Oral history interview with Barbara G. Fleischman, 2011 Dec. 27-2012 Jan. 23 Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Barbara Fleischman on 2011 December 27-2012 January 23. The interview took place in New York, NY, and was conducted by Avis Berman for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Barbara Fleischman and Avis Berman have reviewed the transcript and have made corrections and emendations. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview AVIS BERMAN: This is Avis Berman interviewing Barbara G. Fleischman for the Archives of American Art Oral History Program on December 27, 2011, in her home in New York City. I start this way with everyone. Would you please state your full name and date of birth? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Barbara G. Fleischman, March 20, 1924. AVIS BERMAN: Okay, and the G is for— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Greenberg. That was my maiden name. AVIS BERMAN: Yes, did you have a middle name? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Ann. AVIS BERMAN: Without an E? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: I was Barbara Ann Greenberg, without an E. AVIS BERMAN: Now, what were your parents' names and dates of birth? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: My parents—Theresa Keil, T-H-E-R-E-S-A, Keil, K-E-I-L, whose family came from Austria. And funnily enough, as a little Jewish baby, she was named after Maria Theresa. My father was Samuel J. Greenberg. J didn't stand for anything. Samuel J. Greenberg, and he was born in Petoskey, Michigan. My mother was born in New York City. His family came over from Russia. AVIS BERMAN: So both of your parents were born in this country? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Were born in the United States, yes. AVIS BERMAN: Which is unusual. BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Which is very unusual for that generation. AVIS BERMAN: Yes, they were sort of—for Jews, they were Yankees. [Laughs.] BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: They were Yankees. AVIS BERMAN: So your grandparents had come from Austria and Russia? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: That's right. AVIS BERMAN: And how did your parents end up in Detroit [MI]? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Well, that's a very interesting thing. My grandfather, when he emigrated, in some crazy way he found himself with his seven children in Traverse City, Michigan. How he found himself there I will never know. He had a little store, a general store, and then, unaccountably—and I never knew why—he moved to Petoskey, Michigan, which is a lovely, lovely town—at my last notice, the house is still there, but the white picket fence is gone—and with his seven children, and that's where—with his children—and that's where my father was born. He had this little store. And in the panic of—I don't know if it was 1909 or '11—there was a panic. AVIS BERMAN: I think that was 1907. BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Well, then, that's 1907. AVIS BERMAN: When [J. P.] Morgan saved the banks. BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: That's right. There was a panic, and the man who had the store next to him set his store afire to get insurance, and it burned my grandfather's store down with all the contents. So he was at the age of 52 with seven children, ranging in ages from being very young to teenagers. He was in a dilemma. He took his family, and he moved down to Detroit, Michigan, and went into the insurance business. Because he hadn't had insurance on his—so he realized that insurance was very important. So it was the Greenberg Insurance Agency, which lasted for many, many decades. AVIS BERMAN: And he could just start one with no experience? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Apparently in those days, in the early part of the century, all you had to do was say, "I want to be an insurance agent," and the insurance companies would come and bring you the policies, I suppose, and that was it. And then my father succeeded him, and my father ran the agency until my father died. AVIS BERMAN: And did your father have education? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Yes, but not college. Neither of my parents went to college. In my mother's family they didn't think that the girls had to go to college, and in my father's family there wasn't enough money. AVIS BERMAN: And how did your mother meet your father, if she was in New York City? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: I think they met through mutual friends in Detroit. AVIS BERMAN: Did she grow up in Michigan, too, then? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Yes. They moved when she was two years old, from New York to Detroit, and the family settled there. Her father was in, I think, the coffee business. I think he was in the wholesale coffee business. He and her mother, my other grandparents, died when I was just a very little baby, a little girl. AVIS BERMAN: And did you have siblings? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Yes, I have a brother who's six years younger than I am and who lives in Michigan and in Florida. AVIS BERMAN: And what is his name? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Hugh. AVIS BERMAN: Hugh. So there were just—there were two of you? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: There are just the two of us. AVIS BERMAN: On your mother's side, moving from New York City to Detroit, was Detroit a real magnet then? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Apparently so. It was the beginning of a very lively, adventurous, viable city, which I hope and pray it will return to, and I think everybody thought it had a future. AVIS BERMAN: Well, of course, in those days cars were coming out of— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: That's—exactly. AVIS BERMAN: I mean, all— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: And everything—and, of course, with my grandfather, he began selling car insurance as well as life insurance and other things as he branched out. AVIS BERMAN: Well, of course. That would have been a whole new kind of insurance. BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Exactly, exactly. AVIS BERMAN: And I don't know when cars began needing insurance, because— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Really, I don't know that. I don't know when it was decided that there were liabilities, and there were problems. AVIS BERMAN: Maybe about the time that people started to have to get licenses, because at first cars didn't— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: No, you just got into the car and drove away. [Laughs.] AVIS BERMAN: It was an appliance, in terms of— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Exactly, exactly. AVIS BERMAN: As a matter of fact, my own grandfather never got a license, because he had owned cars for so long. He was stopped once, and he was 80, and they asked to see his license— BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: [Laughs.] He didn't know what to— AVIS BERMAN: He said, "I've been driving since 1915, and I've never had a license. I never got one." Was there a large Jewish community in Detroit? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Yes, yes, a very growing and large community. AVIS BERMAN: And were your parents religious? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: No, they were not. My parents belonged to a Reform temple and observed the High Holy Days, but my grandfather was an old socialist. He was wonderful. He operated with the "Do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you," and he always said that he wishes that people would stop going on Yom Kippur and praying and praying and praying, and then the next day going out and doing bad things in business and so forth. He was really a wonderful little man. He wrote letters to Father [Charles] Coughlin, bawling him out, and Gerald L. K. Smith, because we were right in the center of that. You know, Father Coughlin was right in the outskirts of Detroit. And of course, Henry Ford was a vicious anti-Semite. AVIS BERMAN: Right. BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: So that there was that. But we weren't really affected by it except politically. And of course, we were living through the time of the birth of the unions, so Detroit was a very exciting city. AVIS BERMAN: Exactly. Now, in your house, what kind of cultural influences were there? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Well, my parents were very liberal, were very, very concerned and interested about what was going on in the world, were very active in different political things. For example, I remember, as a young girl, being in the kitchen and watching my mother and others making big, big vats of spaghetti because they were having some sort of a fundraising for the Spanish war, you know. AVIS BERMAN: Civil war? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: The Spanish war before World War II, against [Generalisimo Francisco] Franco. My parents' friends all were very liberal and very involved, and joined different organizations, and so I grew up in that atmosphere. AVIS BERMAN: I'm just going to skip ahead briefly, but then I want to go back to your early background. I thought it was fascinating that you and [Lawrence A.] Larry Fleischman met at a fundraising event. And I was going to say, were you brought up, before you met him, with any kind of sense of philanthropy and of giving? BARBARA FLEISCHMAN: Well, yes. It was mostly unconscious, really. I was aware that my parents gave donations to different things and supported different things.