Louise R. Berman, social activist and philanthropist, was born in California, the only child of Abraham and Alice Rosenberg, descendants of Gold Rush pioneers. She was an heiress to Rosenberg Brothers and Company, one of the largest independent handlers of dried fruit in the country, which was started in 1893 by her father and his brothers, Adolph and Max Rosenberg. She attended Vassar and the University of California but left college in 1929 to marry Richard Bransten, a Hollywood film writer and owner of the leftist magazine, New Masses. They had one son, Thomas, born in 1931. They were divorced in 1937 and in 1947 she married Lionel Berman, a film maker from New York.
Throughout her life Louise Berman devoted her time and money to various left wing causes and organizations, most of which were California based. She was active in the campaigns to free labor leader Tom Mooney, the “Scottsboro boys,” and others that she considered to be unjustly accused of wrongdoing. She started a campaign which resulted in the hiring of blacks as street car motormen for the first time in San Francisco. A leader of the Democratic Youth Federation of California, she was its lobby representative and wrote its bimonthly newsletter, Democracy at Work. She was also executive secretary for the Civil Rights Council of Northern California and for the American-Russian Institute, where she worked to promote mutual understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union, a country she visited in 1933. The press referred to her as the “pinko heiress” when she was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1948 and in 1949. For refusing to answer most of the questions asked, she was cited for contempt in 1950, but was acquitted of the contempt charges the following year.
Louise Berman worked for Progressive and American Labor Party candidates and was a writer in the research division of the Wallace for President campaign organization in 1948. In her later years she was involved in world peace causes and helped organize and run a project on improving Arab-Israeli relations.
