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Voices of Feminism Oral History Project: Frantz, Margaret

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Voices of Feminism Oral History Project: Frantz, Margaret Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Northampton, MA MARGE FRANTZ Interviewed by KELLY ANDERSON NOVEMBER 3-5, 2005 Santa Cruz, CA This interview was made possible with generous support from the Ford Foundation. © Sophia Smith Collection 2005 Sophia Smith Collection Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Narrator Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1922, Marge Frantz is a lifelong activist. Introduced to radical politics and the Communist Party by her father Joe Gelders, Frantz’s activism began early, with the Young Communist League in 1935. Frantz’s Party activity ranged from selling the Daily Worker on the New York City subway to organizing the Alabama delegation to the American Youth Congress. Frantz finally left the Party in 1956, though her agitation far from ceased. She was an organizer for the United Electrical Workers, campaigned for Wallace, worked for Planned Parenthood, was a part of the free speech movement in Berkeley, and a stalwart of the peace movement. After she and husband Laurent (also a radical and former CP member) had four children, Frantz returned to college (graduating from Berkeley in 1972) and went on to a PhD from UC Santa Cruz, where she spent three decades as a celebrated and inspirational teacher. Frantz has retired from teaching, but not activism, and lives with her partner Eleanor in Santa Cruz. Interviewer Kelly Anderson (b.1969) is an educator, historian, and community activist. She has an M.A. in women’s history from Sarah Lawrence College and is a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. history at the CUNY Graduate Center. Abstract In this oral history, Frantz describes her family background in Birmingham, highlighting her father’s intellectual and political development and subsequent career in radical politics. She discusses her early days in the Popular Front and as an organizer. Frantz recalls the extensive network of friends and comrades that have made the work so engaging and sustaining. She also describes her family life in detail—her marriage to Laurent, their four children, and her partnership with Eleanor. The interview concludes with her life in Santa Cruz, both on the campus and in local organizing efforts, and her passion for teaching. Restrictions None Format Interview recorded on miniDV using Sony Digital Camcorder DSR-PDX10. Eight 60-minute tapes. Transcript Transcribed by Susan Kurka. Audited for accuracy by Cara Sharpes and edited for clarity by Revan Schendler. Transcript has been reviewed and approved by Marge Frantz. Sophia Smith Collection Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Bibliography and Footnote Citation Forms Video Recording Bibliography: Frantz, Marge. Interview by Kelly Anderson. Video recording, November 3-5, 2005. Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection. Footnote: Marge Frantz, interview by Kelly Anderson, video recording, November 3, 2005, Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection, tape 2. Transcript Bibliography: Frantz, Marge. Interview by Kelly Anderson. Transcript of video recording, November 3-5, 2005. Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection. Footnote: Marge Frantz, interview by Kelly Anderson, transcript of video recording, November 3, 2005, Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Sophia Smith Collection, pp. 23–24. Sophia Smith Collection Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Marge Frantz, interviewed by Kelly Anderson Tape 1 of 8 Page 1 of 131 Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Sophia Smith Collection Smith College Northampton, MA Transcript of interview conducted November 3–5, 2005, with: MARGE FRANTZ Santa Cruz, California by: KELLY ANDERSON ANDERSON: OK. All right. So we’re going to begin. This is Kelly Anderson interviewing Marge Frantz at her home in Santa Cruz, California, on a really stunning day, November 3rd, and this is for the Sophia Smith Collection, Voices of Feminism project. So, as we talked a little bit about when I first got here, we’re going to really try to make this as full a life story as we can for a few days. So let’s start by talking about your family background, and not even your parents, because that’s a big topic, but tell me what you know about your grandparents and how your family, your German Jewish family, got to the South. FRANTZ: Right. Well, I don’t know a great deal. My impression is that on both sides, the family came in through New Orleans, but I’m not positive. I know that’s true about my mother’s family and one of her uncles stayed in New Orleans, and she has other relatives in New Orleans and one of them became a stomach specialist doctor. That’s really about all I know. ANDERSON: So it would have been her parents that came to New Orleans, do you 1:18 think? FRANTZ: I think they came in through New Orleans, but I think that a lot of them ended up in Maysville, Kentucky — certainly her mother. I do know that her father, and in fact my grandfathers on both sides arrived here in the 1870s with a large group of German immigrants, German Jewish immigrants, and they both became itinerant peddlers. They didn’t have a cent. One of them, I know, was trying to evade the draft but probably both of them, because there was a 25-year draft in those days in Germany. Both of them became itinerant peddlers and they started off with nothing, and they ended up making enough money to get a car and a horse and so forth. My father’s father settled in Birmingham, Alabama, which, in 1890, became known as the Magic City, because it grew so fast. It had the first steel mills in the South and so that was its nickname, the Magic City, and it was dominated by steel and ended up the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, they called it TCI, and it became a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. It was one of the two places in the whole country where Sophia Smith Collection Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Marge Frantz, interviewed by Kelly Anderson Tape 1 of 8 Page 2 of 131 there was a combination of the three things you need for making steel: coal, iron ore, and — what am I missing? A third ingredient I can’t think of. (laughs) [limestone]But in any case, the upper peninsula of Michigan is the only [other] one that has all three. So it took off and became the biggest industrial city in the South, not the largest city but the [largest] one doing basic industry. ANDERSON: So your mother was born — just to go back a little bit, just to make sure we get your family stories. Your mother was born in – FRANTZ: She was born in 1899, in Montgomery. ANDERSON: In Montgomery, OK. FRANTZ: My father’s family was in Birmingham and my mother’s family in Montgomery. My grandfather on my mother’s side ended up selling insurance. There is a substantial collection of German Jews in both of those cities, and, in fact, in every major southern city. And they were discriminated against and they were not allowed, once they made money — they were good at it, apparently, but they weren’t allowed into the country clubs. So they all organized Jewish country clubs all over the South. Every single southern city has got a Jewish country club. In fact, one of my uncles, my mother’s brother, spent his whole life as the manager of a Jewish country club in Columbus, Georgia, of all places. ANDERSON: So did you know your grandparents? 4:25 FRANTZ: Yes. ANDERSON: What are your memories of them? FRANTZ: I never knew them well. They all died — except for my maternal grandfather, they all died when I was quite young. I knew them slightly. My father adored his mother. She died when I was about 11 and I remember her. I know that Walt Whitman was her favorite poet and I know that she was attracted to some offbeat religion, I’m trying to think what it was. It was not exactly a religion. It will occur to me, I’m sorry. She was something of a forward-looking person, although her husband, my father’s father was, in his view, a tyrant. He made money. He was very good at it and he had about six businesses going at once, including department stores and restaurants and this, that, and the other, and he was very good at it, apparently. At one point my father, [my grandfather] had a small restaurant about 30 miles from Birmingham, the sort of place in those days people would drive up to for Sunday dinner. [My dad] had to get up early in the morning — I heard these stories when I was a kid — and kill, wring the necks of nearly a hundred chickens for Sunday dinner that day, or something like that. [My grandfather] always pushed my father to go Sophia Smith Collection Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Marge Frantz, interviewed by Kelly Anderson Tape 1 of 8 Page 3 of 131 into business of one kind and another and he was a hard taskmaster. My father did not like it. My father went off to MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] when he was quite young and he got very little money, really not enough to manage on, and later his younger brother, you know, had fur coats at Yale and my dad was furious about it. (laughs) One of the most interesting things — my grandmother was supposed to have — my father just adored her — but my aunt [Emma] did not, was not that adoring, and later in life, when I was maybe 30 or 40, I spent a whole evening talking family with my aunt, my father’s sister, and found out that she had exactly the opposite feelings about my grandmother and grandfather, which fascinated me because it was a totally new vista.
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