Robert Treuhaft
{{short description|American lawyer}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Robert Treuhaft
| image =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1912|8|8}}
| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2001|11|11|1912|8|8}}
| death_place = New York, U.S.
| death_cause =
| alma_mater = Harvard University (1934)
Harvard Law School (LL.B., 1937)
| occupation = Attorney, political activist
| spouse = {{marriage|Jessica Mitford
|1943|1996|end=d.}}
}}
Robert Edward Treuhaft (August 8, 1912 – November 11, 2001) was an American lawyer and the second husband of Jessica Mitford.{{cite web|last1=Lewis|first1=Paul|title=Robert Treuhaft, Lawyer Who Inspired Funeral Exposé, Dies at 89|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/obituaries/02TREU.html|website=The New York Times|date=December 2, 2001}}
Early life
Robert Treuhaft was born on August 8, 1912, in New York City. He was the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants.[http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4x0nb0bf;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e252&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e252&brand=calisphere&anchor.id=p2#X Childhood and Family Life in New York; Undergraduate Education; Harvard Law School (interview with Bob Treuhaft, 1988)] cdlib.org. Page 2. He graduated from Harvard University in 1934 and attained his LL.B. degree from Harvard Law School in 1937.
Career
Treuhaft worked for labor union and radical left causes much of his life. From the early-to-mid-1940s to 1958 he and Mitford were members of the Communist Party USA, leaving the party after Khrushchev's revelations about the Stalin era.[http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4x0nb0bf;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e1520&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e1520&brand=calisphere&anchor.id=p70#X "Bay Area Funeral Society; The American Way of Death; Berkeley Co-op Activities; Resigning from the Communist Party" (Interview with Bob Treuhaft, 1988)] cdlib.org. Pages 70-72.
Treuhaft was admitted to the California Bar in 1944,{{cite web|title=Attorney Search|url=http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/MemberSearch/QuickSearch?FreeText=robert+treuhaft&x=0&y=0&SoundsLike=false|website=The State Bar of California.}} and in 1945, he began at the Oakland, California law firm Grossman, Sawyer, & Edises. In 1963, he founded his own Oakland-based firm Treuhaft, Walker, and Bernstein,{{cite web|title=Guide to the Robert E. Treuhaft Papers TAM.664|url=http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_664/bioghist.html|website=Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive}} where Hillary Clinton worked as a summer intern in 1971.{{cite book|author=Bernstein, Carl |title=A Woman in Charge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KG8oDvWH3ZYC&pg=PT105|year=2007|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|location=New York|isbn=978-0-307-26848-8|pages=105–}} Also in 1963, he provided Mitford with background and legal information that was important for Mitford's best-selling exposé of the funeral industry, which he also unofficially co-authored, The American Way of Death.{{cite book|author=Hartley, Cathy |title=A Historical Dictionary of British Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pDtEe4FKolUC&q=%22American+way+of+death%22&pg=PA319|year=2003|publisher=Europa publications|location=London|isbn=978-1-85743-228-2}} Page 319.
In 1964, Treuhaft represented more than 700 Free Speech Movement students arrested during a two-day sit-in at the University of California in Berkeley. He and his firm also represented anti-Vietnam War protesters, Black Panther Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
Before his death, Treuhaft specified that any memorial donations be sent to "Send a Piano to Havana" project, which was started by his son Benjamin Treuhaft, whom the State Department had prevented from taking a piano to the embargoed island.{{cite web|last1=Oliver|first1=Myrna|title=Robert Treuhaft, 89; Crusading Attorney|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-16-me-4896-story.html|website=Los Angeles Times|date=November 16, 2001}}
Death
Treuhaft died on November 11, 2001.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt4x0nb0bf/ Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley Oral History Collection]
- [http://www.spartacus-educational.com/USAtreuhaft.htm Spartacus Educational biography]
- {{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/obituaries/02TREU.html |author=Paul Lewis |date=December 2, 2001
|title=Robert Treuhaft, Lawyer Who Inspired Funeral Exposé, Dies at 89 |newspaper=The New York Times }}
- {{cite news|url=http://www.mitford.org/londonbob.html |date=November 16, 2001 |title=Robert E. Treuhaft: Civil rights lawyer and inspiration behind the writings of Jessica Mitford |url-status=unfit |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219003646/http://www.mitford.org/londonbob.html |archivedate=December 19, 2013 }}. (archived from mitford.org)
- [http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4x0nb0bf;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e2400&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere Photographs of Robert Treuhaft] cdlib.org
- [http://www.sendapiana.com/ Send a Piana to Havana]
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Treuhaft, Robert Edward}}
Category:Lawyers from New York City
Category:Lawyers from Oakland, California
Category:Writers from New York City
Category:Writers from Oakland, California
Category:American people of Hungarian descent
Category:American civil rights lawyers
Category:Place of birth missing
Category:American male writers
Category:Harvard Law School alumni
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