Jews in Minnesota Oral History Project: Interview with Nathan M. Shapiro

Titles: Jews in Minnesota Oral History Project: Interview with Nathan M. Shapiro (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Nathan M. (Nate) Shapiro was born in Minneapolis in May of 1911. His father had come to Milwaukee several years earlier and then moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to work as a coppersmith for Leinenkugel Breweries. Next his father moved to Minneapolis, established an auto repair business and later owned a confectionary. Shapiro graduated from North High School and worked at a Snyder's drug store, later becoming its manager. When Prohibition ended in 1934, he and his brother Monroe (Curly) opened Curly's nightclub. When his brother died in 1945, he sold it and went into the theater business and later the insurance business. He married his brother's widow and adopted their son and daughter. Shapiro was a regional officer in the Sertoma Club and a community fund raiser. He was also a close friend of Hubert Humphrey and active in the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background, including his grandfather's supervision of a distillery in Russia and his work as a peddler; his own childhood and education; business experiences; the breakup of a theater owners' monopoly in the 1940s in Minneapolis; concerns about child-rearing and Jewishness; anti-Semitism; intermarriage and strong concern for the relationship between the Gentile and Jewish communities (he and his children are Unitarians); friendship with Hubert Humphrey; leadership in the Sertoma Club; and activity in the DFL. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Schwartz was very ill with cancer at the time of the interview.

Dates

• 05/12/1976 (Creation)

Creation

• interviewee: Shapiro, Nathan M.
• interviewer: Lewin, Rhoda G.

Identifiers

• Library Call Number: OH 131.24
• Accession Number: AV1979.142.16

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

• Oral History - Project, MHS Collection, project: 'Jews in Minnesota Oral History Project' <OH 131>

Quantity: 2 hours sound cassette 17 pages transcript

Format

• Content Category: sound recordings
• Content Category: text

Measurements

• 01:23:52 running time

Subjects

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