the University of Georgia, but paused his studies to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War I. Upon returning home, he earned degrees from Georgia in 1919 and Harvard Law School in 1922 before moving to New York City, where he met his wife Pearl Gold Spivak.

Levy settled in the Bronx, where he worked as a labor lawyer and became law partners with former Socialist judge Jacob Panken. Levy himself had been politically active since his time at Harvard, where he was a member of the university's Liberal Union. He campaigned for Progressive Senator Robert M. La Follette in the 1924 presidential election, then for Socialist Norman Thomas in the 1928 and 1932 presidential elections.

Levy entered electoral politics as a Socialist, running unsuccessfully for State Supreme Court in 1934.

Editorial summary

“Matthew M. Levy” enters the record as american lawyer and politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Matthew, Levy and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1899, 1971, 1951, 1927—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1899-03-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Matthew, Levy and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Matthew M. Levy” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Matthew, Levy and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q133049865. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1971, 1951 and 1927.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Matthew M. Levy”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Matthew M. Levy primary sources, Matthew M. Levy archive and Matthew research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Matthew M. Levy”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Matthew M. Levy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.