Left-Wing Political Activist and Progressive Leader in the Berkeley Co-op

Introductory Materials

Legal Information

This manuscript is made available primarily for research purposes. All literary rights in this manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Berkeley Historical Society. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Coordinator of the Berkeley Oral History Project of the Berkeley Historical Society.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Berkeley Historical Society, P.O. Box 1190, Berkeley, California 94701, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.

Donors to the Treuhaft Oral History

This interview was transcribed with financial assistance from Mrs. Lyn White, in memory of her late husband, Clinton White; Robert E. Treuhaft and other private donors; The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley; and the Berkeley Historical Society.

Introduction

The Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley (CCB) Oral History Collection has been growing in the past several years. This was due mainly to the CCB's Fiftieth Anniversary in 1987, as well as to its unfortunate demise in the year that followed. We have received private donations over the past year which allowed us to transcribe a number of taped oral histories about the CCB.

Selection of additional narrators involved careful consideration and research. For instance, we chose to cover the Consumer Protection Movement of the 1960s-70s, and interviewed appropriate persons representing that component, including Helen Nelson, the first Consumer Counsel of California; and Eva Goodwin, who served on the Consumer Information and Protection Committee of the CCB. We also interviewed additional leaders and pioneers of the CCB, including George Yasukochi, who was the Controller for many years. The transcript of the William T. (Zack) Brown interview was published earlier this year.

Among those involved in the more progressive activities of the CCB, we decided that attorney Robert Treuhaft would be a valuable resource person. We included his point of view, that of a progressive leader, on the grape boycott of the late 1960s and its impact on the Berkeley Co-op, the buying of the Sid's Stores and expansion of the Co-op, his relationship with other Co-op leaders, the business angle of the Co-op, Jerry Voorhis and Associated Co-ops, and the Bay Area Funeral Society, during and after its affiliation with the Co-op. The occasional mention he makes of his wife, author Jessica Mitford, in rela- tion to a number of situations, brings an added dimension to this transcript.

Interviewer Robert Larsen, an experienced oral historian, was industrious, and brought out a wealth of added information about Mr. Treuhaft's fascinating life and leftist activities. Larsen describes some of the details in the Interview History. He also produced the Index to the transcript, edited by Linda Rosen; William F. Taylor reviewed the manuscript; and Lauren Lassleben, Frances Gold Brown, Naomi Shore, and Jo Anne Stefanska did the final proofreading. Georgia McDaniel and Pam Fabry helped design the artwork.

We are pleased to add the Robert Treuhaft interview to the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley Oral History Collection. We hope that researchers and interested readers will find this oral history both stimulating and of value historically.

Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley Oral History Collection

Berkeley Historical Society

July 1997

Tauno Arvi Ahonen: A Finnish Pioneer of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley (1983)

Eugene Mannila: A Finnish Pioneer of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley (1983)

Catherine Best Nollenberger: The Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley: Its Founding and Philosophy (1983)

Margaret Shaughnessy Gordon: Past President of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, Research Economist, and Community Leader (1984)

Master's thesis on Co-op activist and pioneer Arvid Nelson,"Arvid Nelson: A Rare Kind of Finn," by Allan Nelson. California State University, Sonoma

Laurie Lehtin: A Finnish Leader's Perspective on the Cooperative Movement (1987)

William Taylor (Zack) Brown: A Discussion of His Life in Berkeley City Politics and in the Consumer Cooperative Movement (1989

Robert E. Treuhaft: Left Wing Political Activist and Progressive Leader in the Berkeley Co-op (1990)

Matthew (Matt) Crawford: Reflections on the Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union of Berkeley (1993)

A Conversation with George Yasukochi: Controller of Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, 1956-1982 (1995)

Robert Neptune: Pioneer Manager of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, and Long-Term Manager at Associated Cooperatives (1996)

Betsy Rannells Wood: A Home Economist's Perspective on the Berkeley Co-op (1996)

For information about any of these oral history transcripts, please contact:

Berkeley Historical Society
P.O. Box 1190
Berkeley, CA 94701
Telephone: (510) 848-0181

Interview History

Robert E. Treuhaft was initially selected to participate in the Berkeley Oral History Project of the Berkeley Historical Society because he had been a member of the Board of Directors of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley, and would therefore offer a unique perspective on the activities of the Berkeley Co-op. His wife, Jessica Mitford (Decca Treuhaft), is a prominent author and personality. A chronicle of her involvement in social issues and in the Communist party is found in her book, A Fine Old Conflict. This work includes many anecdotes and descriptions of her husband's activities up to the time of publication in 1977.

In discussing the interview procedure with Bob Treuhaft prior to the interviews, I found that Bob Treuhaft had been involved in a number of other events and activities in the Bay Area that would be of interest to historians and the public: the Jerry Newson trial, Treuhaft's campaign for District Attorney of Alameda County, founding of the Bay Area Funeral Society, House Un-American Activities Committee, and a number of observations about union activities. The interviews were expanded to include the narrator's intimate knowledge of the events and the people who played a part in them.

Seven interviews were completed at his residence in Oakland, California between October 6, 1988 and January 30, 1989. All of the interviews except one were an hour in length. Bob Treuhaft often prepared for an interview by referring to scrap books and other materials he has accumulated, relating to the events to be discussed.

He is an articulate, knowledgeable, complex and humorous man, and an excellent story teller. Many of his comments were entertaining and had historical value. Decca was often present in the home, but she did not participate or listen to the interviews, preferring to let Bob tell his own story in his own way. Bob's son, Benjamin, arrived at the home near the end of the interview concerning the Jerry Newson trial. Benjamin seemed very interested in the story being told, and contributed two spontaneous questions of his own at the end of that interview.

As the interviewer, I compared the transcript of the interviews to the tape recording for accuracy. Section headings and paragraph structure were added. Bob Treuhaft read the transcript for accuracy, and made many minor corrections and additions. Therese Pipe edited the transcript to conform to Berkeley Historical Society oral history style.

Treuhaft contributed pictures from his own collection, but as he commented to me, he was more often the picture taker, not the subject of pictures. I prepared the index and the table of contents.

This oral history is a fascinating narrative of a life spent in working for social change, with recognition of the personal cost to the narrator that this approach took. Bob Treuhaft was candid in the telling of both successes and failures, which resulted in an interesting and refreshing oral history.

The Interviewer

Robert G. Larsen is a manager for the Contra Costa County Social Service Department. He holds graduate degrees in psychology and public administration. He grew up in Albany, California, and currently resides in Moraga, California.

He has completed oral histories of family members, the Eva Goodwin oral history for the Berkeley Historical Society, and is currently working with a colleague, Isabelle Maynard, on a series of oral histories of social work practitioners in the Bay Area. These are available to researchers in the Heller Reading Room of The Bancroft Library, at the University of California, Berkeley.

About this text
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4x0nb0bf&brand=calisphere
Title: Left-Wing Political Activist and Progressive Leader in the Berkeley Co-op
By:  Robert E. Treuhaft, Creator, Robert G. Larsen, Interviewer
Date: 1988-1989
Contributing Institution:  University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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