Education
He graduated with his law degree in 1872.
He graduated with his law degree in 1872.
He was Secretary of Commerce and Labor during President William Howard Taft"s administration (1909–1913). Born August 9, 1849, in Colorado County, Texas, to Hermann and Friedericke Litzmann Nagel, Charles Nagel moved to a boarding school in Saint Louis, Missouri, for high school and stayed to study law at Washington University Law School. Nagel furthered his education by traveling to Europe and learning political economy at the University of Berlin.
Returning to Saint Louis in 1873, Nagel joined the state bar and began to practice law.
He was president of the Saint Louis city council from 1893 to 1897. Nagel was a corporate attorney for Adolphus Busch when President William Howard Taft chose him, in 1909, as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, a position he held until the end of the Taft administration in 1913.
He was the last person to serve in the post before it was separated to two cabinet positions, Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of Labor. While heading the Department of Commerce and Labor, Nagel made it more accessible to the needs of businessmen while also expanding the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization.
Following his time in the cabinet, Nagel returned to the practice of law, arguing before the Supreme Court three times before his death.
He died in Saint Louis, Missouri on January 5, 1940 and was interred there in Bellefontaine Cemetery. Nagel was married twice: first, in 1876, to Fannie Brandeis, the sister of Louis Dembitz Brandeis, later a Supreme Court justice. He had six children, including Charles Nagel, Junior., an architect and curator.
He was a member of the firm Finkelnburg, Nagel and Kirby, and later of Nagel and Kirby. He also taught at Saint Louis Law School (1885–1909) and was a member of the Republican National Committee (1908–1912).