Rauh was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Jewish parents. His mother, Sarah, was born in the United States. His father who manufactured shirts, was born in Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany.[1] He shirked the textiles business for Harvard University where his older brother had gone to school. His older sister became a physician. In Harvard, he played center for the Ivy League school's basketball team. He graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics in 1932, continuing his education at Harvard Law School, where he finished first of his class.[2][1]
Starting as a Democratic National Convention delegate in July 1948, he was a leader that year in writing up the civil rights plank for Humphrey. In the letter of support promoting his award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, its authors described the plank as "the foundation for all of the human rights and equal protection laws that have since been enacted."[4]
On September 12, 1948 (a Sunday) at 8:30 PM, Elizabeth Bentley appeared again on the first-ever television broadcast via WNBT of NBC's Meet the Press and was the first interviewed. Journalists included: Nelson Frank, Inez Robb, Cecil Brown, and Lawrence Spivak. Cecil Brown asked her three times whether she would accuse William Remington of being a communist outside of congressional protection, she finally did so. Joseph Rauh defended Remington before a Truman Loyalty Review Board.[5]
In 1959, Rauh successfully represented Quaker printer David H. Scull before the US Supreme Court in Scull v. Virginia ex rel. Committee on Law Reform & Racial Activities, which concerned aggressive and unclear questioning by the pro-segregation chairman of a Virginia legislative committee, which had led to a contempt citation the Supreme Court overturned.
Rauh died in 1992 and was survived by his wife of 57 years, the former Olie Westheimer, and two sons, B. Michael Rauh and Carl S. Rauh and three grandchildren.[2]
