Interview with Max Leopold, March 21, 1976, San Diego, California

Partial Transcript: Warren Green's call to Ben Minkoff, logistical problems in interviewing Max Leopold, Leopold's age, possibility of Leopold having relatives who know Minkoff.

Partial Transcript: Date of birth, date of arrival in America, place of birth, synagogue in Milwaukee on 30th Street, religious affiliation in San Diego.

Partial Transcript: The rabbis ML knows in San Diego, activity with Jewish Center in San Diego, date of arrival in California, reasons for moving out, Wisconsin Jewish farmers living in SD, the Garber boys.

Partial Transcript: Frank Garber and the Lubovitcher rabbi, (1920's?) Frank Garber's generosity, his son, Vernon, and his business in Wisconsin Rapids, Alvin Garber, shechet and chazzan at the Arpin agricultural settlement in Wood County, Wisconsin, ML as Arpin's justice of the peace, 1918-1952.

Partial Transcript: Election, correspondence course in law

Partial Transcript: Arrival in Milwaukee in 1904, purchasing land at Arpin, reasons for going into farming, previous interest in farming in the Old Country near Baku, cousin, a carpenter, and his introduction of ML to hard physical work, rarity of this among Jews at the time.

Partial Transcript: ML's advantages in comparison with other Jewish farmers, help of the county agent, technical advances ML used, number of Jewish families, reasons (given in Yiddish) for departure of Jewish families, general lack of knowledge about farming among Jewish agricultural settlers, financial support from Jewish Agricultural Society--Baron de Hirsch Fund and A.W. Rich, Milwaukee businessman, size of the settlement, expenses.

Partial Transcript: The problems of virgin land, lack of knowledge of agricultural techniques, proper use of tools, more on settlement chronology, working in Milwaukee in the winter, Arpin in the summer, digression on cemetery in San Diego.

Partial Transcript: Moving to Arpin full-time after World War I, clearing land of stumps, high quality of the land, why Jews became good farmers, the significance of being first on the land, listening to the County agent, private smallholding, not communal farming.

Partial Transcript: About ML's second wife and the death of his first wife, more about dates of residence at Arpin and in San Diego, careers and location of children.

Partial Transcript: Length of study, reasons for not taking bar examination, difficulties with the Latin alphabet, pronunciation, Rumanian and English pronunciation of legal terms, election as justice of the peace and surrounding circumstances, more on Arpin chronology.

Partial Transcript: Extent of ML's involvement with the Progressive Party on county-wide and state-wide basis, state conventions, acquaintance with Solomon Levitan, Jews in the Progressive Party, ML's candidacy for state senate seat and Jewish opposition to this, ML's defeat and antisemitism (1930's)--”We've got enough Jews running the country already”--ML's thick skin, the self-financed campaign, ML's anti-prohibitionism and his relatively good electoral results, the Laird family and Republican politics, anecdote on politics and free beer in a tavern.

Partial Transcript: The city girl agrees to live on the farm, and how she came to like the farm, her background, more on ownership of farms at Arpin.

Partial Transcript: Helping each other, the shul (synagogue), Jewish carpenters, collapse of the shul during a snowstorm, Jewish observance at the shul, Jewish charities in Milwaukee and initial financing of the shul, going to shul in Wisconsin Rapids after collapse of building in Arpin, the fate of the sefer torah, Madison Hillel, circumstances surrounding donation of sefer torah to B'nai B'rith in Madison.

Partial Transcript: Dates and places of birth, anecdote about lantern and chronological spacing of boy and girl children, Lawrence Weinstein and his father.

Partial Transcript: Learning aleph-beth from mother before she died, cheder, the only son, prowess in davening (chanted prayer), ancestors, more on L. Weinstein's relatives in Wisconsin.

Partial Transcript: Date of arrival, reasons for initially settling in Milwaukee, dates of residence (again).

Partial Transcript: Management of four feed warehouses, duration of job, circumstances surrounding ML's first election as co-op manager, lack of prejudice against Jews in the co-ops, lack of practical alternatives to the co-ops

Partial Transcript: Text of letter from Elizabeth Brandeis Rauschenbusch commemorating ML's contribution to the realization of a program of workmen's compensation in the state, the nation, role of Harold Groves.

Partial Transcript: ML's duties, area covered by the co-op, on buying feed and proceeds from the co-op.

Partial Transcript: Number of Jewish farmers, name of settlement, Arpin farmers and the Arpin Jewish Farmers, Jewish farmers as co-op members, Jews as founders of the co-ops, mistake in seeing Arpin as exclusively Jewish settlement, lack of Jewish girls and the breaking up of the Arpin settlement.

Partial Transcript: Prominent politicians and academicians in Wisconsin Progressive politics on committee for drafting pioneer unemployment compensation law of 1932, references to press reports from 1930's, the Rauschenbusch family, the first unemployment compensation payment, ML's role as farm representative on unemployment compensation committee.

Partial Transcript: Subsidiary role of Jewishness in the settlement.

Partial Transcript: Connection between falling employment and falling farm prices and farm welfare, salutary effect of urban unemployment compensation on farm life, difficulties in convincing the legislature that it should take a risk, how benefits are distributed between social groups, Robert La Follette, general lack of political activity among Jewish farmers at Arpin.

Partial Transcript: Unemployment, World War I and rising farm prices, lack of Jewish boys for Jewish girls in Arpin.

Partial Transcript: Leopold's sons and daughters and marriage to non-Jews, ML's reaction, number of children married to non-Jews, local boys, the right to do whatever one wants, the daughter who married a Jewish boy, marrying a good man, being tied down to the land, German non-Jews killed by Hitler and good relations with non-Jews, lack of Jewish education in later years, the rigors of being a lone Jew in Wisconsin.

Partial Transcript: Lack of interest in the early Arpin community, ML's personal interest.(Interlude with Mrs. Leopold). Kibbutzim, Arpin agriculture, and visit to Israel, “a good farmer is a good farmer all over the world,” co-ops in Israel, guided tours through Israel, the old part of Jerusalem, date of visit to Israel.

Partial Transcript: Cemetery director's position, former Arpin neighbors in San Diego and ML's relations with them, his last visit to Arpin, contacts with Wisconsin, minimal contact with descendants of Arpin's Jewish farmers.

Partial Transcript: Length of ML's involvement, overlapping memberships of co-ops and Wisconsin Farm Bureau, relative success of Illinois Farm Bureau compared with Wisconsin's, reasons for Wisconsin Farm Bureau's weakening by the Progressive movement, reactionaries in the Farm Bureau and a Jewish farmer, inconsistencies being in both Progressive Party and Wisconsin Farm Bureau, difference in character between National Farm Bureau Federation and Wisconsin Farm Bureau.