Weinstock Lecture History

In 1902, Harris Weinstock, a well-known businessman of Sacramento, California presented the University of California with a fund to support an annual public lecture on the “Morals of Trade,” on behalf of his wife Barbara.

In the mid-1800s, Harris Weinstock's family immigrated from England to New York City. After his father died, the 12-year-old Weinstock was shipped as a cabin boy back to London to work as a stock clerk. One year later, he returned to New York via the West Indies. His mother's objections to his desire for a career at sea led him to settle for the job of a stock clerk once again.

Weinstock's half-brother David Lubin was already a seasoned "Westerner" when he invited Harris to join him on the Pacific Coast and sent money for the trip. In November of 1896, Weinstock arrived in California and took a job in a country store 20 miles outside of Sacramento. After several years of hard work and terrible living conditions, he managed to invest a few hundred dollars in a store he and Lubin opened in Sacramento. They offered "one price, no misrepresentation, money back if goods are unsatisfactory and no questions asked." Sacramento shoppers and traders were suspicious at first, but soon realized the benefits of such dealings. Consequently, the Lubin and Weinstock business thrived.

As a member of various state and national industrial and agricultural commissions, Weinstock strongly sympathized with laborers and joined the Federation of Beneficence, which helped jobless men find work. As Governor Hiram Johnson's State Marketing Director from 1915 to 1920, Weinstock was actively involved in California strike actions and toured the globe for over a year to observe how other nations dealt with industrial problems. However, the measures for which Weinstock argued for the protection of workers and improvement of their standard of living were not always popular with his opponents, who eventually demanded his resignation.

Weinstock’s insistence on fairness marked his personality. He was an active member of the Jewish community, but truly believed - as the title of one of his lectures suggests - that God had no chosen people. Barbara was also active in the community and a patron of the arts. She enjoyed the family’s trips abroad which afforded her opportunities to visit galleries around the world.

Weinstock was fundamentally committed to the economic and moral progress of humankind. He wrote many newspaper columns and gave numerous lectures on topics ranging from Napoleon to socialism. Inspired by Spencer and Newton's essays on "The Morals of Trade," which lamented the state of morals in the mid-nineteenth century business world, he argued that a man does not profit "if he gain[s] the whole world and lose[s] his soul."

Harris Weinstock hoped that this lectureship would lead to a better life for those who spent their lives in commercial pursuits. He said, "Let men and women the world over worship character rather than wealth, let them do homage to the high-minded and pure-minded rather than to the merely rich and powerful, and the ideal age will be at hand when trade will carry with it the badge of honor and the successful man of business will take the high place hitherto confined to the patriot and the faithful servant of mankind."

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