A Well-Read Woman

At the University of Washington, Ruth had considered majoring in sociology; it seems clear she stuck with that plan at Berkeley, enrolling in two sociology classes her first semester. Berkeley’s Department of Sociology and Social Institutions was considered an upstart, having only been founded in 1946. Although a Department of Social Institutions had existed since 1923, the faculty was opposed to the concept of sociology as a discipline. Under the leadership of Herbert Blumer, who arrived to be the new chair in 1952, it became the number-one-ranked sociology department in the country by 1966.6 She received Bs and Cs in these sociology classes her first semester, but an A in French.

It appears she did not initially seek out a job to support herself. But paying out-of-state tuition at Berkeley was costly, and the following summer she knew she had to start earning money. In July she obtained a position with the army as a typist and punch-card operator for mainframe computers at San Francisco’s Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, working a night shift. In 1947 President Truman had signed Executive Order 9,835, a preemptive measure to ensure the loyalty (and heterosexuality) of all federal employees. Truman had been accused of being soft on Communism, so his solution was to convince the public that this order would take care of the problem. Besides the creation of a Loyalty Review Board, it also led to the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations, which included not only Communist organizations and fronts but also the KKK and Nazi groups.

This executive order meant that after she was hired by the army, Ruth would have to undergo a name check to verify that she had no Communist sympathies. Over 4.5 million federal employees were investigated from 1947 to 1958 under the order. Of these, 27,000 required a full investigation, and 378 were dismissed for disloyalty.7 Perhaps Ruth was confident that despite her questionable political activities and associations, no one could prove that she had ever advocated for Communism. Her work for Lowenthal would have certainly prepared her to know exactly what was coming.

The FBI began an investigation of Ruth, but in her file there is no mention of her work with Max Lowenthal or her relationship with Viktor. What was a huge red flag to the investigators was a brief part of Ruth’s activist life in Seattle when she addressed the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC) in the spring of 1945.8 Edward Barsky, one of the founders of the organization, had joined the Communist Party in 1935, and other members may have been Communists as well. The group ended up on the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations in 1947 and became a top enemy of J. Edgar Hoover. The organization refused to hand over its records to the House Un-American Activities Committee and spent years unsuccessfully fighting for its right to exist as an organization. By the mid-1950s the organization had disbanded, and Barsky and other members had served jail time; his career as a doctor was over.9

Besides speaking at these events, Ruth had also unsuccessfully applied for a secretarial job at the organization’s Seattle branch. According to her FBI file, “The appointee was not considered for the position because it was feared her sympathies were not entirely in accord with those of the organization.” In other words, Ruth was not Communist enough, or even one at all, for this so-called front organization. Even so, FBI agents in Seattle were ordered to begin investigating Ruth for subversive activities based on her involvement with JAFRC.

More information about Ruth’s time in Seattle trickled back to FBI headquarters in December 1951. May Goldsmith, executive secretary of the Jewish Welfare Society, provided a list of individuals for whom the society could vouch as Jewish refugees who were not Communist sympathizers. Luckily, Ruth was included in the list.10 Immigration and Naturalization Service records in Seattle were checked. The name of Ruth’s uncle, Carl Rubinstein, had been put on the JAFRC’s donor list, which had been taken from a list of donors to the Seattle Symphony, although he never gave any money to the group. Her uncle Abe was also contacted by the Seattle agents. He gave a lengthy explanation of Ruth’s background in Germany and her parents’ deaths:

He said that as a result of this personal loss and her first-hand observation of the Nazi treatment of non-Arians and others, the appointee came to hate Fascists. He said the appointee is definitely anti-Fascist in her sympathies but certainly not in the same sense that Communists are anti-Fascists . . . He said it is altogether possible the appointee may have participated in any anti-Fascist movement or organization without knowing or considering the identity or purpose of the sponsors of that movement.11

Her cousin Sam was interviewed and claimed he didn’t know Ruth well enough to make any statements about her loyalty. The owner of The Transcript, her coworker at the Medina Baby Home, and two acquaintances were also questioned, all agreeing that while Ruth hated Fascists, she was no Communist. The report concluded, “In view of the foregoing, it appears little basis exists for a full-field investigation.”12

In a January 1952 memo from J. Edgar Hoover to the chief of staff of the army, he explained what had

been discovered in Seattle. Disagreeing with the Seattle office’s conclusion, he also noted that Ruth had lived in Europe and Israel recently and was born in Germany, more red flags to him. The army was to take responsibility of this full-field investigation outside the US. The FBI would take care of the domestic half of Ruth’s case.13 What exactly would this investigation entail? The number of people contacted and the breadth of locations is staggering for one lowly army base typist, and it reveals the extraordinary resources the FBI and military put into these Loyalty Board reviews. It is probably not a stretch to say that in the early 1950s, every person in the United States was either being investigated or questioned about someone being investigated.

It all started with a search through the FBI’s Identification Division, the system Hoover had dreamed of while working at the Library of Congress from 1913 to 1917. Every US citizen would be identified in a main card catalog, with cross-references to other file groups. Without the work of careful and consistent cross-referencing, the FBI’s massive intelligence system would have never grown so large and efficient.14 When the clerk checked for Ruth’s name, it was already in this system, number 965 279 A. She had been given another number, 2374605, when she registered as an alien in 1940. A new number, 12.52.22573, had been assigned to her on October 1, 1951, likely the date that this investigation began. On every sheet of Ruth’s eighty-two-page file was another number, sometimes stamped, sometimes scrawled: 121-3452, the code for the FBI headquarters. At the bottom of every page in her file, or sometimes all across the page, was a hodgepodge of initials, stamps, dates, and signatures by who knows how many bureaucrats that had come into contact with Ruth’s file.

The first to be interviewed for the full-field investigation was William Bauman, Ruth’s former boss at Grunbaum’s Furniture Company in Seattle, now in Chicago. He could barely remember Ruth. Next, a special agent verified Ruth’s status as a student at Berkeley. A blacked-out name revealed the trouble Ruth had in the fall of 1952: “[Name withheld] stated that the appointee had dropped her classes due to extreme pressure caused by necessary employment hours and class work. [Name withheld] advised that she has had three discussions with the appointee and volunteered that she considers the appointee emotionally unstable and disorganized.”15

Seven of Ruth’s current and former coworkers in San Francisco were interviewed. Lynn Atterman had worked with Ruth at the Zionist Organization of America in 1947, and the two had become close friends, corresponding for many years. In her letters to Atterman, Ruth had detailed her relationship with Viktor, and although she probably hadn’t explicitly said he was a Communist, she had explained he was from Prague and was “stuck behind the Iron Curtain.” Ruth had also explained her job with Max Lowenthal to Atterman, but Atterman only reported that Ruth had never discussed Communism and that she would never doubt Ruth’s loyalty. One current coworker at the army base stated that whereas Ruth admired a kibbutz in Israel that practiced “true Marxism,” she had also said that Stalin’s regime was the same as Hitler’s. Besides the coworkers, six of Ruth’s landlords (including two married couples), a neighbor, and a friend from Berkeley were interviewed in San Francisco.

In Seattle two of her listed references for the army job were also contacted, in addition to thirteen more friends and former colleagues. All of them repeated the same refrain: while Ruth hated Fascists, she was no Communist. In addition to checking all her school and university records, the FBI contacted a local credit bureau and the police to see if Ruth had any records. Another reference in Cleveland, Spencer Irwin, a journalist she had briefly worked for in Tel Aviv, was also questioned. Next, investigators from New York contacted Ethel Waugh, a literary agent whom Ruth had worked for there. Waugh was the only New York employer Ruth had listed on her army employment application, despite the fact that she had worked for many different people there, including Lowenthal. The investigators interviewed seven of Ruth’s landlords, friends, and Zionist colleagues in New York. Local Communist informants stated they hadn’t heard of her. Memos from the spring of 1952 indicated that investigations were conducted in London, Rome, Paris, and Israel, but apparently only the Paris records survived. On April 24, 1952, Ruth passed the investigation and was deemed “eligible on loyalty.”16

After all this, it’s hard to understand why Ruth would want to work for the federal government, much less the army. She hadn’t much enjoyed serving in the Israeli army or working for the government there. She hated bureaucracy, but with the large growth in civilian military jobs after World War II, and particularly with the growth of opportunities for women, perhaps she knew that once she was approved by Hoover himself, the army and the federal government could always be a career option for her.

Chapter 22

On March 10, 1952, Ruth was driving home from her job at the army base when she was hit by an oncoming car. It was reported the next day in the Oakland Tribune: “The accident occurred on the 22nd Street overpass leading from Oakland Army Base to the Bay Bridge approach lanes. Miss Rappaport was taken to Cowell Memorial Hospital with fractured ribs and face cuts. A passenger in Gibbs’ car, Clydel Kingsberry, of 1454 Ninth Street, also suffered face cuts. Gibbs was cited for driving on the wrong side, excessive speed, and no operator’s license.”1

Two months later Ruth received a letter from the doctors and nurses at the hospital, thanking her for the candy she sent them to thank them for their good care.2 This accident was the beginning of a string of bad luck. Sometime in the 1950s Ruth also was a victim of a home fire.3 She apparently also had a gambling habit and admittedly wasted her tuition money in Reno.4 These problems interfered with her ability to stay focused on her schoolwork, and throughout her time at Berkeley she either failed or had to withdraw from many of her classes. But despite these setbacks, Ruth was determined to earn her college degree, no matter how long it took.

In March 1954 Ruth quit her job at the army base.5 Working nights had proved too exhausting. She took on a few positions as a research assistant and secretary for several professors. She worked as a housekeeper too, as blogger Bill Hess reported many years later when describing Ruth’s relationship with cats over the years:

For a time she worked as a live-in housekeeper in Berkeley, California in a home owned by a Siamese cat. “The only place that cat wanted to do its business was inside my alligator shoes,” Ruth grumbles, more than half a century later. Ruth wanted her own room to be a pleasant place, and so she put some beautiful drapes up on the windows. The cat sneaked into her room and tore the drapes to shreds. Ruth put up another set. Again, the cat played its mischief upon them, leaving them in tatters. Again Ruth tried, with the same result.6

Ruth knew she couldn’t continue with this series of temporary and dead-end jobs. She took the Strong Vocational Interest Test for Women, developed by Edward K. Strong of Stanford University. Her scores indicated that the top four professions she showed interest in were lawyer, social worker, psychologist, and librarian. Her score on the femininity-masculinity scale reveals that her general interests were more masculine than the average woman. Strong advised the test takers, “Remember also this is a test of your interests. Your abilities must also be considered. Interests point the way you want to go, abilities determine how well you can progress.”7

In January 1957, after a sporadic eight years as a part-time student (including at the University of Washington), Ruth finally graduated from Berkeley with her bachelor of arts in sociology and a minor in “Oriental Studies.” It appears she was still unsure about her professional future. She spent the next few months working around Berkeley as a freelance translator, researcher, and editor for faculty and graduate students. Over the summer, she worked as the assistant to the regional director of the American Zionist Council, where she probably had secretarial duties similar to those she had in so many other jobs.8 In May she sent a letter to the American Library Association, asking for information about the library profession and entrance requirements to library schools. She also sent letters to eight library schools asking for application information and course catalogs.9

She wrote to one of her former sociology professors, Wolfram Eberhard, a specialist in Chinese folklore and a native of Germany who had left in the 1930s to escape pressure to join the Nazi Party.10 She wrote, “After thinking the matter over very carefully I finally decided that although Sociology will always be my primary interest, for the time being at least, getting a Master’s degree in Librarianship might be more practical for me and more easily feasible than continuing my studies in the field of Sociology, and so I am applying to the School of Librarianship.”11 She asked him for a recommendation letter to both the University of Washington’s and Berkeley’s library schools.

A letter in Ruth’s archives seems almost apologetic about her desire to go to library school. It was “practical” and “more easily feasible” than pursuing sociology. Would she have rather pursued a graduate program in sociology? If so, what was holding her back? Perhaps she was aware of the sexism that women professors and graduate students faced in the 1950s or thought her grades were not good enough to get into a graduate program. They were good enough for library school, though. Libraries were on a hiring binge in the 1950s and ’60s as college and university libraries greatly expanded, and the rapid growth of publications in all fields created a deluge difficult for catalogers to keep up with. Considered pink-collar professionals since the late 1800s, white women librarians did not face discrimination in hiring except at the management level. If she could get her master’s in librarianship, Ruth would not have much trouble finding a job.

The following essay was also part of the University of Washington collec

tion:

XI. Autobiographical Essay

While never directly employed by a library or in library work, much of my previous working experience has brought me in close contact with libraries and their various facilities and personnel. Since childhood I have been an avid reader, and perhaps because of my experiences living in Nazi Germany, where books were burned and banned, I have had a profound feeling and respect for books and their value all my life. The experience of attending a private Jewish school under the Nazi regime and a subsequent one-year stay in Switzerland while waiting to migrate to the United States have made me further conscious of the value of books as a tool for education. I can truthfully say that the most memorable point of my stay in Switzerland was access to libraries and books which opened for me a whole world of new ideas that had been strictly taboo in Germany. Undoubtedly these teenage impressions account for my deep-rooted interest in education and by extension my wanting a profession that in some manner aids education. In my sociological studies, where my interests centered on so-called underdeveloped areas, I was again and again struck by the importance of the printed word and its dissemination. These thoughts have also become reinforced both in my travels abroad and in discussion with visiting educators and other travelers from abroad. As archivist for the Israel Government, though perhaps formally rather poorly prepared, I realized that I was temperamentally suited for this type of work and received much satisfaction from it. My research assistantship with Professor Brady, which necessitated daily work in libraries, strengthened this conviction, not only because of my enjoyment in the work but also because of the comments I received from workers in the field on my adaptability and suitability. Perhaps I can restate this sketchy outline in this manner.

Proceeding from the premise that two of the most important factors in choosing a profession are doing work that is worthwhile, satisfying, interesting and stimulating on the one hand, and on the other, being able to contribute something to the job; having accepted education in its widest sense as a primary value; and recognizing my deep and abiding love of books, it only seems natural to think in terms of librarianship as a career goal. Having travelled widely; being conversant in four languages and intending to study one or two more; and considering my research experience with two authors as well as information work for the Government of Israel, I feel that I have something to give to this type of work above and beyond mere academic training. This would include a certain facility for the administration and organization of work. I am not only interested in books, but also in people and peoples. My career goal in long-range terms, after receiving my formal training and necessary library experience, is directed towards helping to build libraries in some of the underdeveloped areas. By helping build libraries I am specifically thinking of helping establish certain services that have proven so effective and useful in the United States and are not established in other countries, as for example, reference services, which I feel would offer an excellent opportunity to apply one’s skill of working with books and people.

I am fully aware that there are many people with greater intellectual or academic achievements than myself, but I do feel that my administrative and organizational abilities may in certain fields of librarianship compensate for some such lack. Furthermore, I feel that my academic record does not truly reflect my academic aptitude because I was fully self-supporting during my undergraduate studies. Lastly I feel that the moral and financial rewards offered by this profession would give me a totally satisfying career and life.12