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Get back here and talk, yeah, yeah, this this is a This is uh February. What is it? 12, 12th February 12th, Lincoln's birthday. And uh this is the radical elders Oral History Project, and I'm Bruce Kuiper, and today we're interviewing Stan Koppel. Is it Capell or

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Stan Koppel Koppel, uh, who has spent devoted a life to art and to unions and to radical, uh, activities, and, uh, this will be a complete biographical interview with Stan. Stan, um, to begin, when and where were you born? New York City uh June 9th, 1911,

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1911. OK. And what was your national ancestry? Um, Polish on my father's side, German on my mother's side, and Jewish on both sides. OK. Now, uh, when did your parents migrate to the United States? I don't know when my mother came over, but my father came

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over in 1900, 1900. OK, and do you know why they came, uh. They came over because of the draft in the Tsar's army. My father did serve in the Tsar's army. I think he was the only one of the all the brothers. My grandmother had had,

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uh, 11 children, 7 sons and 11, and 4 daughters and 12 actually, but 1 died, I guess in childbirth or whatever. And my father was the only one that had served, but uh. Uh They wanted to get out of Poland as quickly as possible. One of

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my uncles stayed in Poland. My oldest uncle And uh He later died in concentration camp we found out from the Red Cross after the war, World War I, World War 2, and his Daughter, my cousin Balke, she managed to make it to the Soviet Union. And

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survived and she. I don't know whether she's still alive or not. She was quite a bit older than I was. She, so she would probably be up in her 80s, I guess, and, uh, she was a magazine, an editor of some magazine and And more so

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after World War 2, what magazine it was, I don't know, but indirectly we heard that she was quite active, but in terms of class background, uh, would you, uh, label your parents as working class or, no, what, what was their class background? Oh, I'd say petty

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bourgeois, petty bourgeois, you know, this, uh, small shop, shop, well, I had, I had two uncles who were who were doctors. Uh, One uncle who uh worked his way up from a pushcart to being a stockbroker and uh then he got out, he retired as quickly

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as he could and just lived on his ill-gotten gains for the rest of his life. Uh, The uh I gather that My grandfather had a. He was one of the few Jews in Poland that had an estate, so he wasn't, they weren't exactly poor. And uh

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They were apparently had enough status so that they weren't sneered at by the German Jews, I know the rivalry was, well, it wasn't, isn't a rivalry. The German Jews, uh, seemed to have extreme contempt for Jews any place else but Spain, and they were a little

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bit in awe of this of the Sephardic Jews, I think that's interesting. I think so. I mean, I can't prove that, but that's the feeling I have, but, uh, but the, the German Jews, uh. I, I'm, I hate to admit it, but they. Give me all

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the same feeling as Aryans. I understand. But now in terms of what were your parents' occupations at the time of their arrival? Now your father had fled the army and, uh, and so what was, well, he, he served, he served, he had served, but, uh, my

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uncle Jacob, the 2nd oldest of the of the uh. Children Came over first. And he paved the way for the rest. He settled in Cleveland. And uh he started out of selling vegetables and fruits and vegetables on a pushcart, and went on from there. Some or

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other he's he was always able to make money. And he was the wealthiest of my uncles. And then Brought the rest of them over. Uh, I don't know how they came over by drips and drabs or all at once, uh, at any rate. My grandmother Uh,

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kept real tight rein in all her sons and daughters and. And so it was a very closely knit family as long as she remained alive even though part of the family were in Cleveland and part in New York City and part in Jersey. Now you, you

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were born in New York. I was born in New York. OK. OK, so when your, uh, parents arrived, your, your father took what occupation? Well, my father, I don't know what he took on when he arrived. He, he didn't marry my mother until, I don't know,

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actually, I don't know when he did get married. I have a sister who's about 5 years older than I am, so. Um, And I think it was an arranged marriage too, like so many of them were. Um, At any rate, he uh. When I Became conscious

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of what my father was doing. He was already in the real estate business in partnership with one of his brothers, and it was a kind of a. Real estate operation and where he managed property for other people. Didn't own any himself, did all the dirty work.

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And Uh, was the buffer. For the actual landlords for the for the tenants between the tenants and the landlords and. And In a sense, he was exploited as much as a worker but refused to admit it. Right, right. Well, what, what, uh, in terms of their

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educational background, would you consider your parents uh um I don't know my mother. I don't know at all. What would you consider your father part of the intelligentsia or or uh. And I would say in the synagogue or uh he was uh he was uh he

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read books unlike most businessmen. He, uh, he could speak, uh, he could speak a little bit of French. He spoke German naturally spoke Yiddish. He spoke Polish. Um, he was a very, he was, he wasn't as an intellectual, but he was a cultured man, um. He,

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uh, he liked the theater. I mean he was not the typical. Petty bourgeois businessman. Uh, He um My grandmother She was very much of an intellectual, she's very much of a snob, wonderful person, nevertheless. She uh Uh, I remember. My first conscious memories were during the

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World War One period, and, and when uh anything German was uh For Bolton, my grandmother just refused to give up speaking German. And she would send me to the library, local public library with. Uh, 6 books written out that she wanted in the library, 3 in

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German and 3 in French at the library and would dig up for me and I'd bring home. Religiously, and this was even before I started in kindergarten. I was still, I was going to the library by myself about. Well, I lived on 151st Street in Amsterdam

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Avenue, and the library was on 145th Street. I say 145th that's where I think it was. I can't remember now. And But uh I was not sure. But I did books shape your character as a young child? Oh my God, books were all over the place.

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I, I vaguely remember my grandfather, he died when I was quite young, but I have memories of this. Uh, patriarchal character sitting in a bed just covered with books with his yarmulke on his head and his beard. And you'd open a closet, you wouldn't find clothes

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and things like that, but just stacked with books, books were all over the damn place. Books were always a part of our lives, right, right, so any books that stand out in your memory? As a child Uh well. Hm. The, uh, one of the books that

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stood out in my memory, uh, when we lived on it, we moved and lived on 147th Street. Uh, Dad always moved to moved us to buildings where he had uh But he was managing Uh, so we moved from 151st Street when I I don't know whether

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he lost that building or that owner or anyway, he was managing one on 147th Street in Saint Nicholas Avenue. And uh Uh, there was a tenant in that building who We Of German descent, brother and a sister, both of them bachelors. And very nice people, he

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was a musician. And he was a A bandleader in the National Guard. Even though he's very much pro-German. And but this of course is after World War One. And He and his sister sort of uh took a liking to me. And the first present he gave

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me was a flute, which he tried to teach me how to play, and I did learn that. And the second thing they gave me was Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's clerk with original beard illustrations and I became separated from that book somewhere along the line. I'm

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so and I how I wish I could have hung on to it because they had to, you know, beard, the head of the Boy Scouts of America was an illustrator, and those illustrations were classic. That's particular edition especially. And I remember that book. And then another,

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that was when I was, oh, I guess I was about. 7 years old that time. And it was about 9 or 10, my aunt. Who was the youngest of the my grandmother's children. Gave me a copy of Monta's essays at that age, but It didn't seem

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unusual to me. I was able to, I, I enjoyed them thoroughly, and then that also I lost in, in, you know, various moves and. I uh Several years ago I wanted to read Montane again and I went around with several bookstores, you know that. I, I

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don't know who, who runs these bookstores, but you know, some people didn't have never heard of Montagne that no bookstores. Well, OK, that's of course I, I that's the, that's the whole problem of the period we're in then is the memory of the classics is minimal.

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It's minimal. I mean, even, even bookstore people can't remember. You know, uh, like Cicero, Montane or, you know, you can name any of the old classical things that you would find in Harvard classics or something, and they don't remember that stuff. There's no demand for it,

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you know, by the younger generation. Well, you know where I picked it up, where over at Mose and, and, and as soon as I mentioned it, the guy said, oh, I know just where I picked up for you. Come on, took me right down there and

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there were two copies on the shelf and they were. Uh, published by Stanford, he said this, this is the, the best edition. It's better than the modern library edition. I didn't even know the modern library had a edition. Cause these jokes on the bookstore didn't, don't

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know their business. Well, that's, that's the reason why we're doing projects like this good. So I've been enjoying Montagne. Well now was religion an important influence in your childhood? Oh, very much. My grandmother was very orthodox. Uh, your father was Orthodox also? No, no, no, but

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he, uh, went through the motions for the sake of my grandmother. See, by that time, my, uh, mother had already been institutionalized that I didn't know that. I mean, all I knew I was I didn't have a mother and my grandmother was raising me. Uh And

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Um, She uh Wrote a She wrote, uh, she kept a very stiff. Chain on all her. Progeny and grand progeny. So Uh, as I got closer to my 13th birthday, I started going to Hebrew school. Getting ready for my bar mitzvah and learned Hebrew and all

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of which I've forgotten. I can't even remember the alphabet now. And a lot of ways I'm sorry about that. Um, My father. Eating out the way he did lunch and so on. Picked up a very irreligious habits like liking ham and bacon. And so he pulled

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a subterfuge with a family doctor who incidentally, believe or not it was called Doctor Comfort, is that right? Yeah, isn't that something the German doctor. And Doctor Comfort wrote out a uh Res uh prescription for my father for ham. And my grandmother very religiously had a

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special dish for him. And had a special place for him away from the house. I realized all this later, you know, when it became a little smarter. Well, since you started, why don't, why don't you describe your childhood, uh, in terms of your interests, your, your,

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uh, peer group, uh, relations, uh, uh, your, the activities you were doing as a child. Well, I, I, I, I'm so damn glad to, I was so damn glad to become an adult that I, I find it hard to recall my childhood really. Anything standing out

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in your memory at all, I seem to be a loner most of the time. All the other kids had mothers. I didn't and. Uh, I was always small for my age. So that about the only thing I could compete in was stickball or baseball. I couldn't

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compete in basketball with my. Uh, peers, age peers, like I don't know what you call it, kids in my age group, peer peer group, and Definitely couldn't play football. And Um, Well, I think the thing that um. Had the biggest influence on me when I was

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about, I think I was about 3 years old because I must have been at least 3 or to be able to remember that. My sister was given a one of these how to draw books. And she never even bothered to look at it. And I picked

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it up one day. Started copying. I remember the first thing I started copy was the year. And And I used to spend hours just copying things out of that book. And I've been drawing ever since. Um, Did you uh get family support for that? Not too

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much, no. I mean that that was there a male female thing in terms of the parents' reaction to you growing? I, I'm not sure whether it was that or not, but there wasn't that much support. I had to get myself thrown out of college in order

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to get to go to art school. That comes later. Um, But um No, I, I, um, my sister was being was learning. How to play the piano and I wanted to learn it too. I. I, I really want to learn how to play the piano, but.

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That was definitely that was you didn't like, but the piano you did like uh the uh. Well, the, the piano lessons even came before that, and, and, but, uh, that, that was all right for my sister, but not for me. And her first piano teacher, I

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believe, was my aunt Sophie, who was Uncle Samuel's, uh, wife. She was, she was with us, I think she was caught here during World War One. She and Bulky because they lived with us. I remember vaguely they lived with us, uh. And uh I think Aunt

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Sophie died over here and bulky went back to Poland. I'm not sure anyway. Aunt Sophie was a pianist, and I think she, she was the first one that gave my sister lessons. And I Oh how I wanted to learn how to play that piano and but

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you never did, never did. I didn't even dare touch that piano. I don't know. I just, I never dare touch it even. So, uh, the drawing, uh, uh, serve as a substitute for your music? No, I mean that was a, it's uh drawing was very important

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thing for me. Um, it didn't serve as a substitute at all. What was the subject matter that you you drew as a child? I I can't remember. I remember I used to do cartoons to amuse the. Uh, the, my uncles and my father and. Mus the

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adults because that was that was all right, you know that. What type of cartoons, oh, I can't remember, just it's just. Uh, comic case stuff, you know, I, I did you copy them or did you, no, no, the top of your head off the top of

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my head, were they, did they have a storyline to them? Well, they must have, otherwise it wouldn't have been, you know, a child must have a storyline. But I'm saying were they done as a series or was it just a, yeah, but they, they definitely had

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a had some kind of a story to them or a pointer of some sort. Uh But I did a lot of reading, uh, when I was a kid. My sister was quite a big influence on me. She's, let's say about 5 years older than I, and

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she was uh. Uh She was, she was the. In a sense, almost a mother substitute. Much more so than my grandmother, um. My grandmother was still my grandmother, you see, not my. My substitute mother and my sister was there. But um Uh, The I can't think

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of any of the other books that uh I, I know I read, I read an awful lot I read uh. Um, books that were. Ahead of my years too, and I can't remember just what they were. Like I say, my, uh, I was so damn glad

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to become an adult, but because I, well, why, why do you say that? Uh what was it uh that uh. About your childhood that would make you say that. Oh, such supreme lonesomeness and real uh real loner, you know. Um I didn't make friends easily, didn't

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have many friends. I felt like I was different from all the other kids because, like I said, they had mothers and I didn't. Was it also an ethnic thing? Not necessarily because. The neighborhoods that I grew up in were predominantly Jewish and Irish combination of Jewish

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and Irish families. It was sort of it was the, the part of the city where the Irish and the Jews kind of mingled, not like the areas farther downtown or up in the Bronx where the Irish had their own neighborhood, the Jews had their neighborhood and

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the Italians had theirs. Uh, there weren't many Italians. In the neighborhood where we lived, but there were, there were a lot of Irish and there were a lot of Jews. And sprinkling of Protestants who were very much loners too. Well, uh, to move on then, uh,

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you were your parents, uh. Socially and politically oriented at all. No. Uh, were they, did they discuss world affairs? Um, not, not round, not front of me anyway, I'm sure they must have been. Politically worse, uh, or at least my father. I don't know anything about

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my mother at all. I don't remember her at all. Um But He was Fairly political he like so many. Small business people in New York. He belonged to the, he voted Tammany ticket locally and the Republican ticket nationally. Uh, and that was the sort of division

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of labor that the that the Tammany that Tammany Hall had with the Republican Party and they, they washed each other's dirty linen. Of course I only came to realize that after I became more socially conscious. But he um. Uh, No, he wasn't Politically active at all,

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he's just concerned with raising us. Try to take care of his mother. Take care of us. In terms of family discourse, uh, Stan, what, uh, what do you remember as being the, the probably the most continuous type of subject talked about in your household as a

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child? I mean, the themes that popped up over and over again, uh, you know. Oh, family problems and we're very. Tight family very closely knit no matter. Even the Cleveland relatives were very close to us, much closer than people that lived right next door to us,

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for example. So that Um, So there wasn't much political awareness, um. There is, I, I was aware of one thing though that my grandmother was very. Are like pro-German. I believe that she was born. In in the Alsace Lorraine area, uh, she so that she came

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from a bilingual. Uh, area in Europe but she married. In Poland. I don't know how she came there, but um. Um She married quite young. I think she was 14 when she was married. I started having kids almost immediately. Um I do know she mentioned the

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fact that. Her father gave the same education that was normally given to a boy. So that she was a very feisty person, well, well, oh my God, well read, yes. And Uh, until I started going to kindergarten, I spoke. German almost exclu exclusively because that she

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spoke German to me, it was tongue was used around the house. She would lapse into Yiddish when the tradesmen come to deliver something just to put them down. That's the only time she speak Yiddish. Uh, she was a real, she was a real snob. And uh.

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But books were I must. In my childhood, we just uh. Books were more important than. I guess if it came to a choice between books of food, probably pick books. Well, in terms of the world events, uh, stand, uh, let's say in in your. Oh, let's

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say when you were in your early teens, what were the things that you remember in world events or world affairs that stand out in your memory that had some effect on the development of your consciousness, uh, you know, of the world. I can't remember specific things,

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but I can remember that when my sister began. Circulate out in the world like uh she uh. She's been a lifelong socialist. She still is, I think she probably still is a member of the Socialist Party, and I, I picked up. Some of that her in

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what way? I mean because uh she, I'd hear her talking about. How old was she? Well, she was 5 years old and and 5 years. So she was a late teens, yeah, and she was already, uh, when I was about. 10 It's when she, uh, she

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moved she can to live with my aunt. And uh So that was just my father, my grandmother, and I, and that was about the time when my aunt gave me the spontane essays. But I, uh, I became aware, well she was about. 15, my aunt, I

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believe, was very much of a very concerned with social things. And Uh I think uh she was. I have a I have a feeling I can't put my finger on as to why I have that feeling. But she's very I think she'd have been a very

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strong woman's liver today if she were alive. Um, And I think some of that a lot of that uh. Affected my sister. I think my uncle Uh, was born a native born in the United States and a graduate of Columbia. As a matter of fact, his

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family goes back, went back several generations in the United States. Um Always tended toward socialism as long as I can remember him, so what little. Came towards me Came primarily from my sister in the beginning because she was living with my aunt and my uncle. Well,

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how would she approach you or, or you just picked it up in our conversations just picked it up and, and I, I'm at at specific events. I, I wasn't even too, I was, uh, just. Uh Vaguely aware of Sacco and Vanzetti, and that was after I

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was already beginning to get some inkling of. Socialism, but I was pretty. Mixed up in those days, um. My father As I told you support on a national. Basis would support Republicans and local bases Democrats. And That's. Well, who, who were your heroes stand as a

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child, I mean, uh, what national figures or characters uh stand out? Well, uh, Babe Ruth is one of them. You like sports, I like baseball because that was the only game that I was allowed to play with the other kids because I was always small for

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my age. I didn't even begin to approach the size of my age until I was about 16 when I suddenly shut up when you're almost 1 ft. And so. Baseball is always. Big thing for me. Who else besides Babe Ruth? I can't remember it's in the

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entertainers or oh it yeah well let's see now. Um, God, I used to go like when I when I was behave myself, my. Father would treat me to uh. The the ticket to the matinee Saturday matinee at the Riverside Theater, which was the first string house

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in vaudeville, so that I. Uh Remember seeing Uh, Marx brothers there and I can't remember the exact years, but Sophie Tucker and. Uh Oh gee, who's some of the others now? Ed Burden came a little little bit later. He was actually almost half a generation after,

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uh. The Marx Brothers and Sophie Tucker and some of these other people. And Uh, of course, this heart was big hero. What about Will Rogers? Later when I began to, uh, no, when I began to read the New York Times and read his letters, you know,

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it's the little column that he had, he was a great, he was a great person. I really I guess he was a sort of a populist rather than else wouldn't you say I would say so because one of his one of his sons was a quite

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a left winger even when Will Rogers was still alive and with Will Rogers' approval too or not with, with no disapproval on his part. Um, Of course Lindbergh was a big hero, but that was a little later too. Who do you remember who, uh, your, uh.

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Who you disliked strongly when you were that age. But public figures or entertainers are not public figures, but I had a few relatives that I disliked extremely, especially when I.