Title: Rubin Levin Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1920-1981

Creator:

• Levin, Rubin, 1902-1981

Call Number: Mss 761; Micro 1163; Disc 189A

Quantity: 2.0 c.f. (5 archives boxes), 2 reels of microfilm (35mm), and 2 disc recordings

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers, mainly 1925-1955, of Rubin Levin, a labor journalist who was associated with the Milwaukee Leader and other Wisconsin newspapers during the 1930's and who was editor of Labor from 1953 to 1981. Included are biographical materials; personal correspondence exchanged with friends and family; a few papers of his wife Bertha Greenberg Levin, who worked as a free-lance publicist during the 1930's; and subject files concerning Labor, the Labor Press Association, and Milwaukee politics and government. The personal correspondence includes many letters to and from his wife written in 1938, the year of his first work in Washington, D.C., and her first pregnancy and a few letters concerning a brother associated with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. Levin's writings include unpublished articles and stories; a literary journal kept during the 1920's when he traveled widely through the United States, Canada, and Europe; published free-lance articles; and a collection of his newspaper work which is available only on microfilm.

Note:

There is a restriction on use of this material; see the Administrative/Restriction Information portion of this finding aid for details.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00761

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Labor journalist Rubin Levin was born in Poland in 1902. In 1904 the Levin family immigrated to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In 1913 they moved to Milwaukee. The elder Levin was a poor peddler, and as a youth Rubin Levin sold newspapers, shined shoes, and sold ice. In 1920 he matriculated at Milwaukee State Normal School. He transferred to the University of Wisconsin in 1922 with the intention of studying electrical engineering but soon shifted to journalism and began working on a part-time basis for the Capital Times. After his graduation in 1926 Levin continued to work for the Capital Times, briefly moving to the Milwaukee Sentinel before resigning in 1928 to travel and broaden his professional experience. Over the next three years Levin roamed the United States, Canada, and Europe, working for nine different newspapers. In 1931 he returned to Milwaukee where he worked for the Sentinel and married Bertha Greenberg. In 1936 he became associated with the Milwaukee Leader. During his career in Milwaukee Levin primarily covered local politics and labor issues. He also served as publicity director for both the reelection campaign of Mayor Daniel Hoan and the Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation.

In 1938 Levin left Milwaukee for Washington, D.C. to join the staff of Labor, a weekly publication of an association of railroad unions. In this capacity he reported on the National Railway Mediation Board, the National Labor Relations Board, and other union matters. In 1951 he became Labor's acting and associate editor; in 1953 he became editor and manager, succeeding founder Edward Keating. Levin continued in this position until his death in 1981.

Throughout his career, Levin contributed articles to newspapers, wire services, magazines, and labor journals. He was a founding member and from 1949 until its dissolution in 1952 the chairman of the Labor Press Association, a news cooperative of labor editors. Levin received numerous journalism awards including the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award in 1956, and the Eugene V. Debs Award in 1975.

The Rubin Levin Papers document the personal and professional life of a noted labor journalist and editor. Most, but not all, of the material dates from 1929 to 1953 and records Levin's early career, his association with leftist politics in Milwaukee, and his contributions to the labor press. Levin was a perceptive journalist and his observations as well as examples of his writings are the center of the collection. Documentation concerning his professional and political associations and activities, however, are relatively scarce.

The papers are organized as biographical material, writings, subject files, and Bertha Greenberg Levin's papers.

The BIOGRAPHICAL FILES consist of general information about Levin's life and awards. Of particular note is a file of short autobiographies he wrote in the late 1930's and in 1973. Other folders contain a eulogy given at his funeral, copies of his awards, letters of congratulations, and personal memorabilia.

CORRESPONDENCE, which is arranged alphabetically by name, primarily consists of letters to and from friends and family. While the majority of the correspondence consists of letters received by Levin, several files contain letters that he wrote. These include his correspondence with Harry Koveneck, who later returned the long, journal-like letters Levin wrote during his wanderings of the 1920's, and letters Levin sent to his wife. While the majority of this correspondence to Mrs. Levin is fragmentary, dating from his brief absences from home to attend professional conferences and meetings, the correspondence from their lengthy separation when Levin first went to Washington, D.C., in 1938 is extensive. The file for this year also contains many letters from Bertha Levin concerning her pregnancy, professional activities, and their friends and associates in Milwaukee. Also of note among the family correspondence are the letters from his brother, Max Levin, concerning his association with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in 1937. Other family files mention Max's tragic disappearance and death. The miscellaneous files contain letters from political figures such as Lyndon Johnson and George Norris. The file on fellow Capital Times reporter Ernie Meyer contains his critical article about Glenn Frank, former president of the University of Wisconsin.

Levin's WRITINGS are arranged into published and unpublished categories. The unpublished files contain student papers, poems, short stories, and articles written in the 1930's. Of special interest is an essay, “Life in My Town,” about ethnic groups in Milwaukee; dispatches Levin wrote while in Paris working for the New York Herald Tribune; articles about Milwaukee socialists, European fascism, and Levin's travels; and material for a projected book on faked newspaper stories. The largest segment of this series is typewritten literary journals Levin kept between 1927 and 1930 while he was a roving reporter. Included are impressions and observations of Winnipeg, Alaska, several West Coast cities, and a trip as a hand on a freighter bound for Hawaii. There are also handwritten notes for later trips to Israel, Europe, and a second trip to Hawaii.

The published articles cover Levin's entire career and include freelance pieces for the New Republic, the Nation, American Mercury, and various railroad magazines. A large collection of scrapbooks and loose clippings, which are available only on microfilm, documents his newspaper writing, 1935-1928 and 1935-1938. Often the author of these news stories is not credited, but because Levin dated and compiled them into scrapbooks, it is assumed that Levin is the author. Levin's freelance articles written before 1939 deal mostly with Milwaukee and socialism. Of note is a piece Levin wrote in 1933 for Plain Speaking on Milwaukee for which he won his first journalism award. Later works, more editorial in nature, address labor and legislative topics. Levin occasionally used the pseudonyms of Robert Lavelle and Richard Lloyd, and works under those bylines are included. Among other works included in this section of the papers are two pamphlets Levin wrote in the 1920's, The Revolt of Modern Youth and Milwaukee - the Bier of Beer, and a recorded commentary Levin made in 1949 on a variety of labor issues.

The SUBJECT FILES feature several of the organizations with which Levin was involved, although none of the files possess a complete, organic character. The largest number of the files document the Labor Press Association and include its bylaws; financial records; minutes; some memoranda and correspondence; newsletters; a transcript of a 1950 oral history interview about the LPA; and clippings related to its founding, activities, dissolution, and the 1952 strike of the Washington Newspaper Guild. Other folders contain news stories and campaign materials prepared for Daniel Hoan and the Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation, playbills and narrative reports for the Federal Theater in Milwaukee, and articles and an interview with Levin about workers in Israel. The Milwaukee Leader files contain a history, copies of the Milwaukee Guild News and the Mouth Organ, a satiric house publication, and correspondence from Milwaukee journalists dealing with a strike of news writers in 1939. The labor press folder contains a copy of Chester Wright's Labor Letter and information on a conference on the labor press at the University of Wisconsin. Also of note is a transcript of Levin's 1981 oral history interview for the Meany Center on the AFL-CIO merger.

The Labor files contain correspondence and clippings about the paper. It is disappointingly incomplete. So, too, is the file on Frank Lloyd Wright, about whom Levin wrote. In the miscellaneous file are articles by Levin on anti-Semitism, examples of anti-Communist literature from the 1960's, two broadsides printed in German, a handbill (Hoover and the Race Question) from a Democratic rally in Texas in 1932, and an uncredited article on the Ku Klux Klan.

The last section is a small collection of the papers of BERTHA LEVIN. It contains correspondence, most of it with her sister Mootsie, personal effects, and copies of student papers while at Lawrence University in the 1920's and later in the 1960's when she apparently returned to school in Milwaukee. Available only on microfilm are scrapbooks concerning her freelance public relations work for clients during the 1930's such as the Milwaukee Jewish Center and various Milwaukee recreational and cultural programs. Also here is a folder on their daughter, Hilda Levin Tanenholtz, who died in 1979, and her family.

Labor is available on microfilm in the Historical Society Library.

Use Restrictions

Literary rights are retained by Bertha Levin.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Bertha Levin, Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Jonathan and David Levin, Richmond, Virginia, 1985-1987. Accession Number: M85-206, M86-454, M86-478, M87-079

Processing Information

Processed by Mark Davis (Intern), 1988.

Mss 761	Series: Biographical Files
Box   1 Folder   1	Biographies, 1937-1973
Box   1 Folder   2	Clippings, 1925-1981
Box   1 Folder   3	Memorabilia, 1920-1977
Box   1 Folder   4-5	Awards, 1965-1982
Box   1 Folder   6	Death, 1981
	Series: Correspondence	⇧
Box   1 Folder   7	Kossaris, Max, 1928-1979
Box   1 Folder   8-10	Koveneck, Harry, 1922-1929
Box   1 Folder   11	Lieberman, Ben, 1938-1969
Box   1 Folder   12-18	Levin, Bertha, 1930, 1938-1958, undated
Box   1 Folder   19	Levin, David, 1977-1980
Box   1 Folder   20	Levin, Jacob, 1939-1976
Box   1 Folder   21	Levin, Max, 1927-1937
Box   1 Folder   22	Levin, Mitchell, 1938-1974
Box   1 Folder   23	Meyer, Ernie, circa 1930
Box   2 Folder   1-3	Miscellaneous personal correspondence, 1924-1979
Box   2 Folder   4	Editors and publishers, 1925-1953
	Series: Writings	⇧
	Subseries: Unpublished manuscripts
Box   2 Folder   5	Student writings, circa 1924
Box   2 Folder   6	Poems, 1926-1927
Box   2 Folder   7	Short story ideas, circa 1927-1930
Box   2 Folder   8	Short stories, 1930-1937
	Articles
Box   2 Folder   9	1930-1937
Box   2 Folder   10	Articles about Europe, 1930
Box   2 Folder   11	Labor press, 1953
Box   2 Folder   12	“Faking” the news, circa 1925-circa 1941
	Literary journal
Box   2 Folder   13-16	1927, August-1928, October
Box   3 Folder   1-3	1928, November-1930, November
Box   3 Folder   4	1947-1956
Box   3 Folder   5	1960, Israel
Box   3 Folder   6	1966, Hawaii (Notebook)
Box   3 Folder   7	1968, Europe (Notebook)
Box   3 Folder   8	1976, Israel (Notebooks)
	Subseries: Published writings	⇧
Box   3 Folder   9-10	“Little Blue Books,” Haldeman-Julius, 1928-1929
Micro 1163	Newspaper articles, 1925-1938 Note: Filmed without a counter.
Reel   1	1925-1928
Reel   1	, 1935-1937 scrapbooks
Reel   1	, 1937 peace scrapbook
	Loose clippings
Reel   1	1937
Reel   1	1938
Mss 761	Free-lance articles
Box   3 Folder   11-16	1925-1944
Box   4 Folder   1-3	1945-1952, 1969, undated
Box   4 Folder   4	Letters to the editor, 1937-1967
Disc 189A No.   1-2	Recordings of radio commentary, 1949
Mss 761	Series: Subject Files	⇧
Box   4 Folder   5	AFL-CIO merger oral history, 1980
Box   4 Folder   6	Anti-Semitism, 1938-circa 1975
Box   4 Folder   7	Bear, John, 1969
Box   4 Folder   8	Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation, 1932-1936
Box   4 Folder   9	Federal Theater, 1936
Box   4 Folder   10	Forward Club, 1921-1925
Box   4 Folder   11	Hoan, Daniel, 1932-1939
Box   4 Folder   12	International Labor Press Association, circa 1945-1951
Box   4 Folder   13	Israel, 1960
Box   4 Folder   14-15	Labor, 1937-1955
Box   4 Folder   16	Labor press, 1944-1948
	Labor Press Association
Box   4 Folder   17	Advertising, undated
Box   4 Folder   18	Annual meetings, 1949-1954
Box   4 Folder   19	By-laws, 1950
Box   4 Folder   20	Clippings, 1944-1954
Box   4 Folder   21	Correspondence, 1949-1954
Box   4 Folder   22	Daily News Service, 1949-1954
Box   4 Folder   23	Financial records, 1944-1953
Box   4 Folder   24	Memoranda, 1949-1953
Box   4 Folder   25	Newsletters, 1947-1954
Box   4 Folder   26	Washington Newspaper Guild, 1950-1952
	Milwaukee Leader
Box   5 Folder   1	History, circa 1937
Box   5 Folder   2	Correspondence, 1938-1939
Box   5 Folder   3	Miscellany, 1935-1939
Box   5 Folder   4	Miscellany, undated
Box   5 Folder   5	Turnverein, 1938
Box   5 Folder   6	Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1937, undated
	Series: Bertha Levin Papers	⇧
	Correspondence
Box   5 Folder   7-8	“Mootsie,” 1945-1972
Box   5 Folder   9	Miscellaneous correspondence, 1935-1937
Box   5 Folder   10	Personal items, 1930-1970
	Writings
Box   5 Folder   11	Circa 1927-1930
Micro 1163	Public relations scrapbooks, 1934-1938 Note: Filmed without a counter.
Reel   2	Milwaukee Jewish Center, 1934-1935
Reel   2	American Public Health convention, 1935
Reel   2	Summer concerts, 1936
Reel   2	Disabled American Veterans convention, 1936
Reel   2	Summer Festival, 1936
Reel   2	Milwaukee Jewish Center, 1937-1938
Reel   2	Summer concerts, 1937-1938
Mss 761 Box   5 Folder   12	1962-1964
Box   5 Folder   13	Hilda Levin Tanenholtz and family, circa 1960-1980