Oral Histories
Interview of Julian Beck
California assembly member from 1943 to 1953. Legislative secretary for Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr. in 1958. Appointee to the Superior Court bench in San Fernando from 1959 to 1975.
- Subtitle:
- Julian Beck
- Series:
- California State Archives State Government Oral History Program
- Topic:
- Politics and Government
- Biographical Note:
- California assembly member from 1943 to 1953. Legislative secretary for Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr. in 1958. Appointee to the Superior Court bench in San Fernando from 1959 to 1975.
- Interviewee:
- Beck, Julian
- Persons Present:
- Vasquez and Beck.
- Place Conducted:
- Beck's home in San Fernando, California.
- Supporting Documents:
- Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
- Interviewer Background and Preparation:
- The interview was conducted by Carlos Vasquez, Director, UCLA State Government Interview Series, UCLA Oral History Program; B.A., Political Science, UCLA; M.A., Political Science, Stanford University; Ph.D. candidate, History, UCLA.Beck's papers provide much specific information that the judge, at the time of the interview, had difficulty recalling. His papers are deposited at the Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge, and are cataloged as the "Julian Beck Collection, 1932-86," access number 87-6, box code JB 1-3. The collection includes scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, legislative bills, personal documents, and other memorabilia.
- Processing of Interview:
- Vasquez checked the verbatim manuscript of the interview against the original tape recordings, edited for punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling, and verified proper names. Insertions by the editor are bracketed. The interviewer alsoprepared the introductory material~.Beck declined to review the edited transcript but authorized the UCLA Oral History Program to finalize the transcript.
- Language:
- English
- Copyright:
- CSA
- Series Statement:
- Interviews in this series were undertaken by the UCLA Oral History Program under the auspices of the California State Archives and in conjunction with the California State University, Fullerton, Oral History Program; California State University, Sacramento, Center for California Studies Oral History Program; Claremont Graduate School Oral History Program; and the University of California, Berkeley, Regional Oral History Office. Funds were allocated to the state archives after Governor George Deukmejian signed into law Assembly Bill 2104 (Chapter 965 of the Statutes of 1985), establishing a state government oral history program "to provide through the use of oral history a continuing documentation of state policy development as reflected in California's legislative and executive history." All interviews in the series are available at the California State Archives in Sacramento.
- Abstract:
- Family background; education; secondary school teaching; law practice; career; elected to represent Forty-first Assembly District in the San Fernando Valley; minority floor leader; Governor Earl Warren appoints Beck to Los Angeles Municipal Court; Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr., appoints him to superior court in San Fernando; serves as legislative secretary in the Pat Brown administration; retires from judgeship; legislative leadership, partisanship, electioneering, fund-raising, lobbying for teachers' groups.