Herman Toll (March 15, 1907July 26, 1967) from 1959 to 1967 served Pennsylvania as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He supported the civil rights movement, and sponsored legislation to create several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Urban Affairs and Housing. Life and career Born in Bohuslav, a city about 60 miles southeast of Kyiv in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine), Toll immigrated with his family to the United States around 1910. He graduated from Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania without a college degree (not a requirement at the time); he started practicing law in 1930. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, Philadelphia Housing Association, B'nai B'rith and the board of directors of the Crusader Savings & Loan Association. In 1950 he was elected to the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives, where he served as vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee and helped secure passage of the first Fair Employment Practices law in the state. He was re-elected in 1952, 1954 and 1956. Tenure Rep. Toll was elected in 1958 as a Democrat to the United States Congress, becoming the first Jewish representative of the sixth Congressional district of Pennsylvania. He was re-elected three times—the final two times to represent the fourth Congressional district—and served until shortly before his death in 1967. In his first term he was named a member of the House Judiciary Committee as well as of its Subcommittee on Immigration and Nationality. Toward the end of his third term Rep. Toll was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Unable to campaign aggressively, he nevertheless easily won a fourth term; due to illness he would serve in absentia without making an appearance in the House. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1966 and he died the following year at the age of 60. A supporter of civil rights during his time in Congress, Rep. Toll exchanged at least one letter with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In Rep. Toll's February 19, 1964 reply he promises that he will "continue to work for the strongest possible Civil Rights legislation at the earliest possible date." Contemporaries described Rep. Toll as intelligent, articulate, hard-working and passionate about politics, though his personality was not naturally outgoing. A short biography by Milton Friedman in The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, which appeared in 1959 shortly