Born in 1898, Read served in the US Army Air Service during World War I, returning at age 20 to start a wholesale produce business in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company was initially successful but eventually went out of business; as a biographical sketch by FEE puts it: “[Read] realized that the market was trying to tell him that peddling groceries was a misuse of his unique talents.” (Opitz, Edmund A. “Leonard E. Read: A Portrait.” Foundation for Economic Education, 1 Sept. 1998). Read then moved to California and got a job at the Chamber of Commerce in a small town near San Francisco. He advanced in the US Chamber of Commerce organization, eventually becoming general manager of the Los Angeles branch, America’s largest at the time, in 1939.

During this period, Read’s views became increasingly libertarian as he heard business owners’ complaints about the unintended consequences of New Deal policies. Read’s religious beliefs reinforced these views. His pastor at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, where Read served as a board member, actively campaigned against the progressive “social gospel” professed by some New Deal proponents, which sought to apply Christian ethics to social-justice issues like economic inequality and racial oppression.