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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Arnan Finkelstein
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5.4 May 15, 2014 Arnan Finkelstein, May 15, 2014 LVTNT-18 1:33:05 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Arnan Finkelstein Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 FinkelsteinArnan_20140515 1.0:|19(7)|36(10)|55(4)|78(12)|95(13)|112(14)|133(14)|156(3)|181(3)|206(5)|227(3)|248(7)|273(11)|288(14)|313(7)|334(15)|355(20)|372(6)|387(15)|408(4)|425(12)|448(9)|461(17)|480(13)|503(5)|526(11)|545(4)|566(11)|587(12)|606(5)|625(6)|638(8)|661(3)|672(10)|691(3)|718(2)|739(4)|758(4)|777(11)|806(2)|827(2)|850(2)|883(7)|904(11)|933(5)|952(9)|981(2)|1004(2)|1023(8)|1046(11)|1061(10)|1086(7)|1109(10)|1130(7)|1147(3)|1160(17)|1185(10)|1208(5)|1237(7)|1266(9)|1285(9)|1310(2)|1331(7)|1348(12)|1371(2)|1396(17)|1413(8)|1432(2)|1447(4)|1468(9)|1487(14)|1512(10)|1531(11)|1550(8)|1571(7)|1590(7)|1619(7)|1644(6)|1657(12)|1678(4)|1701(17)|1718(14)|1739(10)|1762(9)|1777(11)|1802(8)|1825(15)|1844(13)|1865(8)|1884(12)|1901(7)|1914(16)|1929(14)|1930(2) 0 https://youtu.be/-46-hKYxyg8 YouTube video 0 Introduction—Arnan Finkelstein SC: I am going to ask you a little bit about your family first. If you could start with yourself and then we will go backwards. What is your full name? Where were you born? All your information from when you were young.
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 ; AF: Name is Arnan Finkelstein. I was born in April of 1937 in Tel Aviv under the British mandate. My father was an American citizen at the time, and we came to the states in October of 1941. 0 54 Arnan's Parents, George & ; Mina Finkelstein AF: My father lived in Allentown between the late twenties and early thirties and worked at his family’s textile mill in Allentown, the Arcadia Knitting Mills. During that period, the Arcadia Knitting Mills was a very successful knitting facility. It had an exclusive right in the United States to do something that was just invented called rayon. They had the exclusive right in women’s underwear fabrics. So during the depression, the Arcadia Knitting Mills was basically running around the clock and it was a very, very successful plant. My father did very, very well, from what he told me, he was making like a thousand dollars a month during the depression, which was a staggering amount of money. Something happened in ’33 between he and his uncles. There was some kind of a disagreement ; I never got a full answer on it. But he decided to retire in 1933. He decided then to go looking for a wife and went back to Poland where he knew of my mother. 0 267 1941: Emigrating from Tel Aviv to the United States AF: I remember a little bit about Tel Aviv. I was four years old when we left Tel Aviv. The reason we left, there were several. First of all, Europe was already at war. Germany was in, Rommel was in North Africa and was advancing toward Egypt, and the American Consul General in Jerusalem basically told my father that he could no longer protect him as an American citizen. Then there was an additional part from what my father told me, was that Congress, there was a law passed in 1941 that required all naturalized citizens to come back to the States by the end of ’41 or lose their American citizenship. I don’t have independent confirmation ; I’m only going by what my father or my parents told me. The Italians bombed Tel Aviv in early ’41 or late ’40. They were actually supposed to bomb the oil refineries in Haifa, but they couldn’t find them so they dropped a few bombs on Tel Aviv. I remember spending some nights in bomb shelters in the whole house my father built in Tel Aviv. And then we left Tel Aviv in the spring of ’41 and took a 70-day trip around Africa to come to the states. 0 432 The Garment and Needle-Trade Industry During WWII AF: During the Second World War, he used his contacts – well, a couple of things. All of the big manufacturers were involved in the war effort. So there was nobody doing very much of anything for the domestic market. He used some of his previous contacts from the Arcadia days to be able to buy fabric. He had a little sewing plant in New Brunswick, which manufactured women’s undergarments. He had some of the big New York stores as buyers. I think Bloomingdales and Saks and some of the others because they could not get it anywhere else. That business essentially folded at the end of World War Two, when the traditional manufacturers came back on stream. 
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 ; SC: So silk was used for parachutes?
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 ; AF: Yeah and that was obviously a rare commodity. Rayon was the closest manmade equivalent. 0 588 Moving from Highland Park, NJ to Allentown, PA AF: My father had started a knitting mill in Highland Park I think around 1950. It was a struggle ; he did not succeed over the long run because he was just too far away from the dye houses. He was a contractor there, meaning he was given yarn, which he then knit into fabric. The fabric would be then sent to a dye house, which would dye the fabric and ship to locations depending on the owner of the fabric. So my father did what was called commission knitting, and he got 10-12 cents a pound, whatever the number was. But, because he was in Allentown, the dye houses would not pick up freight free in Allentown. He had to pay freight to ship the goods to Reading or to other places in Pennsylvania, which took all the profit out of the business, so eventually the business folded. So we moved to Allentown in 1954, right after I graduated high school. 0 703 Work Experiences and College Education at Lehigh University AF: Once I got working papers, which was around 1950, I actually went to work for my father in the mill in Highland Park during the summers and typically not during the school period. So I was in the knitting industry I guess since I was about 13 years old. And then, when we moved to Allentown I went to Lehigh, so that was a period of time that I was not actively involved in the plant. 
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 ; SC: What did you study at Lehigh?
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 ; AF: Engineering physics.
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 ; SC: Perfect.
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 ; AF: It was probably the worst four years of my life, but other than that it was fine. 0 902 The Armed Forces—Doing Failure Analysis for the U.S. Armed Forces AF: I went through ROTC at Lehigh, and I was commissioned a second lieutenant upon graduation. And then, that August I went into the Air Force at the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. I spent three years in the Air Force doing essentially failure analysis. We would get pieces and parts of airplanes and engines and components and try to figure out why they failed. And then at the same time, the University of Oklahoma was just about, maybe 20 minutes away. So off hours, I was able to, I figured I had about 2/3 of a master’s degree in metallurgical engineering. 
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 ; SC: Did you find that the failure work that you did was helpful in business at all?
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 ; AF: Well, I think that even though I don’t have fond memories of the education part of Lehigh, I think that the scientific approach that I received was… I came from a very different perspective than anyone else in the business and I think it made a difference for our success. 0 1276 Family History AF: So this is the family story, as I understand it. My father’s mother was one of eighteen children. 
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 ; GE: Excuse me, What was her name? Your father’s name was George . . . 
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 ; AF: My father’s name was George and his mother’s name… I’ll have to take a pass. The last name was Povembrovsky. There were eighteen. Several of my father’s uncles came to the States around the beginning of the twentieth century. There was Isadore, there was Sam, and there was David. Those are the three that I know. Oh, and there was an Eli, as well. Some of the family went to Norway. As a matter of fact there was a Gibstein family that went to Norway. There was also part that stayed in Palestine. Yaakov Agam, the artist, was my father’s first cousin. His mother and my father’s mother were sisters. His name originally was Yaakov Gibstein. So that was part of that family. And so in probably the early ‘20s my father came to the States, around 1922. From what he told me, he left Poland, his mother smoked a turkey for him so that it would be preserved. He left Poland and started his trek across Europe until he got to, I believe Hamburg or Antwerp or something like that, for the trip to the States. 0 1792 George and Mina Finkelstein's Level of Observance SC: One thing that I wanted to just talk a little bit about was, were they religious? Were they very observant in Poland and in the United States?
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 ; AF: My father probably was more observant than my mother. I think my mother was in a more cosmopolitan space. I know that my father belonged to a shul in Allentown. Not Agudas Achim… the other one. I think, I'm not sure. There were two synagogues on Second Street and there was one right down the street. 
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 ; GE: Was that orthodox?
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 ; AF: They were both very orthodox. 0 1885 Family History (cont'd) AF: From the information that my mother gave me, my father is in the picture, obviously, his father, my father’s two sisters, brother and his aunt Hannah and apparently her husband, as well.
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 ; GE: About what year is that and where is that?
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 ; AF: This would have been at the farm in Poland and it’s probably – 
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 ; GE: Before 1922.
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 ; AF: No, it’s gonna be in the ‘30s. 
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 ; GE: Oh so he came back?
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 ; AF: Yes he came back. What he was able to do in addition, he was able to get his sister Shoshanna and his brother Shlomo out of Poland into Palestine in the ‘30s. He had to give them one thousand British pounds so that they could come into Palestine and demonstrate that they were not going to be a ward of the State or whatever. For some reason, I don’t know what happened with his other sisters, but they perished. In 1938, my parents took me, the prize one year old, to show off back in Poland. So, they tried to get my mother’s brother out of Poland but he said this was going to blow over. So he also perished. 0 2207 1922-33: George Finkelstein and the Arcadia Knitting Mills AF: [M]y father when he came to the states went right to work in the factory in Brooklyn. He got off the boat, he had twenty-five cents in his pocket, and he goes to work in the factory.
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 ; GE: This is around 1922?
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 ; AF: Yes this is around 1922. He worked his way up, first a mechanic, he learned how to take the machines apart and put them back together again. Eventually, because he was blood, he was family, they gave him more and more – he clearly, I think earned it – but his uncles gave him more and more responsibility, including, I think they actually set up a plant in Cherbourg, Canada, in which he was involved. Then there was the big move to Allentown in 1928-1929 ; they built the building at the south end of the Eighth Street bridge in Allentown, the Arcadia Knitting Mills. It was a multistory building ; most recently it was converted into the Bridgeview Apartments. That plant manufactured . . . in its heyday manufactured rayon fabrics for women’s undergarments. 0 2425 1941: End of the Arcadia Knitting Mills AF: [M]y father left in 1933 - they continued on but in 1941 the government condemned the building and essentially gave it to Mack Truck, which was next door, so that Mack Truck could expand, and they started making trucks and whatever for the war. So the Arcadia Knitting Mills essentially ended. 
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 ; GE: So the uncles ended at that point?
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 ; AF: The uncles ended the textile business.
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 ; GE: Interesting. What brought them from Brooklyn to –? 
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 ; AF: My understanding is that they liked the fact that there was a very steady highly competent workforce in Allentown with a good work ethic. 0 2596 The '40s: George Finkelstein's Manufacturing Business in NJ GE: [T]ell us a little about your father’s history. When he came back from Palestine to the U.S, just kind of gave us a little bit of that history with the business. I know he was in New Jersey.
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 ; AF: In New Jersey, he had a little sewing plant, cutting, he had access to some rayon fabric. He was able, because the traditional manufacturers could no longer supply the big department stores ; my father was able to sell to the big department stores in New York and Philadelphia . . . women’s undergarments that he manufactured in New Brunswick. 0 2750 1954: George Finkelstein Becomes a Contractor in Allentown, PA AF: So he decided in 1954 to move back to Allentown, bought into a partnership with Sam Boxer. I think Sam’s brother decided to get out. I think it was Lou Boxer, he bought Lou Boxer’s portion of the business. They spent a year or two together and they decided to split. My father went on his own in, I think, probably 1956.
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 ; GE: And you came in at what time, what year?
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 ; AF: We moved to Allentown in 1954.
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 ; GE: You joined your father what year?
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 ; AF: After the Air Force in 1961 0 2985 1961: Arnan Finkelstein Joins the Family Business GE: So now why don’t you tell us about once you entered the business with your father?
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 ; AF: Well I had worked for him on and off from 1950 through high school and in college a little bit, but I joined my father in 1961. As I said, it was right at the beginning of the synthetic boom of stretch nylon. I think my father was one of the first people to try to knit stretch nylon. Stretch nylon was initially a product that was developed by a Swiss company called Helenka [?]. They had taken raw fibers of nylon, and had developed a process where they would send it through a heated tube and it would crimp the nylon so that essentially a foot of raw nylon going in may have been 3 inches going out. But, it was crimped and had stretch. It was used in leotards in the stocking industry. The original nylon stockings were made out of that type of fabric. My father had a friend who gave him twenty spools of yarn with just a little bit of yarn on it to try and run it on an interlock-knitting machine. He was able to do that and came out with a very nice fabric that was stretched in two ways. And then I’m sure other people were experimenting at the same time. Then it just skyrocketed from there. 0 3161 Cotton Versus Synthetics AF: All of a sudden, almost overnight, synthetics. The cotton is out. Knitting cotton was a very - it was a dirty process. What happened is, as you were knitting the cotton, some of the staple would come off as fuzz and there was fuzz all over the place. As a matter of fact, my father was allergic to it. He ended up taking some of the fuzz and they made a serum and injected him with it so he could actually tolerate it and be in the factory. But there was stuff hanging all over the place. As soon as synthetics came in it was clean, it was almost an unbelievable transformation. 
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 ; GE: What is interesting is you’re saying why this synthetic is so nice is the production got much better. How about at the end use? Isn’t it also a better product for the consumer?
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 ; AF: Well it was a very top-notch product at the time. When it compared to cotton, it was probably less expensive than cotton, but it performed, it washed, it kept its shape after many washes. It was an ideal fabric for children. 0 3448 The '60-70s: Evolution in Name, Products, and Business Practices GE: During what time frame would you say this lasted? From 1961 until when?
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 ; AF: ‘61 until it lasted into the early ‘70s. 
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 ; GE: So for a good ten years.
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 ; AF: We sold our business in 1968. In 1967, we built a dye house. We had the knitting mill on South Albert Street, in Allentown. And then my father bought…
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 ; GE: What was the name of your knitting mill?
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 ; AF: It started out as Allentown Knitting Mill. There was Lehigh Weaving Company because the building he bought had the name associated with it. Eventually Lehigh Knitting Mills became available, and someone else had the name, but gave it up. So we had those names. Then we had Syntex Dyeing and Finishing. My father purchased an old Sears warehouse on Union Boulevard and we converted that into a dye house. 0 3674 1968: George Finkelstein's Retirement and the Emergence of Unions GE: So then you sold it in ’68, and at that point, your family was then out of…
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 ; AF: Well, my father retired at that point, and I stayed on as president of the new manufacturing organization. My father had already expanded ; we had a knitting mill in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. So we had the knitting mill in Allentown, the knitting mill in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, and the dye house in Allentown. When we sold to Duplan, Duplan had purchased a company out in California that had a knitting mill. So I became responsible for that plant as well.
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 ; GE: What drove you to North Carolina?
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 ; AF: Help. Labor. 
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 ; GE: What was the difficulty with the labor here? Was it not as plentiful?
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 ; AF: I think there was the competition for knitters. The Fairtex was union. In order to compete, we had to keep up with union style wages. 0 3857 Employee Numbers, Wages, & ; Contracts GE: At this point, the family also had a plant down in North Carolina. In terms of employees, you said you had about 40?
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 ; AF: All together, at peak, I had about 400 people working for me.
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 ; GE: Is that already once you were bought out or before?
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 ; AF: Afterwards. 
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 ; GE: After you were bought out. 
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 ; AF: We expanded some after we were bought. We expanded the dye house and we expanded the knitting mill, so it was at peak. Probably before we sold it must have been somewhere in the 200-250. 0 4107 The '60s: Attempts at Merging the Manufacturing, Sales, & ; Retail Industries—"Stretch Knit" GE: My father had, right around the time that I joined, he had a friend in the textile industry that was a high power salesman in New York. Clarence Ross had the sales agency, my father had the manufacturing, and the two of them formed a 50-50 partnership to sell stretch nylon to the trade. That company was called Stretch Knit. 
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 ; GE: Stretch Knit is the one who is making it?
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 ; AF: Stretch Knit was the product that the sales agency was selling to the trade. It was the position of a middleman but it was a way of getting two separate companies owning a third to be able to service the industry. 
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 ; GE: You say by trade you mean the retailers?
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 ; AF: The manufacturers. 0 4266 1968: Selling to Duplan AF: I remember after meeting in New York I came back to my father and said we are never going to make a deal. That’s when we sold the business. So we had thought about going the private route.
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 ; GE: And then with Duplan your father retired?
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 ; AF: My father retired.
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 ; GE: You became the CEO it sounds like.
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 ; AF: The head of manufacturing. Eventually, a year or so later, Duplan bought the sales agency. So even though the sales agency continued to sell our product now owned by Duplan, there was some tension but eventually it worked out and was back under one roof. 
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 ; GE: And how long did you stay as…?
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 ; AF: I had a five-year contract with Duplan that I guess after 3 and a half years, we agreed to disagree. 0 4397 The '70s: Decline of the Textile and Needle-Trade Industry AF: I stepped out in May of 1972. And then the business, and I don’t think there is a cause or a relationship, but the overall business started not long thereafter to decline. It declined in my view because not only were people like Duplan buying knitters, but the big weaving companies were buying knitting mills as well. Weavers had the Cohen mills, the Burlington’s, people that were making sheets and towels and shirt fabrics and stuff like that. They had a mindset of you set up a loom and three years later you change it. So they were at very long run productions, very low margins. Knitting mills were very versatile. We had a hundred knitting machines in Allentown, within a few days ; I could pretty much change every one of them to something else. Because of its versatility and because of its smallness, there was a very high margin product as well. I think that weaver became very jealous of the high profit margins of the knitting mills. But when they bought the knitting mills, they started to impose their mindset. So before polyester became a dirty word, it was a very high performing product. 0 4732 1978-81: Working for Stretchini's Dyeing Company AF: In 1978, one of the people I knew from Stretchini, they approached me to help a company that he was involved with to run the dye house. So they bought the dye house in Allentown, our old dye house.
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 ; GE: Stretchini.
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 ; AF: Not Stretchini. It was a company out of Pottsville that bought the plant in Allentown and I helped run that. I think I joined them in ’78.
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 ; GE: And how long did you do that?
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 ; AF: I think it was around ’78 to ’81. And again I guess I wasn’t cut out to be in the corporate world. I basically was the head of the plant in Allentown, but there was a lot of interference from people that really didn’t know what they were talking about. 0 4868 Evolution of the Jewish Community—Impact of the Textile and Needle-Trade Industry AF: Well I met a few Jewish kids the summer that I moved to Allentown. It was softball in the summer, maybe a little basketball during the winter months. But, as far as my involvement, my parents belonged to Beth El and my mother and father were regular goers. We would go Friday night quite often. My mother became president of the sisterhood. In fact, Marlene and I met at Beth El.
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 ; GE: So Marlene grew up in this area?
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 ; AF: No. She had an aunt that moved here - whose husband owned Dobnoff’s - the women’s dress store on Hamilton Street. The aunt lived next door to a friend of my mother’s who saw her picture and her next-door neighbor made the Shiddach, the connection. So we met, I was in the Air Force, I was home on leave and Marlene finished finals. 0 5158 Reasons for Jewish Involvement in the Textile and Needle-Trade Industry GE: How do you think your family, especially your uncles, because they were really the first, how do you think they got involved in the needle trade industry? Why in the needle trade industry? 
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 ; AF: I don’t know.
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 ; GE: Why do you think that there definitely was a Jewish propensity in the needle trade industry compared to some other industries? Any thoughts?
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 ; AF: I think it is typical. There is a vacuum that somebody doesn’t want to fill and a vacuum that somebody does want to fill. 0 5249 Arnan's Creative Inspirations and Values SC: So now my first question is what has made you feel the most creative or the most satisfied in your life or maybe that has given you a sense of artistry in your life in the broadest sense?
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 ; AF: I think I had a good time fooling around with the designs of the knitting machines, or the fabric rather. We’d come up with different combinations of yarn and different colors to see if we could make something interesting. That was a fun time. In addition to nylon, there were two types of polyester we were using. One you could not dye at all and the other one could be dyed, so you could end up getting three colors. So that was a fun thing to play around with and for me personally, I think photography has become a place where I get my creative jollies taken care of. 0 5391 Arnan and Marlene's Involvement in the Jewish and Allentown Communities AF: We were very active in Beth El. Marlene was on sisterhood and I was executive vice president. I had been asked to become president of Beth El. But we got involved, we were in I guess the epicenter of the politics that occurred about 35 years ago. It had to do with our daughter’s bat-mitzvah. We had a situation, I mean she was a day school alum ; she went to Camp Ramah, very competent in Hebrew and the prayers and whatever. We wanted her bat-mitzvah where she could maximize her involvement, and Beth El at the time looked to minimize the involvement of the kids. So we kind of parted ways and we were instrumental in starting Am Haskalah at the time. During that period of time we were very actively involved. I was at the Jewish committee, one time I was on four boards. I was president of the Federation for a while ; ’78-’80 I think. I was involved with the day school, with the center, with Beth El. 0 MovingImage Arnan Finkelstein talks about being born in Tel Aviv, Palestine (this is prior to the establishment of the State of Israel) and spending his young childhood there. In the early 1940s, during World War II, the Finkelstein family returned to the U.S. When they returned to the U.S., Arnan’s father manufactured women’s undergarments during the war. After the war, Arnan’s father returned to owning a knitting mill, which he did prior to living in Tel Aviv. Arnan entered the family business in 1961. At this time synthetic fabrics were being developed and the Finkelsteins were active in this. After Arnan’s father sold the business in the late 1960s, Arnan stayed involved in different textile enterprises until 1981. Interview with Arnan Finkelstein, May 15, 2014 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: I am going to ask you a little bit about your family first. If you could start with yourself and then we will go backwards. What is your full name? Where were you born? All your information from when you were young. ARNAN FINKELSTEIN: Name is Arnan Finkelstein. I was born in April of 1937 in Tel Aviv under the British mandate. My father was an American citizen at the time, and we came to the states in October of 1941. SC: Why were you in Tel Aviv at that point? AF: It starts with my parents' decision. My father lived in Allentown between the late twenties and early thirties and worked at his family's textile mill in Allentown, the Arcadia Knitting Mills. During that period, the Arcadia Knitting Mills was a very successful knitting facility. It had an exclusive right in the United States to do something that was just invented called rayon. They had the exclusive right in women's underwear fabrics. So during the depression, the Arcadia Knitting Mills was basically running around the clock and it was a very, very successful plant. My father did very, very well, from what he told me, he was making like a thousand dollars a month during the depression, which was a staggering amount of money. Something happened in '33 between he and his uncles. There was some kind of a disagreement ; I never got a full answer on it. But he decided to retire in 1933. He decided then to go looking for a wife and went back to Poland where he knew of my mother. There was about a six-year difference in age. He knew of her and started courting her. I think she turned him down once or twice and eventually did accept his proposal. He was a U.S. citizen by that time so as a result of that, he gave her the choice of either moving to the States or moving to Palestine, where he had been on several occasions in an attempt to make arrangements for his grandmother's burial in Jerusalem. So my mother apparently chose Palestine and Tel Aviv, in the early-mid thirties was a brand new city. It was roughly thirty years old. It was gleaming white. It was designed architecturally there was the Bauhaus and a lot of then-contemporary design. In fact, I think Tel Aviv is on the UN registry of architecture, mainly because of the Bauhaus influence. It was a very, very good life. GAIL EISNEBERG: What were the names of your mother and father? AF: My father was George Finkelstein and my mother was Mina, M-I-N-A, her maiden name was Zupnitsky. She was from Augustow, Poland. SC: Could you spell that? AF: I'll try. A-U-G-U-S-T-O-V. [official spelling is with a "w" at the end, not "v"] SC: Oh, I meant your mother's name. AF: Well, there is how I spell it and I see the correspondence how she spells it. Z-U-P-N-I-T-S-K-Y would be the way it would be transliterated into English. In Polish there were C's and J's and all sorts of other things in there. SC: Can you can talk a little bit about when you were a child, as far back as you know. And then we'll place you back in the family in the business. AF: I remember a little bit about Tel Aviv. I was four years old when we left Tel Aviv. The reason we left, there were several. First of all, Europe was already at war. Germany was in, Rommel was in North Africa and was advancing toward Egypt, and the American Consul General in Jerusalem basically told my father that he could no longer protect him as an American citizen. Then there was an additional part from what my father told me, was that Congress, there was a law passed in 1941 that required all naturalized citizens to come back to the States by the end of '41 or lose their American citizenship. I don't have independent confirmation ; I'm only going by what my father or my parents told me. The Italians bombed Tel Aviv in early '41 or late '40. They were actually supposed to bomb the oil refineries in Haifa, but they couldn't find them so they dropped a few bombs on Tel Aviv. I remember spending some nights in bomb shelters in the whole house my father built in Tel Aviv. And then we left Tel Aviv in the spring of '41 and took a 70-day trip around Africa to come to the states. SC: That was the safest way? AF: That was the only way. The Mediterranean was at war, the British and the Germans and Italians were, you know, it was an active warzone. Even as we crossed the South Atlantic, in probably the fall of 1941, I have recollection of spending nights in the lifeboats because they were afraid that they would be torpedoed or attacked by German raiders at any time. SC: Wow. So you arrived in the United States, and where did you grow up? AR: I grew up primarily, by 1942, we were living in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And then, in '48 we moved to Highland Park, New Jersey, which was right across the river from New Brunswick. So through high school I was in Highland Park. SC: Was your dad involved, when you were a child, in any of the garment or knitting industry? AR: During the Second World War, he used his contacts -- well, a couple of things. All of the big manufacturers were involved in the war effort. So there was nobody doing very much of anything for the domestic market. He used some of his previous contacts from the Arcadia days to be able to buy fabric. He had a little sewing plant in New Brunswick, which manufactured women's undergarments. He had some of the big New York stores as buyers. I think Bloomingdales and Saks and some of the others because they could not get it anywhere else. That business essentially folded at the end of World War Two, when the traditional manufacturers came back on stream. SC: So silk was used for parachutes? AF: Yeah and that was obviously a rare commodity. Rayon was the closest manmade equivalent. GE: Did they have a patent on rayon? AF: That patent was with a company in England, called Clourtaulds, which was the company that held the rayon. Arcadia Knitting Mills had the exclusive right in the U.S. in women's undergarments, for use in women's undergarments. SC: This is a little off topic, but did you hear that the success in nylon and rayon really pushed out the silk mills in Allentown, little by little? AF: Nylon doesn't come in until much later. I understand that rayon had a significant role in that, yes. SC: Yes, that was the cutting edge. Your uncles were really smart. AF: Yes, they were really active, they had 1200 knitting machines in Allentown running around the clock, manufacturing the fabric. My father, from what he said, the plant was originally in Brooklyn, and it was moved to Allentown in 1929. Apparently, he was responsible for building the building in South 8th Street and then he was the production manager during that period of time. SC: Before he decided to leave? AF: Before he decided to leave, yes. SC: So you went to school in New Jersey? AF: I went through high school in Highland Park. SC: When did you come to Allentown? AF: My father had started a knitting mill in Highland Park I think around 1950. It was a struggle ; he did not succeed over the long run because he was just too far away from the dye houses. He was a contractor there, meaning he was given yarn, which he then knit into fabric. The fabric would be then sent to a dye house, which would dye the fabric and ship to locations depending on the owner of the fabric. So my father did what was called commission knitting, and he got 10-12 cents a pound, whatever the number was. But, because he was in Allentown, the dye houses would not pick up freight free in Allentown. He had to pay freight to ship the goods to Reading or to other places in Pennsylvania, which took all the profit out of the business, so eventually the business folded. So we moved to Allentown in 1954, right after I graduated high school, and my father bought into a partnership with Sam Boxer, almost an identical knitting mill that he had in Highland Park, but it was located in Allentown and meant that the dye houses in Reading made a daily run to pick up the fabric and so there was no additional cost. SC: Is that the B-O-X-E-R? AF: B-O-X-E-R. SC: If you could talk a little bit about where you worked your entire life, from a paperboy or whatever, all the way through to your business. AF: Once I got working papers, which was around 1950, I actually went to work for my father in the mill in Highland Park during the summers and typically not during the school period. So I was in the knitting industry I guess since I was about 13 years old. And then, when we moved to Allentown I went to Lehigh, so that was a period of time that I was not actively involved in the plant. SC: What did you study at Lehigh? AF: Engineering physics. SC: Perfect. AF: It was probably the worst four years of my life, but other than that it was fine. SC: Was that because of Lehigh being-- Lehigh? AF: Well, first of all, my parents when they moved to Allentown were basically busted. The only money they had was from selling the house that they had in Highland Park, which went into buying the partnership. I think it was like $7,000 or something like that. I remember that previous Passover, my parents had to borrow money for that. It was a very difficult period of time in the very beginning. So Lehigh-- I commuted. When I was in high school, I had applied to Rutgers because we lived in Highland Park and money was tight so I was going to be commuting. And then we moved to Allentown and that summer I was studying for the SATs in order to be able to get into Lehigh, and we lived in the Tremont Apartments. My parents, my sister and I were in a two-bedroom apartment. Until 1957 we were in that apartment and it was a tough school environment because of Lehigh. Even more so than now, there was no grade inflation. Of my freshman class, barely over half graduated on time. I was lucky enough to be in that part that graduated on time. It was a grind, 8 o'clock classes, six days a week. It was not fun. SC: All male? AF: All male except for a couple of women teachers. SC: Did you commute there? AF: I did. My parents got me a car, and I commuted every day. SC: Better to have a car and commute than to live at Lehigh and be without a car. AF: Well, my parents tell me, and I don't remember, that they had offered me the opportunity of living on campus and I don't remember having that choice, but it's possible. SC: So, then after you graduated from Lehigh, where did you work? AF: I went through ROTC at Lehigh, and I was commissioned a second lieutenant upon graduation. And then, that August I went into the Air Force at the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. I spent three years in the Air Force doing essentially failure analysis. We would get pieces and parts of airplanes and engines and components and try to figure out why they failed. And then at the same time, the University of Oklahoma was just about, maybe 20 minutes away. So off hours, I was able to, I figured I had about 2/3 of a master's degree in metallurgical engineering. SC: Did you find that the failure work that you did was helpful in business at all? AF: Well, I think that even though I don't have fond memories of the education part of Lehigh, I think that the scientific approach that I received was-- I came from a very different perspective than anyone else in the business and I think it made a difference for our success. SC: After the service, did you go overseas at all? AF: No. Not part of the service. I was in between Korea, before Berlin. I went overseas but it was not part of my work. I did go to Bermuda for an airplane inspection trip. But other than that, I did my work in Oklahoma City and went up to Boeing Aircraft in Seattle on a couple of occasions. SC: That's nice. AF: It was fun. I got a chance to do some fun things, good things in the Air Force. SC: After the Air Force, then what did you do? AF: I left the service in August of '61, but I was working on a project as part of my master's program. So I stayed on until November, until my father kind of made me an offer that I couldn't refuse. By that time, he had separated from Boxer ; had his own plant in South 12th Street in the Vultee industrial area. I just happened to see my last pay from the Air Force ; I was making like $5,700 a year. My father offered me $200 a week to join him in the business. GE: $200 a week. AF: A week. I'm sorry, $200 a week to join him in the business. So that was a lot of money and I certainly was familiar. I had worked in the summers for him, in youth facility so certainly I was quite familiar with what was involved. So I joined him in November/December of 1961. SC: In doing so, did you ever look back at where you might have gone, at all, or was this something that . . . ? AF: The first time I went to Boeing, I was a spanking new second lieutenant with one really shiny gold bar on each shoulder. I went to Seattle because the lad, who was a civilian, and I were going to inspect Curt Lemay's aircraft for a potential defect that was found in the B47. The KC-135, which was a forerunner of the 707 Boeing Jetliner, was just beginning to enter service, and they were concerned that some of the issues that were affecting the B47 might affect the 707 KC-135. So, Curt Lemay's aircraft was the most flown aircraft in the Air Force Fleet. So the Air Force decided, or Boeing decided this is the plane they wanted inspected. So I went out to Seattle and Moses Lake at their Tufts facility to examine his aircraft. SC: Did you ever look back on what you might have done? AF: We're in Boeing, before I got there, I was treated like royalty. People were opening doors, yes sir, no sir. And then they took me into a room where if I had gone to work for Boeing, I would have been. It was a room that went as far as the eye could see. And there were desks. And there were four desks that were butted together and in the center of the space of four desks was a single telephone on a revolving spindle that the four engineers shared. And I said, "Oh my God." So that was my first inkling that maybe my career path wasn't the one that would have been the best. And I had some other contact with jet engine manufacturers like Pratt & ; Whitney and General Electric. The corporate world got to be less and less appealing. SC: Can we move back now and talk as far back about your family as you know, and put you into some context coming from Poland? AF: Okay. So this is the family story, as I understand it. My father's mother was one of eighteen children. GE: Excuse me, What was her name? Your father's name was George . . . AF: My father's name was George and his mother's name-- I'll have to take a pass. The last name was Povembrovsky. There were eighteen. Several of my father's uncles came to the States around the beginning of the twentieth century. There was Isadore, there was Sam, and there was David. Those are the three that I know. Oh, and there was an Eli, as well. Some of the family went to Norway. As a matter of fact there was a Gibstein family that went to Norway. There was also part that stayed in Palestine. Yaakov Agam, the artist, was my father's first cousin. His mother and my father's mother were sisters. His name originally was Yaakov Gibstein. So that was part of that family. And so in probably the early '20s my father came to the States, around 1922. From what he told me, he left Poland, his mother smoked a turkey for him so that it would be preserved. He left Poland and started his trek across Europe until he got to, I believe Hamburg or Antwerp or something like that, for the trip to the States. GE: And the community they lived in in Poland, what was the name? AF: I believe it was Grodno, G-R-O-D-N-O, something like that. It was a farm that the Finkelstein (pronouncing it as Finkelshtein), as they pronounced it then, clan, there were several-- my grandfather, my father's father, several of his brothers and sisters I guess, were on the land. Apparently it was deeded to my father's grandfather for services rendered to Czar Nicholas. We don't know what those services were. It was Nicholas the First, not the Second. So that is the time frame where the land in Poland, or it was Russia, wherever it was at the time, was deeded to the Finkelstein family. SC: Which was unusual. AF: Which was very unusual. SC: So they were farmers. Do you know any other occupations that people had? Were they all on the land? AF: I know that my father, my mother's father, before he was prevented from doing so, was a-- I don't know the term, but he was allowed to buy forestland, or at least lease forestland and to cut the trees down for timber. Like logging. He obviously didn't have a chain saw or whatever, but I know that some of the better timber he sold to the shipyards in Gdansk, or Danzig as it was, for masted sail ships. GE: His last name? AF: Z-U-P-N-I-T-S-K-Y is how I would spell it. GE: And do you know what her father's name is? AF: Sholom SC: So, he could sell that. AF: He cut down the trees ; sell the very finest for masts and the rest would go for heating or paper. And then he was prevented. At some point the Polish government said that Jews were no longer allowed to do that. SC: Would they have been living in what was considered the Jewish Pale? AF: I don't think so. My mother grew up in Augustow. She went to school in Warsaw High School, and then she actually went to the University of Warsaw. GE: Wow, so they were really in central Poland, not Eastern? AF: Yes. She never graduated. I think the offer my father made her for whatever reason ; she left Poland a semester before graduating. But she spoke eight languages at one time. She spoke German, Polish, French, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. We found a recipe book of hers after she passed away, that started out in Polish and then went into French and then ended up in Hebrew. GE: So it sounds like her family was on the more affluent side? AF: To begin with. GE: Until they took away his businesses? AF: Right. My mother had to pay her own way to go to gymnasium, the high school. She would work as a nanny, she worked as a tutor. So she basically had to support herself through high school and college. SC: So your father's family and your mother's family, they did have connections before you went back to Poland? AF: I don't know that they did. My father was a "Am Ha-Aretz," a man of the land. He was not cultured and not cultivated. He was very street smart. During the First World War he told stories of how the farm was on the moveable border between Germany and Poland and Russia. He told about how he hated the Poles. He never learned Polish. Life under German in World War One was by far better than under the Poles or the Russians. Life under German control -- GE: Even in World War Two? AF: World War One. They were basically left to be autonomous. He also remembers, he told stories of how he smuggled people across in a hay wagon across the border from Poland into Germany. So he was that kind of-- he was probably no good-nick at some point, but he learned very hard, had to fight his way to school several times a week to get to school. SC: Very smart, just maybe not as book smart. AF: He was very, very street smart. My mother was very, very cultured, smart. SC: So do you know anything else about their lives? Any of the family, or anybody that was in a trade like tailoring or garments? I'm trying to make a link. AF: No, I don't. I don't at all. I know that my father eventually helped his father buy out all of the other Finkelsteins from the land, but I don't know what they ended up going into. GE: And that was still in Poland? AF: That was still in Poland, in probably the early '30s. SC: One thing that I wanted to just talk a little bit about was, were they religious? Were they very observant in Poland and in the United States? AF: My father probably was more observant than my mother. I think my mother was in a more cosmopolitan space. I know that my father belonged to a shul in Allentown. Not Agudas Achim-- the other one. I think, I'm not sure. There were two synagogues on Second Street and there was one right down the street. GE: Was that orthodox? AF: They were both very orthodox. They were both very orthodox. He belonged to one of them. I know that he wouldn't cross the street to go to the other one. I don't know what level of observant. Although I know that when we moved back to the states, in New Brunswick, we belonged to an orthodox synagogue in New Brunswick until we moved to Highland Park, where we joined a conservative congregation. Which was pretty right wing conservative back in those days. *Looking at a picture* AF: This is my mother's family . . . From the information that my mother gave me, my father is in the picture, obviously, his father, my father's two sisters, brother and his aunt Hannah and apparently her husband, as well. GE: About what year is that and where is that? AF: This would have been at the farm in Poland and it's probably -- GE: Before 1922. AF: No, it's gonna be in the '30s. GE: Oh so he came back? AF: Yes he came back. What he was able to do in addition, he was able to get his sister Shoshanna and his brother Shlomo out of Poland into Palestine in the '30s. He had to give them one thousand British pounds so that they could come into Palestine and demonstrate that they were not going to be a ward of the State or whatever. For some reason, I don't know what happened with his other sisters, but they perished. In 1938, my parents took me, the prize one year old, to show off back in Poland. So, they tried to get my mother's brother out of Poland but he said this was going to blow over. So he also perished. SC: So you were there a year before, in '38, a year before the Nazi Soviet pact. So is there anything else with family that you can think of that we haven't asked. I asked how observant they were. How about their relationship with the community? I think you talked about it. AF: My father was very bad as I indicated. He had nothing but enmity for the Poles, and I'm sure it was returned as well. That was not a good situation. My mother grew up ; they had a piano in the house. She learned how to play piano. It was a very different environment. I think, I guess it was in Bialystok ; she had very fond memories of spending time at the lakes with her cousins and friends and whatever. On one level she spoke of a very idealic life in Poland. On the other hand, she left, and I'm not sure exactly what prompted her to not finish university, to rethink her rejection of my father's overtures and to . . .. I really don't know what happened there, but she obviously made the right decision in the long run for herself and us. GE: Did your mother talk about her friends and cousins? Were they all Jewish? In other words, was she just part of the nice . . . AF: I think they were all Jewish. GE: So you don't know about her relationship with the broader Polish community? AF: No, not at all. SC: I have a couple other questions at the end to ask you. GE: Is that a family tree? AF: This is a family tree. It's limited. It was done for our daughter Alana's bat-mitzvah. It goes back quite a few years. GE: Maybe afterwards we can just make a copy of that? AF: Sure. GE: So now we just want to find out a little bit more to understand better about the business. If you want to share with us, how the business originated? I think you had said it with your uncles. If you would just share with us how it originated, what was the specific business, who were their suppliers, who were their customers, what were they making? Those kinds of things. AF: My knowledge of this is fairly sketchy. What I do know is that my father when he came to the states went right to work in the factory in Brooklyn. He got off the boat, he had twenty-five cents in his pocket, and he goes to work in the factory. GE: This is around 1922? AF: Yes this is around 1922. He worked his way up, first a mechanic, he learned how to take the machines apart and put them back together again. Eventually, because he was blood, he was family, they gave him more and more -- he clearly, I think earned it -- but his uncles gave him more and more responsibility, including, I think they actually set up a plant in Cherbourg, Canada, in which he was involved. Then there was the big move to Allentown in 1928-1929 ; they built the building at the south end of the Eighth Street bridge in Allentown, the Arcadia Knitting Mills. It was a multistory building ; most recently it was converted into the Bridgeview Apartments. That plant manufactured . . . in its heyday manufactured rayon fabrics for women's undergarments. GE: Tell us a little bit about the process. In other words, what were their raw materials, what did they sell? AF: The raw material was rayon that was delivered on spools. Whether it was manufactured in England where it was invented, or whether Courtaulds had built a plant in the states, I don't know. They were getting regular shipments of rayon. They had, from what I understand, 1200 tricot machines, which is a kind of knitting machine. They also had a dye house in Allentown, which after the fabric was knit into rolls, they would be dyed to a particular color and then shipped to either converters or someone else who would cut the fabric into garments. Arcadia was only involved in the manufacture and dying of the fabric. GE: So they were both manufacturers and they were the dyers? AF: Right. GE: And I think you had said that they were the only manufacturer of rayon? AF: They had for some period an exclusive right to rayon for use in women's undergarment fabric for quite some time, especially during the early and mid thirties. GE: Of women's undergarments, do you know let's say rayon made up what percentage? AF: I don't know. GE: Otherwise, what was it made of? Cotton? AF: It was cotton, I think if it was very upscale it would have been silk. Rayon was a silk-like product, synthetic and much more readily available than silk. GE: And much cheaper. AF: Much cheaper. GE: So this probably had the majority of the market. AF: I think it must have, considering how busy they were during a particularly trying time in the United States ; they must have been doing a very large portion of the business. And they continued on until - my father left in 1933 - they continued on but in 1941 the government condemned the building and essentially gave it to Mack Truck, which was next door, so that Mack Truck could expand, and they started making trucks and whatever for the war. So the Arcadia Knitting Mills essentially ended. GE: So the uncles ended at that point? AF: The uncles ended the textile business. GE: Interesting. What brought them from Brooklyn to --? AF: My understanding is that they liked the fact that there was a very steady highly competent workforce in Allentown with a good work ethic. As a matter of fact, in preparation for this, I tried to do a little research, but the Morning Call archives only go to '84. I don't know whether their . . . whatever. But I did find an obituary of someone who worked at the Arcadia Knitting Mills as a knitter who passed away at 94, some years ago. GE: With that labor force, it was a plentiful, good work ethic. How about in terms of their salaries, compared to New York salaries? AF: I don't know, I can't answer that. GE: Was it unionized? AF: I don't think so. GE: They sold to cutters? AF: They sold to utters or manufacturers of the garment. It depends on how vertically integrated they were. GE: Okay. After your uncles left Arcadia in 1941, then really Arcadia ceased to exist? Is that correct? AF: That's my understanding. GE: Were your uncles ever again in the business? AF: I think they were quite wealthy and they moved out to California and got involved in other things. GE: Okay. SC: Have you seen the Allentown 225th book? I know it's mentioned in there. I'll copy the page. AF: I'd like to see it. GE: Of Arcadia? SC: Yeah. It's mentioned. GE: Was that one of the first knitting mills in this area? AF: If it wasn't one of the first, it was certainly the largest. GE: Okay. So then you were saying that your father -- tell us a little about your father's history. When he came back from Palestine to the U.S, just kind of gave us a little bit of that history with the business. I know he was in New Jersey. AF: In New Jersey, he had a little sewing plant, cutting, he had access to some rayon fabric. He was able, because the traditional manufacturers could no longer supply the big department stores ; my father was able to sell to the big department stores in New York and Philadelphia . . . women's undergarments that he manufactured in New Brunswick. GE: So now he was a manufacturer, not the knitter, and not the big fabric maker. AF: Right. GE: And do you want to just share with us why the large manufacturers were not--during the war? AF: During the war, the large manufacturers obviously turned into making uniforms and parachutes and all sorts of other things. And so they were out of the supply of domestic products. GE: Right. So it gave an opportunity for small-- AF: Yes. My father and a few women in a storefront making garments. During the war he did nicely, relatively well. GE: Right. After the war-- AF: After that war, that business completely evaporated. The traditional manufacturers came back into the mainstream. He tried a few different things without much success. He considered taking the family back to Israel, by this time. But that was even a tougher road to do I think in '49 and 1950 and so. Then he decided to try his hand again in the knitting mill and he bought some knitting machines and set up a small factory in Highland Park, New Jersey. GE: What made him move from there to Allentown? AF: The plant in Highland Park failed because they were too far away from the dye house area, which was typically in Reading, and he had to pay freight to ship the unfinished fabric to the dye house and that basically took away all profits. GE: So that took away all profits. AF: There was no profit. So he decided in 1954 to move back to Allentown, bought into a partnership with Sam Boxer. I think Sam's brother decided to get out. I think it was Lou Boxer, he bought Lou Boxer's portion of the business. They spent a year or two together and they decided to split. My father went on his own in, I think, probably 1956. GE: And you came in at what time, what year? AF: We moved to Allentown in 1954. GE: You joined your father what year? AF: After the Air Force in 1961. GE: Okay about 5 years later. So during those 5 years, your father was-- AF: A contract knitter knitting other people's yarn into fabric. At that time it was almost exclusively cotton. GE: So it was no longer the rayon? AF: No. No longer rayon. GE: The cotton was ultimately being made into what kinds of products? AF: The machines he had at the time were called interlock machines. The fabric went into polo shirts and . . . I mean, it was a very fine fabric. It's still being used today. Many of your better golf shirts are knit in the interlock machine out of 100% cotton or poly-cotton. That still is the standard for golf shirts, that material. GE: Who were some of your father's major customers? AF: I can't tell you that. I don't know. These were names that wouldn't have meant anything. GE: Okay. They're not necessarily brands that we know. AF: No. They were typically people who bought the yarn and had it knit up, and then would go out and try and sell the fabric to end users or cutters or whatever. They typically are called converters. All the business was done over the telephone or a handshake at most. There were thousands of dollars of goods transferred without ever a contract. GE: So when your father was doing this, were there many other knitting mills in the area here? AF: In New Brunswick, there were none that I'm aware of. In Allentown, there were a few. The Krasnov family was involved, Surefit was doing things like this on a larger scale, and there was another Krasnov that was doing it on some scale. But not a lot. GE: There was enough business that the 3, or 4, or 5 knitters who existed, there were enough customers? AF: Yeah. I mean, Boxer went off on his own. There were others that went . . . In 1961 before the synthetic boom, there were a few. After the synthetic boom started, which started just about the time when I joined my father in 1961, it became an entirely different thing in Allentown. GE: Okay. We'll hear about that in just a minute. SC: May I ask, how is Krasnov spelled? AF: I think K-R-A-S-N-O-V. GE: So now why don't you tell us about once you entered the business with your father? AF: Well I had worked for him on and off from 1950 through high school and in college a little bit, but I joined my father in 1961. As I said, it was right at the beginning of the synthetic boom of stretch nylon. I think my father was one of the first people to try to knit stretch nylon. Stretch nylon was initially a product that was developed by a Swiss company called Helenka [?]. They had taken raw fibers of nylon, and had developed a process where they would send it through a heated tube and it would crimp the nylon so that essentially a foot of raw nylon going in may have been 3 inches going out. But, it was crimped and had stretch. It was used in leotards in the stocking industry. The original nylon stockings were made out of that type of fabric. My father had a friend who gave him twenty spools of yarn with just a little bit of yarn on it to try and run it on an interlock-knitting machine. He was able to do that and came out with a very nice fabric that was stretched in two ways. And then I'm sure other people were experimenting at the same time. Then it just skyrocketed from there. GE: I thought DuPont. AF: DuPont had invented nylon, but Helenka in Switzerland developed the process for crimping the nylon. GE: Interesting. So DuPont developed the nylon and then they did this particular . . . AF: Post processing GE: . . . . post process that made it possible to become a fabric. AF: Yes. The typical nylon that DuPont made was you could make a rope out of it. GE: I thought even the parachutes. AF: Yes. Like sheet type fabrics, woven fabrics, not knitted into anything. SC: Better living through chemistry. AF: Better living through chemistry. That was Chemstrand, though. They they had their own nylon later on. GE: So this is around the very early 1960s, your father is learning how to-- AF: All of a sudden, almost overnight, synthetics. The cotton is out. Knitting cotton was a very - it was a dirty process. What happened is, as you were knitting the cotton, some of the staple would come off as fuzz and there was fuzz all over the place. As a matter of fact, my father was allergic to it. He ended up taking some of the fuzz and they made a serum and injected him with it so he could actually tolerate it and be in the factory. But there was stuff hanging all over the place. As soon as synthetics came in it was clean, it was almost an unbelievable transformation. GE: What is interesting is you're saying why this synthetic is so nice is the production got much better. How about at the end use? Isn't it also a better product for the consumer? AF: Well it was a very top-notch product at the time. When it compared to cotton, it was probably less expensive than cotton, but it performed, it washed, it kept its shape after many washes. It was an ideal fabric for children. One of my father's big customers was a company called Stretchini, which eventually sold to Bobby Brooks, that manufactured children's garments. We would knit, they would have it dyed and then they would cut it up into leotards and tops and they were advertising very heavily in the New York Times magazine section. Every week, Stretchini was just a very big name in children's garments, swimsuits. The fabric for the warm-up jackets and pants for the 1964 and 1968 Olympic team was made out of our fabric that we donated and gave to Wilson, which cut it up into garments. So, it performed very well. In fact, I may still have that jacket. So this was the pants that either the '64 or '68 Olympic team wore as their warm-up. I don't think I can get into them anymore. GE: Did this become the norm for all clothes or did you have any kind of proprietary rights to this? AF: No. What happened is as we were succeeding in '61 and on, the Boxer family was succeeding also. They had a plant not far from ours but they were right near where Good Shepherd is now. The Berman family with Fairtex had a big plant, which was right alongside Emmaus Avenue and 309. They had a big facility there. Between these three plants, between our plant and Fairtex and the Boxer plant, I would say that a very large percentage of the stretch nylon fabric was being produced right here in Allentown. GE: You say a very large percentage ; do you mean a large percentage that served the whole country? AF: Yes. We were serving the New York market, but the New York market was the market. GE: Among the three of you, it was enough business? It wasn't terribly competitive? AF: We competed for people by that time. We would compete for knitters. GE: For the workers? AF: For the workers, yes. GE: Okay so the constraint was more the workers, not how much you could make? AF: Yes the workers and the mechanics. There was enough for all of us. The big issue back then was how to make it. GE: So it was really a production constraint, not at all a market or selling one. SC: Would you say again where the Boxer's were located? AF: They were located right near the Good Shepherd facility in South Allentown. GE: During what time frame would you say this lasted? From 1961 until when? AF: '61 until it lasted into the early '70s. GE: So for a good ten years. AF: We sold our business in 1968. In 1967, we built a dye house. We had the knitting mill on South Albert Street, in Allentown. And then my father bought-- GE: What was the name of your knitting mill? AF: It started out as Allentown Knitting Mill. There was Lehigh Weaving Company because the building he bought had the name associated with it. Eventually Lehigh Knitting Mills became available, and someone else had the name, but gave it up. So we had those names. Then we had Syntex Dyeing and Finishing. My father purchased an old Sears warehouse on Union Boulevard and we converted that into a dye house. GE: From '61 to '71, did you also have dyeing? AF: The dyeing came in in about '67. GE: Because there was an earlier time when you did have dyeing. AF: At the Arcadia. GE: Okay. AF: But we started dyeing our fabrics in '67. Then we sold the business in '68 to Duplan Corp, which was a New York Stock Exchange listed company. GE: So it was a large one? AF: Pretentions of being large. GE: So it was publicly traded. AF: Yes. SC: Is that D-U-P-- AF: D-U-P-L-A-N. They were actually one of the suppliers of the nylon yarn. So, they had . . . GE: So they were vertically integrated. AF: They were vertically integrated during this period. There was a time of the conglomeration GE: Okay and even where you took on the dyes, which would again be vertically integrating, did you do that to have better control? AF: Clearly quality. We felt that in order to compete more successfully, we needed to have a product that we knew from beginning to end. SC: Were the double knits at that time, the really heavy double knits? AF: We went from the interlocking to double knits and then we also had single knits too. There were single knits with lighter weight like top fabric. Some of the, even today, some of the less expensive knit shirts will be a single knit fabric as opposed to the interlock which is a form of double knit. GE: Generally, your fabric would not be distinguished from Boxer's fabric? AF: Typically not. We would try to come up with different styles, we would try to come up with color combinations that were more seasonal. Our sales agency would twice a year would come up with a color palette, and we would do fabric for samples, and that's what the salesmen used to go out and sell. GE: And your salesmen, they were selling to manufacturers? AF: Manufacturers of the garments, yes. GE: I assume the manufacturers of the garments were the ones driving what color it should be? AF: Yes. Absolutely. GE: So then you sold it in '68, and at that point, your family was then out of-- AF: Well, my father retired at that point, and I stayed on as president of the new manufacturing organization. My father had already expanded ; we had a knitting mill in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. So we had the knitting mill in Allentown, the knitting mill in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, and the dye house in Allentown. When we sold to Duplan, Duplan had purchased a company out in California that had a knitting mill. So I became responsible for that plant as well. GE: What drove you to North Carolina? AF: Help. Labor. GE: What was the difficulty with the labor here? Was it not as plentiful? AF: I think there was the competition for knitters. The Fairtex was union. In order to compete, we had to keep up with union style wages. GE: But you were not union? AF: We were not union at the time. I think Fairtex, the Fairtex plant was much larger because it was all under one roof. So they had several hundred people working there. The knitting mill in Allentown was 30-40 people. Our knitting mill. The dye house we had several hundred people working at the dye house. I think the International Textile Workers were in Fairtex. And then they made several attempts to unionize our plant. The first few were unsuccessful. The last one was successful. Part of the problem was that under the new union rules, over-time occurred on the weekends, no matter how many hours you worked during the week. So we were finding that people were working four days during the week, taking off a day, then working Saturday and getting over-time. It would mess up our production cycles. So to give us a bit of a buffer, in terms of dealing with our needs, being able to fulfill our needs, my father just decided to get a plant started in Rocky Mountain. GE: So I'm trying to remember exactly where we were. At this point, the family also had a plant down in North Carolina. In terms of employees, you said you had about 40? AF: All together, at peak, I had about 400 people working for me. GE: Is that already once you were bought out or before? AF: Afterwards. GE: After you were bought out. AF: We expanded some after we were bought. We expanded the dye house and we expanded the knitting mill, so it was at peak. Probably before we sold it must have been somewhere in the 200-250. GE: You had said that the breakdown was most of it was dye and much smaller was the knitting is that correct? AF: No. We were basically matching our dye house to what we could produce. GE: Right but how about in terms of employees? AF: Employees, there were many more people in the dye house. GE: It was more labor intensive? AF: Much more labor intensive. One knitter could tend three, four, five, six machines depending on the style. In the dye house you needed multiple people to keep things going on one machine. GE: So the dying was very labor intensive. SC: That was in Rocky Mountain that you had 400 people? AF: No. There were a total of 400. We had probably about 20 in Rocky Mountain. It depends on if we were running, we very often ran three shifts. GE: How would you characterize the relationship employees have with management? With yourself as well as the management staff? AF: I think in spite of the fact that some people would take a look at unionization and that this represented some kind of difficulty. I don't think it did. I think it was just the way that things were going at the time. I thought we generally had a pretty good relationship. I'm sure there were issues but I think we paid pretty fairly. As a matter of fact, whereas I said earlier that I think Fairtex asked the union to try to organize us. I got back at them a little bit some time later in the second contract that we only had 30-40 people that were unionized. Fairtex had several hundred. I had mentioned that we had difficulty with people not working their full workweek but coming in for overtime and getting the overtime. In the second contract that I signed after the first two or three years, I got a concession. I paid more for an hourly wage because we could do it. But I got a concession from the union that overtime would only begin after forty hours. So, that really helped us a great deal. What happened was that Fairtex had to now match what we were giving, on an hourly, and one of the Berman brothers called me up screaming at me saying what I did to them. GE: Do you want to just tell us a little bit, you had said I think around '67-'68 that Duplan-- AF: Duplan, '68. During '67, early part of '68-- let me go back a little bit. My father had, right around the time that I joined, he had a friend in the textile industry that was a high power salesman in New York. Clarence Ross had the sales agency, my father had the manufacturing, and the two of them formed a 50-50 partnership to sell stretch nylon to the trade. That company was called Stretch Knit. GE: Stretch Knit is the one who is making it? AF: Stretch Knit was the product that the sales agency was selling to the trade. It was the position of a middleman but it was a way of getting two separate companies owning a third to be able to service the industry. GE: You say by trade you mean the retailers? AF: The manufacturers. GE: So this was still before the garment. AF: Before the garments. This was selling it to people that would turn it into garments. It was a part of the business that I saw as the future. My father, there were really big egos involved in this. All along there was a thought that we were kind of working toward merging the three companies into one and potentially going public on our own. That wasn't particularly the right period for doing things like that. Through '67, early '68, there was a lot of negotiation between the local parties to see if we could come up with a merger. The biggest problem was the sales agency basically had no assets. They had a couple paintings on the wall and some office furniture. We had a lot of iron. We had a lot of very expensive types of equipment. So trying to find the balance as to how to value the new company was a problem. I kept thinking that it could work out. I thought we had a deal and then that deal fell apart. We were at the same time being courted by Duplan to sell the business. I remember after meeting in New York I came back to my father and said we are never going to make a deal. That's when we sold the business. So we had thought about going the private route. GE: And then with Duplan your father retired? AF: My father retired. GE: You became the CEO it sounds like. AF: The head of manufacturing. Eventually, a year or so later, Duplan bought the sales agency. So even though the sales agency continued to sell our product now owned by Duplan, there was some tension but eventually it worked out and was back under one roof. GE: And how long did you stay as--? AF: I had a five-year contract with Duplan that I guess after 3 and a half years, we agreed to disagree. Things were changing. I remember clearly one of the sales pitches and getting us to be bought out, we don't want the iron, we don't want the machines. We want the people that are making it happen. And then, pretty much as soon as they buy us, the corporate people take over and we have to hire a controller and we have to have monthly reports. All of a sudden, as smart as we were before we were bought, now we are dumb and don't know what we are talking about. They try to get policy wonks to come in and change things. GE: So the whole management style. AF: The whole management style changed and that kind of confirmed to me the decision I made to go in with my father, not to go in with the big corporations. Clearly, I was not a corporate type. GE: You stepped out it sounds like. AF: I stepped out in May of 1972. And then the business, and I don't think there is a cause or a relationship, but the overall business started not long thereafter to decline. It declined in my view because not only were people like Duplan buying knitters, but the big weaving companies were buying knitting mills as well. Weavers had the Cohen mills, the Burlington's, people that were making sheets and towels and shirt fabrics and stuff like that. They had a mindset of you set up a loom and three years later you change it. So they were at very long run productions, very low margins. Knitting mills were very versatile. We had a hundred knitting machines in Allentown, within a few days ; I could pretty much change every one of them to something else. Because of its versatility and because of its smallness, there was a very high margin product as well. I think that weaver became very jealous of the high profit margins of the knitting mills. But when they bought the knitting mills, they started to impose their mindset. So before polyester became a dirty word, it was a very high performing product. I kind of remember these numbers. We used to deliver fabrics typically that were 12 to 13 ounces per square yard. Which doesn't mean anything by itself, but it's a substantial product. A year or two later, when the weavers were competing in bulk because that's the only thing that they knew, the fabric was now down to 10-10 ½ ounces per square yard and it stopped performing completely. So overnight that business completely busted. The machine that I had mentioned that we bought from England ; at one point we would pay $50,000 a machine for those machines. After I left, about a year or two after I left, I was offered by a machinery salesman that I could buy four machines for $37,000. GE: Okay so therefore nobody was buying? AF: Nobody was buying. Overnight the business-- I think it was just a change in mentality and the way that it affected the quality of the fabric. GE: So just so that I understand, so you're saying that in the '60s, these synthetics came in and they just took off, but then in the '70s it started to reverse? AF: Yes. GE: Your hypothesis is that happened because the Weavers really cheapened or diminished the quality? AF: That's my take. It may not be all of that. It was not foreign competition because the knitting machines were very high cost. GE: It was a high barrier to entry. AF: It was very expensive. GE: They cheapened it. I'm not sure I fully understand that. AF: They lightened it. SC: It wasn't durable. AF: It wasn't nearly as durable, as useful as a product. It's like taking the garment like I showed you with the double knit, where you had a nice substantial feel, and then making it a single knit. It just didn't perform anymore. GE: The knitters are making the fabric, what are the weavers making? AF: The weavers are also making the fabric, but they are making commodity fabrics. GE: Tell me what you mean by that. AF: Sheets. You don't make sheets a hundred yards at a time. You make sheets a thousand or a million yards at a time. GE: So they're the ones doing the big ones. AF: Right. GE: And the knitters were the ones who were doing more custom and small? SC: So you had 45-60 inch fabric being knit in long tubes as opposed to -- AF: Yeah. For us a 10,000-yard order is a significant order. 10,000 yards is what they would bang out over a weekend. GE: Interesting. And then they started going down already. Now we are in the '70s. How long did they last, that business? AF: I think somewhere around '75, give or take. The Duplan went bankrupt and for several years the dye house and the plant in Allentown went into receivership or whatever. In 1978, one of the people I knew from Stretchini, they approached me to help a company that he was involved with to run the dye house. So they bought the dye house in Allentown, our old dye house. GE: Stretchini. AF: Not Stretchini. It was a company out of Pottsville that bought the plant in Allentown and I helped run that. I think I joined them in '78. GE: And how long did you do that? AF: I think it was around '78 to '81. And again I guess I wasn't cut out to be in the corporate world. I basically was the head of the plant in Allentown, but there was a lot of interference from people that really didn't know what they were talking about. SC: Did you know the Delins in Pottsville? AF: No. GE: Arnold Delin, I think that was very much with the sewers. SC: Yeah it was different. GE: So after you were done with that, any other connections? AF: That ended my textile connection. GE: Alright. Terrific. So I was just going to ask you, you grew up in the Allentown area, want to share with us a little bit about-- well you didn't grow up here, how old were you? AF: 17. GE: Okay so tell us a little bit about the Jewish community in Allentown that you saw as a younger person, how do you think it was affected by the textile industry being very dominant in the Jewish community? AF: Well I met a few Jewish kids the summer that I moved to Allentown. It was softball in the summer, maybe a little basketball during the winter months. But, as far as my involvement, my parents belonged to Beth El and my mother and father were regular goers. We would go Friday night quite often. My mother became president of the sisterhood. In fact, Marlene and I met at Beth El. GE: So Marlene grew up in this area? AF: No. She had an aunt that moved here - whose husband owned Dobnoff's - the women's dress store on Hamilton Street. The aunt lived next door to a friend of my mother's who saw her picture and her next-door neighbor made the Shiddach, the connection. So we met, I was in the Air Force, I was home on leave and Marlene finished finals. She was at Hunter College, and she reluctantly came out and even more reluctantly went to temple Friday night and that's where we met. We were supposed to have a date the following night, but we were not supposed to meet Friday night. GE: So as you got a little bit older, this kind of industry and its dominance here, what kind of impact do you think it had on the Jewish community here? AF: I think it made for a lot of wealthy people. There were only a few of us in manufacturing, but a lot of people in the sewing. After we were married, I was involved with the Federation, and I had a chance to meet and to know some of the people that were in the textile industry. It was a Camelot period. It was a golden age. GE: How long would [you] say that Camelot period went, from when to when? If you had put a starting point and ending point? AF: I think there was a lot of stuff going on before the synthetic business started and there was some stuff going on afterwards. I think that period of time between the early '60s and the mid '70s, I may be a little fuzzy on those dates but it is essentially those dates that really was a golden age. GE: Right, in Allentown's Jewish community. How do you see it now? AF: It's a very different, much more professional community. Back then it was all manufacturers, it was scrap, it was rags, it was whatever. Now it is professional. GE: Do you think it's as cohesive, as involved and affluent? AF: I think that it is probably, I would say that it is more cohesive now, less affluent. For example, the money that was raised by Federation between '67 and '73, I mean it was a lot of money. That's when I was into it. I got involved in the mid-'60s. I know that there was a lot of money raised before that as Israel was being founded. There was a lot of money raised. If you look at what a million dollars was in let's say the '73 campaign, the Yom Kippur War campaign. I was the campaign chairman, we doubled that year, obviously because everybody was cleaning out their bank accounts. We raised over $2 million. If you look at what $2 million then is compared to what it is now. GE: It's worth five times as much. AF: At least that. Campaign today is very nice but it doesn't have the kind of money that people gave like Murray Goodman and the Kobrovskys, and others of that stature were giving huge amounts of money. SC: Was that '67 or '68? GE: '73. SC: Okay. GE: How do you think your family, especially your uncles, because they were really the first, how do you think they got involved in the needle trade industry? Why in the needle trade industry? AF: I don't know. GE: Why do you think that there definitely was a Jewish propensity in the needle trade industry compared to some other industries? Any thoughts? AF: I think it is typical. There is a vacuum that somebody doesn't want to fill and a vacuum that somebody does want to fill. I read this interesting article, it's not about textile but it's about lawyers in New York who thought that doing mergers and acquisitions was beneath them. So the Jewish lawyers in New York became the M& ; A specialists and as the stock market boomed, the M& ; A boomed and all of the white shoe firms that decided doing M& ; A was beneath them and not dignified were out in the cold and the Jewish firms grabbed on everything and succeeded. My guess is it's something like that. Again, I think there were areas that were closed. So you're looking for areas that are open. GE: Okay I think we pretty much covered everything. SC: So now my first question is what has made you feel the most creative or the most satisfied in your life or maybe that has given you a sense of artistry in your life in the broadest sense? AF: I think I had a good time fooling around with the designs of the knitting machines, or the fabric rather. We'd come up with different combinations of yarn and different colors to see if we could make something interesting. That was a fun time. In addition to nylon, there were two types of polyester we were using. One you could not dye at all and the other one could be dyed, so you could end up getting three colors. So that was a fun thing to play around with and for me personally, I think photography has become a place where I get my creative jollies taken care of. SC: And how about, what do you value most in life? AF: I think the stuff today is really all about being a husband and a grandfather. That's become, there's no way that I could have a job today because I am too busy being a professional grandfather. We have six granddaughters and three daughters. It's a full-time job. In fact, we are going after this, we're not babysitting because they are 15 and 12, but we are taking them out for dinner because their parents aren't around tonight so we're taking them out to dinner.. GE: You know we actually didn't get into that at all. How would you say that you and your family are connected both to the Jewish community and to the wider community, presently? AF: Jewish community has been an interesting challenge. That's a subject for another interview. We were very active in Beth El. Marlene was on sisterhood and I was executive vice president. I had been asked to become president of Beth El. But we got involved, we were in I guess the epicenter of the politics that occurred about 35 years ago. It had to do with our daughter's bat-mitzvah. We had a situation, I mean she was a day school alum ; she went to Camp Ramah, very competent in Hebrew and the prayers and whatever. We wanted her bat-mitzvah where she could maximize her involvement, and Beth El at the time looked to minimize the involvement of the kids. So we kind of parted ways and we were instrumental in starting Am Haskalah at the time. During that period of time we were very actively involved. I was at the Jewish committee, one time I was on four boards. I was president of the Federation for a while ; '78-'80 I think. I was involved with the day school, with the center, with Beth El. Now it's nothing. GE: How about your involvement with the wider community? And then we'll speak to Marlene. AF: Organizationally not really. I was involved with the Allentown Fair Housing Commission years ago when it first started. I was involved, but that was pretty much it. Was there something else-- oh yes, it was not a formal involvement but my father had purchased some property in downtown Allentown. When he passed away I pretty much was running the real estate. So The Caring Place is the building that we used to own, and I pretty much gave them a free ride for a year because they couldn't possibly pay me. So, I mean Mary and I had a very nice relationship. So that was not a direct involvement but at least it was a gift of whatever. SC: And it still goes on. AF: Yes, it still goes on. It had its troubles but the gift goes on. And it's great, I love what the potential is for what she has done down there. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Arnan Finkelstein, May 15, 2014
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Arnan Finkelstein talks about being born in Tel Aviv, Palestine (this is prior to the establishment of the State of Israel) and spending his young childhood there. In the early 1940s, during World War II, the Finkelstein family returned to the U.S. When they returned to the U.S., Arnan’s father manufactured women’s undergarments during the war. After the war, Arnan’s father returned to owning a knitting mill, which he did prior to living in Tel Aviv. Arnan entered the family business in 1961. At this time synthetic fabrics were being developed and the Finkelsteins were active in this. After Arnan’s father sold the business in the late 1960s, Arnan stayed involved in different textile enterprises until 1981.
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2014-05-15
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Arnold Delin
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5.4 June 16, 2014 Arnold Delin June 16, 2014 LVTNT-01 56:21 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Arnold Delin Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 DelinArnold_20140616.mp4 1.0:|19(2)|40(3)|65(4)|82(14)|101(14)|118(6)|131(2)|152(4)|169(2)|190(2)|207(2)|224(12)|245(7)|266(13)|291(5)|312(3)|335(10)|360(3)|387(2)|404(13)|427(10)|450(9)|475(4)|500(8)|523(2)|544(11)|563(12)|584(14)|607(9)|634(3)|653(17)|672(15)|691(9)|714(12)|745(8)|770(18)|793(3)|816(2)|837(15)|862(2)|879(9)|904(8)|933(14)|962(3)|985(4)|1014(6)|1047(13)|1072(5)|1103(2)|1140(17)|1165(2)|1188(5)|1207(15)|1234(12)|1261(12)|1288(6)|1293(10) 0 https://youtu.be/fqCkDHOpX74 YouTube video 0 Family History SC: Today is June 16, 2014 ; interview with Arnold Delin. Could we go back, how much you know about your family as far back as you know? It gives us a pattern to see how you got to where you were.
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 ; AD: I can tell you where my parents came from. They were refugees from Poland and from that area. I don’t exactly know where, but within the area of where the Jewish people emigrated from Poland. Somehow our relatives brought them here, some settled in Brooklyn. Some settled in Massachusetts, some in this neck of the woods. 
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 ; SC: Do you know any of their names and anything about what they did?
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 ; AD: My father was a peddler I guess, whatever work he was able to get.
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 ; SC: What was his name?
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 ; AD: Simon Delinsky. Then when I got a job in this country, I worked on Wall Street for a sponge company, I think I told you that, and actually they were German Jews and the Jewish word is poshnisht [Yiddish for it shouldn’t happen], they thought certain things about the Jewish people, so they shortened my name to Delin. It was more Americanized. 0 593 Work Experiences SC: So did you have any other jobs besides the grocery store and the sponge company? 
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 ; DD: Yes he did. He got a job when we got married, within a year I was pregnant. He quit the sponge company because they wanted him to travel and he didn’t want to be on the road. So, he got a job at the post office. He worked nights. And then he got a job ; he opened up a fruit store. I had a girlfriend whose brother was in that business and they went out together. 
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 ; AD: 23rd Street, Jewish neighborhood. 
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 ; DD: One day, I was pregnant and went down to keep him company, and a woman came into the store and she said to him, check the melons. 
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 ; AD: She wanted a super ripe melon.
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 ; DD: He went into the back room and brought it out to her. I said what are you doing? He said I took it to the ripening room. He took a hammer and hit it.
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 ; AD: That was on Avenue J, Ocean Avenue. You got the train coming to New York.
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 ; DD: And then my father was a contractor. He made ladies blouses and clothes. He needed help in the place, so Arnold came down and worked for him. 
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 ; SC: In Pennsylvania?
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 ; DD: We were in Brooklyn and my father had two shops there. But then he went bankrupt. 0 898 Contractors vs. Manufacturers SC: Were these contractors in these years that you were working for? 
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 ; DD: They were manufacturers. In those days they were all manufacturers. There was no such thing as contractors.
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 ; AD: Actually, the definition of a manufacturer is they did not have salespeople. The salespeople would get the merchandise. Sometimes it was a combination ; sometimes the manufacturer did have people who would sell for them. 
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 ; DD: The difference between a manufacturer and a contractor. A manufacturer buys the fabric, sells the fabric, and gets the fabric, designs it. A contractor sews. 
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 ; SC: So there wasn’t a differentiation back then?
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 ; DD: In the first early days, there was no such thing as a contractor. Everybody was a manufacturer. Everybody manufactured. Then, they found out that it would be more profitable for them if they had somebody do all the sewing and they didn’t have the headaches of the workers, and the labor force and so on. They would farm it out to someone else and say, “here is my fabric, and here is the pattern.” Some places did the cutting. 0 1042 Clothing Outlets DD: In fact, Arnold eventually became a contractor. They would cut and if there was any fabric leftover, they would make what they call overcuts. And they would sell it themselves to make some pocket money. That’s how that market came about. You know, discounted clothes. Because the contractors, whatever excess they had, they would sell. 
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 ; SC: Outlets?
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 ; DD: Well the factories, they would open up the door and you could come in and buy a couple of shirts. I remember one woman came in, she was a very fancy lady, and she looked at the label and she didn’t like the label. So Arnold said to her, “where do you usually shop?” She shopped in Saks Fifth. So he went back and took a label and put it on the blouse. She was very happy. Then there was another industry, a trucking industry that just—
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 ; AD: It was interstate trucking ; they controlled all the trucking. A certain element that controlled it. A certain element. They would deliver the goods to the contractors. They would deliver it one day then ship it back at night and pick up the finished garment and bring it back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer shipped it. 0 1194 Unionizing DD: And then after, there were so many contractors spread out in Pennsylvania. They all ran to Pennsylvania because the unions. The manufacturers were unionized in Manhattan. The contractors were just mom and pop opening up a shop with sewing machines and they started sewing. 
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 ; AD: Then they start to organize the workers. So then the factories became organized. Some ran away, some went from the North to the South, where unions weren’t accepted at that time. Eventually they did. Then the imports started coming when the manufacturers found it was cheaper to have goods made overseas. Then that’s how it started expanding from overseas to America.
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 ; DD: When they had all the contractors that started, then they realized that they needed a voice to speak as one. So there were four hundred members at one time. Instead of each one making a contract with Joe for a dollar and this one for 50 cents, they had one voice and spoke in unison.
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 ; AD: The unions started to organize the workers. Once they organized the workers, they had the manufacturers by the you know what, because if they didn’t become a union shop, they couldn’t get their goods made. It was always a fight between non-union and union. The shirt companies were in the union. They were in the amalgamated union, the dress and ladies sportswear and stuff like that. That’s the type of merchandise. And they were in the International Ladies Garment. 0 1471 Dolores' Father's Business SC: What was the name of the dress factory and the children’s goods?
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 ; AD: I’m trying to think of what it was.
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 ; DD: I too don’t remember my father’s business, what it was. It was located in Brooklyn and he worked for a company by the name of Judy Kent. 
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 ; AD: They were amalgamated.
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 ; DD: They made children’s, when I say children’s, I’m talking about 1 year olds, 2 year olds. They made little skirts and blouses like doll clothes. I remember my daughter was born then and he brought home a little skirt, all accordion pleating and little blouses. That was my father. Judy Kent wanted my father to move to Pennsylvania because that was a trend. My father was in Brooklyn. His factories were in Brooklyn and they wanted my father to move to Pennsylvania. And my father said, “Pennsylvania?”
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 ; AD: They wanted to run away from that time. The unions weren’t organized yet in Pennsylvania. So one thing led to another then eventually we moved. 0 1595 The Delin Family Moves to Pottsville, PA DD: We looked in the papers and there was a job in Schuylkill Haven in a lingerie firm and he came out and he called me up. He said they’ll give me the job, I have a job, but they won't give me a contract. What shall I do? I said take the job, because you’re so terrific that we’ll be okay there. So that’s how we came here. 
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 ; AD: Manufacturers didn’t want to commit themselves because they were still running away from the union. So one thing led to another... So I worked there during the week and came home on weekends. Then enough was enough, either you move—
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 ; DD: Well I was pregnant with our second child, and I didn’t want to make the move until I had the baby. So he would commute—for a year he commuted, and then-
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 ; AD: Friday afternoon I would catch the bus and come home and then to get back to the factory I would go back late Sunday evening to open up the factory early Monday morning to make sure they got started properly. I lived at the YMCA, 5 dollars or 6 dollars a week. It was a different type of living. I met a lot of non-Jews, as I got involved with the community.
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 ; SC: And that was here already in Pottsville?
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 ; DD: He was here in Pottsville ; he lived in Pottsville. The job was in Schuylkill Haven which is just a little town nearby and he lived at the Y. He ate at the local restaurant where he met the Jewish people. He had friends here before I came, he had made some acquaintances. 0 2044 Arnold's Factory AD: Peekaboo. That was mine.
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 ; DD: What was the name of the factory that hired you, do you remember their name? The one that hired you, the lingerie firm that hired you? … It will come to you.
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 ; GE: So Peekaboo, is that what you named it?
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 ; AD: The name of the company, I named it.
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 ; GE: Okay, and tell us about the kinds of products you made there.
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 ; AD: We made ladies lingerie. Like petticoats, slips.
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 ; DD: And then you made blouses.
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 ; AD: Then they switched to blouses, ladies blouses, children’s blouses.
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 ; DD: When he would go into the market, he would see, he would go to the manufacturers, and he would try to sign up any manufacturer to see what they needed, what he could sew…
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 ; GE: What he could sew and what they needed.
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 ; DD: Right, so it would be lingerie, it would be blouses.
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 ; GE: Okay, and your workers were flexible enough that you were able to do that.
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 ; AD: Well a sewer was a sewer. We trained, we had a forelady. Different products had different types of sewing. And fabric was different also. 0 2271 Arnold's Relationship with Him Employees GE: Okay okay, so you really didn’t have, really didn’t do that, okay. And do you want to tell us about your relationship with your employees?
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 ; AD: They worked for me. I mean either they produced or they didn’t produce. We had a good relationship. There were mostly non-Jewish people, all non-Jewish. Once in a while, you might have someone Jewish who was a sewer. We had a good relationship, I mean, once you get organized with the union, you follow the union contract and that was it.
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 ; GE: And I think you said that you were the first one locally to hire someone who was not white, a Black person.
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 ; AD: Yes, that came and I had one working for me. She was an excellent worker, and she had a couple of- her sister moved to the area and brought her friend along, and one became three. And some of my workers were not too happy because I hired a black person. But they got along once they got to know them, they were excellent workers and they produced, broke the ice so to speak. And another factory hired a black—there weren’t that many blacks in the Lehigh area. 0 2399 Business Moving South GE: While you were in the business, as the years went on, because it was going South, because a lot of the time...was it getting harder and harder?
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 ; AD: As the unions started organizing the factories, they couldn’t compete so the manufacturer, who was still non-union, saw you were not giving goods to those who were not union-shop, he started opening up shops down South. And there’s one open, another followed, followed, and then it was a lot of non-union manufacturers down South, and that’s how a lot of the work fell to the way, from the union shops to the non-union shops.
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 ; DD: The trend was after they saturated Pennsylvania, and then- with non-union shops, then when the union came in to organize them, now the manufacturers had to look for another way out, so they started going down South where there weren’t any non-union shops.
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 ; AD: New England had a lot of union shops, and everyone filtered like she just said, they filtered away from the North to the South.
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 ; GE: Right, right. The manufacturers that you produced for, were they always union?
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 ; AD: To have a union shop, it had to be union manufacturers.
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 ; GE: Okay, and as the years went on, I guess you opened it in the ‘60s, ‘70s, something like that? Did it start becoming, was it noticeably that it was harder and harder each year to get enough business?
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 ; AD: We were able to get the business, even some of the non-union manufacturers, when they wanted—if you made a good quality garment, they would pay the price. They were flexible. 0 2589 The Industry Moves Overseas DD: It got really bad when they started shipping overseas. 
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 ; GE: That was the ‘70s then, correct?
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 ; DD: Yeah, and when they moved and started working overseas that’s when it really got bad and that’s when they didn’t, the manufacturers no longer made the fabric here. They bought the fabric overseas, had the fabric shipped to a factory overseas, had it cut, and then they would ship them the finished products.
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 ; GE: The whole operation…
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 ; DD: The whole operation was overseas. So the people that made the machines didn’t have any business. The people that made the cloth didn’t have any people in it. The people that made the cotton didn’t have any business. The thread [manufacturers] didn’t have any business. And so, it started breaking down, all the industries that supported this one product, they started getting everything made overseas, and then the manufacturers would then have a representative that would fly over their quality control man, we would call him, that would fly overseas to make sure things were the way that they hoped they would be.
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 ; GE: Right, right. The trade association, what were the years of your prime involvement? When you were president. Was that around…
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 ; DD: The ‘70s? Late ‘60s, early ‘70s. 0 2704 The Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association DD: Mikus. Mikus started with the association, didn’t he?
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 ; AD: Michus started with the union, and he represented the union at that time, then he broke away and then he started representing the contractors.
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 ; DD: He worked with the association. Arnold was on the board of the association, being a contractor, he was part of the board. And then Mikus always would call on Arnold: could you do this for me, could you do that for me? And Arnold became his right hand man. And then when Mikus died, the board said, how about you take over.
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 ; GE: And at that point, did you sell the factory?
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 ; AD: No, I kept it.
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 ; DD: He kept the factory, and my son went into the factory.
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 ; GE: Okay, okay, so that’s Scott?
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 ; DD: Scott.
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 ; GE: Okay, and then Scott started running the factory.
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 ; DD: Scott started running the factory. Scott went to Textile Institution, so he had a background, and he was brought up in the factory, and he had a background of what it was about. But things started going really bad, and all the factories were closing up one after the other. 0 2824 Arnold Becomes Executive Director of the Association GE: And I am assuming when Arnold was president of the association, that was a job…
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 ; DD: Oh, yeah. It was a full time paying job. That’s why he just couldn’t handle both. He was traveling all over. He was going into Harrisburg, making presentations.
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 ; GE: Right. Because they were basically also, besides representing, they were also trying to lobby.
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 ; DD: Yes, they were lobbying. They spent a lot of time lobbying…
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 ; AD: In Washington.
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 ; DD: He was in Washington a lot. He tried to stop exports, and he really tried, but correct me if I’m wrong, Arnold, didn’t the union encourage the overseas saying that they should help them out, they’re poor nations, and help them out…
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 ; AD: At the beginning, the union didn’t fight the manufacturers because they figured, well they needed help because they were doing- connected to other industries, in importing and exporting, but then it expanded and…
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 ; DD: They got a commission. The union got a percentage on every piece of fabric that came into the United States. 0 2947 Jewish Contractors and Italian Contractors GE: Right, right. You know, in Allentown, I know that a lot of the contractors were Jewish.
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 ; AD: In what?
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 ; GE: In Allentown, a lot of the contractors were Jewish. How about in this area, in Schuylkill County?
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 ; AD: Very few, I was one of them—well three or four.
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 ; GE: Well what kind of ethnicity did the others have? The contractors?
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 ; AD: I’ll tell you what I told you before. In Allentown, they had Amalgamated Union…
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 ; DD: No, honey, she wants to know whether they were Italian, Jewish…
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 ; GE: Right.
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 ; AD: Very few Jewish people in this area, in the factories. There were a lot of non-Jewish Protestants and Catholics.
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 ; GE: Right, but the ones who owned the factories in this area, were they often Italian in this area?
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 ; AD: They were mostly somewhat Jewish, the ones who owned the factories.
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 ; DD: When you say this area, what do you mean?
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 ; GE: Schuylkill.
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 ; DD: Schuylkill County had a lot of Jewish owners, but if you go up to Windgap, where his office was, they were mainly, I would say, if you look at it, the majority of his contractors were Italian. They came from Windgap, Roseta. 0 3080 What Do You Value Most in Life? SC: So just a couple of sort of general questions about you. One of them is what do you value most in life?
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 ; AD: What’s this?
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 ; SC: What do you value most in life?
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 ; AD: What do I value? Have a good family that you live with, raise your children properly, and everything else. As far as I am concerned, I have children and I come from a Jewish home, and I feel I expect them that when they get older and get married that they will still continue being in a Jewish home. And mixed marriage today is a touchy thing to talk about because a lot of the Jewish families have mixed marriages and visa-versa and whatnot. Sometimes you don’t get involved. You know, Allentown has a lot of mixed marriages, New York has a lot of mixed marriages, you stay away from that conversation. I do, anyway. 0 3142 What Has Made You Feel the Most Creative? SC: And also, what has made you feel the most creative or fulfilled personally in your life? Has given you that sense of almost artistry in your life or…
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 ; AD: I don’t understand the question.
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 ; DD: May I answer for him because he always says this to me. Whenever he gets his monthly check from his pension, and from Social Security, he always says, “See, I provided. I am a good provider, and I did well.” And this happens every month. This is what I would say…
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 ; SC: That gave you satisfaction, that you provided.
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 ; AD: Not everybody, people would work, they would get their money from the manufacturers, they get their check and instead of paying payroll, they would go and gamble. You don’t go through life that way. Once that happens, you’re out of business.
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 ; GE: And so many families depend on…
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 ; AD: Well, so listen, they worked too…
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 ; GE: Exactly.
 ; 0 MovingImage Arnold Delin talks about how he was raised in Nashua, New Hampshire. After World War II he moved to Brooklyn, worked there and met and married Dolores. A few years later the Delin family moved to Pottsville, PA when Arnold landed a good job in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania as the manager of a lingerie factory. Later, Arnold bought the factory. In the 1970s Arnold became the Executive Director of the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association. The Association represented the contractors collectively in negotiations with the Union and with manufacturers and heavily lobbied the government on behalf of its members. An Interview with Arnold Delin, June 16, 2014 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 16, 2014 ; interview with Arnold Delin. Could we go back, how much you know about your family as far back as you know? It gives us a pattern to see how you got to where you were. ARNOLD DELIN: I can tell you where my parents came from. They were refugees from Poland and from that area. I don't exactly know where, but within the area of where the Jewish people emigrated from Poland. Somehow our relatives brought them here, some settled in Brooklyn. Some settled in Massachusetts, some in this neck of the woods. SC: Do you know any of their names and anything about what they did? AD: My father was a peddler I guess, whatever work he was able to get. SC: What was his name? AD: Simon Delinsky. Then when I got a job in this country, I worked on Wall Street for a sponge company, I think I told you that, and actually they were German Jews and the Jewish word is poshnisht [Yiddish for it shouldn't happen], they thought certain things about the Jewish people, so they shortened my name to Delin. It was more Americanized. SC: Can you tell me anything about your mother, where she was from and what her name was? DOLORES DELIN: Sarah Rubin. AD: One was Rubin. I don't know her exact name. One of my sisters was Rubin, so I can imagine it was Rubin. She came from Poland, the area where they did not like Jews and got out of there and came into Brooklyn. Then they spread them out as they usually do, they don't put them all in one area. DD: Can I interject? SC: Sure. DD: His mother and father were married before. They came over from the old country. His father lost his first wife. His mother lost her husband. They had children when they met. He had a daughter and she didn't have any children. Sarah was his daughter right? AD: Sarah was my mother's daughter. DD: So they brought children to the marriage, and then they had two children, Arnold and Arnold's sister Mildred who is older than him. Miriam was his father's daughter. They lived in Nashua, New Hampshire. SC: Do you have any memories of Nashua, New Hampshire? AD: I remember I went to school there. I grew up and went into the army. When I came back, my mother wanted me to marry a Jewish girl. I had a Jewish sister who lived in Brooklyn, and I spent a couple weeks there and met Dolores there. One thing led to another, I checked her bank account to make sure everything was all right. DD: He worked in a grocery store in Nashua as a young boy. Do you mind telling them about your experiences in the grocery store? AD: Well, people used to come in, they wanted a ripe tomato, so they would squeeze a tomato because they liked it soft, it didn't make any difference. Brockwins is a chain grocery store like the A& ; P. I worked in a grocery store. I mixed a lot. The Jewish community was small, but I mixed a lot with the non-Jewish kids. Working in the store, I met a lot of non-Jewish people. So that's how I spread out throughout my early life, so to speak. DD: This was during the days of the rationing. AD: The rationing, you would have coupons and points. I had to make sure certain people, especially Jewish people, would get their fair share of groceries with or without the points. We got along pretty good. There was very little anti-Semitism. There was anti-Semitism all over, but because my father was a peddler, we got to know a lot of the non-Jewish people. SC: Can we back up for a second? Tell me your full name and your birth date. AD: My full name is Arnold. The original name was Abraham, then when I got a job with the Americanized sponge company, he was a German Jew. It didn't go right to have a Jewish name so I had to cut my name short. Arnold from Abraham and Delinsky to Delin. I was born in 1925. 75 and 14, so I'm 89. SC: So your dad, did he go by the name Delinsky? AD: Yeah. Simon Delinsky. SC: So, were you born in Nashua, or were you born in Brooklyn? AD: I was born in Nashua. DD: His family lived in Nashua. They never came to Brooklyn. His sister got married, and she lived in Brooklyn. His mother was ill. She asked him when he came out of the service to move to Brooklyn to be with his sister so that he could be in a Jewish element. AD: She was afraid of marrying a non-Jew. DD: Unorthodox for a Jew to marry a non-Jew. In fact, he did have a brother, Phillip, who was older than him, who did marry a non-Jew. The parents sat shiva [period of formal mourning in Judaism] for him and never saw him again. So it was very important in his mother's mind that he marries a Jew. AD: Mother and father, everybody. One of the things that were a no-no in a community was mixed marriage. SC: In most cultures in the United States. So when did you go down to Brooklyn? How old were you when you moved down with your sister? DD: He was about 22/23. SC: When you moved down there, how were you employed? Where did you work? AD: Sponge company. America's Sponge Shammy Company. DD: They were located near Wall Street and he worked there. That's when we met. SC: How did you meet? AD: She brought me lunch. DD: I was working and I would catch the train-- AD: Everybody used to meet for breakfast in the morning, and we would wait for the train. If you're lucky you got the express and it headed to New York quick. If not, you'd get the local. DD: That's where we met. AR: And that is where I met so many other people. SC: How old were both of you? DD: I was 18 ; Arnold had to be 22. We were married the following year and he was 24. SC: So did you have any other jobs besides the grocery store and the sponge company? DD: Yes he did. He got a job when we got married, within a year I was pregnant. He quit the sponge company because they wanted him to travel and he didn't want to be on the road. So, he got a job at the post office. He worked nights. And then he got a job ; he opened up a fruit store. I had a girlfriend whose brother was in that business and they went out together. AD: 23rd Street, Jewish neighborhood. DD: One day, I was pregnant and went down to keep him company, and a woman came into the store and she said to him, check the melons. AD: She wanted a super ripe melon. DD: He went into the back room and brought it out to her. I said what are you doing? He said I took it to the ripening room. He took a hammer and hit it. AD: That was on Avenue J, Ocean Avenue. You got the train coming to New York. DD: And then my father was a contractor. He made ladies blouses and clothes. He needed help in the place, so Arnold came down and worked for him. SC: In Pennsylvania? DD: We were in Brooklyn and my father had two shops there. But then he went bankrupt. AD: He had another partner that didn't want to work, so I figured that wasn't going to work for me so I got another job. I had to work in the Bronx. From the Bronx, I moved to Pennsylvania. I had another job there. DD: Before he worked for my father, he worked for a dress manufacturer, children's communion dresses. Do you want to hear a story? SC: Absolutely. DD: He was selling, a very young guy was selling, and he wanted to have breakfast in this restaurant and there was an empty seat next to this woman. He sits down next to her and they start talking. "What do you do?" He says he is selling and has to meet with this woman, and it's going to be really hard to get an order and he really needs an order. AD: She happened to be the woman I had to see. She said come upstairs ; I'm the woman. She was tough because she bought for all the stores ; she was a head buyer. Just like dumb luck, I hit the right button and it came out well. DD: He got a big order, and then when the order came into the manufacturers house, the manufacturer didn't like her. He told him the hell with her I'm not shipping out. AD: He always used to haggle with them and she said, "you don't like it, you don't get the order." So he said I quit, leave it alone. It was a big order. DD: It was a big order and he worked on commission so at lunchtime he went down and got on the phone and he tried to hide his voice and he threatened them. He said you better send the merchandise in or I'm going to report you to the Business Bureau. He came back and the place was bustling getting ready to ship, because he was working on commission. AD: Children's dresses and communion dresses. DD: Then I worked at 498 7th Avenue. I worked for a buying house and that whole building, there were manufacturers in there. AD: The garment industry. DD: He got a job with one guy and he did well and left him and referenced and went to the next and got a job with the next guy. One year we had to fill out two pages of employment for the IRS. He kept changing. And then my father said, come on and work for me. SC: Were these contractors in these years that you were working for? DD: They were manufacturers. In those days they were all manufacturers. There was no such thing as contractors. AD: Actually, the definition of a manufacturer is they did not have salespeople. The salespeople would get the merchandise. Sometimes it was a combination ; sometimes the manufacturer did have people who would sell for them. DD: The difference between a manufacturer and a contractor. A manufacturer buys the fabric, sells the fabric, and gets the fabric, designs it. A contractor sews. SC: So there wasn't a differentiation back then? DD: In the first early days, there was no such thing as a contractor. Everybody was a manufacturer. Everybody manufactured. Then, they found out that it would be more profitable for them if they had somebody do all the sewing and they didn't have the headaches of the workers, and the labor force and so on. They would farm it out to someone else and say, "here is my fabric, and here is the pattern." Some places did the cutting. Isn't that right? AD: Yes, some would cut for the manufacturer and give it to the contractors, who didn't have cutters in their employment. DD: Yes, some contractors had cutters and some contractors did not have cutters. So it was all kinds of what the manufacturer wants from you. One contractor would go into the market and get many manufacturers to work for. He didn't work for one. It was possible he worked for more than one. AD: He would cut the goods for one manufacturer and ship it to different factories. Factories were big ; they would probably hire 30 to 40 people for the sewing machines to sew. They didn't do any cutting. But then as they expanded, the factories got bigger and they did their own cutting, their own sewing, and then they started shipping to stores and what not. DD: In fact, Arnold eventually became a contractor. They would cut and if there was any fabric leftover, they would make what they call overcuts. And they would sell it themselves to make some pocket money. That's how that market came about. You know, discounted clothes. Because the contractors, whatever excess they had, they would sell. SC: Outlets? DD: Well the factories, they would open up the door and you could come in and buy a couple of shirts. I remember one woman came in, she was a very fancy lady, and she looked at the label and she didn't like the label. So Arnold said to her, "where do you usually shop?" She shopped in Saks Fifth. So he went back and took a label and put it on the blouse. She was very happy. Then there was another industry, a trucking industry that just-- AD: It was interstate trucking ; they controlled all the trucking. A certain element that controlled it. A certain element. They would deliver the goods to the contractors. They would deliver it one day then ship it back at night and pick up the finished garment and bring it back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer shipped it. DD: That element was more controlled by . . . SC: So it was a different ethnicity? DD: Yes. SC: This was so helpful to me, because we had been talking around sort of how the process changed over time. AD: Whom have you been interviewing besides me? GE: Like Milton Sheftel, Irwin Salitsky. AD: (inaudible). There was ILG, International Ladies Garments. Sheftel was the Amalg-- GE: I don't think he was either because he did the rags. SC: But since we talked with you the first time, we have been asking people, were they involved with the manufacturers. So thank you. DD: And then after, there were so many contractors spread out in Pennsylvania. They all ran to Pennsylvania because the unions. The manufacturers were unionized in Manhattan. The contractors were just mom and pop opening up a shop with sewing machines and they started sewing. AD: Then they start to organize the workers. So then the factories became organized. Some ran away, some went from the North to the South, where unions weren't accepted at that time. Eventually they did. Then the imports started coming when the manufacturers found it was cheaper to have goods made overseas. Then that's how it started expanding from overseas to America. DD: When they had all the contractors that started, then they realized that they needed a voice to speak as one. So there were four hundred members at one time. Instead of each one making a contract with Joe for a dollar and this one for 50 cents, they had one voice and spoke in unison. AD: The unions started to organize the workers. Once they organized the workers, they had the manufacturers by the you know what, because if they didn't become a union shop, they couldn't get their goods made. It was always a fight between non-union and union. The shirt companies were in the union. They were in the amalgamated union, the dress and ladies sportswear and stuff like that. That's the type of merchandise. And they were in the International Ladies Garment. DD: The dresses I think also were Amalgamated, weren't they? AD: They were mixed. DD: And what had happened was, when they formed the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association, and then they had Arnold be the spokesperson for the contractors. AD: We joined the association and then together we were able to get a better contract. Then we got involved with the trucking industry, which were our partners at that time. Certain element and what not. DD: Not only were they able to speak to the union as one voice, but if you had a manufacturer and if you were the contractor, and your manufacturer decided he didn't want to pay you, then he would be the one that would go into the manufacturer. The manufacturer would say, oh they sewed all the pockets on inside-out. AD: They would use an excuse. DD: Or put the wrong color buttons, or whatever they could to get out of paying the contractor. Then he would negotiate between the manufacturer and that particular contractor. So they were the negotiating factor for the contractors in this area in Pennsylvania. AD: Well we spread out. We started from New York, in Brooklyn, and Jersey. When they started going to Pennsylvania, they were running away from the unions. Eventually, the unions caught up. They got to the contractors through the manufacturer. Once the manufacturer was organized, either they came to union shops, or they wouldn't get the work. SC: So do you have any memories of those early years and then we'll switch over to the business side. AD: What's that? SC: Do you have memories of your early years in the business and your life? Just in general, any stories? AD: I got a job with her father in her father's- no, that was-- I got a job working for a manufacturer, then I met her father who worked for a children's dress manufacturer. That's how he became organized. At first they weren't organized, then he became organized. Then I met Dolores somehow or other. We met on a train going into New York. One thing led to another and we started dating and got married. Her father had a children's dress factory. SC: What was the name of the dress factory and the children's goods? AD: I'm trying to think of what it was. DD: I too don't remember my father's business, what it was. It was located in Brooklyn and he worked for a company by the name of Judy Kent. AD: They were amalgamated. DD: They made children's, when I say children's, I'm talking about 1 year olds, 2 year olds. They made little skirts and blouses like doll clothes. I remember my daughter was born then and he brought home a little skirt, all accordion pleating and little blouses. That was my father. Judy Kent wanted my father to move to Pennsylvania because that was a trend. My father was in Brooklyn. His factories were in Brooklyn and they wanted my father to move to Pennsylvania. And my father said, "Pennsylvania?" AD: They wanted to run away from that time. The unions weren't organized yet in Pennsylvania. So one thing led to another then eventually we moved. DD: So they moved- So my father wouldn't go and that was his demise. My father went bankrupt, and he lost his business. Arnold was looking for work and knowing that he came from a small community, I suggested that we make the move anywhere out of New York, because I felt that New York was not the place for us. In fact, I suggested we go to Japan. At that time because that was after the war and the Japanese were starting their needle trade and they were advertising for people. We were young ; I said why don't we go. He said you have to be crazy ; I'm not going to Japan. I said we have a ten-year plan. He said no, no. I'll look for a job out of New York. We looked in the papers and there was a job in Schuylkill Haven in a lingerie firm and he came out and he called me up. He said they'll give me the job, I have a job, but they won't give me a contract. What shall I do? I said take the job, because you're so terrific that we'll be okay there. So that's how we came here. AD: Manufacturers didn't want to commit themselves because they were still running away from the union. So one thing led to another... So I worked there during the week and came home on weekends. Then enough was enough, either you move-- DD: Well I was pregnant with our second child, and I didn't want to make the move until I had the baby. So he would commute--for a year he commuted, and then- AD: Friday afternoon I would catch the bus and come home and then to get back to the factory I would go back late Sunday evening to open up the factory early Monday morning to make sure they got started properly. I lived at the YMCA, 5 dollars or 6 dollars a week. It was a different type of living. I met a lot of non-Jews, as I got involved with the community. SC: And that was here already in Pottsville? DD: He was here in Pottsville ; he lived in Pottsville. The job was in Schuylkill Haven which is just a little town nearby and he lived at the Y. He ate at the local restaurant where he met the Jewish people. He had friends here before I came, he had made some acquaintances. AD: It made it easier on her. SC: About what year was that? DD: [19]55. That was 1955. We didn't have any money and my girlfriend's father was the head of the International Jewish Association, the union. He knew that we were moving and he knew that we didn't have any funds, so he gave us $500 to buy a stove and a refrigerator and to help with the down payment on our house. So we took the kids, loaded the car up and drove here, and we bought this house. Not this house, we bought a house on Howard Avenue. That's where we lived. He worked two shifts, day shift and night shift. AD: And weekends. Seven days a week I was working. DD: He's a hard worker. SC: At the same place? DD: He was the manager of that particular factory and so he had a day shift and a night shift. AD: During the Christmas season, I got a job with the government working at the post office. That's when we lived in Brooklyn. SC: You are a hard worker. And that gives me shivers because that is the American dream. You come here and someone helps you out and you get started from nothing. AD: What happened to your first interview? Did you lose the papers? GE: What happened was we still had it on the computer, on the video, and it got corrupted, it got bad. DD: This man, his name was Irwin Horowitz, lent us $500 and we paid him back slowly but surely. Many years later, we were at a function and he said to Arnold and said I want to show you something. He pulled out the last letter that we wrote him thanking him. He carried it around in his pocket. He says you have no idea, in my position, how many people I have helped out during my lifetime. And nobody has ever thanked me or paid me back. And he carried it in his wallet, this letter. And we were well advanced already in years already when this happened. SC: We didn't hear this story before, so this is beautiful. DD: That's how we were able to get to Pottsville, because my father was bankrupt. He didn't have any money to help us out, and we didn't have any other way of making the means. They weren't going to pay for setting up our house. But they did pay for the movers to get to Pennsylvania. That's how we ended up in Pottsville. Then, he had the business, he was a manager for many years, and then they wanted to sell it. GE: About how many years? 10? 15? DD: I would say less than that. And then he bought the factory and he ran it for a long time. AD: It was a union factory. We moved to Schuylkill Haven, there weren't any shops there. I was the first union shop that came to that area, which the other manufacturers and others didn't enjoy that particularly because they knew sooner or later they would get organized with the union. DD: And you were the first one that hired black employees. [switches tape] SC: Today is June 16, 2014 ; interview with the Delins. GE: So we were talking about Ethel Maid, and Arnold, do you want to just tell us a little bit about that business in terms of the products ; what kind of products you had made? AD: Ethel Maid, when the non-Jewish people died, they didn't bury them in a tallis...and Ethel Maid made shrouds, they made men's suits, with a worn-seam in the back, and everything else. And Jewish people, actually, you weren't supposed to bury them in suits. DD: I confused you because Ethel Maid was a shroud company. That was above the factory where... AD: They made burial gowns. DD: ...he worked. I gave you the wrong name. GE: Oh, oh, oh. Do you remember what was the name of the factory where you managed? AD: Peekaboo. That was mine. DD: What was the name of the factory that hired you, do you remember their name? The one that hired you, the lingerie firm that hired you? -- It will come to you. GE: So Peekaboo, is that what you named it? AD: The name of the company, I named it. GE: Okay, and tell us about the kinds of products you made there. AD: We made ladies lingerie. Like petticoats, slips. DD: And then you made blouses. AD: Then they switched to blouses, ladies blouses, children's blouses. DD: When he would go into the market, he would see, he would go to the manufacturers, and he would try to sign up any manufacturer to see what they needed, what he could sew-- GE: What he could sew and what they needed. DD: Right, so it would be lingerie, it would be blouses. GE: Okay, and your workers were flexible enough that you were able to do that. AD: Well a sewer was a sewer. We trained, we had a forelady. Different products had different types of sewing. And fabric was different also. So you had to have different equipment-- DD: Arnold, wasn't the lingerie company called Marvel Made? AD: Ethel Maid. DD: No, underneath called Marvel Made was a lingerie company, Ethel Maid was upstairs? AD: No, Ethel Maid owned the building. She was-- Marvel Made was a manufacturer at the time. DD: Yeah, for the lingerie. Marvel Made was the name of the company. GE: Okay, and when you owned it, about how many people worked there? AD: I had about 50 people. 50-60 people. And I worked a day shift and a night shift. GE: And were most of the workers - what kind of workers? So you had most were sewers, and what other kinds of functions? AD: Well I had- I was fortunate enough to have a man come in and we would get the piece goods, he would cut the fabric into the patterns. The manufacturer would send us the piece goods with a pattern, what he wanted to be made, and we'd spread the goods and he'd cut it out and we would give it over to the sewers. GE: Okay, and I think you had talked now...Want to tell us a little more about excess? Were you able to do much excess producing? AD: No, I usually worked for one manufacturer, and if he couldn't give me enough work, sometimes we would take work from another manufacturer as a fill in. GE: Right, right, but separately- okay, so one thing is who is your main manufacturer? AD: Oh, I don't remember that. GE: Okay, okay, there were many, a long time ago. And you had mentioned before about with the production, that one thing you would try to do is that once you met that amount that you needed to get from that material- the overcuts, right. AD: They would ship in the goods. They would send us in an order, spread so many yards of goods, sometimes with piece goods, you'd have extra yardage. Sometimes the manufacturer said hey cut it all or they'd say hold it for another cutting later on. So you had to account for the piece goods. Sometimes it's the manufacturer, some would keep the excess piece goods for themselves and not report it. I'd report it as it was. GE: Okay okay, so you really didn't have, really didn't do that, okay. And do you want to tell us about your relationship with your employees? AD: They worked for me. I mean either they produced or they didn't produce. We had a good relationship. There were mostly non-Jewish people, all non-Jewish. Once in a while, you might have someone Jewish who was a sewer. We had a good relationship, I mean, once you get organized with the union, you follow the union contract and that was it. GE: And I think you said that you were the first one locally to hire someone who was not white, a Black person. AD: Yes, that came and I had one working for me. She was an excellent worker, and she had a couple of- her sister moved to the area and brought her friend along, and one became three. And some of my workers were not too happy because I hired a black person. But they got along once they got to know them, they were excellent workers and they produced, broke the ice so to speak. And another factory hired a black--there weren't that many blacks in the Lehigh area. DD: Very few black families. AD: In the first place, there wasn't any place for them to be, they were very isolated. SC: Did anyone ever talk about from the coal regions the fact that some of the groups were angry about African Americans because of some of the strikes because they were strike-brokers? AD: No. SC: That was a tangent, but its Labor History Sue asking questions. AD: No. Each of the coal industry labor was different to the other manufacturers in the fabric industry. Each one had their own. GE: While you were in the business, as the years went on, because it was going South, because a lot of the time...was it getting harder and harder? AD: As the unions started organizing the factories, they couldn't compete so the manufacturer, who was still non-union, saw you were not giving goods to those who were not union-shop, he started opening up shops down South. And there's one open, another followed, followed, and then it was a lot of non-union manufacturers down South, and that's how a lot of the work fell to the way, from the union shops to the non-union shops. DD: The trend was after they saturated Pennsylvania, and then- with non-union shops, then when the union came in to organize them, now the manufacturers had to look for another way out, so they started going down South where there weren't any non-union shops. AD: New England had a lot of union shops, and everyone filtered like she just said, they filtered away from the North to the South. GE: Right, right. The manufacturers that you produced for, were they always union? AD: To have a union shop, it had to be union manufacturers. GE: Okay, and as the years went on, I guess you opened it in the '60s, '70s, something like that? Did it start becoming, was it noticeably that it was harder and harder each year to get enough business? AD: We were able to get the business, even some of the non-union manufacturers, when they wanted--if you made a good quality garment, they would pay the price. They were flexible. GE: Right, okay, so-- AD: Actually, it all filtered away. GE: Okay, so you're saying, that happened over a long period of time? AD: Half a dozen years or so. DD: It's happened little by little. What happened was, I would say in the '60s, things started going bad. Things would get harder and harder. You would go in looking for work and couldn't find work and the contractors are hustling in the city looking for work. AD: You'd go into New York if you needed work and you would take it at a lower price, if you didn't need work, either they would pay you or you didn't take it. If you produced a good garment, then you had a relationship with the manufacturer. Because the manufacturer didn't have the solace. He didn't want to get involved with the union, so he had factories like myself. Ship the piece goods in, we cut the garments, we cut the fabric up and everything else, ship the finished garments to the manufacturer. DD: It got really bad when they started shipping overseas. GE: That was the '70s then, correct? DD: Yeah, and when they moved and started working overseas that's when it really got bad and that's when they didn't, the manufacturers no longer made the fabric here. They bought the fabric overseas, had the fabric shipped to a factory overseas, had it cut, and then they would ship them the finished products. GE: The whole operation-- DD: The whole operation was overseas. So the people that made the machines didn't have any business. The people that made the cloth didn't have any people in it. The people that made the cotton didn't have any business. The thread [manufacturers] didn't have any business. And so, it started breaking down, all the industries that supported this one product, they started getting everything made overseas, and then the manufacturers would then have a representative that would fly over their quality control man, we would call him, that would fly overseas to make sure things were the way that they hoped they would be. GE: Right, right. The trade association, what were the years of your prime involvement? When you were president. Was that around-- DD: The '70s? Late '60s, early '70s. The guy that started with the association, his name was-- It's on the tip of my tongue. AD: What happened to all of the notes from before? DD: They're gone, honey. GE: We do have some of the notes, so we do have some of the notes, but we just lost the actual interview. SC: And we want you in the archives. DD: Mikus. Mikus started with the association, didn't he? AD: Michus started with the union, and he represented the union at that time, then he broke away and then he started representing the contractors. DD: He worked with the association. Arnold was on the board of the association, being a contractor, he was part of the board. And then Mikus always would call on Arnold: could you do this for me, could you do that for me? And Arnold became his right hand man. And then when Mikus died, the board said, how about you take over. GE: And at that point, did you sell the factory? AD: No, I kept it. DD: He kept the factory, and my son went into the factory. GE: Okay, okay, so that's Scott? DD: Scott. GE: Okay, and then Scott started running the factory. DD: Scott started running the factory. Scott went to Textile Institution, so he had a background, and he was brought up in the factory, and he had a background of what it was about. But things started going really bad, and all the factories were closing up one after the other. AD: You couldn't compete with the union. GE: Right, right. DD: They couldn't compete with overseas. And so, we had to close up ours. AD: The facts are, not that you couldn't compete with the union, it was that you couldn't compete overseas. It was cheaper there. GE: Right. And about how long, did that- from the time Scott- he became president of the association-- DD: And he still had the factory, he was still running the factory at the same time. Scott, I don't remember. He got out of college, he had a job. And then all of a sudden, it was too much. He [Arnold] couldn't do both, so Scott came in. And I don't remember-- AD: Scott only worked a couple of years, he wanted to get into business for himself. DD: Five years maybe. GE: And I am assuming when Arnold was president of the association, that was a job-- DD: Oh, yeah. It was a full time paying job. That's why he just couldn't handle both. He was traveling all over. He was going into Harrisburg, making presentations. GE: Right. Because they were basically also, besides representing, they were also trying to lobby. DD: Yes, they were lobbying. They spent a lot of time lobbying-- AD: In Washington. DD: He was in Washington a lot. He tried to stop exports, and he really tried, but correct me if I'm wrong, Arnold, didn't the union encourage the overseas saying that they should help them out, they're poor nations, and help them out-- AD: At the beginning, the union didn't fight the manufacturers because they figured, well they needed help because they were doing- connected to other industries, in importing and exporting, but then it expanded and-- DD: They got a commission. The union got a percentage on every piece of fabric that came into the United States. AD: No, that's not so. The union didn't get a commission. DD: They got a percentage. The union got a percentage. AD: No, the unions it was a business. They brought it in themselves. Whatever, we're getting this all mixed up, it's ridiculous. SC: You're doing great. And you know what? A lot of this we didn't hear before. AD: What's this? SC: A lot of what you're saying we hadn't heard before. We talked more in some ways about your relationship with your workers, which was wonderful. AD: You've had to have a relationship with your workers if you wanted them to work for you. I mean when the contract came up, I mean that's where they wanted to get more money and everything else, and they didn't want to go work someplace else. GE: Right, right. You know, in Allentown, I know that a lot of the contractors were Jewish. AD: In what? GE: In Allentown, a lot of the contractors were Jewish. How about in this area, in Schuylkill County? AD: Very few, I was one of them--well three or four. GE: Well what kind of ethnicity did the others have? The contractors? AD: I'll tell you what I told you before. In Allentown, they had Amalgamated Union-- DD: No, honey, she wants to know whether they were Italian, Jewish-- GE: Right. AD: Very few Jewish people in this area, in the factories. There were a lot of non-Jewish Protestants and Catholics. GE: Right, but the ones who owned the factories in this area, were they often Italian in this area? AD: They were mostly somewhat Jewish, the ones who owned the factories. DD: When you say this area, what do you mean? GE: Schuylkill. DD: Schuylkill County had a lot of Jewish owners, but if you go up to Windgap, where his office was, they were mainly, I would say, if you look at it, the majority of his contractors were Italian. They came from Windgap, Roseta. AD: All in that area up there. DD: That area there, they were all Italian. AD: And then up in Wilkes Barre, Scranton, they expanded. And up in that neck of the woods, it was a different type of manufacturer. They made ladies dresses up there, they made ladies sportswear up there. They were more unionized up there because of the coal region, they organized a factory there. DD: There were so many Italians in the Association that they thought it was primarily Italian, and we were invited to a dinner, and Arnold got up and in Yiddish he made a prayer. And this one Jewish manufacturer sitting at our table started to laugh. He said, "Boy, for an Italian boy, you really speak good Hebrew." GE: That's funny. I think that's pretty good. I think that's great. I think you gave us really a lot with your business and with things. Do you want to ask them a couple of-- SC: So just a couple of sort of general questions about you. One of them is what do you value most in life? AD: What's this? SC: What do you value most in life? AD: What do I value? Have a good family that you live with, raise your children properly, and everything else. As far as I am concerned, I have children and I come from a Jewish home, and I feel I expect them that when they get older and get married that they will still continue being in a Jewish home. And mixed marriage today is a touchy thing to talk about because a lot of the Jewish families have mixed marriages and visa-versa and whatnot. Sometimes you don't get involved. You know, Allentown has a lot of mixed marriages, New York has a lot of mixed marriages, you stay away from that conversation. I do, anyway. SC: And also, what has made you feel the most creative or fulfilled personally in your life? Has given you that sense of almost artistry in your life or-- AD: I don't understand the question. DD: May I answer for him because he always says this to me. Whenever he gets his monthly check from his pension, and from Social Security, he always says, "See, I provided. I am a good provider, and I did well." And this happens every month. This is what I would say-- SC: That gave you satisfaction, that you provided. AD: Not everybody, people would work, they would get their money from the manufacturers, they get their check and instead of paying payroll, they would go and gamble. You don't go through life that way. Once that happens, you're out of business. GE: And so many families depend on-- AD: Well, so listen, they worked too-- GE: Exactly. AD: They wait for that check, and if they work for a contractor or manufacturer, who somehow or other didn't get their money. If the contractor didn't get their money from the manufacturer during the week, Thursday, you had to prepare the payroll, and you didn't have the check, I would have to run into New York or wherever and make sure I brought a check back with me, otherwise, the girls don't get paid. And luckily I had a good relationship with the bank, they might take work with me and give the payroll out. But then it got to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore. DD: In those days, you didn't have a line of credits like you have now. Your name was your line of credit. So if you go into the bank and Arnold says, "Listen, my check didn't come in, I expect this and that.." So they would then say all right and they would, that would be his line of credit. But in those days, there wasn't a line of credit that you could, it was your name, your reputation. GE: Right, right. SC: And we remember, at least I do especially, I think we've talked about this, first of all, how good it was to interview you first. You really set the stage for us with our other interviews. But also, when you talked about your workers and how you would work around their children coming home from school, and just really how, I mean, the women remember you and talk to you. AD: Well, a small community is different. I think most of the garment factories had a good relationship with their workers. Once the unions get in, naturally the union took control. With the workers, the union stepped in. It's like if people want to work for you, you gotta treat them right. DD: It's a shame that the industry isn't still here because it gave a lot of opportunities to a lot of people who didn't have an education to support their families. And he had, I know that he had women there, their kids would come in in the summer and he would give them jobs as packers and things like that. And one is a dentist today, one of their girls. GE: And I think you're right that almost all of them were small businesses. DD: They were small businesses. GE: And so you see, when you see face to face-- DD: Yeah, then you know what they are going through and there is no secret. You know what's happening. You know, it's a family business. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:56:20
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Arnold Delin June 16, 2014
Description
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Arnold Delin talks about how he was raised in Nashua, New Hampshire. After World War II he moved to Brooklyn, worked there and met and married Dolores. A few years later the Delin family moved to Pottsville, PA when Arnold landed a good job in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania as the manager of a lingerie factory. Later, Arnold bought the factory. In the 1970s Arnold became the Executive Director of the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association. The Association represented the contractors collectively in negotiations with the Union and with manufacturers and heavily lobbied the government on behalf of its members.
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LVTNT-01
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2014-06-16
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Bernie Filler
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-13.xml
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5.4 May 19th, 2014 Bernie and Bunny Filler, May 19th, 2014 LVTNT-13 1:33:24 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Bernie Filler Bunny Filler Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 FillerBernie_Bunny_20140519_revised.mp4 1.0:|17(11)|44(13)|59(11)|80(14)|97(11)|118(4)|135(13)|156(15)|179(15)|202(2)|239(16)|262(3)|281(19)|304(6)|325(10)|344(4)|365(6)|388(7)|421(3)|438(4)|463(15)|488(4)|509(4)|534(11)|549(10)|572(4)|603(4)|624(6)|655(10)|674(14)|697(15)|718(3)|735(11)|754(12)|777(14)|796(6)|823(9)|854(15)|881(9)|904(7)|943(3)|964(5)|979(6)|1002(13)|1027(11)|1056(11)|1079(11)|1110(11)|1131(12)|1154(5)|1179(3)|1210(8)|1235(19)|1260(10)|1283(7)|1304(8)|1329(10)|1348(14)|1373(16)|1402(15)|1425(5)|1450(14)|1475(17)|1498(4)|1519(2)|1546(5)|1571(6)|1598(5)|1617(7)|1638(9)|1663(14)|1688(11)|1709(7)|1738(5)|1761(6)|1782(5)|1819(13)|1840(6)|1871(5)|1896(17)|1917(5)|1948(11)|1977(3)|2010(11)|2037(13)|2062(7)|2087(7)|2114(15)|2151(3)|2178(3)|2201(11)|2226(7)|2259(6)|2264(6) 0 https://youtu.be/pLgMPrpqv1o YouTube video 0 Family History SC: Today is May 19th, 2014, and first interview with Mr. Filler. So I would like you to just go back and talk about your history, your full name, when you were born, where you were from, and then we will go from there. 
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 ; BF: Okay. My full name is Bernard J Filler. I was born in New York City ; I can’t remember which hospital it was in. I was born October 2, 1932, New York Hospital. I lived in the Bronx. 0 632 Early Job History SC: So as far as- Those were all the jobs that you had before you came to the Lehigh Valley?
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 ; BF: No.
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 ; SC: Well tell me more about the jobs that you had.
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 ; BF: I worked for my uncle for about two years. I guess somewhere along the line we got married, and I had a very close friend in FIT. We were very friendly. He had gotten a job in South Carolina and ended up managing three factories there. He called me one day and said how would you like to move to South Carolina?
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 ; GE: And this is what, the 1960s?
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 ; BF: [19]50s. 0 1713 Rosenau Company SC: And Rosenau was R-O-S-E-N-A-U?
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 ; BF: Yes. 
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 ; Bunny: I think it was two N’s. 
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 ; SC: Was it? Yeah, I’ve seen it with two N’s.
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 ; GE: The company that you were with for seven years, was that Cinderella?
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 ; Bunny: That was Rosenau. 
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 ; GE: Rosenau owns it and Cinderella’s just the brand?
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 ; BF: Yeah, Rosenau. 0 2393 What Bernie Manufactured GE: May I just go back a second to make sure I’m clear. So when you went into your own business, tell me what kind of garments were you making again?
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 ; BF: Blouses. 
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 ; GE: Blouses. Anything else or just blouses?
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 ; BF: Just blouses.
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 ; GE: Women’s blouses?
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 ; BF: Women’s blouses. 
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 ; GE: And they were made from what kind of fabric?
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 ; BF: Mostly cotton. 
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 ; GE: Cotton and knits.
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 ; BF: No knits. Knit manufacturers were a different category. 
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 ; Bunny: It was Personal Sports Wear and Breckenridge. 0 2824 Atlantic Apparel Association SC: Did you belong to any of the associations? 
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 ; BF: I belonged to the Atlantic Apparel Association. Which everybody did.
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 ; GE: That was the one with Arnold Delin?
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 ; BF: Yes. When I joined there were about a hundred and some odd members. By the time I left there were maybe 20 left. 
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 ; GE: So by the time you retired, in the late 1990s, this was pretty much gone from the area?
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 ; BF: Yes.
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 ; SC: And that was late. So many people were out way before that. 
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 ; BF: Well, that’s because I was good. 0 2987 Involvement in the Jewish Community GE: Right. Would you like to share- Matt, we’ll ask you if you have any questions. But would you like to share with us a little bit about the Jewish community when you came, both what you came, what it was like, and also what you’ve observed? You’ve been here now I think you said 48 years?
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 ; Bunny: Forty-eight years. But he’s been here longer.
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 ; GE: What has it meant to you being part of the Jewish community here, and what was that like, here in Allentown?
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 ; BF: Well we got married and we wanted to have a family and wanted them to be Jewish. So we decided we would join a synagogue. So I went shopping, and I went to Beth El first and talking to them I found that they were pretty well booked up, and if I joined that synagogue I would have to sit in the back, in a different room in the back for services, for holidays because all the seats, or a good number of the seats belong to old congregants. 
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 ; GE: This was about what year?
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 ; Bunny: 1966-67. 0 3163 Connection Between the Jewish Community and the Garment Industry SC: Do you think there is a reason why people in the Jewish community became involved in the garment industry overall?
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 ; BF: That’s what they were doing when they came from New York. 
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 ; GE: So even let’s say why in New York? In other words, what do you think was the association between Jews and the garment industry?
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 ; BF: Because they couldn’t get jobs in industries. You couldn’t work for GM, you couldn’t work for- so they decided to go into the garment business. And of course they ended up very, very large in the garment business and still are, still are. 0 3521 Inspiration for Life Path Voice: I have a couple of follow up questions going back to your uncle’s factory in New York that you were talking about. Do you feel like your uncle was your biggest inspiration to kind of lead you on the path that you ended up following?
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 ; BF: No. The only inspiration he gave me was he gave me knowledge. My mother said to me, stay with your uncle, some day the business will be yours. He was never married. When he was 55 or 60 years old he got married and married a very wealthy woman and shut the business down. 
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 ; Voice: She shut it down before you had the opportunity to take it over.
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 ; BF: Yes. So I did the right thing. 0 3612 Methods Work—Achieving Efficiency & ; Standardization in the Business BF: My specialty was engineering, time and motion studying piece rates, methods work. I was very, very good at that. 
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 ; GE: Tell us what you mean by methods work.
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 ; BF: Well a girl- somebody came to work for me and I didn’t know if she could sew. She sat down at the machine and I knew exactly how I would tell her to pick up this one and over that one. I knew this. And she sat down and put two pieces together and shook her head no. She did it again and shook her head no. Then she did it the way I would have told her the third time and she shook her head yes. That’s what I did. When you walked into my factory, let's say we had 6 sleeve setters, 6 pocket setters, if you came and you looked at them, all 6 would be doing them exactly the same way. 
 ; 
 ; SC: That’s efficiency.
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 ; GE: Yes, I was going to say. That’s efficiency and standardization. 0 3801 Bernie's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: So my first question is, what has made you feel the most artistic in your life? And I mean that in that sort of metaphoric sense of creativity, completion, you know, sense of satisfaction in your life.
 ; 
 ; BF: Well, my wife's the only one in the family with musical talent, and she inspires me. As a matter of fact, on June 20th, she's going to become a bat mitzvah. And we're looking forward to that. And of course, now my grandchildren inspire me — in very small ways.
 ; 
 ; SC: And what do you value most in life? 
 ; 
 ; BF: Well, other than the work that I did all those years, my family. 0 3863 How the Garment Industry Has Impacted the Allentown & ; Jewish Communities GE: And one other question I was wondering, in terms of the community, 50 years ago, this community had much more industry and small industry. Now there's much, much less of it. How do you think that has impacted the community? The broad community — and actually, the broad community and maybe more specific- and then two things, the broad community and then also how about the Jewish community? Do you think the Jewish community has been impacted by this?
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 ; BF: I don't think so. Because, as I started saying, the Jewish community couldn't do other things. Today they can. So they're not as impacted by not having garment factories.
 ; 
 ; GE: And how about the broad community? Do you think our community just now has other things? Is it in any way been diminished or maybe it's even stronger or better because we don't have those factories? What do you think? Any thoughts?
 ; 
 ; BF: It doesn’t affect me, I don’t think it affects other people. 0 3948 What Was Your Biggest Challenge Professionally? Voice: Aside from having to move around a lot, going to the different factories around the country, what do you feel like your biggest challenge was professionally, aside from that? Like, internally within the factories that you had to work in?
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 ; BF: Well, owning my own business, and being successful, and that's what I was happy to do.
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 ; Bunny: That was your biggest challenge?
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 ; GE: Was that a big challenge because of the risk?
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 ; BF: It was. First thing I had to do when I decided to buy a business was go to the bank and borrow money. I had never done that in my life. And fortunately, my mother, who at that time was in her eighties and living alone in New York — well not exactly alone, she had a boyfriend — but she had some money saved and I said to her I could use some money to buy my business 0 4110 Bringing Methods Work to Portugal BF: One place, okay, one place when I was working in Tennessee, my boss sent me to Portugal for a month. He said there was somebody who wanted to make some housecoats for us, and I said- and he said he doesn't know anything about making housecoats, want to go show him? So I said, okay. And I was there for a month, and I like to say that for a month I was God. Because in Portugal, I walked in, I went to see the sewing company in Lisbon and I said, “I’m going to need to buy some sewing machines.” And so, “What do you need?” And I gave him this list for about 20 machines, and he looked at me and said, “I haven’t got this many machines.” He said, “It'll take me a couple of weeks to get them.” I said okay — I mean, they didn't have it. And you know what a cutting table is? We had a- the factory that I went to, the man was making pillowcases, so his cutting table was about six yards long — you know, pillowcases. And we needed a 14 yard table for the house dresses. So I said, “Okay, we have to buy some lumber. What's the cheapest lumber to buy here?” And they said, “Mahogany!” So we built the mahogany cutting table, probably the only one in the world, and it worked fine. And when I came from New York to go to the factory, I brought a bunch of attachments that you put on the sewing machine. One was a cord piper. 0 4587 Introduction—Bunny (Helen) Filler SC: So would you state your full name, when you were born, and where you grew up? 
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 ; Bunny Filler: Well I’m not gonna tell you when I was born.
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 ; SC: Okay, that’s fine.
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 ; Bunny: My name is Helen Filler, but nobody calls me that and nobody knows me by that name. My name is Bunny. I got that nickname many years ago when I was a camper and it stuck. 0 4627 Bunny's Family History Bunny: My mother and father — my mother's name is Frieda Thelma Kraft, no relation to Kraft Foods unfortunately. My father's name is Julius Alexander. My son is named after him. And my grandparents on my father's side — my paternal grandfather was a Yankee, which is very unusual. He was born here. My paternal grandmother was born in Lithuania and they met here in this country. My paternal grandfather-
 ; 
 ; GE: Do you know any names? So like you're-
 ; 
 ; Bunny: Harry. I'm named after Harry, that’s where Helen came from. Harry, and my grandmother's name was Lena Platt and her family was- wound up in Harrisburg. 
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 ; GE: Okay, and Lena Platt- she was the one, they were from Lithuania. 
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 ; Bunny: She was from Lithuania originally, yeah. 0 5055 Education and Career in Early Childhood Education SC: So where have you worked in your life?
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 ; Bunny: Well, I went to, I went to P.S. 11, went to William Howard Taft High School, and then I went to Boston University. And I became an early childhood- I was an early childhood major, and I taught kindergarten in New York for five years. And then my Prince Charming came and we got married, and we came to- and he helped me find a job here. He called places for me because I was still in New York, and I got a job in the Allentown School District. Otis Rothenberg I think interviewed me and he wanted to give me a first-grade position, and I looked at him square in the eyes — I don't know how I got the nerve — and I said, “I'm going to be a brand new bride. I don't know a soul in Allentown. I don't know anything. But I am a wonderful kindergarten teacher, and I've been doing it for years. I really don't want something new.” He went and looked up something. He said, “Fine, you can teach kindergarten at Lehigh Parkway.” 0 5264 "Mr. Bunny"—Bernie's Contributions to the Jewish Community Center & ; Jewish Day School Bunny: My husband supported me three-hundred percent. He loved the fact that I was there. He came to every program I ever did. He made the costumes, talking about his factory, he made all our costumes for us. We used to do Purim and we used to do parody shows. And he did Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He did the music, really did all of it. He made all the costumes for us. He's been a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful husband. He really has been, I’m very lucky.
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 ; SC: And the Center has been so successful.
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 ; Bunny: Excuse me?
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 ; SC: It's so successful. 
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 ; Bunny: Yeah, it was, it was really good.
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 ; BF: As a result of her teaching there, to this day, I'm still- she used to introduce me to her children. And to this day now, because the parents are now grandparents, they still call me “Mr. Bunny.” 0 5349 Changes in the Landscape and People of Allentown SC: How do you see the community, the wider community and the Jewish community, changing over time? And Allentown, perhaps? 
 ; 
 ; Bunny: Well Allentown has grown tremendously. When we first came here, I had to go down to King of Prussia- not King of Prussia, Plymouth Meeting to buy clothes for my little boy. I mean, there was nothing — there were two shops here, the Children’s Shop and I think Clymer’s Carousel. And there was nothing else, there was no mall, there was nothing. So it's grown tremendously that way. You know, I've seen a lot of people coming in from the area, a lot of transplants here. So that's changed. How do I see the whole community? It's not just the community, it's society. Everything is very different today. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time. I think, you know, we've become a little bit too casual and a little bit too disrespectful. The kids, adults as well. I saw it in parents as well as children. 0 5430 Bunny's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: So what do you value in life? This is going to beep soon, that’s why I…
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 ; Bunny: What do I value in life? What Bernie said, I mean, I value my family, my husband first and foremost, my children, my grandchildren, my synagogue that I have seen growing now. We've been through some very hard times and it's now coming back thanks to a wonderful, wonderful rabbi. And I just you know, I just think it's really, really important. It's been our social life. And I value my friendships. As he said, my synagogue has been such an integral part of my life, all of a sudden at this old age, I decided I was going to become a Bat mitzvah all by myself. No classes, no nobody else, just me. And it's been a very, very surreal but incredibly fulfilling experience. I never would have dreamed this. And I never belonged to a synagogue growing up. Nothing. So that makes it even more special for me. It really does. 
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 ; SC: And what makes you feel the most creative, artistic, satisfied? I mean, I think you sort of said that, but anything else?
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 ; Bunny: I mean, I don't look at myself as a creative individual. I don't- I mean I don’t-, well when I think of creativity, you know, I think of artistic, making things, and coming up with all these wonderful ideas. Sometimes I am, I gave him the most wonderful 80th birthday party, and I'm not patting myself on the back. We did it together and it was fabulous, fabulous. 0 MovingImage Bernie Filler talks about how he grew up in the Bronx, worked part-time for his uncle who was in the textile business and attended FIT after high school. After graduating and being in the service, Bernie worked as a manager and an engineer at several large apparel factories, first in the South, then in Pennsylvania, before buying his own factory in Palmerton, PA. At the time, the factory made women’s blouses. After a while, Bernie became a subcontractor to Tama Manufacturing making pants for Alfred Dunner. Bernie worked with Tama Manufacturing making pants for Alfred Dunner until Bernie retired in the late 1990s.
 ; 
 ; Bunny Filler talks about her childhood growing up in the Bronx, attending Boston University, teaching kindergarten in New York and then meeting her “Prince Charming” (Bernie) and coming to Allentown. When Bunny’s younger child was a toddler, Bunny began a music program at the JCC Nursery School and later at the Jewish Day School. A few years later, Bunny began a pre-kindergarten program at the Jewish Day School, which she taught for twenty-seven years.
 ; Interview with Bernie Filler, May 19th, 2014 GAIL EISENBERG: Well I can see pictures behind you. SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is May 19th, 2014, and first interview with Mr. Filler. So I would like you to just go back and talk about your history, your full name, when you were born, where you were from, and then we will go from there. BERNIE FILLER: Okay. My full name is Bernard J Filler. I was born in New York City ; I can't remember which hospital it was in. I was born October 2, 1932, New York Hospital. I lived in the Bronx. SC: Do you remember the address where you grew up? BF: Something Fox Street. SC: Fox Street, okay, yes. So can you talk a little bit about your education, from the time you were a small child all the way through? BF: Okay, my secular -- you don't want my religious background, do you? SC: Oh that's fine. Yes. BF: I can give that too. It's not very large. I went to elementary school and junior high school in the Bronx and-- GE: What was the name of the schools? SC: It's okay. BUNNY FILLER: He went to a lot of schools. BF: I went to a lot of schools. GE: Okay, that's fine. BF: And then when I started to go to high school, I took a test for Stuyvesant High School and I went to Stuyvesant. And from Stuyvesant High School I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology. That was a two-year course. I studied management. In that class I also learned time study and motion study and how to sew cloth onto my pants. We were taking sewing lessons and learned all about sewing machines and attachments that went on sewing machines and what they did. So we got a real, real serious in-the-industry education. Then I was- was- went to work for my uncle who was in the dress business. The name of his business was Saint James Junior Company, which was in- on 35th Street and 7th Avenue, New York. SC: How old were you then? BF: I started working for him when I was 16 after school and on weekends. I worked for him for two years full time after school. No, no I was going to FIT, I still worked for him part time. When I graduated from FIT, it was about less than a year and I was drafted. GE: And this was about what year when you were drafted? BF: [19]48, maybe. I graduated high school in '48, so probably 1950. SC: Did you see active service anywhere overseas? BF: No. No. I was drafted during the Korean War and, as a matter of fact, I took my basic training in Indiantown Gap here, and I was sent to Germany and I spent two years in Munich. I was a- I got an office job while I was in the army, I was a company clerk, and I took care of all the records for service company. SC: That sounds like a good job in the service. BF: And I was in Munich for- Oh. When I was in elementary school, everyone had to go to the Glee Club and be tested for their- what type of voice they had, tenures, [etc.]. So everybody would sing and the teacher would tell them what their category was. So I sang and she said you're a listener. So I have been a listener my whole life. When I was in the army, some place along the line they put up a bulletin board, notice, that the local chaplain wanted to put a choir together for the high holidays. And we were going to Berchtesgaden in the German Alps for three days to rehearse. So I signed up and we ended up standing on- in the Bavarian Alps looking at the Swiss Alps and the Italian Alps, a magnificent place. They brought along a little portable organ that you pumped, and they handed out some- handed out song sheets and I was standing right behind him and he was right behind the organist. And he taps her shoulder, she starts playing, we start singing, in about 10 seconds he taps her shoulder, says, "Wait a minute," and turns around, looks at me, and says, "Would you mind restricting yourself to the 'amens'?" So I guess I couldn't sing. So everything- that was fine, and then I was sent home and I went to work for my uncle. And I worked for him for 2 or 3 years, I guess, tw2o years, 2 or 3, and I did everything. I worked with the pattern makers, I worked with the cutters, I worked with the spreaders, I did spreading and cutting, I worked in the showroom and took care of customers, I bought notions, buttons, and laces and stuff, a little bit of fabric, not very much. And at the end of the day, after all the customers had came in and bought all their dresses, I worked at night and I packed all the dresses up and shipped them. So I really had a complete knowledge. One- Some place along the line, my uncle opened a small factory. We didn't have a factory where we were in Saint James. He opened up a small sewing room on 9th Avenue at 35th Street. So I went there and I ran that, I ran that for a year. We had about thirty-five operators, four pressers, and again, my job was to run that. At the end of the day I took the push buggies and I loaded the finished garments onto the push buggies, and I walked them from 9th Avenue to 7th Avenue into the stockroom. And if it was necessary, I stayed and I packed them. I did everything. So when I got into the business, there was nothing anybody could pull over my eyes because I knew everything. SC: Could we back up a little now and talk a little bit about your family background, as far back- names, dates, occupations, as far back as you know on each side of your family? BF: Okay. My mother and father were both born in the United States. My mother was a bookkeeper most of her life. She was separated from my father, and she was the breadwinner in the family. And she always worked as a bookkeeper. My father had some odd jobs and then was in ill health for a long time, and then he worked for my uncle in the cutting room. He was also a short order cook. He worked in the little restaurants that were in lobbies of the buildings in Manhattan. And he'd work at them and prepare food. And then he passed away at a young age, he was in his 40s when he passed away. SC: What was his name and do you know about when he was born? GE: So first what was both your parents', what were their names? BF: My father's name was Max and my mother's name was Elizabeth. SC: Do you know her maiden name? BF: Hoffman. Yes. We found out when she passed away, and we got her birth certificate. She passed away in her 80s, and everybody called her Elizabeth or Betty. We found out her name was Lena. SC: Where was her family from? BF: Eastern Europe. My father's family, who's from Germany, my grandmother lived in New York, his mother. And my mother's mother lived in the Bronx. I never met my two grandfathers. SC: Do you know, do you have any idea of what the families did when they were in Europe? What occupations they had? BF: No. No. I know what some cousins did but I don't know about my father. SC: Was anyone else in the garment industry at all that you know of, other than your uncle? BF: No. Just him. GE: And your uncle, is that your father's brother? BF: Yes. SC: What was his name? BF: James. Jimmy. SC: Jimmy -- Filler? BF: Filler. SC: So as far as- Those were all the jobs that you had before you came to the Lehigh Valley? BF: No. SC: Well tell me more about the jobs that you had. BF: I worked for my uncle for about two years. I guess somewhere along the line we got married, and I had a very close friend in FIT. We were very friendly. He had gotten a job in South Carolina and ended up managing three factories there. He called me one day and said how would you like to move to South Carolina? GE: And this is what, the 1960s? BF: [19]50s. Probably in '54 or '55. And we thought about it and she wasn't thrilled but we said it's a good opportunity, so we- No, we weren't married. BUNNY: We weren't married. BF: We weren't married. So I went to South Carolina and we worked in Allendale, South Carolina. I was there for three years- maybe four, five years and I was the lead company engineer. And the last year I was there, I managed one of the three factories in Bamberg, South Carolina. And one day, somebody came in -- the owners of the business lived in New York, and they called us and they said they are coming down and some people are coming from Tennessee, they would like to look at our business to see if they want to buy it. So we met all of them and obviously the head manager from the company in New York was talking and he was a very, very tough businessman. And he came to see my factory in Bamberg. We had a beautiful, beautiful lawn, beautiful shrubbery and flowering and everything else. I said to him, we are very proud of our yard and he looked at me and said how many dozens a day do you get from your yard? We knew who we were doing business with. And they bought the company. We couldn't understand why they wanted our dress company that was making house dresses. They were in the shirt business. We said why are they buying our company. At the time I was 25. My friend was 2 years older than me, he was 27. I had an assistant from FIT who was 23. Our two plant managers were in their mid-twenties besides myself and within three months we were all in Tennessee. They bought the company for us. And my friend ended up being CEO for them, and went on to a larger company and became the CEO there. And I did very well also. Not like him, but I did very well. SC: When he was the CEO of another company, do you remember any of those company names? You don't have to. BF: I'll try to remember the name of the company in [inaudible]. No, I can't remember. SC: So you were working together still? BF: Yes. SC: So they just moved it from the Carolinas to Tennessee? BF: Not the business, just us. Just the personnel. SC: Just you. Oh my gosh. BF: Within a couple of months we were running their business. SC: Oh okay, wow. BF: I was there for four and a half years and I was dating some girls in South Carolina and Tennessee and I finally rented an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee because I- and I had a trailer. The reason I had a trailer is because all of the- we had 10 factories in Tennessee and they all had trailer hookups behind them. So I ended up being a "consulting engineer" for the company and I would go to a factory for 2 or 3 months and do whatever I had to do. I trained a couple of people who were working with me to go with me. So we would go into the factory and we'd work on their make up pay. You don't know what make up pay is, so I'll explain it to you. If the minimum wage was $5, and our employees are on piece rate--they get paid by the piece--and the minimum wage was $6, if they only made $5, we had to make up the difference between the wages, the current wage- the current wage and what they were earning. At the time they decided to make me the internal engineer, we had $6 million in make up pay. And what we did is, one of the fellas, the other- the other man that came from South Carolina, he was probably the best sewing machine operator I ever saw in my whole life. He had one leg and he could sew anything. So he came with me and the third fellow he couldn't sew, but we decided we were gonna train--I went to the factory first--and I decided what needed to be worked on the most. So I decided side closing, sleeve setting, trimming, and examining. So Martin, who couldn't sew, we put him in trimming and examining. And I took side closing and Tom did sleeve setting. And we went to another factory. I looked at the factory first and said basically, and every factory you go to, everyone does it kind of the same way. Not necessarily the same in another factory, but we had in that factory we had fifty side closers. It was big, 1200 employees. So I did the side closing and Tom did the sleeve setting. So I go in and I pick out one of the ladies who looked like she was in charge. She was a little older than most of them and she seemed very strong so I went over and said, "I'm going to work with you a little bit." Oh first before that I worked three weeks at one of our other factories side closing. So I could side close like any experienced operator. I started telling her, you're stopping after one inch, then you sew four inches, then you go to the sleeve and you make three more stops to the top of the underarm. She said yeah. I said why don't you do all of that in two stops. She said, :I can't do that." I said yes you can. "I can't do that." I said well you can. She said, "You're so smart, why don't you do it?" That's what you wait for. And I sat down and did exactly what I was telling her to do, two stops, at full speed. And I did three of four garments so it wasn't just one garment. I said do you think you can try that? "... I'll try." She tried and once you get one, the rest were easy. And we did things like drilling a hole in the machine top for an extra needle so they wouldn't have to call for a needle when their needle broke. We engineered it to the end. GE: So a lot of productivity improvements. BF: Yeah. So we ended up working in three factories and then I decided I had enough and I'll tell you why. But we saved three million dollars in makeup pay and in three years we did it. SC: So this was- These factories were all sort of overseen by the investors? BF: No no. SC: No. You owned all of the, all three? BF: The company in Tennessee owned all three and I was an employee. GE: He was an employee. SC: That's what I meant. BF: My friend Howard was the general manager. SC: He was a general manager, but there were people that owned those factories. BF: Right. And because of all that staying, I decided to get an apartment in Murfreesboro. That's where I lived, where my trailer was stationed. So I went to Nashville to Percy Cohen's Furniture Company and I go in and who takes care of me, Mrs. Cohen. I was I think 26 or 27 at the time, and I'm buying furniture for my apartment. She says, I assume if you're buying this for your own apartment, you're not married? I say no. She says oh well I have a daughter. So I say- she says that she's a sophomore in college. That wasn't too bad. I said next time she comes home, tell her about me, and then call me and I'll call her. And I did. We went out some place in Nashville ; I think the Ice Capades were visiting from New York. We went for dinner. She was a very nice girl, very pretty girl, but not for me. So I came home from that, lived in my apartment for a month or two, and I said I have to get out of here. I got to go back up north and find a nice Jewish girl and get married. I came up to Philadelphia and I interviewed at Rosenau Brothers, who made little girls clothing. They had five or six factories all around Allentown. BUNNY: Cinderella. It was Cinderella, yes. SC: Oh. BF: What? SC: That was Cinderella Dress? GE: Was that the label, was it the brand? BF: Cinderella, very large company. They were the first company to use a star to advertise their clothing: Shirley Temple. So they were a very successful company, and I went to New York for the weekend before my interview, and I stayed with my mother, who lived in New York. And I didn't walk in the door and I wasn't there thirty seconds, she says your Aunt Mae has a girl for you. My Aunt Mae was a bookkeeper, probably in her 80s at this time. I spoke to her and she gave me this girl's number. I called and she said, "It was very nice of --" and everybody called her "Aunt Mae" -- "your Aunt Mae to give you my number but I'm going with somebody," she said. "But I have a younger sister." So that was the beginning. It took us about 3 years, 2 years, before we got married. BUNNY: We met in '64, married in '66. BF: So that's 2 years. BUNNY: Not quite. BF: Not surprisingly, the first date we had in New York, we went to the Central Park Zoo and sat outside the elephant cage. And then we went for Chinese food. And that was the beginning of that. I was working in- around in the five factories around this area, traveling to them on a daily basis. Every once in a while I'd go for a few days if I needed to do something. Then my company sent me to Virginia? BUNNY: Kentucky. BF: Excuse me, Kentucky. SC: So that was Cinderella that sent you there? BF: Yes. Somebody was making some clothing for them and I went there. And I was there probably for 3-4 months. Every once in a while we'd get in touch. She'd send me a card, I wouldn't return it. I came back to New York and then we started dating and here we are. SC: So you were in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley with Cinderella or were you in New York? BF: No here. I had a choice of moving to Reading or Allentown because our factories were in Reading--. BUNNY: Lansford. Lansford. Lansford. BF: Lansford, up in the Poconos. We had one, Red Hill, so I could have lived in anywhere or Allentown. BUNNY: And Carbondale. Carbondale. BF: Carbondale. So we had five factories. I went around to the five factories doing engineering. I took time studies and set piece rates. Helped people. I worked for a man who- he didn't hire me. He was the general manager, production manager, and the owner of the company hired me and sent me to work in Lansford to work with the general manager. He didn't want me around so he never talked to me very much. So I did my own thing and I had an engineer work there in the late '30s -- oh wait, '40s who was way ahead of his time. He set piece rates using time and motion study, and he had- we had a whole manual of all the piece rates. Unfortunately, at that time maybe the minimum wage was $4 an hour, so in order to earn $4 you had to do an hour's worth of work. What happened was he left the company and the geniuses that were left said that when they had a wage increase, instead of raising the price, they raised the number of pieces. So when I got there you weren't getting paid 10 cents a garment, you're getting- you had to do 2 garments and then whatever it was. And that was not too easy and everybody was converting all the time. They had big staff in the office that was converting everything. So I just took that manual and converted it to time. SC: So it was sort of a speed-up routine that they were doing and then you, and the fact that they had to produce five times as much? BF: Instead of paying $5 an hour they had to pay $6 an hour so instead of raising the value of the time, they raised the time, or they lowered the time. I don't know what they did. GE: So therefore it became very difficult for the people to meet- to get the wage that they should be getting? BF: No. It just made it difficult for the office people to convert. GE: Oh to convert how much they should pay them. BF: I spent a year redoing that whole book. And I converted everything over to time and then all the piece rates were in time. So if the minimum wage changed, it went, then we just changed time. The element, what it was worth. GE: You changed the dollar but the time stayed the same. BF: Changed the dollar. SC: Were those shops unionized or not? BF: All union. SC: All union, yes. Which union did they belong to? BF: I-- SC: The International? Yeah. BF: And I was with them for seven years, and I was getting a little unhappy with what I was doing and spending all this time driving. So I decided to find another job and I came- I was living in Allentown and went to an employment agency here. I said I'm looking for a job and he said what do you do? I said I'm an engineer and plant manager in the garment industry. He said tell me what you do. So I told him everything that I do and he said I never heard anybody that can do that much. So he got me a job in Reading with a nice gentleman whose father had owned a ladies underwear factory and his father passed away. They weren't doing too well in the ladies underwear business so he decided to take in shirts and blouses, and they weren't doing too well, so he hired me. And he- I became plant manager. They had two factories at the time. GE: What's the name of the company? BUNNY: Kelray, wasn't it? BF: Kelray Manufacturing: K-E-L-R-A-Y. GE: And do you know about what year this is? BUNNY: Well I think around '67. Jeb was born. Around '67. SC: And Rosenau was R-O-S-E-N-A-U? BF: Yes. BUNNY: I think it was two N's. SC: Was it? Yeah, I've seen it with two N's. GE: The company that you were with for seven years, was that Cinderella? BUNNY: That was Rosenau. GE: Rosenau owns it and Cinderella's just the brand? BF: Yeah, Rosenau. So I went to work for him and they didn't know anything, they only knew how to make underwear. They didn't know anything about blouses, and he had gotten- became a contractor for knit shirts. They didn't know how to make knit shirts, so I came in and I knew a lot about knit shirts. Once he got me, he started hiring a lot of people and I said to him, you can't do that, you'll have a tremendous amount of makeup -- we all know what that is -- in the factory. He said that's all right we have to hire more people so we can make more garments. The more people we hired the more makeup we had. Finally he was going to close down the big factory in Reading and keep the other one open. He was going to call the union in. I said let's make a deal. I said, I want to fire everybody but 15 people, and I guarantee in 6 months we'll be back to the same number and you'll be making money. So they called the union in and they listened to me and they believed me. We fired 45 people and I kept the only people who could sew a little bit. Because what happened when somebody couldn't sew and you hired experienced people and you put them next to each other, they couldn't sew either. So I taught the supervisor, who could sew, how to make a shirt. We started all over again and some place along the line, we were doing very well and he wanted to open a third factory. I said yeah, he says can you open another factory. I said that means I'll have to be there? And he said you could work in all the places. So I'm working in three factories now and running them and we are doing very well. When I took the job I told them that I wanted a percentage of profits. And unfortunately for him, he opened the books to me and I was looking at the books. At the end of the first year, we made $50,000, and I was expecting about a $10,000 bonus. He called me in and he said here is your bonus check. I looked at it and it was $400. I said I beg your pardon. Well we said we lost money before and we had to put money in the pension plan and we had to do this and I bought new furniture. I never specified what, he should have known ; he was just giving me the business. I said well, I'm not satisfied with that. It was Christmas break and I went home ; my mother was visiting us. He fired me. He had fired me. Before he fired me, I said to him that I could run it but we'd have to let some other people go. He had people in the cutting room that cut all the goods. His cutter and the three men that worked there couldn't- didn't drive cars. I'm just giving you an idea of the kind of help he had. The man that was in charge of shipping couldn't write and didn't read too well. So I replaced all of the personnel and we started making money. SC: This is tape number 2, Bernie Filler. And today is May 19th, 2014. So you were saying that he fired you. BF: He fired me. The following Monday, we got phone calls from a couple of people that were- one of the customers we were sewing for was Hang Ten. Are you familiar with Hang Ten? It was a very, very big company. You know, "Hang Ten" with their feet? That was their emblem with their feet on the board. They were our major supplier and we had a few other people who I had brought in who I knew. We were working for them. Within two days, two companies called me and said get your own factory, we'll give you the business. So I started looking and it took me about three months to find something, three or four months. A friend of mine introduced me to somebody who wanted to sell his contracting business. I went and talked to him and I looked around the factory, and I saw that whatever they were doing, I could do a lot better. And they were making a living. SC: This was in Allentown? BF: No. SC: This was in Reading? BF: No. Palmerton. They were in Palmerton. I walked around the factory and spoke to some of the operators and I looked and asked how many pieces a day do you do? She told me. I said to myself, that's not very many. Anyway, I talked to the owner of the business, he said well some of my girls can do more but I only want to make 300 pieces a day. I don't want them to make more than that. He said I'm happy with that and I can make a living. Or 3000 a day, whatever it is. I said oh. I looked around and I said if you can make 300, I can make 600. So I offered to buy the business and he said okay. We sat down and we made some, did some negotiations, and I'm on unemployment. One week went by, a month went by, two months go by, I call him up and said, what's going on? We either get the deal, I said I have to work, I'm unemployed. He said oh well maybe the first of April we can settle. I said okay. This was March already. So we made the deal in April, and I walked into the factory for two days and we ran out of work. So I called the company that we were working for and he said this is our slow time. He knew it was the slow time coming up, so he didn't tell me, and I bought the business then ran out of work. So I called the owner of the company, we had a very nice conversation and he said we could work something out. He started sending me work again. SC: Who was the man you bought the business from? Do you remember his name? BF: Frank-- BUNNY: With a T. BF: It may come to me before this is over. BUNNY: Tiso. Tiso, Tiso? BF: Tiso. He and his wife were in this business. So I come in and I talk- it's my business now and I go to some of the girls who I knew were good operators. I said how come you only do 50 pieces? I think you can do 300. They said, nobody asked us to. I said well okay, I'm going to start asking you to do more things. So before I was finished I started making 3,000 pieces a week in the factory. GE: So Bernie, you said that there wasn't- you were already done with the factory- you were already done with your production? Was that there was just no more, the customer didn't need any more? BF: The supplier to the factory. We were subcontractors. We needed a manufacturer to give us work. GE: So it was the manufacturer just didn't have any more need? BF: Well the first two weeks in April they ran out of work, every year, and the previous owner knew that, which is why he was putting me off. Because he was making money and he knew it was going to be bad, so. It didn't take me long. So I worked for them, went to Boston, I went to Boston to meet them. I took my wife along to meet them. We had a younger daughter at the time and they filled us up with cartons of little girls' dresses. BUNNY: Girltown -- Girltown was the name. BF: Girltown. It was a big company. GE: And this was your manufacturer? The manufacturer that you were doing the work for? Is that who Girltown is? BF: No- yes. No it wasn't the same one. But anyway, I started working and little by little we were losing our dress business, our blouse business. The first year I was in business, I worked for-- BUNNY: Personal. Personal Sports Wear. BF: Personal? No, Liz Claiborne. BUNNY: She was after. BF: Okay. Anyway I ended up working for Liz Claiborne. Liz Claiborne was a little bit better garments than I was used to making. Did I say I bought the business? GE: Yeah. BF: Okay. And I worked for Liz Claiborne for a year and did very well. Then they called me and said we are very sorry, we are moving overseas. SC: What year was this about? BF: So I worked for two other blouse companies for a short time and they moved overseas. SC: Was this in the '60s or '70s? BF: [19]70s. And I had a friend in right outside Allentown who had a garment factory that made ladies pants. He was a contractor. He worked for -- GE: Oh was this the family that -- BF: Fogelman. GE: Fogelman. The pants. They worked for Dunner, wasn't it? BF: Dunner, Alfred Dunner. SC: We just saw Maxine when we had lunch together. BF: Okay. My best friend in Allentown was her husband, who passed away. GE: Oh Arnold. Okay so you started doing pants for them. BF: Not quite. GE: May I just go back a second to make sure I'm clear. So when you went into your own business, tell me what kind of garments were you making again? BF: Blouses. GE: Blouses. Anything else or just blouses? BF: Just blouses. GE: Women's blouses? BF: Women's blouses. GE: And they were made from what kind of fabric? BF: Mostly cotton. GE: Cotton and knits. BF: No knits. Knit manufacturers were a different category. BUNNY: It was Personal Sports Wear and Breckenridge. GE: Say that again? BUNNY: Personal. They had like two hearts. It was a big label here. Personal Sportswear and then Breakenridge. GE: Okay those were his two, he had two customers. BF: He needs another contractor, would I be interested in working for him? I said I don't know anything about pants, I make blouses. He said, well you can come down here and look at and stay in my factory and ask any questions you want. I said can I bring my supervisor with me? He said sure. So the two of us went down and we spent the whole day there and we looked at every operation. When it was all over, I said is there anything here you can't do? She said no. So I told him I'd work for him. I said can you give me a hundred pairs of pants out of scrap so I can make some and be sure. So he said sure. So he cut a hundred pairs of pants for me. My supervisor made all hundred and when she was all finished, I said could you train everybody? She said sure. Now in time and motion, of course. We started working for him and I was- my accountant- I had spoken to my accountant before I switched over. He said are you going to be alright? I said yeah I set up a schedule for myself. Within four months I told him how much I would make each month and by the fourth month I would make a profit. So I did. Now I'm working for them, and I worked for them for 10 years and the last couple of years we were doing very well. I was very happy. I'm trying to think-- No, I worked for him for 10 years. GE: Is that from around the late '70s to late '80s? BF: I retired 17 years ago. GE: So 17 years ago would be 1995 or 1997. BF: [19]93 maybe. I left something out, I want to just add it. When I bought my own business and I was doing very well, they used to have a show in Atlantic City every year. A garment and textile show. So I decided that I would go. So I went there and I see my ex-employer who had fired me there. He saw me and turned and looked the other way. So I went over to him and tapped him on the shoulder to shake, I said, "Shake? I just want to thank you." He said what? I said I want to thank you for firing me. I bought my own business ; I'm making so much money I don't know what to do with it. And I turned around and walked away. He was in business three, three to four months after I left, then he went out of business. So I guess I did something right. SC: Sometimes things all pull together, don't they? BF: So that's it, then I retired. GE: So after, after doing this for ten years for Charles Dunner- BF: Alfred Dunner. GE: Alfred Dunner, did you retire because they didn't need it? Do you retire because- BF: I retired because I was old. GE: So you retired in the 1990s? BF: Yeah. Let's go back 17 years. GE: Well it's 2014 so that would be 1997. BUNNY: It was after Jeb got married, Jeb was married in '95, so it was after '95. BF: And some place along the line-- GE: Did you get to sell your business in 1997? BF: Yes. Some place along the line, I had a friend who worked at the hospitals here in town and he was responsible for buying clothing and things, like hospital gowns. He said, can you make some hospital gowns for me? I said yeah I guess I could. So he showed me one, I said yeah I can make these. I gave him a price and I made hospital gowns as a sideline for- I had a garage, and I converted the garage into a sewing room to make hospital gowns. It was a very cheap garment, so I opened up that section as non-union, my shop was union. BUNNY: Was that Mared? BF: Mared Manufacturing. I named it after my children Mara and Jed. BUNNY: And your other business was- BF: Jedmar. BUNNY: Was the main business. GE: Say it again? BUNNY: J-E-D-M-A-R Enterprises. That was his big factory. GE: How many people did you have working there at Jedmar Enterprises? BF: About 60-65. GE: And those were mostly operators, sewers? BF: Yeah. I had more when I had Mared Manufacturing. I had about another 10 people working at Mared. And one day the union came to me and said, you know you're a union shop. I said, yes. You can't run a non-union shop in the backdoor, in the garage ; you're going to have to convert to union. Meanwhile, the girls who are working back there loved it because they were getting better benefits than the other people were. I mean I was paying them, I gave them Christmas presents, I gave them bonuses, and all kinds of things. They came in and said we don't want to make it hard for you but we want that to be union. We'll give you a deal. He said you tell them it's going to be union and instead of six percent benefits, you can start with two percent. The next year you can go to three percent then five percent. He gave me like three years, and I got that going good, and guess what? They started making them overseas, so I lost that business, too. SC: Did you belong to any of the associations? BF: I belonged to the Atlantic Apparel Association. Which everybody did. GE: That was the one with Arnold Delin? BF: Yes. When I joined there were about a hundred and some odd members. By the time I left there were maybe 20 left. GE: So by the time you retired, in the late 1990s, this was pretty much gone from the area? BF: Yes. SC: And that was late. So many people were out way before that. BF: Well, that's because I was good. GE: How many years did you make the hospital gowns . . . about? BF: Maybe two years. GE: Do you remember what years? Is this the 1990s? BF: Well the children were young so it couldn't be BUNNY: They were in college. BF: No they weren't in college yet ; they were, they were, maybe they were going to college. I made them partners in my business. I split all the profits with my two children. So that by the time I had to close it down, they already had a nice- better money for college. So they were taken care of. That worked out very well. GE: What hospital- You were making hospital gowns, who was your customer? BF: All the- there was only one hospital here. GE: Really? It was Lehigh Valley Hospital? BF: Lehigh Valley. And at that time, they were really doing most of the business. They bought an awful lot of hospital gowns from us. I had an offer to make hospital gowns for the military, and I chose not to do it. SC: Was that because of dealing with the military or was that because of any issue you had with the military as far-? BF: No. It's because I had a cousin that was in charge of all the subcontractors that worked for the government. He came to a bar mitzvah and he found out I was making hospital gowns and said how would you like to make hospital gowns for the government? I said let's talk about it. It was a good deal. He would guarantee me the work. SC: You asked whether the children were a part of the business? And just one summer, when one of your sons worked. GE: Right. Would you like to share- Matt, we'll ask you if you have any questions. But would you like to share with us a little bit about the Jewish community when you came, both what you came, what it was like, and also what you've observed? You've been here now I think you said 48 years? BUNNY: Forty-eight years. But he's been here longer. GE: What has it meant to you being part of the Jewish community here, and what was that like, here in Allentown? BF: Well we got married and we wanted to have a family and wanted them to be Jewish. So we decided we would join a synagogue. So I went shopping, and I went to Beth El first and talking to them I found that they were pretty well booked up, and if I joined that synagogue I would have to sit in the back, in a different room in the back for services, for holidays because all the seats, or a good number of the seats belong to old congregants. GE: This was about what year? BUNNY: 1966-67. BF: So I went a couple blocks away and I went to K.I. And I had never belonged to a synagogue in my life. I went to K.I. and they welcomed me with open arms, they said you could sit wherever you want when you come here. You will be a regular member of the community and the congregation. And I said okay, and I joined. And we've been there since- BUNNY: 1973. GE: So 1973 is when you joined. How about your involvement with any other institutions? BF: Well I was president of Jewish Family Service for two years. I was vice president for a couple of years. And I was just on the board for a couple of years, about 6 years altogether. GE: Okay so a lot of involvement with Jewish Family Service. Any other organizations? BUNNY: You were president of Brotherhood of K.I. BF: President of the Brotherhood of K.I. Bunny: And treasurer of the synagogue. BF: Treasurer of the synagogue. GE: So you were really quite active at K.I. Still active at K.I.? BF: Yes. Not as much as my wife. My wife now volunteers there about three days a week. Does a wonderful job. MATT: Has Judaism had any impact on your business life when you were working? BF: Not really. MATT: Whether business connections or anything like that. BF: I knew a lot of people in the garment business that were Jewish, but we didn't have any- we became friendly and knew each other but that didn't affect my business at all. SC: Do you think there is a reason why people in the Jewish community became involved in the garment industry overall? BF: That's what they were doing when they came from New York. GE: So even let's say why in New York? In other words, what do you think was the association between Jews and the garment industry? BF: Because they couldn't get jobs in industries. You couldn't work for GM, you couldn't work for- so they decided to go into the garment business. And of course they ended up very, very large in the garment business and still are, still are. SC: It's nice to get independent confirmation from different people. BF: So when the war started, there were a lot of complications in New York. They couldn't get help, they couldn't get factories. A lot of them decided to come out here because there was plenty of help. So they moved here and they opened up garment factories here. They suffered a little bit when the war came along. But once they found out what they had to do, they made a lot of money. They did government work, and they did- yeah. SC: Do you see the industry as being- in Reading at certain times there were sewing factories up, in all the places that you were, do you think there's a reason those areas were so lucrative for people in the coal regions...? BF: Availability of labor. SC: Of the female labor? BF: Yeah. Actually, in the garment industry, forty or fifty years ago in New York, most of the operators were men, originally. Then the women gradually came into the business. SC: There's a cliché that where there is a silk mill, there's- silk mills were near the coal mines. That the sewing mills- sewing factories were also near the coal mines or near the steel mills or wherever. Is that overblown or do you think there is a connection there? BF: Well the reason for that I think is because the garment industry employs women and the other industries didn't. So it was a place for their wives to work. GE: So all the men were working in the coal mines or the other types of jobs and the women were working in these kinds of factories. BF: There was a lot of- what I'd want to say? When they didn't like Jews? Anti-Semitism and anti- other things in the coal regions. The reason there were so many people from the coal region who ended up in the garment industry and they opened up their own businesses because the people in the garment industry prior to that wouldn't hire people from the coal regions. GE: Can you say that again and explain it to us? BF: Yes. There was a lot of prejudice and people with backgrounds, both- whatever their backgrounds was, couldn't get jobs in a lot of factories. They were prejudiced against. There were a lot of Italians working in the Northern part, a lot of Italians. GE: You're saying that the owners of those coal mines wouldn't hire those Italians? BF: No, the other garment business. GE: Because the original garment factory owners would not hire those people. SC: Would not hire Jews. BF: No, I don't think it was the Jewish owners. It was the owners of the other factories. GE: Who was showing the prejudice? BF: They were English, they were- BUNNY: No, who were they? BF: I'm getting there. Who came to the United States before the Eastern Europeans? They were English and they were German and they lived up there and the people that opened businesses there wouldn't hire. GE: And you're saying they wouldn't hire the local people to work in their factories? BF: No. So eventually they opened up in Palmerton around the coal regions, the lower coal regions, my boss there was- came out of high school in Palmerton, and there was a lady who was kind of a supervisor running the factory. And he was a very bright guy and she taught him. He ended up being the general manager some years later. He didn't have a lot of prejudice. I'm serious. SC: We've heard that in Allentown, their- the community of people in the garment industry were mostly Jewish. And up in the Northern part near Palmerton and Catasauqua, places like that, it was more Italians. Is that true? BF: Yes. GE: And with the Italian owners, who were, were the women who worked there typically Italian or whatever ethnicity? BF: I would say it started out, but then they didn't have enough people and they started hiring other people. Eventually it disappeared and with the Atlantic Apparel Association make sure of everything. MATT: I have a couple of follow up questions going back to your uncle's factory in New York that you were talking about. Do you feel like your uncle was your biggest inspiration to kind of lead you on the path that you ended up following? BF: No. The only inspiration he gave me was he gave me knowledge. My mother said to me, stay with your uncle, some day the business will be yours. He was never married. When he was 55 or 60 years old he got married and married a very wealthy woman and shut the business down. MATT: She shut it down before you had the opportunity to take it over. BF: Yes. So I did the right thing. GE: But you did, the good part was you learned the business. MATT: And it was for that reason that you decided to go to FIT and not just a regular college? BF: Yes, because I was working for my uncle and I liked what I was doing. It turned out that I was very good at what I did. MATT: How old were you when his wife ended up shutting down the business? Or what year and how old were you? BF: Probably in my early twenties, two years after I got out of the army. And everything worked out very well. He was very happy ; he married a nice woman. She took very good care of him when he got older, and I didn't have to worry about it. But I, I- My specialty was engineering, time and motion studying piece rates, methods work. I was very, very good at that. GE: Tell us what you mean by methods work. BF: Well a girl- somebody came to work for me and I didn't know if she could sew. She sat down at the machine and I knew exactly how I would tell her to pick up this one and over that one. I knew this. And she sat down and put two pieces together and shook her head no. She did it again and shook her head no. Then she did it the way I would have told her the third time and she shook her head yes. That's what I did. When you walked into my factory, let's say we had 6 sleeve setters, 6 pocket setters, if you came and you looked at them, all 6 would be doing them exactly the same way. SC: That's efficiency. GE: Yes, I was going to say. That's efficiency and standardization. SC: Yes. This is going to go off in a second. Okay, so you said you were good at what you did. Do you have a good example of that? BF: I had a lady who did the payroll for the executives of the company, plus all the contractors. So I called the one day I said, "You know, I come right by the factory, could I drop my bill off on Friday and pick it up on Tuesday? And she said, "Absolutely." So I said okay. So I dropped it off on Friday and I pick it up Tuesday morning, so instead of waiting a whole week, I got it in the next day. And one day she said to me, "How many people you have working for you?" I said, "60." She looked at me and she says, "You're doing all this billing with 60 people?" I said, "Yes." She said "Oh," so I knew I was doing good. SC: And you had a question? MATT: So I know you were saying before you were in a lot of states -- Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee. For the most part, the companies that ended up buying your products, your finished products at the end, were they mostly from the specific regions within the states or from all over the country? BF: Oh no, they were from all over the country. They were all big corporations in New York, they sold all over. Alfred Dunner is probably the best ladies sportswear company below the designers, and they sell all over the country. You go into the major department stores in New York, they have an Alfred Dunner department. GE: Here, too. BF: Yes, here, too. And of course, they made very good pants. That's what I made. SC: The best pants. So do you have any other questions? GE: You know, I think- SC: I think we hit them. You were great! Minimal questioning, maximum information -- it was great! But I have two- three. I have three questions. No, two questions -- we talked about the community. So my first question is, what has made you feel the most artistic in your life? And I mean that in that sort of metaphoric sense of creativity, completion, you know, sense of satisfaction in your life. BF: Well, my wife's the only one in the family with musical talent, and she inspires me. As a matter of fact, on June 20th, she's going to become a bat mitzvah. And we're looking forward to that. And of course, now my grandchildren inspire me -- in very small ways. SC: And what do you value most in life? BF: Well, other than the work that I did all those years, my family. GE: And one other question I was wondering, in terms of the community, 50 years ago, this community had much more industry and small industry. Now there's much, much less of it. How do you think that has impacted the community? The broad community -- and actually, the broad community and maybe more specific- and then two things, the broad community and then also how about the Jewish community? Do you think the Jewish community has been impacted by this? BF: I don't think so. Because, as I started saying, the Jewish community couldn't do other things. Today they can. So they're not as impacted by not having garment factories. GE: And how about the broad community? Do you think our community just now has other things? Is it in any way been diminished or maybe it's even stronger or better because we don't have those factories? What do you think? Any thoughts? BF: It doesn't affect me, I don't think it affects other people. Do you? And, you know, and we've lost a lot of people who wanted to work in garment factories, they just don't want to do it anymore. And their next generation doesn't want to do it, so something would have happened anyway. SC: Okay, thank you. MATT: Just one last, quick question. Aside from having to move around a lot, going to the different factories around the country, what do you feel like your biggest challenge was professionally, aside from that? Like, internally within the factories that you had to work in? BF: Well, owning my own business, and being successful, and that's what I was happy to do. BUNNY: That was your biggest challenge? GE: Was that a big challenge because of the risk? BF: It was. First thing I had to do when I decided to buy a business was go to the bank and borrow money. I had never done that in my life. And fortunately, my mother, who at that time was in her eighties and living alone in New York -- well not exactly alone, she had a boyfriend -- but she had some money saved and I said to her I could use some money to buy my business. You loan me your money, I'll take care of you. You won't have a need for anything, whatever expenses you have, I'll take care of it. So she said okay, and she gave me a nice sizable amount of money, helped me buy the business. And then I started- that was to buy the business, now I needed to go to the bank to buy machinery, the money for machinery because going from blouses to pants was- a lot of it was different machinery. First of all, I never had pressing machines with blouses, we had a steamer. Steamed it. Never had pressing machines but we had to buy pressing machines to press the pants. MATT: Were there certain challenges, depending on what state your factory was actually operating in? Maybe based on laws or anything in that state, preventing anything or was it for the most part, all the same, no matter what state you're in, when it came to buying the actual equipment in the factory? BF: That was a national thing. Most of the people who bought machinery from up until about the 90s, was Singer and Union Special, and they were made in the United States. Then there- GE: I'm sorry, it's what company? BF: Union Special and Singer. And then the Japanese came in with Juki and they took over the- pretty much most of the sewing and the factories. Just a better machine. GE: So they really replaced the other. BF: Yeah, they replaced the Singers, the Union Specials. One place, okay, one place when I was working in Tennessee, my boss sent me to Portugal for a month. He said there was somebody who wanted to make some housecoats for us, and I said- and he said he doesn't know anything about making housecoats, want to go show him? So I said, okay. And I was there for a month, and I like to say that for a month I was God. Because in Portugal, I walked in, I went to see the sewing company in Lisbon and I said, "I'm going to need to buy some sewing machines." And so, "What do you need?" And I gave him this list for about 20 machines, and he looked at me and said, "I haven't got this many machines." He said, "It'll take me a couple of weeks to get them." I said okay -- I mean, they didn't have it. And you know what a cutting table is? We had a- the factory that I went to, the man was making pillowcases, so his cutting table was about six yards long -- you know, pillowcases. And we needed a 14 yard table for the house dresses. So I said, "Okay, we have to buy some lumber. What's the cheapest lumber to buy here?" And they said, "Mahogany!" So we built the mahogany cutting table, probably the only one in the world, and it worked fine. And when I came from New York to go to the factory, I brought a bunch of attachments that you put on the sewing machine. One was a cord piper. You know what cord piping is? SC: When you put the cording-- GE: Around the edge. BUNNY: Like this. BF: Yeah, that's cord piping. So there's an attachment that you put the piping around it, fold it, and it pushes it through. And the pipe- there's a tube, the piping goes in the middle, and you do it all in one time. So I get there and I take out this quart pipe -- and nobody spoke English. But the plant manager was Portuguese, but he was born in South Africa and raised in South Africa. And he was a typical Englishman, wore a bowler and cane, and the spats, the whole works, my age. And he spoke English, of course. So I said, "We should start with the supervisor." And I said, "Well how did you make the samples?" [She had] made samples. She said she took the piping and sewed it to one piece of the collar and then she took the other piece of the collar, sewed it to the other piece of the collar that had piping on it. Three operations. So I took out my phone, I put it on the machine. SC: Time management. BF: I was God. I was there for a month and I really hated to go. But I did. I was offered a job there by somebody else and I just couldn't do it to my company. I was working in the factory and the guy who owned the factory was in the textile business in the United States, and he also had plants all over the world and he traveled around the world -- and this is the truth -- once a week, once a week. Go to New York, go to England, go to China, go to Japan for silk and go to- every week, okay? And he came home from Portugal, that was his last stop where he was going around the world, and flew back to New York. And while he was in Portugal, he had two factories in Belgium. The managers would come down and meet with him while he was in Portugal and he would have been- and again, if he could get there, we got there- I flew over with him. I got there like seven o'clock in the morning. Have you flown internationally? Customs? Plane landed, car pulled up to the airplane. We got off the airplane into the car and left -- no customs. I mean, so it was very- Anyway, this guy- we got to know each other in the months he was going, he came to visit once a week. And when he was leaving, he said, "How would you like to work for me?" I said, "what would you want me to do?" He said, "I want you to run this factory and the one in Brooklyn- Belgium, and you can live wherever you want, I'll give you a car and you'll be in charge. It was a great opportunity. I was single at the time. SC: That's what I was going to ask. BF: I was single at the time. BUNNY: "B.B. -- Before Bunny." BF: I liked working for my boss. I didn't want to do that to him. And I'm doing a good job there and he appreciated it. So I turned down the job. It would have been interesting, but he wouldn't expect me, expected me to live like he did, I mean, I'd probably be working 43 hours a week -- a day -- and traveling back and forth all the time. It wasn't for me, but just [to] tell you how important this guy became. He flew into Portugal one morning and he had a return trip at one o'clock in the afternoon back to New York. Flies into Portugal. He goes to the airport and he's a couple of minutes late. And-- What airlines was it? BUNNY: Pan Am, I think he came. BF: Pan Am? I guess he says you can't do this. They say, "I'm sorry, sir. We gave your seat away." He said, "I beg your pardon?" "We gave your seat away. You're not here." He said, "I'm here. The plane is still here. I'll sit in the toilet." "No, I'm sorry, sir. You can't get on the plane." And they wouldn't let him on the plane. So he went back to the factory, called his lawyer in New York and said, "I'm calling Pan Am and telling them I'm chartering a consolation to take me to New York, and they're going to pay for it." His lawyers said don't do it. They won't do it, they won't pay. But after that, when he wanted to go somewhere, he picked me up originally at one of the garment factories with his own private twin engine plane. And we flew to- we had to get to Atlanta to catch a plane to New York. And we were in Georgia. And his pilot called and he said, "We can't go- can't get to Atlanta in time." "How much time we're going to miss by?" He said maybe 15, 20 minutes. He said, "Tell them to wait for me." He got to the airport. There was a car, there was a plane sitting in the middle of the runway. We got on and they took off. So he carried you, you could travel around the world once a week. He had leverage. He was very nice. He was married, I don't know why-- Yeah. SC: You know and it's nice to know that- that's exciting but you kept your sense of who you were, who is really nice. BF: How much more could I be then God? SC: That's true, that's true. BUNNY: That's a good way to end, isn't it? SC: Thank you. Interview with Bunny Filler, May 19th, 2014 GAIL EISENBERG: So maybe Bunny can sit there? We want to hear a little about your family. MATT: How much time is left on the--? SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Not a whole lot but we'll go through until we get to the end. BERNIE FILLER: She'll have to apologize for when she tells you what her father did. SC: So would you state your full name, when you were born, and where you grew up? BUNNY FILLER: Well I'm not gonna tell you when I was born. SC: Okay, that's fine. BUNNY: My name is Helen Filler, but nobody calls me that and nobody knows me by that name. My name is Bunny. I got that nickname many years ago when I was a camper and it stuck. GE: What was your maiden name? BUNNY: Levin. L-E-V-I-N. Levine. Some people call me Lev-een, here they call me Lev-ine or Lev-in. But it's Levin. I was born in the Bronx at- or actually, I was born in Manhattan at Lenox Hill Hospital. I was raised in the Bronx. My mother and father -- my mother's name is Frieda Thelma Kraft, no relation to Kraft Foods unfortunately. My father's name is Julius Alexander. My son is named after him. And my grandparents on my father's side -- my paternal grandfather was a Yankee, which is very unusual. He was born here. My paternal grandmother was born in Lithuania and they met here in this country. My paternal grandfather- GE: Do you know any names? So like you're- BUNNY: Harry. I'm named after Harry, that's where Helen came from. Harry, and my grandmother's name was Lena Platt and her family was- wound up in Harrisburg. GE: Okay, and Lena Platt- she was the one, they were from Lithuania. BUNNY: She was from Lithuania originally, yeah. GE: And no relation to Murray [Platt]? BUNNY: No. GE: And Harry, of course, that's Lev-in. BUNNY: Levin. GE: Levin. Okay. And he was born in the U.S. BUNNY: Right. My maternal grandparents were Lillian and Benjamin Kraft. Her maiden name, I remember, was Lillian Bernstein. And I'm not quite sure -- Poland, I think? I can't come up with the exact [location], but I think they came from Poland and I think maybe one came from Russia. I'm not one hundred sure. GE: All those places were the same anyway. BUNNY: Yeah. My paternal grandfather was in the meatpacking business. GE: Your paternal grandfather -- that's Harry? BUNNY: Harry worked at Swift and Company, I think. And my maternal grandfather was a millinery, a millinery, a milliner. Yes, that's it. He made hats. He made hats, yes. My mother had- there were three sisters and a brother. My father had one brother, [unclear]. GE: Three sisters and a brother, okay. I'm sorry, your father had one brother? BUNNY: One brother, younger brother who was a dentist. Robert, Uncle Bob. GE: Your grandfather was in the millinery. Did he make the hats, did he work at a little factory? BUNNY: I don't know. I just know he was in millinery, that's what my mother told me. And unfortunately, she's not here to help me. I have lots of questions now that I should have asked many years ago and didn't. GE: Do you know about when your parents were born? BUNNY: Oh, yes, my mother was -- this was unusual -- my mother was born in 1905. And I don't know if you know what the word shanda is, meaning in Yiddish it means "it's a shame". She married my father, who was born in 1909. And in that generation, you did not marry a woman who was older than you. She was- my grandmother was very upset. "Take good care of my son," she said to my mother on their wedding night. She thought my mother was a hussy. BF: And she was a redhead. BUNNY: And she was a natural born redhead, yes. And I had a great grandfather, we called them the Bubba [Yiddish for grandmother] and the Zayde [Yiddish for grandfather], they spoke no English whatsoever. My Zayde, I remember, he was in his 90s -- he had this long beard, and I would sit on his lap and pull his beard, and he would get hysterical laughing. My parents were so embarrassed. I don't know, I don't remember their name. GE: Was that. . . BUNNY: No, that was Lena Platt. Also, he was Platt, but I don't know- I only knew them as the Bubba and the Zayde. But their name was Platt. GE: So that was Lena Platt's- BUNNY: Mother and father. GE: Oh my goodness. Wow. So therefore the whole family did come. They were in the- they did come to the U.S. BUNNY: Yeah. I was lucky I had grandparents. I didn't know my grandfathers, they died before I was born. But I knew my great-grandfather. Ain't that unusual? My kids also never knew their grandfather -- my father died when he was forty-six, so that was, that was pretty sad. SC: What kind of work did they all do, besides the ones that you talked about? BUNNY: My father had also started to work for Swift and Company, which was a meat packing plant. And he bought his own business, called Merion Provision Company -- I still have pencils. M-E-R-I-O-N. Merion Provision Company. And he manufactured pure pork sausage, which made my mother crazy because my mother was raised as an Orthodox Jew. She no longer was, and he would bring home his sausage, and my sister and I would devour it -- breakfast sausage, not like these big links, and not the patties, they were just the links. And he made a very good living. My mother taught school. And then when my father- BF: Wasn't she a milliner to start out? No, she wasn't? BUNNY: No, my mother was a schoolteacher. She was one of the first women to graduate from college in her circle of friends. None of the women went to college. She graduated from Hunter College. And she was fluent in German, she took German. GE: Wasn't Hunter College free then? BUNNY: I don't know. Probably. GE: New York was very progressive that way where it was, like, free. Everybody got in. BF: Probably. SC: Yeah, but it was all women. GE: Hunter? I never heard that. SC: Was it all women? BUNNY: It used to be an all women's school. GE: Really? I never heard that. BF: Yeah. My sister went there, too. BUNNY: But she- my mother was a very bright lady but she stayed home, finally, after my father got his business going and became successful. Then she stayed home. I don't know what else to tell you. GE: But then your dad, you're saying, died young. BUNNY: My father had a heart attack when he was 46 years old. Got sick on a Thursday and died on a Sunday and it was devastating. Devastating. I was very close to my father, he was a- we're lucky. You don't choose your parents, you're born into- and some people don't have such wonderful parents and you can't help it. I was very, very blessed, very, very blessed -- had a wonderful sense of humor. And interesting, one of my aunts said that Bernie reminds, reminded her of my dad, which I thought was kind of interesting, with the sense of humor and everything. GE: How old were you? BUNNY: I was 16 when he died. SC: So where have you worked in your life? BUNNY: Well, I went to, I went to P.S. 11, went to William Howard Taft High School, and then I went to Boston University. And I became an early childhood- I was an early childhood major, and I taught kindergarten in New York for five years. And then my Prince Charming came and we got married, and we came to- and he helped me find a job here. He called places for me because I was still in New York, and I got a job in the Allentown School District. Otis Rothenberg I think interviewed me and he wanted to give me a first-grade position, and I looked at him square in the eyes -- I don't know how I got the nerve -- and I said, "I'm going to be a brand new bride. I don't know a soul in Allentown. I don't know anything. But I am a wonderful kindergarten teacher, and I've been doing it for years. I really don't want something new." He went and looked up something. He said, "Fine, you can teach kindergarten at Lehigh Parkway." He interviewed me there and I had to meet him someplace else and we said goodbye and I didn't move. And he said, "Do you have a problem, honey?" And I said, "Yes. I don't know how to get to my fiance's apartment from here." I only knew how to get from South Mountain. And he said, "Follow me." This is the superintendent of schools, and he took me to Bernie's apartment. That's how I started. And I only taught one year because- I was in New York for five, but I only taught one because I got pregnant, and I gave birth to Jed in September of 1967. So I finished school half the year in June and then I stayed home, and then Mara was born nineteen months later. And then about two years later, I went over to the Center -- they did not have a music program for their three year olds, and I said I'll do it for free. I'll just sit and play songs for them. And so, fine, they hired me. What could be better than not paying me anything? And I've been working for nothing ever since! And I went to the Day School, and they don't pay too well either! In any event, I stayed at the Center for a long time and then somebody approached me at the Day School and asked me if I would do the music program there. And this is somebody who does not read Hebrew or speak Hebrew, but I taught a lot of Jewish music there. You learn it. It's not difficult. And then while I was there, the principal, Barry Cohen, asked me if I would begin a pre-kindergarten program that they never had one. And I said I could try. And so I started there in 1980- I want to say '83 or '84. Something like that. And I started that pre-K program that's there now. I was there for 27 years. GE: So really, just 'til a couple years ago. BUNNY: I stopped teaching in 2010. What'd you say? BF: I said that was nice. BUNNY: Yeah in 2010, that was not a good way to leave. But anyway, I loved, loved, loved working there. I taught four year olds and I was very blessed because I could teach the whole program. I taught secular as well as Judaic. I taught them, you know, all about Judaism. I taught them the Hebrew alphabet. That's how I learned to read Hebrew, like a first grader. But it was a wonderful- it was my life, it was my life, aside from my husband and my wonderful children. My husband supported me three-hundred percent. He loved the fact that I was there. He came to every program I ever did. He made the costumes, talking about his factory, he made all our costumes for us. We used to do Purim and we used to do parody shows. And he did Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He did the music, really did all of it. He made all the costumes for us. He's been a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful husband. He really has been, I'm very lucky. SC: And the Center has been so successful. BUNNY: Excuse me? SC: It's so successful. BUNNY: Yeah, it was, it was really good. BF: As a result of her teaching there, to this day, I'm still- she used to introduce me to her children. And to this day now, because the parents are now grandparents, they still call me "Mr. Bunny." BUNNY: "Mara Bunny and Mr. Bunny". SC: Oh, I love it. BUNNY: So I left there in 2000- I left the day school in 2010. And it was a very difficult decision and a difficult year. And then I kind of found my way into K.I. again. I mean, we've always been active, but now I volunteer there. He said three days a week, I'm really there almost five because I'm chairing this ad book, so I'm trying to put together this home journal, and it's not an easy job. It's a wonderful- I mean, I just love, love being there. And that's been, you know, fulfilling my life. SC: How do you see the community, the wider community and the Jewish community, changing over time? And Allentown, perhaps? BUNNY: Well Allentown has grown tremendously. When we first came here, I had to go down to King of Prussia- not King of Prussia, Plymouth Meeting to buy clothes for my little boy. I mean, there was nothing -- there were two shops here, the Children's Shop and I think Clymer's Carousel. And there was nothing else, there was no mall, there was nothing. So it's grown tremendously that way. You know, I've seen a lot of people coming in from the area, a lot of transplants here. So that's changed. How do I see the whole community? It's not just the community, it's society. Everything is very different today. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time. I think, you know, we've become a little bit too casual and a little bit too disrespectful. The kids, adults as well. I saw it in parents as well as children. And it's... it's--. It makes me sad, it really makes me sad, and what makes me feel good is my kids, who are only in their 40s, think the same thing. So it doesn't make me feel like I'm an old lady, like, "Oh, she's from, you know, three generations ago." It's different. It's just- it's very different and it makes me sad. SC: So what do you value in life? This is going to beep soon, that's why I-- BUNNY: What do I value in life? What Bernie said, I mean, I value my family, my husband first and foremost, my children, my grandchildren, my synagogue that I have seen growing now. We've been through some very hard times and it's now coming back thanks to a wonderful, wonderful rabbi. And I just you know, I just think it's really, really important. It's been our social life. And I value my friendships. As he said, my synagogue has been such an integral part of my life, all of a sudden at this old age, I decided I was going to become a Bat mitzvah all by myself. No classes, no nobody else, just me. And it's been a very, very surreal but incredibly fulfilling experience. I never would have dreamed this. And I never belonged to a synagogue growing up. Nothing. So that makes it even more special for me. It really does. SC: And what makes you feel the most creative, artistic, satisfied? I mean, I think you sort of said that, but anything else? BUNNY: I mean, I don't look at myself as a creative individual. I don't- I mean I don't-, well when I think of creativity, you know, I think of artistic, making things, and coming up with all these wonderful ideas. Sometimes I am, I gave him the most wonderful 80th birthday party, and I'm not patting myself on the back. We did it together and it was fabulous, fabulous. It was a New York Giants theme. And it was just -- we did all kinds of creative things and that gave me a lot of satisfaction. SC: But teaching kindergarten, that's artistry. That is artistry at its best. BUNNY: I just absolutely- well, the four year olds- yes, I will say I was creative in that. I really was. GE: And you were doing it for 26 years. BUNNY: And I was doing art projects -- which to me were hands-on, but I wasn't allowed to call it that because that part wasn't creative if you give the kids directions on how to do something. It was to teach them how to follow directions, not just for their creativity. You know, if I'd say, paint the sun yellow, the art teacher would yell at me and say, "The sun can be any color." I said, "Yes, but I want them to follow directions. Later on, I will tell them they can do whatever they want with it." And so we had a lot of hands-on stuff. And I, I just- that's what I miss most of all, these four year olds. They were just beautiful, beautiful people, beautiful people. So I'm a big child. I just love children, just love children. Or babies, I love them when they're new. I just- that's what I like. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:33:23
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Title
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Bernie and Bunny Filler, May 19th, 2014
Description
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Bernie Filler talks about how he grew up in the Bronx, worked part-time for his uncle who was in the textile business and attended FIT after high school. After graduating and being in the service, Bernie worked as a manager and an engineer at several large apparel factories, first in the South, then in Pennsylvania, before buying his own factory in Palmerton, PA. At the time, the factory made women’s blouses. After a while, Bernie became a subcontractor to Tama Manufacturing making pants for Alfred Dunner. Bernie worked with Tama Manufacturing making pants for Alfred Dunner until Bernie retired in the late 1990s.
Bunny Filler talks about her childhood growing up in the Bronx, attending Boston University, teaching kindergarten in New York and then meeting her “Prince Charming” (Bernie) and coming to Allentown. When Bunny’s younger child was a toddler, Bunny began a music program at the JCC Nursery School and later at the Jewish Day School. A few years later, Bunny began a pre-kindergarten program at the Jewish Day School, which she taught for twenty-seven years.
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LVTNT-13
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2014-05-19
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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11af7835c9234b17f744675b168f177e
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Bruce Sheftel
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-15.xml
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5.4 May 31st, 2017 Bruce Sheftel, May 31st, 2017 LVTNT-15 1:52:28 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Bruce Sheftel Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SheftelBruce_20170531 1.0:|27(2)|44(7)|63(3)|82(2)|133(12)|148(13)|167(2)|184(12)|207(3)|226(2)|249(3)|268(8)|289(2)|306(3)|323(4)|342(3)|361(2)|376(15)|393(4)|412(4)|429(17)|448(7)|467(2)|482(8)|499(8)|516(4)|535(5)|556(7)|575(2)|600(2)|623(7)|640(13)|663(3)|682(5)|705(5)|728(8)|753(2)|776(4)|803(2)|824(13)|841(4)|852(13)|873(3)|892(16)|911(13)|932(7)|953(2)|970(11)|989(12)|1010(16)|1031(8)|1050(11)|1071(15)|1090(9)|1107(16)|1124(14)|1147(7)|1162(15)|1181(14)|1202(14)|1227(3)|1242(7)|1263(2)|1282(6)|1301(4)|1322(15)|1341(7)|1360(10)|1383(11)|1402(16)|1425(7)|1448(7)|1469(2)|1496(16)|1513(12)|1530(6)|1541(17)|1558(11)|1581(5)|1602(4)|1623(12)|1642(14)|1665(15)|1686(18)|1707(6)|1726(15)|1753(2)|1778(4)|1807(3)|1826(3)|1849(14)|1870(3)|1891(2)|1904(12)|1919(13)|1938(13)|1953(14)|1968(15)|1987(8)|2006(14)|2027(6)|2040(3)|2051(15)|2068(11)|2087(3)|2104(7)|2127(2)|2138(12)|2157(10)|2174(13)|2197(9)|2216(11)|2233(7) 0 https://youtu.be/Gt_KrnwLhJ0 YouTube video 21 Introduction—Bruce Sheftel SC: Today is May 31st, 2017, an interview with Bruce Sheftel. And Bruce, I'm going to start by asking you your information, then go back to your family history. So what is your full name? Where were you born and where do you live?
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 ; BS: My full name is Bruce Howard Sheftel. I was born in Allentown and I've lived now in- outside of Philadelphia and in- I have a small apartment in New York. And yeah.
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 ; SC: What town outside of Philadelphia? 
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 ; BS: BlueBell — BlueBell, Pennsylvania. 0 64 Education SC: What is your education history? 
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 ; BS: I started in Allentown with elementary school at the Jewish Community Center and then Muhlenberg Elementary School and the Wright School, which was a nursery school. And my- I think my education was sort of like a woodier sampler. I went from there to the Jewish Day School for six years and on to Raub Junior High School. In Raub Junior High School, I was hit by a car in my ninth year, the beginning of my ninth year, and spent that year at home with a broken leg. So in the year of what would have been my- the end of my ninth grade, I went to summer school at Hun School in Princeton, New Jersey. They conditionally accepted me, and I went there for ninth grade again and left after a year, which- came back to Allentown, went to Moravian Prep and made sure we closed that school down. And I was in the last graduating class, but I didn't have two credits, had a disagreement with the school about what classes I was permitted to take, so I then went to Philadelphia and got my high school degree from- with two credits from Penn Charter School, I think it was, at 13th and Arch. So I was a little independent. I didn't go to college in the traditional way. I think, ten or fifteen years later, I went to, first, Harvard Business School — [they] had a special program. And while I was there, I enrolled- found myself accepted at Antioch College in an extension program. And I was- I graduated in the last year that they operated. So I have sort of a history of closing schools or at least attending the last year that they- they operate. So I graduated with a degree in business from Antioch — Business Administration. Then the Harvard experience was not degreed, it was predicated on experience and it was called the OPM Program--Owner/ President Management, which was an extension of their School of Advanced Management. 0 302 1969-72: Pursuing an Experiential Education by Traveling Through the U.S. and Abroad SC: [C]ould you talk now about where you have work — you were talking a little bit about your education and if you have more, go on — but then where you have worked and the type of work that you did and do?
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 ; BS: Yeah. When I was finishing high school, the world that we lived in had a war in Vietnam that I had no real interest in visiting. I liked traveling, but the accommodations and the body bag coming back seemed a little cramped for me. So I left high school in the summer of I think it was 1969 and traveled across the country. I took my parents’ car, left them mine, and traveled across the country. And when I came back I met a psychiatrist I had been seeing through most of my senior year of school who told me about a square rig sailing ship, which was equivalent to the Coast Guard Eagle. This was a large training vessel for Merchant Marines. And what I didn't know was that he had put his two children on this boat, two of his three- four children. And I didn't know they were having lots of trouble — and the kinds of trouble, I mean, really almost mimicked what was going on in the country in 1970. 0 526 1972-1978: From Carpentry to Photography—Learning from Lisette Model BS: I came back to the United States in 1972 and I was looking for work. I was very concerned with connecting my head to my hands, and I had become a carpenter in the meantime and started building furniture. And long- this is probably ‘72, ‘74, I kind of wandered around the country and worked in various jobs, built furniture, as I said, built houses, but mostly moving towards art. And sometime in the- around ‘73, ‘74, after staying a year in New Hampshire building furniture, I revisited an old interest, which was photography, and found myself in New York City, 1974, an apartment on the Bowery — not an apartment, a loft — and spent the next- well, until today, photographing. But I was the town photographer for Huntington, Long Island, and studied with a woman who — for those people in the photography industry would know her, she was Diane Arbus’s mentor, teacher, friend — and that was Lisette Model. And Lisette had a master class I knew very little about, and when I went to show her my pictures, I didn't realize I was like number 19 in line, and there were two-hundred forty people outside that I didn't realize. And she- I was the first person she chose to join her class and that really set the stage for me. This is the first person who recognized that there was something I was- I was about that was of interest to them. 0 646 1978: Returning to Work for the Family Business BS: And when she heard that my family had a business, she encouraged me to return to that business, but to continue photographing ; and the way she constructed that was that commercial photography would sap the creative juice from you, and if you could prevent that from happening, by working elsewhere and not depending on working as a photographer, but photographing life as a photographer — we would call that being an artist today — that was the better trip. And she didn't know my family, she didn't know what she was telling me to do, and I followed her advice, much to my own chagrin at various times. So by around about 1978 or ‘79, I believe I began working for my family in an office they had in New York City, came back to Allentown really over my objections, but now as part of the family, so I did what the business in the end did. I came back, worked in the factory in Allentown, understood what was going on. 0 918 Early 2000s: Decline of the Textile Waste Industry in the U.S. BS: That continued until my father sold his half of the business to my cousins in around 2005. And since that time I continued as a photographer, mostly an art photographer, portrait photographer. And the industry of wiping clothes, textile waste really left the United States ; our manufacturing, which was the source of the material, left the United States. Papermaking that used that kind of process had already dwindled to almost only two factories. And they became- they came under pressure to bring some of the security elements that they were already selling in other countries to the American currency. So those things all kind of came together in about 2005. My cousins operated the- parts of the business individually, and I believe the trading of fiber pretty much came to an end in 2012. There is still a portion of the business that my cousin conducts, but ironically, there's no American presence. He has employees in Honduras and sells from Honduras to- whether it's Italy or Spain or- and- I'm not quite sure at this point how that all has migrated, but we really don't have that industry here any longer.
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 ; SC: Is that because some European countries want better quality paper, value ink? Rag-based?
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 ; BS: No. 0 1035 "Turning Rages into Riches into Rages"—History of Textile Waste in the U.S. BS: When we call paper “rag-based paper”, they're really talking about cellulose fibers, so whether it comes from- our understanding of what cotton was went something along the lines that if you grow cotton, the best of it goes to the manufacture of thread and yarn, and what's left, the thrums and the portion of the cotton plant that has seeds and little pieces of dirt motes, that's what they were called, they were second grade and third grade fibers. And the paper companies used to buy this, clean it, and then process it as cotton- cotton rag paper. Our — I don't think it was Sheftel & ; Sons particularly — but the concept that we came to was- for many years, people used used clothing to make paper because all clothing was made from cotton. But as that became more complex, there were buttons which was great, you snip them off and you had a rag that was all cotton, put it in a big vat of caustic and it would come apart and the fibers would float and there you had the beginning of your paper. But as clothing became more complicated, the zippers replaced simple buttons, and sometime in the ‘60s and ‘70s — I mean, already we had moved away from using used clothes — but the company that made cotton-based social papers and our currency was Crane & ; Company, and Elias Crane went to the Congress and said no- no confederation can be a true country without their own control of currency, and sold them the idea that they should make paper. The Crane and- Crane & ; Company has made the currency for the United States ever since — since 1873. 0 2347 Origins of the Family Business—Abraham Sheftel GE: So, let's just go to the beginning, the origins of the business as far back as you know. And I don't know if that starts with your father- grandfather, but if you just want to tell us a little bit the origins of the business and how that progressed, and then we'll talk more about the business as it was, the later incarnation of the business.
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 ; BS: You know in our family, we did not really speak about my grandfather's family, where he came from — the interest in our historical origins is probably typical of other families? But what I understood was that my grandfather, who was born on the Russian border or Polish border, never quite clear, as a 16-17 year old was pursued by the Red or the White Army and essentially was a draft dodger who had some brothers and sisters who had come to the United States. And as I understood it, he had some relatives in upstate New York around where the Concord Hotel used to be, and they were in the egg business. I don't know what the family business was, I am told that it may have been beef, but I- whether they had 10 cows or two steers in the front yard, I have never been able to clarify. But my grandfather came to this country in probably 1914 or 1917, and went to Chicago and worked as a butcher, and had some relatives who had a restaurant in New York called the Black Angus and somehow settled back in Allentown. 0 2740 Recycling of Cotton Fibers BS: There's another side of the story which I'm very curious about and don't know the answer to, which is why the New York Jews came to the Lehigh Valley to establish the underwear companies, for instance, that the Lesavoys or other families did. Whether it was the labor pool or what, but my father was in a cycle of business that they created waste, he took the waste away, and there was a use for that waste — it [was] truly recycling. Ironically, when people spoke about recycling in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, my father had very little respect for the conversation because we're talking about a hundred million dollar companies where they were recycling scrap or steel, and rags were never mentioned — fiber recycling, I don't think was ever mentioned in the- in the fiber industry news and some of these other publications. It was recycling of steel mostly. So it's kind of ironic that my father was truly in a recycling business that had a product, the client, purpose. But really no- no- no presence, even during a national recognition of this as being something valuable. 0 2826 History of the Family Business (cont'd) BS: So my grandfather simply found a need — people needed to have this waste taken away and, on the other side, people had a raw material requirement, fiber, that was the waste of these other people. So, you know, it always was interesting when we filled out tax returns, were we manufacturers or were we distributors? And of course we answered the question in a way that was advantageous to us. If there was more tax to be paid for a manufacturer, we were distributors. If there were less taxes to be paid for manufacturer, then we manufactured. But the actual process was visualizing how the product that was waste from one industry could be used as the raw material in another. 
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 ; And there are several stories that float through the family about fabric that we just had no idea what to do with, and many of these ideas precede me, although I did in my own time make use of this story. But a- it's a story of during the Second World War, when nylon was first produced, and my family had 30 truckloads of this material that no one knew what to do with, and they began taking it to the dump, which my grandfather started in 1917. This- we're talking about 1946. He already had a Cadillac. He had a- a building that he bought in 1931 during the Depression on 15th and Sumner Avenue. I suppose my grandfather thought of himself as quite a success, and the idea of taking something to the dump and paying to have it take- taken away was just antithetical. 0 3027 Milton Sheftel—Expanding Operations to Greenville, SC BS: And as I say, my grandfather got his truck probably in 1919. They had a building, I believe it was on Front Street in Allentown, by 1940- by 1931, they bought out of bankruptcy the Bear Manufacturing, which was a furniture company, at 15th and Sumner Avenue, and operated that until they bought a- a ribbon mill, which I think was operated by Haines, in Catasauqua —they bought that I think in 1951 or- they may have bought in Catasauqua before that, I'm not really quite sure, but in 1951 or ‘52, my father — already seeing that the textile industry was leaving the Northeast — traveled to South Carolina. He had been traveling to the South since he got out of the army in ‘46. And by ’51 he hired a young man who was traveling in the South and he hired him to go to the mills and make an introduction into- now this was a pretty established business in the South because they were doing this with cotton waste, not clothing rags, but cotton waste, it was a very developed business — people had minters and motes, a whole language and a whole process, and much of that went to papermaking or to other kinds of stuffing for pillows. So in a certain way they were Jewish and they were Yankees and they were coming into the South, and it wasn't a friendly time. It was difficult. And my father saw that there was a young Jewish man from Chattanooga who was living in Greenville, South Carolina, and he would give him cash, three thousand dollars, and he'd go out and buy rags. And eventually that man opened the facility with my dad there. 0 3236 The Sheftel and Malenovsky Family Business BS: So my grandfather married Sarah Malenovsky. Her brother went to work with her husband. And I don't know if there ever was a peaceful time. Stories don’t- family stories don't speak of a peaceful time. They speak of Abraham wanting to get ahead, he was more aggressive than Jacob. Jacob had two brothers in the business that I didn't know about until I was in my twenties. And another strange, ironic twist is that in 2012- 2012, I came to Allentown to sit with my parents who were looking for a new home and… Next door neighbor who I had gone to elementary school with, showed them a house just catty-corner from their home on Main Street, which they had been in 50 years. So I was 12 when they bought that house. While we were in this house just across the street, I kept hearing something about “Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake.” And I said, “What is- what’s Uncle Jake got to do with the house?” And they said, “Well Uncle Jake lived here.” And I'm not sure if I'm putting this together for you, but my father and his uncle, Jake, separated in business in probably 1960- No. My father came into the business in ‘46 and I believe they separated from Malenovsky in ‘51 or ‘52. 0 3660 "Inside & ; Outside Guys"—the Partnership of Harold & ; Milton Sheftel BS: My father and his father were in business after ‘46. You know, my grandfather, according to my father, would regale him with stories of how unfair the other side of the family was and, you know, how he had been alone and had been fighting this battle. It almost sounds like my grandfather confused the- the battles of the First and Second World War with his business history, but now- now my grandfather had his son and his brother, and now it was a fair fight. My father led on one time that he thought it wasn't so very fair and that he was selfish and that he had not only been used as a tool with his father, but that he was happy to have been the blade. We never got back to that conversation. And when I defended him and said, “Well, Dad, you know, I mean, it was-” he really cut me off and, you know, it was a part of the history I wasn't really going to ever really get to.
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 ; And what I did learn from the Malenovskys is that Jake's son was eight years old, went into a new business, really didn't know anything about the business, and probably my understanding was more emotionally laden than his. I don't know about the sister of Jake, who maybe — I guess that was Rose — who thought it was unfair. 0 4222 "Perfect Timing"—Milton Sheftel's Business Success BS: But the irony is that my father, in addition to not knowing exactly what to call him — a salesman isn't really enough, entrepreneur is not really accurate ; owner operator, well, he was a partner also — and, you know, he was a bit of- I think he had a bit of a Napoleonic complex, which I think to some degree was necessary. But I don't know what the word was for all that and it was- it was, it was fascinating to watch it when it worked, it was. And the irony is that as my father, I looked at this man and was amazed at his sense of timing, which he never spoke with me about, no matter how many times I tried to create a conversation ; he seemed not to be aware of it, but I found that to be really quite impossible to believe. And ironically, here we are at the end of an industry. Perfect timing. And he seemed to be one of these entrepreneurs, and again, there must have been many of them who just found themselves- this is not what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a raconteur — I'm not sure he knew what that word meant, but what he thought it meant was he wanted to stay in Hollywood and produce talent. This is a guy who I never saw read a book or really go out to the movies unless he was asked to. And yet this is what he claimed that he- he really wanted to have done. And had he done it, he would have probably made hundreds of millions of dollars because of residuals that we didn't have in the rag business, you know? But he left the business in 2005, and there was really no business left. He- he really rode the horse... I mean, you know, he didn't know what business cycles were, didn't really care. But the irony is that he- his timing in life was perfect. 0 4474 Differences in the Textile Waste Industry in the U.S. and Europe BS: In the United States, we manufactured at a scale that the Europeans didn't recognize was much grander, and the advantage to that was if you were purchasing something that was waste, the volume of that waste was on a scale that Europe didn't operate at. In Europe, if somebody bought twenty-six bales of something, twenty six thousand pounds of something, [it] would be a big order. Their trucks were smaller. And, you know, in this period of time, we went from trucks that were thirty-six feet up to fifty — fifty feet. Fifty-two feet. But in Europe, you found that there were many more manufacturers, users of textile, and after the war my speculation is that capital was less important than labor. So you had cities- towns- Prato, which was just north of Florence. You had Bella, which was just south of Lake Como in the north. And these cities- towns became specialty centers. So in Biella, they use cotton thread, cotton fiber. And they made a finer denier yarn. 0 4696 Sorting to Color for Europe—the Process of Making Color from Textile Waste BS: And when we saw them doing that in 1960, we had the idea of doing that on a much larger scale and began separating to color — and not only separating to color, but separating to fiber. So we would- and then, they got- if that wasn't complicated enough, they got the idea that if they sold it to the paper company and the color was bleachable, instead of paying a premium — thirty five cents for a piece of cotton that was all white — they could pay twenty-two cents, put six cents of bleaching into it, and have a two cent discount. But that meant that Sheftel & ; Sons would have to be able to identify and sell bleachable colors in a packet- in a pack, packing. And then what would happen with the non-bleachable? Well, there's the beginning of the story of sorting to color for Europe. They didn't care about bleachability. They were looking to make yarn. So the dark blue that didn't bleach went to a blue that was not bleachable and was then sold by a salesman of ours who traveled to Europe twice a year to Bella, to Prato, called on these factories with a card of colors, with different shades. Why? Because different manufacturers had different shades of color and we were known for blending them. And we would make bales of one color, but we would pack them all into the same number. And these people were really quite genius and this is an opportunity to tell a story that won't get lost to history. 0 5032 Seeing Hues Without Color—the Artistry of Harold Sheftel BS: I want to add one other story. I say that he stood in front of this wall of color that he had received from- it was only at this point two or three other providers like us. And we would be in America, someone would send us a truck of waste, we’d open the truck, take out a bag, thirty five pounds, and we put it on a pallet, put it on- the next one was yellow, we put that on a pallet. But there may be three or four shades of t-shirts being made. How did you know where it went? Now, I don't think anybody really cared about this, but I said that I was a photographer living in New York and I was a color photographer. And that was- my teacher said to me, “Sweetheart, I'm not-” I’m sorry. She said, “Darling, nobody ever makes serious pictures in color.” And well, that was that. I nevertheless had this passion for color. And when I came to work in the company, I simply looked at the rags and thought about it through my curiosity. And I wondered how my uncle, who separated the colors and organized them on the charts, how he did that, because when I’d go to Europe, they’d say of all the four people that we get color cards from, yours are the best. Really? It's a commodity item, what are we doing? It couldn't possibly be because my uncle is colorblind. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. 0 5313 More Products of Sheftel & ; Sons—Wiping Rags BS: So I told some anecdotes about one portion of the business, but when that truck would arrive and the door would open and we began to separate out what the cloth was, some went for fiber recycling that we just described ; but the larger pieces, they went for wiping cloths, and that was an entirely different industry in America. You know, there was- there's a wiping rag association called I Whack ‘Em [?]. We never were quite sure who they whacked, but... 
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 ; GE: And so that would be the rags that you’d buy at Home Depot?
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 ; BS: Yes. Now they- now they're buying basically cloth made in Pakistan, but- you still can see a bag of rags, especially at the paint stores, is where you'll see them. Yeah. 0 5421 Paternal Family History SC: So what do you know about your father's family as far back- You talked a little bit about that, but as far back as you know?
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 ; BS: As I said that my father did not dwell in the land of reminiscence, I didn't- I was young when my grandfather died, I was about eight or ten, so I didn't have that opportunity to question them ; and when I did question them, my father wasn't especially interested. What I learned was that they came from Vilna, I believe, or in a town near Vilna. And my grandfather had left to follow his older cousin- older sister and maybe her husband. And he did that because he was avoiding inscription in the- either the White or the Red Army. So that would have been around, I’m assuming, 1917 [or] 1914 during the revolution. I heard that they were in the cattle business, but as I said, I don't know whether that meant they had a cow in the front yard of the shtetl or whether they had ten cows. I have a side of my family that went to Rhodesia and then eventually back to the United States, and they were in the cattle business. They were cousins in New York who owned the Black Angus Restaurant in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and is that an accident or did they know something about beef? I know he didn't know much about women because he gave one prospective date a piece of beef, couldn't understand why she wouldn't answer his calls. He said, “It was a nice piece of meat!” Yeah, so I don't know. 0 5964 Changes in Allentown and Its Community BS: And I think if we look at the city today, which will not resemble the city I grew up in, all the West End and what appeared to be very modest homes are the homes of people who ran businesses, employed a hundred people or two hundred people, and I think the modesty belies some kind of- these people operated their businesses, they- they weren't looking to sell out and be bought out, they- they operated them. And the complexion of the city is quite different, unrecognizable really, to the days that I grew up when the sign said, “ Allentown, 1960, All American City.” You know, it was a city of people making things, doing- having people working for them. And we- what did we do? We made rags. I mean- it's very- it's a peculiar transition for someone like- like myself who's thoughtful about it because we- we don't seem to be making anything. And it's ironic how the industry that I caught the tail end of would really- well, you know, what was it? And yet it was really quite fascinating, all the different things that people made from fiber. 0 6052 Maternal Family History SC: How about your mother's past? Do you have anything to add about your mother's background? Not really?
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 ; BS: My mother, you know, grew up in- my mother grew up in Brooklyn. She was the daughter and sister of Jack Lobell, who was also a merchant. He had his own business, he sold Pearl buttons and apparently was quite a character, you know — he had- his first wife and two children died in the 1914, 1917 flu epidemic. And then he began dating my mother's mother and she died in 1945, leaving Gene and Ronnie, who was 17 — my mother was 17. And then he remarried about six weeks later… my mother's mother's brother's wife, so her aunt. And my mother resented that for a good part of her life and not quite sure why, but he- you know she- she loved him very much, and he apparently was quite a character. He was a salesman on the road, but a businessman, independent. And he- there's a story that they called him in Chicago and told him that Hilda was quite ill and he should come as quickly as he could. And he was home that evening and no one seemed to notice because, you know, she recovered from whatever it was and- It was a long- apparently, it was a long and not very nice illness. She was in the house for quite a few years with some caretakers, and he tried to have a- as my mother says, a “quack doctor” take care of her in a rented hotel room. 0 6413 Bruce Sheftel's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: That's perfect. So I have two questions for you. The first one is, what do you value most in life?
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 ; BS: Me personally? I think probably honesty. Trustfulness. Telling- Telling what’s honest, but in the context that it was- I can understand that your- your truth may be different, but tell me it, unadorned, and you'll have my respect.
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 ; SC: And secondly, what has made you feel the most creative in life? 
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 ; BS: It's an interesting question because I've been in situations where I didn't understand that I was creative — which really is kind of silly when you look back over- I was a drummer in a band here in Allentown, photographer — I photographed Queen Elizabeth, I think I was twelve, I was the youngest photographer to commercially do that. But I never thought of myself, per se, as creative ; I never been given that permission. 0 MovingImage Bruce Sheftel talks about how his grandfather (Abe), a young immigrant, started as a junkman with his brother-in-law. Later, when Abe’s sons (Milt and Harold) were in the business, they bought textile waste from the many mills that existed up and down the Lehigh river. Harold focused inside the factory/warehouse and Milt (Bruce’s father) focused outside the factory selling the processed textile waste to customers. Their main customer was Crane & ; Company who used cotton rags to make US currency. The final generation in this business (sons of Milt and Harold) witnessed the disappearance of the U.S. textile waste industry as the textile and needle trade industry moved overseas. Interview with Bruce Sheftel, May 31st, 2017 BRUCE SHEFTEL: Hello, we're testing to see if the air conditioning can be heard. SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Yes, it can be heard. Just keep turning it up to 90 and we'll deal with it. There you go. BS: Is that better? SC: Yes, it is. That's fine. Okay. Today is May 31st, 2017, an interview with Bruce Sheftel. And Bruce, I'm going to start by asking you your information, then go back to your family history. So what is your full name? Where were you born and where do you live? BS: My full name is Bruce Howard Sheftel. I was born in Allentown and I've lived now in- outside of Philadelphia and in- I have a small apartment in New York. And yeah. SC: What town outside of Philadelphia? BS: BlueBell -- BlueBell, Pennsylvania. SC: What is your education history? BS: I started in Allentown with elementary school at the Jewish Community Center and then Muhlenberg Elementary School and the Wright School, which was a nursery school. And my- I think my education was sort of like a woodier sampler. I went from there to the Jewish Day School for six years and on to Raub Junior High School. In Raub Junior High School, I was hit by a car in my ninth year, the beginning of my ninth year, and spent that year at home with a broken leg. So in the year of what would have been my- the end of my ninth grade, I went to summer school at Hun School in Princeton, New Jersey. They conditionally accepted me, and I went there for ninth grade again and left after a year, which- came back to Allentown, went to Moravian Prep and made sure we closed that school down. And I was in the last graduating class, but I didn't have two credits, had a disagreement with the school about what classes I was permitted to take, so I then went to Philadelphia and got my high school degree from- with two credits from Penn Charter School, I think it was, at 13th and Arch. So I was a little independent. I didn't go to college in the traditional way. I think, ten or fifteen years later, I went to, first, Harvard Business School -- [they] had a special program. And while I was there, I enrolled- found myself accepted at Antioch College in an extension program. And I was- I graduated in the last year that they operated. So I have sort of a history of closing schools or at least attending the last year that they- they operate. So I graduated with a degree in business from Antioch -- Business Administration. Then the Harvard experience was not degreed, it was predicated on experience and it was called the OPM Program--Owner/ President Management, which was an extension of their School of Advanced Management. SC: Testing, testing, talking. BS: You want me to talk? I don't really... SC: Let me just say-- Let me just try- a red dot came up. GAIL EISENBERG: No, that's what we want. That's for record. SC: That's what we want -- okay. I get so frightened of this thing anymore. GE: So the earlier part, that had the red dot, right? SC: It did, yes, it did. BS: Did you want to listen to it? SC: No, that's okay. BS: This is the time to re-do it. SC: Yeah, but we'd have to go back. GE: Yeah, I don't know [how]. BS: Should we call Marcus in here? GE: Jeff. SC: Jeff. BS: Jeff. GE: We have a new camera, we're not- we haven't done it for years so we're not as familiar. SC: Yeah, I think we're okay. BS: Marcus! GE: As long as it was on. SC: It was on, I just all of a sudden got-. GE: We understand. SC: I always get- BS: We understand your reason. SC: Because I turned it off and he turned it on. So, could you talk now about where you have work -- you were talking a little bit about your education and if you have more, go on -- but then where you have worked and the type of work that you did and do? BS: Yeah. When I was finishing high school, the world that we lived in had a war in Vietnam that I had no real interest in visiting. I liked traveling, but the accommodations and the body bag coming back seemed a little cramped for me. So I left high school in the summer of I think it was 1969 and traveled across the country. I took my parents' car, left them mine, and traveled across the country. And when I came back I met a psychiatrist I had been seeing through most of my senior year of school who told me about a square rig sailing ship, which was equivalent to the Coast Guard Eagle. This was a large training vessel for Merchant Marines. And what I didn't know was that he had put his two children on this boat, two of his three- four children. And I didn't know they were having lots of trouble -- and the kinds of trouble, I mean, really almost mimicked what was going on in the country in 1970. And he had me meet the director who encouraged me to join the program as a paraprofessional. And I agreed, only to discover -- and these were all large issues in those years about independence -- that they were actually soliciting my father for three thousand dollar contribution to the program, which I had been led to believe was not the case. The case was I would be selected on my own. This economy was really a large deal for us in those years. So I started my engagement with them by confronting the director. I created a telephone call where my father said he wasn't going to give any money, and I asked her, so am I still coming? And she said, yes, of course. And then somewhere between Madrid and Dakar, I met her in the- near the head of the 747 and she grabbed my lapel and said, "You know, you're a little [expletive]." And I said, "Hey, you told me I was coming for me." So that was the start of that trip, and that was about two years -- I was on the program with the Norwegians about a year after, sailed to Senegal and generally had the kind of education that if you go back and read the popular magazines of the 1970s, people were talking about. I didn't go to college at the time, and I went and experienced the world, and I didn't do it with the military, which, looking back on it, was pretty, pretty interesting. I came back to the United States in 1972 and I was looking for work. I was very concerned with connecting my head to my hands, and I had become a carpenter in the meantime and started building furniture. And long- this is probably '72, '74, I kind of wandered around the country and worked in various jobs, built furniture, as I said, built houses, but mostly moving towards art. And sometime in the- around '73, '74, after staying a year in New Hampshire building furniture, I revisited an old interest, which was photography, and found myself in New York City, 1974, an apartment on the Bowery -- not an apartment, a loft -- and spent the next- well, until today, photographing. But I was the town photographer for Huntington, Long Island, and studied with a woman who -- for those people in the photography industry would know her, she was Diane Arbus's mentor, teacher, friend -- and that was Lisette Model. And Lisette had a master class I knew very little about, and when I went to show her my pictures, I didn't realize I was like number 19 in line, and there were two-hundred forty people outside that I didn't realize. And she- I was the first person she chose to join her class and that really set the stage for me. This is the first person who recognized that there was something I was- I was about that was of interest to them. And I studied with her for a year or two, and when she- in her own history and career, she really did not get along with authority figures. And when she heard that my family had a business, she encouraged me to return to that business, but to continue photographing ; and the way she constructed that was that commercial photography would sap the creative juice from you, and if you could prevent that from happening, by working elsewhere and not depending on working as a photographer, but photographing life as a photographer -- we would call that being an artist today -- that was the better trip. And she didn't know my family, she didn't know what she was telling me to do, and I followed her advice, much to my own chagrin at various times. So by around about 1978 or '79, I believe I began working for my family in an office they had in New York City, came back to Allentown really over my objections, but now as part of the family, so I did what the business in the end did. I came back, worked in the factory in Allentown, understood what was going on. And I did understand that I was a creative and I don't- and I always thought that my family was creative, which- we had a reputation in the business, which I didn't understand, but it sounded to me like we were creative. And so that's what I saw. And in 1981, we expanded a collection facility that we had in South Carolina to become a full production facility, and I went to South Carolina to make that happen. The man who had been there was reaching retirement age, and I went from Allentown, left my cousin's father, uncle here and began to operate this South Carolina factory and did that until -- that was 1980 or '81 -- I did that until sometime at the end of the- beginning of the '90s. SC: And from there? BS: I worked in the business until my father and his nephews -- his partner, his brother died in 1990 and my father, at that point, was probably in his 60s or 70s and really had no interest in retiring, really wasn't able to. We went through a series of consultations with outside people who were familiar with transitions and family businesses. I became actually quite interested in that. And I was accepted sometime in around 1987 or '88 into a program at Harvard University's Business School and actually had become interested in consulting to businesses. So we are an example of a family who took no advice from any of these people. And at the same time I was at Harvard, I was encouraged to go and get my undergraduate degree, which I had not done, because, as I said, in the '70s there was an idea that experiential education was far more enriching than sitting in a classroom. So I ironically went back and graduated in the last graduating class of Antioch University, continuing my-- well, whatever it is, I closed three high schools and now a college, so I suppose I thought I was progressing. And Harvard, Business School at Harvard, which brought quite a different perspective to operating family business in an industry that was, as my professor called it, an immigrant business. No, no barriers to entry and run basically on rat-like cunning. That continued until my father sold his half of the business to my cousins in around 2005. And since that time I continued as a photographer, mostly an art photographer, portrait photographer. And the industry of wiping clothes, textile waste really left the United States ; our manufacturing, which was the source of the material, left the United States. Papermaking that used that kind of process had already dwindled to almost only two factories. And they became- they came under pressure to bring some of the security elements that they were already selling in other countries to the American currency. So those things all kind of came together in about 2005. My cousins operated the- parts of the business individually, and I believe the trading of fiber pretty much came to an end in 2012. There is still a portion of the business that my cousin conducts, but ironically, there's no American presence. He has employees in Honduras and sells from Honduras to- whether it's Italy or Spain or- and- I'm not quite sure at this point how that all has migrated, but we really don't have that industry here any longer. SC: Is that because some European countries want better quality paper, value ink? Rag-based? BS: No. When we call paper "rag-based paper", they're really talking about cellulose fibers, so whether it comes from- our understanding of what cotton was went something along the lines that if you grow cotton, the best of it goes to the manufacture of thread and yarn, and what's left, the thrums and the portion of the cotton plant that has seeds and little pieces of dirt motes, that's what they were called, they were second grade and third grade fibers. And the paper companies used to buy this, clean it, and then process it as cotton- cotton rag paper. Our -- I don't think it was Sheftel & ; Sons particularly -- but the concept that we came to was- for many years, people used used clothing to make paper because all clothing was made from cotton. But as that became more complex, there were buttons which was great, you snip them off and you had a rag that was all cotton, put it in a big vat of caustic and it would come apart and the fibers would float and there you had the beginning of your paper. But as clothing became more complicated, the zippers replaced simple buttons, and sometime in the '60s and '70s -- I mean, already we had moved away from using used clothes -- but the company that made cotton-based social papers and our currency was Crane & ; Company, and Elias Crane went to the Congress and said no- no confederation can be a true country without their own control of currency, and sold them the idea that they should make paper. The Crane and- Crane & ; Comapny has made the currency for the United States ever since -- since 1873. They made it with used clothing, until I would think sometime in the '30s, I'm not really quite sure. I'm talking about, not historians, but people who made their living selling rags and many of them had no real interest in answering questions of a curious child who was under foot. I'm talking about myself in my 30s. I was sort of, you know, "what are you asking, why do you care?" So I don't know specifically, but at some point, my father began to understand that there was an edge, as they would say at Harvard, in selling the waste of the manufacturing process of underwear, which was all cotton, undershirts, which were all cotton, and that he could eliminate the difficulty that the paper companies would have with the plastic refuse or scraps of just unidentified waste in the process of making paper- you know, vatting the old rags and having, you know, a vat of fiber. If there was a button in there- or later on synthetic became quite a complex problem again and scared the paper makers, because you put what appeared to be a piece of cotton rag into the vat but the polyester would melt and float to the surface and ruin ten thousand pounds of what was perfectly good cotton fiber. So in this- in the early '70s, there was a great deal of fear that Sheftel Company would actually go out of business, and I think we got to about 11 days of cash, and miraculously there was some understanding that you could control the buying, you could identify where you were buying the waste from, you could separate out. They began to understand what was causing the problem, they didn't realize that they had been commingling cotton rag from nineteen different suppliers with one supplier who had started using this new wonderful wrinkle-free underwear, which was in fact polycotton and supposed to make your butt look nice. While doing that, it contaminated the after process that no one really cared about. So that, you know, that- and ironically, the company became very strong after that and sort of found its footing in the early '70s after what was, really, they were very close to bankruptcy after 30 years of my father's involvement. So it shifted around and they- as I say, we operated until about 2005. And your question was, why did it shut down? In part, as I understand, they were forty seven mills making paper with rags, when my father came out of the army in 1946. Today was maybe one, depending on how you count. There is a company that will make, from rags, the fiber- the fiber product that the paper company can then put back into a vat. So if you say there's two, you know, you're sort of- they only work for the one, for Crane & ; Company. So most of the paper companies have moved on to using cellulose fiber from trees, where we get Weyerhaeuser and they kind of consider that a hundred percent cellulose product. And you will see cotton rag used for art papers and social papers, which was part of Crane & ; Company, but the appreciation of the tooth of the paper, how it feels, has been replaced by convenience. So the idea of something feeling wonderful in your hand, that you give to people on the anniversary or the invitation to a wedding, has changed dramatically. And it's not quite what it was in 1947, or 1950, or 1960. So on one hand, as Harvard taught, find a need and fill it. Paper companies had a need for this product, cotton, and our family was one of maybe a dozen companies in the United States that filled that need -- that need had been filled since 1787, but I believe Elias Crane asked the population of Massachusetts to contribute their used clothing to that need in the beginning. And by the time we, you know, were- were ramped up in the '70s and '80s, '80s and '90s, we were supplying rags to Spain, Italy, and they were using various kinds of rags as raw material and re-spinning yarn. So you'd have a factory with a two-million dollar machine and a father and a son, and they would make sock yarn in yellow from rags that we had separated into cotton or polycotton rags of one color. And- But as labor costs rose after the Second World War, and that probably tracked from '46 to the '80s, those companies began moving towards cheaper labor. So Spain and Italy, which have been centers for textile manufacturing, began to find that they could operate their factories cheaper in Guatemala or Honduras, and capital, not labor, became the organizing fundamental in the companies that we were selling to. So where we provided a supply- a supply of raw material in the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s ; we also provided a service of removing the waste from the manufacturing companies that ran along the New York State Thruway up to Massachusetts, where they were producing underwear. We- Allentown was a center of underwear production and probably in the history, you'll see the Royale and a number of other manufacturers who made a living here in Allentown, quite a good living, that migrated into J.C. Penney and other companies. There were large underwear companies here and we received a great deal of- our company in particular tended to move out of Allentown and collect waste from upstate New York all the way down to South Carolina, and then we moved our main collection to South Carolina as the manufacturing companies moved out of the Hudson Valley and moved to South Carolina and North Carolina. We moved along with them. Our headquarters remained here, but we transferred merchandise into the Lehigh Valley for separating and sorting and preparation for use as a raw material and then shipped it north to Massachusetts, which is where most of the paper was being made. And when those textile factories closed in South Carolina and moved to Guatemala in the '80s and '90s, we tried to follow them. And of course, you know the story of the immigrant grandfather who would take a hip bottle of whiskey to some guy in Hamburg, and spend the afternoon drinking that bottle with him, and he came home and the contract --" what contract? Did you get the contract? Contract? He's selling us the rags. Well, yeah I'll go back with another bottle." That process, which I am old enough to have watched, probably moved to Guatemala, moved to Honduras, and it's very difficult to fly to Honduras to meet a guy. My father used to receive a phone call- my father used to get into his car at five o'clock in the morning and leave on a two-day business trip and drive to as many of those forty-seven paper mills as he possibly could. Later on, he began to fly in a single engine airplane in weather that really terrorized his son, who he thought it would be nice to take along on these trips. All I can say is I never threw up. I'm not sure what kind of accomplishment that was. I did get my pilot's license eventually, probably because I was scared to death and thought, "I should be able to fly myself out of this." But nothing really stopped him, and if he got a phone call at nine o'clock in the morning- I think today people could understand what I'm saying. The call came from school and it was a teacher. No matter what the mother or father did, they'd be at the school within a half an hour. If you can understand that construct, but simply apply it to your business -- if my father got a call from the school, he'd call my mom. If he got a call from a paper-making company in Massachusetts, he rented the airplane and was there by two o'clock to take the guy to lunch. And eventually, you know, he had his own airplane and used it almost not at all for personal use, used it to go and visit these clients that he could be [with] two or three clients in a day and then be home for- well he didn't come home for dinner, but he was home by seven o'clock. And when the mills began to move away, there was no longer a need to process their waste, and the basis of the company, the basis of the business changed. And I think that by the time my father sold the business, the- the- the company would have had to have morphed into some new business and recognize- I mean, the company would have had to change into a new business and would have had to have recognized that the cycle of business had come and called, and however long we had managed to extend and be the last standing provider, we did a good job at that. But, as the ashtray on my father's desk said, from "rags to riches to rags" -- in three generations, which used to scare the crap out of me, turned out to be quite prescient. And that- the answer to your question is that business changes, as does life, and companies that change and use the advantage of some business that they were in, continue. And people who identify, also from Harvard, you know, the bus companies never thought of themselves as transportation companies, they thought of themselves as bus companies. So when the airplane came, they found themselves quite empty when they could have been the ones to buy all the airlines. And in our business, that- that to some degree happened as well. I'm not sure that there is a-- a business that followed the use of the waste from the manufacturer of clothing and then went to something like- believe it or not, I mean, some of the products that we went to was not only paper, we sold and continue today to sell- the remnants of the company sells rags for making flock wallpaper, so every prostitute in America who works or worked in a- an office space or boudoir with the red flop wallpaper, you know, those are rags. If you look in the back of your car, there was a time when there'd be a pad, and if you look closely, you could see, you know, Uncle James' old t-shirt or John's shirt in there because those were rags pulled apart and made into a product that- I can't think of right now, but it's basically glue on top of rag fiber that soundproofed the inside of your car. So our rags- high quality is [how] we thought of it. Cotton products was not the only thing that rags were used for. Many of these other companies as- in a sense, they were falloffs from the most expensive use of the rag. And as the fiber companies left, as the rag- I mean, there are no rag companies, there are no fiber- I mean, there are fiber companies, but nobody makes rags, you know. When we used to, not joke, but lament that when you found a good use for a rag, you better be looking for the next use for the rag, because when the manufacturer- you can't call them up and say, "Continue making that waste!" And it was a very interesting business that you didn't really control the manufacturer of your raw material and you didn't control the person that you were selling it to. You are always working the angles to see- and I could share with you this little story quickly about- to conceptualize what this meant. A railroad truck- track- a railroad car had sixty-thousand pounds that you could load into it. That's quite a- thousand pound bales, if you imagine those pictures from South Carolina [of] people shipping cotton, those were eight hundred pound bales. So we made a thousand pounds. Eventually we used a compressor so, so tight that we could put twelve hundred pounds in a-- in a fifty-four by twenty-four inch bale. And one of the companies that we bought waste from made athletic shirts, this nylon. We were a company that you wipe things up with cotton. Who knew anything about wiping rags made out of polyester? This was not possible. So what did all good rag dealers do was they piled it up. And I remember looking at a row and- you know, you're paying to take up space. I mean, it would be like somebody bringing plates into your kitchen, three, four plates a day, and keeping them there. I mean, after six or seven months, you know, you couldn't find anybody in the kitchen, though they were right next to you. I mean, they'd be behind all the plates, you're trying to deal with it. And that's what was fairly routine. You know, you wouldn't know what to do with it. And I had been a furniture builder, and I got a call one day, the guy wanted cotton rags. And I had this idea and I said, "I've got something that you might find useful. You're just spreading stain on wood, right?" "Yeah." "So I got an idea for you. Let me send you something and you tell me what you think." He called me back and said, "Wow, that's great! How much is it?" And now, we sold rags for maybe thirty-five cents, I mean there were lots of prices, thirty-five to a dollar thirty-five, and I said, "Well, I'd be happy to sell that to you for sixty-four cents." Now everybody had been trying to give this away, because the alternative was paying six cents to put it- and he said, "Well I can buy this other stuff for thirty-five cents, why would I pay sixty-five for this?" And I said, "Well do you have it in front of you?" He says, "Yeah." I said, "Well okay, cut off 12 inches and what- you know, by 6. Cut that in half, now you got like a six by six piece." "Yeah." "So I'll sell you small pieces." He says, "Why? Why is that better?" I said, "Well if you look at your garbage can, you're going to pull out a rag that one of the guys in your factory used, and one corner is going to be used and the rest you paid for but is perfectly good. So I'm going to limit your loss to that six inch piece." He goes, "But why sixty-five cents? That's twice as much." I said, "Yeah. Well, you know, all those holes? You're not paying for those." So I wound up selling all sixty-five thousand pounds of that for twice the price of white cotton wiping rags. All was well. It's a family business, so no one thought I was a genius. And then the day came when he said, "I need more." And we said, "Well, we don't buy from that- That company doesn't make athletic shirts anymore, Russell, Lee or for Nike, they lost the contract, so I can't order you that waste." And he goes, "But that was great!" I said, "Well then, the show closed and it was a great show, but book another play because I don't have anymore." And that was really typical. And I remember my father telling me at one point -- because we did some very, very large contracts for people -- that, you know, as soon as you find something that you can make a living on, start looking because it's not going to last. And that was really true. SC: Great. Thank you. BS: You're welcome. SC: Do you want some water? BS: Are you thirsty? GE: In the right there -- yeah, yeah. SC: I think you're doing a great job. GE: So, let's just go to the beginning, the origins of the business as far back as you know. And I don't know if that starts with your father- grandfather, but if you just want to tell us a little bit the origins of the business and how that progressed, and then we'll talk more about the business as it was, the later incarnation of the business. BS: You know in our family, we did not really speak about my grandfather's family, where he came from -- the interest in our historical origins is probably typical of other families? But what I understood was that my grandfather, who was born on the Russian border or Polish border, never quite clear, as a 16-17 year old was pursued by the Red or the White Army and essentially was a draft dodger who had some brothers and sisters who had come to the United States. And as I understood it, he had some relatives in upstate New York around where the Concord Hotel used to be, and they were in the egg business. I don't know what the family business was, I am told that it may have been beef, but I- whether they had 10 cows or two steers in the front yard, I have never been able to clarify. But my grandfather came to this country in probably 1914 or 1917, and went to Chicago and worked as a butcher, and had some relatives who had a restaurant in New York called the Black Angus and somehow settled back in Allentown. And when he settled back in Allentown, he met a- or he was set up with a young woman, my grandmother and- who was born in the United States and- on 2nd Street. They met, and I'm not sure of how their engagement went, but they became married in Allentown. And the father-in-law, Mr. Malenovsky had a son, and as probably is typical, my grandfather and his brother-in-law formed a company with a horse and a buggy, and began peddling anything that they could find -- metal, fiber from textile mills, who knows. They were junkmen, from what I understand, and somewhere along the line, this is on 2nd Street in Allentown, somewhere- and there were other places on that street, scrap dealers, it was a fairly common Jewish occupation. What I've always thought was ironic was my grandfather didn't speak English. I don't know, at this point, how much English he had learned. But when I think about what made the family successful, it's ironic that, because my grandfather couldn't find work or there was a prejudice against Jews or whatever the circumstance was that caused him to start his own business, that was the magic key in America to being eventually financially successful or independent, I should say. And so it's always been fascinating to me that all of the negative- I mean, if you were in a WASP family with your great-aunt having come across the channel, you know, three generations before you were established and you were looking down at the rest of the people coming to America at the end of the 1800s, the irony is that the next generation would replace you because of all the things that these people looked at and thought, "Oh, how horrible!" And it's quite a lesson, I think that- wondered always about how brave my grandfather was. There was no talk of this in our family. But to come to a country where you didn't speak English -- now, he did have some relatives -- but it's really fascinating to me. And he- he began with- the family story and, you know, there's two sides to it. I only know the one, and I'm quite sure the other is interesting. But the side is- that I came from said that the Malenovsky side of the family, that Jake Malenovsky was not as adventurous as my grandfather, and he- he didn't want a horse. I don't know how that makes any sense, but that's the story. But my grandfather insisted on the horse. I think it's the same story, I'm not sure, they just replaced the horse with the Hahn Truck -- H-A-H-N, I think it was. So the story of the family is that 1919 -- that dollar bill that's on the wall in the frame in the office with the title, that was for a Hahn Truck that Abraham insisted he was going to buy. And somewhere in all of this, they began to concentrate on taking the textile waste from the many, many, many mills that existed in Allentown, the textile mills that ran up and down that little Lehigh up through Shamokin, Hamburg. And these were- there were hundreds, if not tens of thousands of employees making all kinds of garments. There's another side of the story which I'm very curious about and don't know the answer to, which is why the New York Jews came to the Lehigh Valley to establish the underwear companies, for instance, that the Lesavoys or other families did. Whether it was the labor pool or what, but my father was in a cycle of business that they created waste, he took the waste away, and there was a use for that waste -- it [was] truly recycling. Ironically, when people spoke about recycling in the '50s, '60s, '70s, my father had very little respect for the conversation because we're talking about a hundred million dollar companies where they were recycling scrap or steel, and rags were never mentioned -- fiber recycling, I don't think was ever mentioned in the- in the fiber industry news and some of these other publications. It was recycling of steel mostly. So it's kind of ironic that my father was truly in a recycling business that had a product, the client, purpose. But really no- no- no presence, even during a national recognition of this as being something valuable. So my grandfather simply found a need -- people needed to have this waste taken away and, on the other side, people had a raw material requirement, fiber, that was the waste of these other people. So, you know, it always was interesting when we filled out tax returns, were we manufacturers or were we distributors? And of course we answered the question in a way that was advantageous to us. If there was more tax to be paid for a manufacturer, we were distributors. If there were less taxes to be paid for manufacturer, then we manufactured. But the actual process was visualizing how the product that was waste from one industry could be used as the raw material in another. And there are several stories that float through the family about fabric that we just had no idea what to do with, and many of these ideas precede me, although I did in my own time make use of this story. But a- it's a story of during the Second World War, when nylon was first produced, and my family had 30 truckloads of this material that no one knew what to do with, and they began taking it to the dump, which my grandfather started in 1917. This- we're talking about 1946. He already had a Cadillac. He had a- a building that he bought in 1931 during the Depression on 15th and Sumner Avenue. I suppose my grandfather thought of himself as quite a success, and the idea of taking something to the dump and paying to have it take- taken away was just antithetical. And the story goes that he began to delay and delay and delay, and my- my uncle who came into the business in 1946 -- this probably was around '47 or '48 -- said, "You know, I don't have any room here. I need to throw some of this into the dump." Finally after several months, he won the permission to do that, and after taking two or three truckloads to the dump, a man with a funny accent came to the business, saw this material, magic material, and offered- he asked how much we had. And in the typical peddler's way, you know, my father said, "I have three, maybe two, two and a half loads of this." And in actuality they probably had 40, but you don't say that, do you? So the man buys it and then comes again two weeks later and puts another order and they keep escalating the price. When they tell my grandfather, the story I heard is that he literally pulled hair out of his head. So who knows what- it was that it was a business that you ran by the seat of your pants. And as I say, my grandfather got his truck probably in 1919. They had a building, I believe it was on Front Street in Allentown, by 1940- by 1931, they bought out of bankruptcy the Bear Manufacturing, which was a furniture company, at 15th and Sumner Avenue, and operated that until they bought a- a ribbon mill, which I think was operated by Haines, in Catasauqua --they bought that I think in 1951 or- they may have bought in Catasauqua before that, I'm not really quite sure, but in 1951 or '52, my father -- already seeing that the textile industry was leaving the Northeast -- traveled to South Carolina. He had been traveling to the South since he got out of the army in '46. And by '51 he hired a young man who was traveling in the South and he hired him to go to the mills and make an introduction into- now this was a pretty established business in the South because they were doing this with cotton waste, not clothing rags, but cotton waste, it was a very developed business -- people had minters and motes, a whole language and a whole process, and much of that went to papermaking or to other kinds of stuffing for pillows. So in a certain way they were Jewish and they were Yankees and they were coming into the South, and it wasn't a friendly time. It was difficult. And my father saw that there was a young Jewish man from Chattanooga who was living in Greenville, South Carolina, and he would give him cash, three thousand dollars, and he'd go out and buy rags. And eventually that man opened the facility with my dad there. After a year, that man said, "I can't take the pressure, buy me out." And that man worked for my father for another 40 years, and I think he resented that choice that he made there, but that was the southern operation that in 1981 I went down and expanded and replaced what we had built here in the East, essentially by move- we were twenty-five years late, but we moved our actual processing of the rags to the site of the waste. So we moved from Allentown. We still maintained a facility here, but we enlarged- I had at one point almost four-hundred people in that facility in South Carolina. We probably never had more than one hundred, one hundred twenty-five here. GE: Okay. You want to tell us a little bit about the family in terms that it sounds like it started with your grandfather and the Malenovsky, his brother-in-law, then at some point it became just your grandfather and his sons. Right? And what kinds of roles did the different family members have in these businesses, you know, then your uncles, and you and your cousins and whatever? BS: So my grandfather married Sarah Malenovsky. Her brother went to work with her husband. And I don't know if there ever was a peaceful time. Stories don't- family stories don't speak of a peaceful time. They speak of Abraham wanting to get ahead, he was more aggressive than Jacob. Jacob had two brothers in the business that I didn't know about until I was in my twenties. And another strange, ironic twist is that in 2012- 2012, I came to Allentown to sit with my parents who were looking for a new home and-- Next door neighbor who I had gone to elementary school with, showed them a house just catty-corner from their home on Main Street, which they had been in 50 years. So I was 12 when they bought that house. While we were in this house just across the street, I kept hearing something about "Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake." And I said, "What is- what's Uncle Jake got to do with the house?" And they said, "Well Uncle Jake lived here." And I'm not sure if I'm putting this together for you, but my father and his uncle, Jake, separated in business in probably 1960- No. My father came into the business in '46 and I believe they separated from Malenovsky in '51 or '52. So the uncle that they were speaking about was my father's uncle. I mean, the strange part of the story for me is that my relative, who I never got to know, didn't get to know that side of the family, lived one house away from me and I never knew it. And I mean, this is Allentown. It's not Manhattan. Just- So there's a flair in that story- tale of how these families united and then separated and what the ramifications in the community were. You know, in the synagogue that my grandfather helped to build at 17th and Hamilton, he had a row of seats with his name on it and his business partner had a row of seats with his name on it just across the aisle. Every holiday we would walk up that aisle and my father would graciously smile at the people on the other side. The people on the other side were my relatives who I never got to know because in the family, the business had separated. I was sure- I tried to find various stories from that side of the family, but they- they started the business, I believe, in 1914, in 1917, bought the truck in 1919, bought the big building on Sumner Avenue in 1931. And my father and his brother, came out of the army in '46 and during that whole period there apparently were two other Malenovskys in the business -- uncles to my father and his brother who I really heard very little about, Uncle Abe and-- would have been Jake's brother and the other man, I'm not sure I know his name. So in 1946, when my father and his brother came into the company, the stories are that my grandfather and his brother-in-law routinely -- that would be daily -- would have yelling and screaming matches with each other. And my father would tell stories about how uncomfortable it was to take sides with his mother because his mother's brother was the partner and he was working in the company with his father and his father's partner. And how could he not take sides with his father? But then he was taking sides against his uncle, who he said he loved. So I'm sure it was very complicated for them. I'm sure this was an immigrant story repeated over and over and over again. But it did happen in our family. And by 1951, I believe, and I heard the story in several ways, Uncle Jake was sick in the hospital and my father went in and gave him a letter and sounds like it wasn't all that touchy feely. I don't know. I really don't. But there was a separation, and I know that it was obviously not amicable because we- they never spoke to us again. Now, my father would graciously introduce me to my uncle and aunt in the synagogue aisle. Turn to me and always say this is my Aunt Rose, but they never really acknowledge that. And, you know, funny thing about my father was that it took me until I was in my forties to realize that, of course they didn't talk to him. You know, he stole their livelihood from them. Now, did he steal it? I don't know. But my father was pretty good at this representation that, until I was in my forties, I really never even questioned why they weren't speaking to him. Now, I went back and looked at the papers, and they paid them the equivalent of a million, one-hundred and forty-thousand or a million, one-hundred and sixty-thousand dollars from 1917 to 1951. What is that, you know, twenty to thirty, forty... little over twenty-five years to walk away with a paycheck in 1940- '51 of a million, one-hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Doesn't sound like it was really a rip off so I don't really know. But there is the tale. GE: How- how about now, if you want to share with us a little bit about the Sheftel, that it was your father and his brother. What did each do in the business? How did that progress with the next generation? BS: My father and his father were in business after '46. You know, my grandfather, according to my father, would regale him with stories of how unfair the other side of the family was and, you know, how he had been alone and had been fighting this battle. It almost sounds like my grandfather confused the- the battles of the First and Second World War with his business history, but now- now my grandfather had his son and his brother, and now it was a fair fight. My father led on one time that he thought it wasn't so very fair and that he was selfish and that he had not only been used as a tool with his father, but that he was happy to have been the blade. We never got back to that conversation. And when I defended him and said, "Well, Dad, you know, I mean, it was-" he really cut me off and, you know, it was a part of the history I wasn't really going to ever really get to. And what I did learn from the Malenovskys is that Jake's son was eight years old, went into a new business, really didn't know anything about the business, and probably my understanding was more emotionally laden than his. I don't know about the sister of Jake, who maybe -- I guess that was Rose -- who thought it was unfair. But when they separated in '51, my father was they- appear to be the rainmaker and he came in as a salesman primarily. They at that point, as I understood it, already had the facility in- on 15th and Sumner Avenue, and they bought a building in Catasauqua, and they were- my father had obviously aspirations of a much greater size. He would tell me that his father would constantly say to him, you know, if you hear- something about if you reach for the clouds, you'll wind up sleeping with the roaches. And I don't think that they got along so very well either. And I do remember my coming into the Catasauqua offices, which were really established, you know, you come up the steps, there's the woman sitting at the- at the switchboard with the cords and hallway of offices and bar. Looked pretty business-like, these guys were working hard. And my grandfather's office was at the very end of the hall. I do remember it had a little safe in it, but I also felt as a very young boy that there was some tragedy, some- something here that was unclear to me. And I think it was my father's probably unrelenting drive to succeed that I was experiencing. So he took the helm of the business as a salesman, and I don't know if we really have a name for what he did. At Harvard, a salesman is not a very important role. They, you know, think that accountants are smarter and all of... But in my father's world, the salesman was the driving wheel. What my father didn't appreciate probably was that he was more than just the salesman, most salesmen he couldn't really- when we would hire people, he really didn't seem to understand that they didn't think like he did. They didn't really know how to make a dollar from- from 40 cents. He did, and I don't know whether he figured out that he had something else, and that's what built the business, that side of him. And I don't really- he wasn't an entrepreneur because he didn't start one business after another. But he kept, you know, this is a relatively small industry. I mean, the entire industry was probably less than- I mean, I remember used to looking was under a billion dollars when McDonald's was six billion, so that was the entire industry. Anything you could pull in that was regarded as recycling textiles. So he thought of himself as the man who provided white cotton rags to the papermakers in America- in America, and specifically, to Crane & ; Company for currency. And if you went into a factory that sold white underwear rags, you were going to have to deal with him. If he didn't own or if he didn't buy those rags, he was going to, and you were going to sell them to him. He always smiled, but that was his basic- that was the edge, as Harvard would have described it, that he- he carried. And he carried it in a way that, you know, I don't really see very often unless it's someone's own business, that the certain feeling that people have. And it's not a feeling about fairness, it's a feeling about-- you're divinely chosen to buy these rags and how dare anybody else not know that? So that was my father's role. And in the beginning, the story was that he came home from a very successful selling trip and separated a pile of twenty thousand dollars between his brother and himself. And that was the story in the business, that they were equal, even though clearly my uncle was not a driving wheel. When in 1968 they moved out of Catasauqua and built their first- built their own facility, they built seventy two thousand square feet on 24th and Lehigh Street, and then a year or two later added a hundred- It had eventually a hundred and two thousand square feet there behind the Giant. My uncle enjoyed driving truck and working in the factory, and didn't really seem to- he wanted to be an architect, and really didn't see himself, as I understood it from him, as a manager. And yet that's what the business needed. And so my uncle became the manager, the "inside guy", just the way it was terminology- the terminology that people in those days used. "Who's the inside guy?" Was a guy who knew how the sewing machines worked and where to buy thread. Then there was the guy who went to the department stores and sold the bras or underwear or whatever it was. The inside guy and the outside guy -- and Harold was the inside guy, everybody loved him, he- and Milton was the outside guy. And that those roles persisted until 1991. My- there were already signs that there were issues, but my uncle seemed to have accepted his role and the difficulty came when the- the sons, now the third generation, came into the business and were approaching their 40s and looked at their father and said, "Well why does he have to take this crap from our uncle?" And there was a very interesting dynamic because the uncles didn't really necessarily want to question it. It was in balance for them. And what tended to throw that out of balance was the family side of business and became quite, quite interesting, and in a funny way, probably was retelling a story that had existed before any of these children were in the business -- because, remember, the uncle was bought out! So how that got transferred into the next generation for me has been a- has been- has been very interesting to me. But I could see it happening, and I wrote in my journal what I thought would 10 years, 20 years down the line occur. I was quite accurate, much to my own disappointment and chagrin, because it was not what I would have wanted to happen. But the irony is that my father, in addition to not knowing exactly what to call him -- a salesman isn't really enough, entrepreneur is not really accurate ; owner operator, well, he was a partner also -- and, you know, he was a bit of- I think he had a bit of a Napoleonic complex, which I think to some degree was necessary. But I don't know what the word was for all that and it was- it was, it was fascinating to watch it when it worked, it was. And the irony is that as my father, I looked at this man and was amazed at his sense of timing, which he never spoke with me about, no matter how many times I tried to create a conversation ; he seemed not to be aware of it, but I found that to be really quite impossible to believe. And ironically, here we are at the end of an industry. Perfect timing. And he seemed to be one of these entrepreneurs, and again, there must have been many of them who just found themselves- this is not what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a raconteur -- I'm not sure he knew what that word meant, but what he thought it meant was he wanted to stay in Hollywood and produce talent. This is a guy who I never saw read a book or really go out to the movies unless he was asked to. And yet this is what he claimed that he- he really wanted to have done. And had he done it, he would have probably made hundreds of millions of dollars because of residuals that we didn't have in the rag business, you know? But he left the business in 2005, and there was really no business left. He- he really rode the horse... I mean, you know, he didn't know what business cycles were, didn't really care. But the irony is that he- his timing in life was perfect. There were no rag dealers in Allentown, there were no places to sell rags in Allentown, there were no places to sell rags in the United States -- except the one that he kept closer to himself and his children. The irony of that is fascinating. And- GE: And now, when you described him as a "salesman", are you saying that at both ends that he was the one who really had the relationship with the textile factories as well as the relationship with Crane or whoever else was buying the product? BS: Yeah. He purchased and sold. GE: And he had both relationships? BS: Both relationships. So maybe, more accurately, he was the relationship man and the other guy was the packing guy. I don't know. But it requires relationships on both sides. GE: Right. And he did- And he was the person who really maintained and developed those relationships on both sides. BS: Yeah. And as the business grew those relationships- you know, I remember that he came and said, "I took my first million dollar order." That was like a huge thing. GE: Sure. So, Bruce, in terms of the industries that they sold to, we certainly have heard about Crane and paper -- who were some of the other major industries that they sold to? And then if you could explain a little bit, you were beginning- you did hit it somewhat, I'm not sure if I have it fully crystallized. In Europe, it sounded like it was a little bit different there ; there they were separating the fibers. So if you wanted to just share with us, are there any other industries that use this as their raw material? And then also to just tell us a little bit about the difference with the European... BS: So in the United States, we- there was, there was a- In the United States, we manufactured at a scale that the Europeans didn't recognize was much grander, and the advantage to that was if you were purchasing something that was waste, the volume of that waste was on a scale that Europe didn't operate at. In Europe, if somebody bought twenty-six bales of something, twenty six thousand pounds of something, [it] would be a big order. Their trucks were smaller. And, you know, in this period of time, we went from trucks that were thirty-six feet up to fifty -- fifty feet. Fifty-two feet. But in Europe, you found that there were many more manufacturers, users of textile, and after the war my speculation is that capital was less important than labor. So you had cities- towns- Prato, which was just north of Florence. You had Bella, which was just south of Lake Como in the north. And these cities- towns became specialty centers. So in Biella, they use cotton thread, cotton fiber. And they made a finer denier yarn. In... in Prato they used- made yarn that was heavier, like- and what would be the difference? So, for instance, the Germans were using this respun textile for making athletic socks or sweatshirts, where the refined nature of the yarn was not as important as the bulk, and you can hide in the bulk the impurities or inconsistencies that you might not have in a first quality yarn, which would be three times the price. So they're developed an industry. And I remember going to Prato, which was outside of Florence, north of Florence, and I would see a little two passenger truck with a flatbed and big potato sack on the back, like two-hundred pound sack. And they pull into a driveway of a residential area, the door would slide open, and what looked like the front of the house was, in fact, a concrete industrial space about the size of two or three garages. And I had the occasion to be invited, and what you saw was a family sitting on the floor, and what had happened was they had gone to the local rag dealer, bought a wholesale bag of rags, which was mixed t-shirt material, and then they would separate those colors into different colors and they would get different prices for it. And when we saw them doing that in 1960, we had the idea of doing that on a much larger scale and began separating to color -- and not only separating to color, but separating to fiber. So we would- and then, they got- if that wasn't complicated enough, they got the idea that if they sold it to the paper company and the color was bleachable, instead of paying a premium -- thirty five cents for a piece of cotton that was all white -- they could pay twenty-two cents, put six cents of bleaching into it, and have a two cent discount. But that meant that Sheftel & ; Sons would have to be able to identify and sell bleachable colors in a packet- in a pack, packing. And then what would happen with the non-bleachable? Well, there's the beginning of the story of sorting to color for Europe. They didn't care about bleachability. They were looking to make yarn. So the dark blue that didn't bleach went to a blue that was not bleachable and was then sold by a salesman of ours who traveled to Europe twice a year to Bella, to Prato, called on these factories with a card of colors, with different shades. Why? Because different manufacturers had different shades of color and we were known for blending them. And we would make bales of one color, but we would pack them all into the same number. And these people were really quite genius and this is an opportunity to tell a story that won't get lost to history. Many years into this process, towards the end, we had a salesman, a German, a man who had come from Germany and was- would never ask a question of a- a client. And I couldn't understand, you know, how do you learn what your client does? How do you know? I'm sure- I'm sure he had his ways, but you certainly didn't ask them. And I was naive and I would ask anybody anything, basically. So I asked one day about this. And this is now in Spain, in a company of maybe four people, maybe two and a half million dollars of borrowed money to buy- maybe not borrowed money, but they had a machine. And if you imagine walking into a- into an industrial facility that was so clean that you could have had lunch on the- on the concrete, they had a fork truck driver, five silos, and an area that had these cards that we would ship to them with different colors on them, and other people too. And I wanted to know how he made color- colored yarn. He'd get an order from Spain- he was in Spain. He'd get an order from Germany for blue socks and it would have a color swatch. And we went in, he asked me, I still remember, I said purple and he said, "Oh, purple's difficult." And he has this, you know, it looked like they took this out of his first I don't know what- factory or maybe he put this together when he was six years old. I don't know. It was cubby holes -- and the whole factory is absolutely modern, with no people in it. This is 1980s, so there's no robots yet, but-- spotless. And here's this old wooden thing nailed together, I don't know what, with a place for a set of hammers, and in this cloth stuck in each of these cubby holes -- yellows, reds, oranges -- he begins picking it out and putting it down on the table in front of him. I'm standing right there. And then he grabs two- I don't have the name for them, but everybody in America has probably seen this as a demonstration for how they shear sheep. It's these two kind of things that would- and it pulls open- it opens up the yarn, and he pulls it open, he's got now four piles of thread and he's talking in Italian. I don't understand a word he's telling me, but he thinks I understand him perfectly and he is pulling the support, and I'm thinking, "This is Picasso. I'm standing with Picasso." And then he starts picking it up and rolling it into it like a ball and twisting it. And right there in front of me, more miraculous than a perfect egg, he was [like], "Is that the right shade of purple?" Yoo! And I had actually come to ask him if he thought that we could do this with a computer. And you know, he said, "No, it would never happen." Now, he might have been right that it never would happen, because the industry vanished. But he wasn't right that a computer couldn't have taken the readings of all the different colors, blended them and told you what it was. I was right about that. But he couldn't even imagine this because this man was an artist. I mean, there's no real other question about his skills. And, you know, fascinatingly, I want to add one other story. I say that he stood in front of this wall of color that he had received from- it was only at this point two or three other providers like us. And we would be in America, someone would send us a truck of waste, we'd open the truck, take out a bag, thirty five pounds, and we put it on a pallet, put it on- the next one was yellow, we put that on a pallet. But there may be three or four shades of t-shirts being made. How did you know where it went? Now, I don't think anybody really cared about this, but I said that I was a photographer living in New York and I was a color photographer. And that was- my teacher said to me, "Sweetheart, I'm not-" I'm sorry. She said, "Darling, nobody ever makes serious pictures in color." And well, that was that. I nevertheless had this passion for color. And when I came to work in the company, I simply looked at the rags and thought about it through my curiosity. And I wondered how my uncle, who separated the colors and organized them on the charts, how he did that, because when I'd go to Europe, they'd say of all the four people that we get color cards from, yours are the best. Really? It's a commodity item, what are we doing? It couldn't possibly be because my uncle is colorblind. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. And I thought about this for a long time, and I took a Kodak Rattin 12 filter, which allows you to see color the way black and white film sees it. So if you see something red, it's much lighter than something that's blue because the film sees it that way. And I began looking at the colors in the factory that we would store in bins like they would have in the post office or in a commercial laundry. Two hundred pounds at a time until we got a thousand pounds and then we put it together. Now sometimes my uncle would call me out into the factory and say, do these two colors go together? Now there's four people around them and everybody's keeping their mouth shut because he's looking at a yellow bin of two hundred pounds with green. But to him, in his color blindness, they look the same. And he'd look at me and smile and I'd sort of smile and he'd say, "Okay, well, we don't want to put these together." But there was something going on that I sort of was touching on that he couldn't have cared less about. And what I realized was that what my uncle was seeing was color without hue. He was seeing the structure underneath. So when the textile guys in Europe would blend the colors that- they didn't see the color yellow or red or green, they saw the value. They wanted it to be consistent. Without knowing it, my uncle had become a star because he was colorblind and couldn't see the distraction of the color. He actually saw the hue. And I tried to congratulate him to no avail, but I found it fascinating and hope sometime someone else will. GE: Okay. All right, so let me turn this- BS: And the employees who work for that guy are in the factory that's producing the t-shirts, but they're now assigned to just the waist part, and it's as big an operation, I think, as we had over in our hundred and two thousand square feet. But it's- GE: And he still sells it to Crane or whoever? BS: Well, he doesn't sell to Crane anymore. Crane is no longer buying- GE: It's hardly a paper business. BS: Right. So it's not going for paper. It's going, ironically, I think for the fiber content for yarn manufacture. GE: So it's going back to thread. BS: To what we were talking about this, yes. SC: I turned it on and I got a little nervous about that. Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit about your family's [history], as far back as you know. BS: Did we get the products? Did I- we didn't talk about wiping rags and all that sort of stuff. I may have missed that. GE: Tell me what you mean about the products. BS: You were asking about where did this stuff go and... you know. So I told some anecdotes about one portion of the business, but when that truck would arrive and the door would open and we began to separate out what the cloth was, some went for fiber recycling that we just described ; but the larger pieces, they went for wiping cloths, and that was an entirely different industry in America. You know, there was- there's a wiping rag association called I Whack 'Em [?]. We never were quite sure who they whacked, but... GE: And so that would be the rags that you'd buy at Home Depot? BS: Yes. Now they- now they're buying basically cloth made in Pakistan, but- you still can see a bag of rags, especially at the paint stores, is where you'll see them. Yeah. And so that's- that's a business that's probably seventy to a hundred million dollars, probably dominated by one or two guys. So that's where that would come from. So in other words, you're separating by- by color, by fiber content, by size. And, you know, you're doing this with people who didn't graduate junior high school -- and weren't appreciated, I don't think, except that they came to work. SC: Yeah, okay. Should we start with the history? BS: Ah, you wanna- Are we going back to the history? SC: Yeah, let's go back, just go back to your- you've talked about your father's history to a certain extent, so we should start with him and then go to your mother's family. So what do you know about your father's family as far back- You talked a little bit about that, but as far back as you know? BS: As I said that my father did not dwell in the land of reminiscence, I didn't- I was young when my grandfather died, I was about eight or ten, so I didn't have that opportunity to question them ; and when I did question them, my father wasn't especially interested. What I learned was that they came from Vilna, I believe, or in a town near Vilna. And my grandfather had left to follow his older cousin- older sister and maybe her husband. And he did that because he was avoiding inscription in the- either the White or the Red Army. So that would have been around, I'm assuming, 1917 [or] 1914 during the revolution. I heard that they were in the cattle business, but as I said, I don't know whether that meant they had a cow in the front yard of the shtetl or whether they had ten cows. I have a side of my family that went to Rhodesia and then eventually back to the United States, and they were in the cattle business. They were cousins in New York who owned the Black Angus Restaurant in the '40s and '50s, and is that an accident or did they know something about beef? I know he didn't know much about women because he gave one prospective date a piece of beef, couldn't understand why she wouldn't answer his calls. He said, "It was a nice piece of meat!" Yeah, so I don't know. My uncles or whoever they were on the West Coast were really kind of interesting, wild kind of guys. They owned a lot of cattle, they had large herds, and they were just sort of fun guys. I don't know. I didn't know them very well. My father had gone during the war to California and then Seattle to train to become a mechanic on B-29s. And he had not finished college, he'd gone to Temple for a year, and then they conscripted him in some kind of military program where he did mechanics, learned how to become a- an engine mechanic, and then he was selected for B-29 training. So he didn't see action which was very, very okay with him. I wouldn't say he was unpatriotic, but I don't think he was a man who wanted to die in the war. He wanted to live. And he became very close to- I don't know if she was his cousin or whatever, but a- to- to a relative on the West Coast, and they remained lifelong friends. So she was- her maiden name was Sheftel, and these were her two brothers, and I believe that they came to the United States from South Africa, obviously before the war, because she was married and a little older than my dad. So he came back to the- to the East Coast to go to work with his father --I think he wanted to stay in Hollywood -- and met my mother. And he met my mother on a blind date, I believe that a local Allentownian- Max Stettner had a date with my mother, but somehow or another Max Stettner and the real estate developer, good- Goodman, I can't remember Mr. Goodman's first name, but I know his father was quite successful during the Prohibition with the Bermans. And so Bernie Berman and Max Stettner and- that's not Jerry- Murray Goodman! Were all kind of buddies and they met someone in New York and one thing led to another, my mother was invited to a date and Max Stettner- he didn't stand her up, but he couldn't make the date. And, somehow or another, my father's name was injected in there and she was sick and couldn't make the date. And I don't know, I think it was- the Kobrovskys She met somebody who invited her to come back to Allentown, that there were a lot of single men, and somehow or another in the story my father came up and one thing led to the next, and they did go on this date. I think they were in- in New York. My father told my mother he was going to marry her, and six months later they got engaged and were married very soon after that. So, you know, it's kind of another one of these mythical tales that actually are not mythical. And they lived together for their entire adult life. My mother is 89, still alive. My father... it's 2017, is 93. He has dementia, but lives in the same facility as my mother and doesn't- it's peculiar to speak with him because he- he- he's not- he doesn't- he doesn't remember. Anybody who's lived with someone with dementia, you know, it's a jumbled up, mess of scraps. And it's odd to look at him -- but he continues to talk. My mother says it's gibberish, but he chats away, he's in good health. He had a hip replaced just as he slipped into a deeper dementia -- in that would have been four years ago, May 22nd, 2013. And he's still alive and has no clue why you want to ask him about his leg and he's still fascinating. You know he- he is some kind of weird charmer. And that's- I think that was part of his business success, is that he- he had a temper, he had a personality and a temperament, I know that he wanted to succeed, and whatever else you might say about how he lived his life, there was a magic to how he ran his business. You know, right now we're living through a- administration with Donald Trump as our president, and there are certain traits which Donald Trump seems to have on exhibition. And my mother and I often talk about my father maybe having similar traits, magic thinking or whatever. In my father's case, they were linked to- you may have had some magic thoughts, but more of his thoughts were actually completed and created. And how he got there, maybe it shared a certain resemblance, but seems universally to have been thought of as "charming". But now I find that a lot of people think he was something other than that. But you could still compress it under the title, you know, "determined". So my mother lived in Allentown, participated in Hadassah, she was president of Hadassah. And I think if we look at the city today, which will not resemble the city I grew up in, all the West End and what appeared to be very modest homes are the homes of people who ran businesses, employed a hundred people or two hundred people, and I think the modesty belies some kind of- these people operated their businesses, they- they weren't looking to sell out and be bought out, they- they operated them. And the complexion of the city is quite different, unrecognizable really, to the days that I grew up when the sign said, " Allentown, 1960, All American City." You know, it was a city of people making things, doing- having people working for them. And we- what did we do? We made rags. I mean- it's very- it's a peculiar transition for someone like- like myself who's thoughtful about it because we- we don't seem to be making anything. And it's ironic how the industry that I caught the tail end of would really- well, you know, what was it? And yet it was really quite fascinating, all the different things that people made from fiber. SC: How about your mother's past? Do you have anything to add about your mother's background? Not really? BS: My mother, you know, grew up in- my mother grew up in Brooklyn. She was the daughter and sister of Jack Lobell, who was also a merchant. He had his own business, he sold Pearl buttons and apparently was quite a character, you know -- he had- his first wife and two children died in the 1914, 1917 flu epidemic. And then he began dating my mother's mother and she died in 1945, leaving Gene and Ronnie, who was 17 -- my mother was 17. And then he remarried about six weeks later-- my mother's mother's brother's wife, so her aunt. And my mother resented that for a good part of her life and not quite sure why, but he- you know she- she loved him very much, and he apparently was quite a character. He was a salesman on the road, but a businessman, independent. And he- there's a story that they called him in Chicago and told him that Hilda was quite ill and he should come as quickly as he could. And he was home that evening and no one seemed to notice because, you know, she recovered from whatever it was and- It was a long- apparently, it was a long and not very nice illness. She was in the house for quite a few years with some caretakers, and he tried to have a- as my mother says, a "quack doctor" take care of her in a rented hotel room. So when the end came, my grandfather took my mother and her sisters to Atlantic City the day that her mother died. And he said, "Look, you know, I want to live." Now, remember, it was after the war, 1945, and- and so him marrying this woman -- who he knew, her husband had died -- probably is not so awful, but for some reason it was devastating for my mother. And I think my mother set her sights on a man who would provide security for her. And when she met my father in 1950 he loaned her or left his car with her the first night. And the story that she tells is that her brother leaned out the window in Brooklyn, saw the Cadillac or Buick convertible and said, "What did you do for that?" And that sort of started their relationship. I mean, looking at the pictures, they had a great time. So I think that she brought with her a certain sense of tenacity, of you know," I'm going to do what I need to do to get this done." And I think she provided a balance to him that maybe looking back, we could miss, but that during the time I think they thought they were doing quite well. In the pictures of where they went, you know 1954 they took a 17 hour trip -- for my father it was business, but my mother was excitement. They went to Italy, to Spain. When I went back in 1980- something, I met with a man who, when he recognized the name and put my father together with my name, began patting me on the back and laughing and remembering a trip they took through the Alpine- Alpine Mountains between Bella and Florence. That apparently was a bit of a rip roaring trip. Apparently a lot of grappa was drunk on that trip, and I don't mean on the side of the road. So, you know, it was- they did business, but they also seem to be living a life that was really quite exciting. I hear they were in Europe and I don't know how many people travel to Europe. I remember my father and mother taking me to- in- in Milan, to the opera house, to the- I remember the opera house, I don't have to remember the name. But yeah, it was pretty- I think quite an interesting life for a man who was selling rags, you know. That's kind of the inside joke. SC: So- BS: Textile Reclamation Engineer, I think, was the title. SC: That's perfect. So I have two questions for you. The first one is, what do you value most in life? BS: Me personally? I think probably honesty. Trustfulness. Telling- Telling what's honest, but in the context that it was- I can understand that your- your truth may be different, but tell me it, unadorned, and you'll have my respect. SC: And secondly, what has made you feel the most creative in life? BS: It's an interesting question because I've been in situations where I didn't understand that I was creative -- which really is kind of silly when you look back over- I was a drummer in a band here in Allentown, photographer -- I photographed Queen Elizabeth, I think I was twelve, I was the youngest photographer to commercially do that. But I never thought of myself, per se, as creative ; I never been given that permission. I thought that was a- an exalted role that I wasn't worthy of. So it's interesting that you would ask me that. And I- I must say that having worked with photographers in New York and not working as a photographer in the- at the local level, but, you know, with a connection to Richard Avedon and Lisette Model, people who are in museums at this point, the story of understanding how my uncle saw color is very gratifying for me, to understand that creativity is in the person and we bring it to anything and everywhere that people go, and that creative people are not necessarily creative no matter what they do -- or the opposite, that they are in fact creative no matter what they're doing. And I've lived pretty much without this idea that if you- you know what, you remind me of a story. When I was in South Carolina running the factory in the '80s, I met a young woman who was working for the television station and she explained to me that she was working in a very creative field. And I said to her, "What field is that?" She said, "Television!" I looked at her and I said, "You know, you sort of surprised me." She goes, "Why? Everybody knows television's creative." I said, "Really? I don't know a lot about electronics. I'm fascinated by how we found brass and copper in the mountains. I mean, some men have a vision of a big cooking pot. I don't know how that happened, but I always thought of television as electrons running through a wire and that- not really seeming too creative." And she said, "What, are you kidding?" I said, "Actually, I'm not kidding at all. I don't think what- television by itself is creative. It's- It's who's using it and how they're doing it." And she said, "Well, that's just silly." I said, "Really?" And then I think I told her the story of my uncle. So, yeah, I think creativity and what made me feel accomplished was recognizing the creativity that my uncle brought to his work without any- And you know, I have a hard time with the artists of New York with describing pictures. It seems to me that the picture should be able to speak for itself, and that's why we use the camera to communicate that way. We seem now to be explaining why the photographer's picture is interesting. My uncle had no consciousness about what he was doing as creative, but it was. And my uncle was celebrated in that he could sit at a piano and play a tune by ear. So clearly the man had a creative consciousness. He didn't get the encouragement in his life. He didn't live what we would call a creative life. But clearly he was, and I think recognizing that was a really big deal for me. SC: Yes. And this is the history that speaks for itself, what we're doing. Yes. Thank you so much. BS: All the questions answered? SC: Yes. GE: Thank you. It's a good story, and that's what it's all about. SC: So I'm just going to wait for about 10 seconds. GE: First did you stop recording. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:52:28
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Bruce Sheftel, May 31st, 2017
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Bruce Sheftel talks about how his grandfather (Abe), a young immigrant, started as a junkman with his brother-in-law. Later, when Abe’s sons (Milt and Harold) were in the business, they bought textile waste from the many mills that existed up and down the Lehigh river. Harold focused inside the factory/warehouse and Milt (Bruce’s father) focused outside the factory selling the processed textile waste to customers. Their main customer was Crane & Company who used cotton rags to make US currency. The final generation in this business (sons of Milt and Harold) witnessed the disappearance of the U.S. textile waste industry as the textile and needle trade industry moved overseas.
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LVTNT-15
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2017-05-31
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://textile.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/4816f1987f10a7ea913440dffc1d4b76.png
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Dolores Delin
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-08.xml
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5.4 June 16, 2014 Dolores Delin, June 16, 2014 LVTNT-08 19:36 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Dolores Delin Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 DelinDolores_20140616.mp4 1.0:|25(5)|50(3)|73(3)|90(12)|115(10)|142(11)|173(8)|200(4)|221(7)|242(17)|269(15)|292(8)|315(13)|340(15)|371(8)|400(4)|431(3)|450(10)|483(11)|492(6) 0 https://youtu.be/zq44p57VAp8 YouTube video 0 Introduction—Dolores Delin SC: Okay, so this is an interview with the Delins, and it is June 16, 2014, and this is tape number 4.
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 ; GE: So, we remember, Dolores, last time you had told us about your grandmother and some of the sweet memories that you had and if you wanted to share with us about that she always wanted you to be independent.
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 ; DD: Right, right. As I said, my grandmother and I were very close, and we were, and when I got married, she pulled me aside and she said ‘look, Dolores, every woman should have her own knipple.’ And by that she meant every woman should have her own money. And so with that, she gave me a one hundred dollar bill. 0 150 Supporting the Family and Its Business as Wife and Mother GE: [A]s the wife, tell us a little bit about what it was like having first the business and then also with the apparel, with the trade association. So what was your role as the wife?
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 ; DD: Well, my role as a wife was the, well how can I put it? The first thing in Arnold’s life was the synagogue. He was very dedicated to the synagogue, and then he was very dedicated to his job, and then he was very dedicated to his family. There was no room for all of this at one time, so the synagogue, his business, and his family. So as a wife I was in charge of the house. And I was always supportive of Arnold and whatever he did, and all of the organizations that he was involved with, I was always there working behind him, writing his speeches, like everyone. 0 393 Children and Grandchildren DD: Two children.
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 ; SC: Two children, yes.
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 ; DD: Robin used to work for, she’s a licensed, she does licensing for Madame Alexandra Dolls, they’re collectibles. I don’t know if you are familiar with them. And my son, Scott, who is the Vice President of Sales with Superior Linen. Three grandchildren, Ariana, who is in public relations in Florida. She is an equestrian, and she writes for an equestrian magazine.
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 ; GE: Oh, isn’t that something.
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 ; DD: Yeah, and my grandson, the middle one, Noah, he just graduated from Ithaca, and he’s doing freelance work for Walt Disney. 0 732 Dolores' Values and Inspirations SC: So what do you value most in life?
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 ; DD: I value my children and my grandchildren. My grandmother would say that is the interest on your principle. That is the truth. They are special. And another thing she would say is that is the reward you get for not killing your children: your grandchildren.
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 ; GE: See that’s the dividend.
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 ; SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or complete in life? I’m talking about artistry in its most broad sense.
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 ; DD: Well I think I appreciate everything that I see. 0 910 Leadership, Wisdom, & ; Cultural Preservation—Respect for Age & ; Experience in the Jewish Community GE: I remember my grandmother lived to be, who I was very close with, lived to be 90/91, and I remember her saying, you know, when you get older, she said it feels like a dream. She said that so many years have passed, and she said it’s just hard to grasp it. And frankly, I already feel that way.
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 ; DD: Well, if you look back on what you’ve achieved over your lifetime, and you’re like, how did it happen.
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 ; GE: Right, right. And also, it feels so compressed because it feels like it wasn’t all that long ago that my children were little. Not long ago, I was a young bride. And you know, so many years have passed.
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 ; DD: And you see the young people growing up and having children, and you wonder.
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 ; SC: And I worry that they don’t value the wisdom of us as we get older.
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 ; DD: I think that’s a problem with our culture. We don’t appreciate the older people. I mean, other cultures appreciate them, but they don’t think that we are very smart. That we haven’t experienced life, that they are the only ones experiencing it. 0 MovingImage Dolores Delin talks about her close relationship with her grandmother and how she encouraged Dolores to be independent and resilient. Those traits were very important later in Dolores’s life when she opened an up-scale women’s clothing store in Pottsville. Dolores supported Arnold in his leadership roles at the synagogue in his business and, later, the Association. Dolores Delin, June 16, 2014 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Okay, so this is an interview with the Delins, and it is June 16, 2014, and this is tape number 4. GAIL EISENBERG: So, we remember, Dolores, last time you had told us about your grandmother and some of the sweet memories that you had and if you wanted to share with us about that she always wanted you to be independent. DOLORES DELIN: Right, right. As I said, my grandmother and I were very close, and we were, and when I got married, she pulled me aside and she said 'look, Dolores, every woman should have her own knipple.' And by that she meant every woman should have her own money. And so with that, she gave me a one hundred dollar bill. And she said 'put it away, Arnold doesn't have to know about it, and if you want anything--' Now if we think back, I'm married 65 years, $100 was a lot of money. So I put it away, and didn't say anything to Arnold about it, and we went on our honeymoon, and we went to Niagara Falls, we were traveling around. And at the Falls, Arnold loses all of our money, all of our Travelers Checks and everything was in Travelers Checks, and he doesn't have anything. And he found out when he went to pay the bill, and he wanted to stay at this fancy hotel. And he goes to pay the bill, and he doesn't have any money, and no credit cards. In those days, we used Travelers Checks, that was it. He didn't know what to do and he was stressing, and I said, 'don't worry about it,' and I turned around and I pulled out this hundred dollar bill. And ever since then he's been looking for the knipple. And there is one, and I tell my son to have one and I tell my daughter to have one. My daughter's not married, but in any young woman, I always say it is very important, for every person, man or woman, to have a little independence, to have a little money put aside so that you don't have to don't have to account to anybody for it. And that was my grandmother's philosophy. SC: So maybe we should talk a little bit about your children, and then go on to more business? GE: You know what? I don't think because, yeah, I don't think there is really anything else with the business per say. Well, you know what? Maybe-- SC: You go ahead. GE: One thing that I was just thinking about is as the wife, tell us a little bit about what it was like having first the business and then also with the apparel, with the trade association. So what was your role as the wife? DD: Well, my role as a wife was the, well how can I put it? The first thing in Arnold's life was the synagogue. He was very dedicated to the synagogue, and then he was very dedicated to his job, and then he was very dedicated to his family. There was no room for all of this at one time, so the synagogue, his business, and his family. So as a wife I was in charge of the house. And I was always supportive of Arnold and whatever he did, and all of the organizations that he was involved with, I was always there working behind him, writing his speeches, like everyone. You know, you don't stand up for the bows but you're there to be the showcase to be there. And that's just the way it was. I mean he was with the Association, I did whatever I had to do to make all of his members happy. And we gave, we never got the best rooms when we traveled, the president of the Association got the best rooms. We took whatever was leftover because that's the way he felt. He didn't feel it was his place to have the best, and so I just went along with it. GE: And how about in the factory? DD: In the factory, he ran the factory, and then one day, I wasn't working, this was before my working days, I thought that it would be nice to help him out, right? So I said to him, " I'll come down and I'll work in the factory." I had two small children at home. So what could I do? I didn't know how to sew, so he put me in the folding department to fold the blouses and box them up. So while I'm working, I'm folding and I'm thinking 'what are we going to have for dinner, what are the kids doing, and I had a housekeeper in, is she doing this, is she cleaning the bathroom, is she doing what she has to do while I'm here at work.' I happen to go inside to call and make sure that she takes something out of the freezer for dinner. So I walk into the office and I call her up to take something, and he walks in and he says 'if you think you are going to stay on the telephone all day long and work, I don't need you here.' I said, 'you know something, you're absolutely right, you don't need me here.' And that was the last thing I had to do with the factory. GE: Did you do anything while you were at home, write books or anything.? DD: No, no. GE: So it was really that your involvement began later with the Association. DD: My involvement really with the Association was minimal. Arnold was up front. He did everything with the Association, he was negotiating, he did everything. Mine was just social. I had absolutely nothing to do with the Association. I had my own thing at the time. I was busy with my own business, doing my own thing, and the children and their organizations and I was very busy. GE: Right, right, so by the time he really was the Executive Director of the Association, DD: In the 70s. GE: Okay, so by that time, you already were in business. DD: I was working. Right. I was in business and I was working and I was just going along for the ride. GE: Right, okay. I think, do you have anything? SC: Yeah, I think I'll ask-- DD: Two children. SC: Two children, yes. DD: Robin used to work for, she's a licensed, she does licensing for Madame Alexandra Dolls, they're collectibles. I don't know if you are familiar with them. And my son, Scott, who is the Vice President of Sales with Superior Linen. Three grandchildren, Ariana, who is in public relations in Florida. She is an equestrian, and she writes for an equestrian magazine. GE: Oh, isn't that something. DD: Yeah, and my grandson, the middle one, Noah, he just graduated from Ithaca, and he's doing freelance work for Walt Disney. GE: Wow, as a freelance writing? Graphics? DD: He's also in public relations. He took an internship with them in the summertime and it led to this freelance job because they are not hiring right now. He's looking for a position. And Benjamin is the baby, and he is still in high school. He's a sweetheart. SC: He's supposed to be a baby. Benjamin's the baby. DD: He's the baby. SC: In the Bible. GE: That's right. SC: And what was the grandson that was in Ithaca? DD: Noah. I'll tell you a funny story about Noah. For my grandchildren, when I heard that my daughter-in-law was pregnant, I love to work with my hands, I do a lot of needlepoint and quilting and all that kind of stuff, so I made a quilt for Ariana. And then when they told me that Beth was pregnant again, I didn't know what it was going to be. And I said to Arnold, I went into the store and I saw this print of Noah's Ark, and I said to him, "Gee this is pretty, blow it up for me, I'm going to transfer that onto a quilt with Noah's Ark and all of the animals, and so on and so forth." And then I told the kids, "I'm making you a quilt," but I didn't say what it was yet, "I'm making another one, I'm busy making another quilt. While you're cooking, I'm sewing." And so, Beth called me up one day, "Well Mom, we decided on a name," she said, "Well, it's going to be a boy." And I said, 'Aw, that's wonderful." "And we're going to name him Noah." Well I just got the chills because I had no idea what Beth was having. GE: You know, I met your youngest, Benjamin, not long ago they had in the synagogue a program with Klezmer Dancing, and he was there and he is a sweetheart. A very, very nice young man. He was with some young girl ; maybe there were just friends doing the thing, but I'm just saying that they were adorable. And I remember asking, who is that, and someone said Ben Delin, Benjamin Delin. DD: Yeah, they had a nanny for all three children because Beth, you know, is a nurse practitioner. GE: Oh, no, I didn't know that. DD: Yeah, neurology nurse practitioner. And so they had a nanny for the children and in fact Beth was the RN at Lehigh. She was in charge of the emergency. It was terrible, she worked all kinds of crazy hours. And she said to me, 'Mom, I'm thinking about going back to school to become a nurse practitioner, but it's going to be a couple of years.' I said, 'well, honey, what difference is it going to make. The years are going to pass whether you do it or don't do it, so you might as well do it.' 'Well, what am I going to do with the kids?' I said, 'I'll tell you what, I promise you that one day a week, every single Wednesday you can count on me. I will be there. The rest of the time you will have to figure it out, but every Wednesday, I'll give you every Wednesday.' So that's what happened. I gave her every Wednesday. And one Wednesday, I am driving down the highway, I had a Jeep at the time, and I came to Kutztown, and we were stopped. I those days we didn't have cell phones. How am I going to get to her? I got out of the car and I ran up and down, 'does anyone have a telephone in their car?' So nobody had anything so I'm sitting in the car and I'm waiting and time is passing, and time is passing, and traffic moved just a little, and there is a bank and a farm. And I was thinking, to hell with this, I'm going over to the bank, I have a Jeep, I saw them do it on television. I went over this bank, through this cornfield and around and got to the house cause my daughter-in-law had to go to Philadelphia. Now they have a fence there. Every time I drive by, I see the fence, and they should put my name on it. Or I should pay for the fence. And when she graduated, they gave her a bouquet of flowers, and she gave me a bouquet of flowers cause she knew that she could count on me, you know, once a week. Through thick and thin, she knew I'd be there. GE: Well that's really nice. SC: So what do you value most in life? DD: I value my children and my grandchildren. My grandmother would say that is the interest on your principle. That is the truth. They are special. And another thing she would say is that is the reward you get for not killing your children: your grandchildren. GE: See that's the dividend. SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or complete in life? I'm talking about artistry in its most broad sense. DD: Well I think I appreciate everything that I see. I mean, living out here I just love. I always tell my children, when I get old and senile, just put an electric fence like they do for the cows and just let me wander around because I just love it. And I see a lot of beauty in a lot of things. I'm driving down, when we first moved here, I remember, when you go to Shenandoah from here, there is one area where the ice forms over, goes down to the road. And my girlfriend who came from Shenandoah, we were driving up and said 'oh, my god, this is gorgeous,' and she didn't even know what I was talking about. She was just driving by and didn't see it. I just see the beauty that surrounds you, and I'm so thankful for it. SC: I always love that drive. GE: When you say Shenandoah, is that-- SC: Into the hills. And the Blue Ridge Parkway, and what's the other one? It goes into North Carolina. DD: Oh, you're talking about a different area. I'm talking about Shenandoah which is a little town from Pottsville, Flackville, Shenandoah. But I know what you're talking about. This area, when you go up there, it is all mountainous. Right now, you'll see all of the windmills are up there, but the mountains in the winter, the ice just forms from running off of the mountains and it is just a cascade of beautiful ice waterfalls. It's really so pretty. SC: I'm going to make a note to go there. DD: In the wintertime right.? SC: Yes. DD: Now you'll see all of the windmills, all of the windmills are across the skyline now. GE: So a little bit you're saying is that you just love the natural beauty. DD: I do, yeah, I really do. I like everything. I'm thankful to be alive. I can't believe that 85 years have gone. That's the sad part of it all. SC: Well, thank you. DD: You're welcome. GE: I remember my grandmother lived to be, who I was very close with, lived to be 90/91, and I remember her saying, you know, when you get older, she said it feels like a dream. She said that so many years have passed, and she said it's just hard to grasp it. And frankly, I already feel that way. DD: Well, if you look back on what you've achieved over your lifetime, and you're like, how did it happen. GE: Right, right. And also, it feels so compressed because it feels like it wasn't all that long ago that my children were little. Not long ago, I was a young bride. And you know, so many years have passed. DD: And you see the young people growing up and having children, and you wonder. SC: And I worry that they don't value the wisdom of us as we get older. DD: I think that's a problem with our culture. We don't appreciate the older people. I mean, other cultures appreciate them, but they don't think that we are very smart. That we haven't experienced life, that they are the only ones experiencing it. GE: I'm not sure, I might just don't know enough, maybe, Sue does, I don't know if that was always true in America but I certainly think since the 60s. SC: Yes, they had been, it has been since the 60s. GE: Right, right, and very exaggerated. SC: Very exaggerated. GE: It's almost like anyone above the age of 30, don't-- SC: Don't trust anyone over 27 is the stigma historical statement. GE: Right, is that really was it? DD: You know I think it's further back. I think when the immigrants came over, and the next generation spoke English, they looked back at their parents as griner [Yiddish for greenhorn or new immigrant]. Now my grandmother spoke three languages, Russian, Polish, English, and Hebrew, and Yiddish, five languages. And yet, when she would come and visit, people would talk down to her. And knowingly, it bothered me, and she had a sense of humor, and I said she was a cook and a baker, she made challah every Friday night. And one of my friends was a doctor, and his hobby was making challahs. So they came to visit, and one day he came to visit, and my grandmother and I made rugelach. "Oh," he says, "Fanny, these are delicious. I'll teach you how to make challahs, if you'll teach me how to make rugelach." She says, 'that's a very good idea.' We're not giving her credit for what she can do and also speaking down to them, and I think that's a part of it. The respect, you know, what they brought with them when they came. SC: I think you're right. DD: Yeah, and then you had a college education, and your parents didn't have a college education. GE: Even the first generation, my parents' family, first generation did not go to college, but nonetheless they were English speakers. DD: That's right. GE: And so it's interesting, my father's side, the family came one generation earlier but my father's father remained in Europe, my family went through the Holocaust. My dad was the only survivor. When he came here, he really had much less in common with his cousins. They were Americans, and they in many ways do look down upon you, but the aunts and uncles adored him because my father knew their culture. My father could speak their language-- DD: They had shared memories. GE: They had a lot of shared memories. So as much as they loved their own children, of course they love their children and are proud of their children, but their children it was much more of a divide because they were Americans. So it was interesting, he always did have much more of a relationship with a lot of the aunts and the uncles than he did with the cousins. DD: That's a shame, but that is the way that it is. That's the way it goes. GE: Now, are we done? Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:19:36
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Dolores Delin, June 16, 2014
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Dolores Delin talks about her close relationship with her grandmother and how she encouraged Dolores to be independent and resilient. Those traits were very important later in Dolores’s life when she opened an up-scale women’s clothing store in Pottsville. Dolores supported Arnold in his leadership roles at the synagogue in his business and, later, the Association.
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LVTNT-08
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2014-06-16
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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39fb25c71497037971761e4349699ad1
Dublin Core
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
Oral History
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Esther Halperin
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-16.xml
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5.4 July 17th, 2012 Esther Halperin, July 17th, 2012 LVTNT-16 28:33 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Esther Halperin Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 HalperinEsther_20120617 1.0:|19(10)|38(7)|53(10)|72(11)|89(17)|110(8)|129(8)|150(12)|173(5)|202(11)|233(2)|256(14)|281(6)|306(8)|331(5)|348(8)|365(17)|394(8)|423(2)|454(8)|473(11)|496(3)|519(6)|540(16)|565(4)|588(5)|609(4)|630(9)|639(8) 0 YouTube video < ; iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fenEsUYdBB0?autoplay=0& ; rel=0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer ; autoplay ; clipboard-write ; encrypted-media ; gyroscope ; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; 10 Introduction—Esther Halperin SC: Today is July 17th, interview with Esther Halperin — and 2012. Attending are Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder. So I'd like to take you sort of back. We like to put people into their own family context. So first of all, what is your full name? When were you born and where have you lived in your life?
 ; 
 ; EH: Okay, my full name is Esther Waitz Helperin.
 ; 
 ; SC: And can you spell Waitz?
 ; 
 ; EH: W-A-I-T-Z. I was born August 17th, 1925 at 9th and Liberty Street above my parent's bakery, and I've only lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania all my life. 0 75 Family History SC: And so can you talk a little bit-- putting yourself back into your family history? Can you talk about your family as far back as you know, both sides of your family, where they came from, what their education was and where they worked if you know it?
 ; 
 ; EH: All right. Both parents came from Poland. They lived in Warsaw and also in Lodz, Poland. My father was a baker and my mother, they were married in Poland. And they had a bakery with a retail shop in Warsaw. They both came from very large families. My mother and father left Poland and came to New York City.
 ; 
 ; GE: About when?
 ; 
 ; EH: Let’s see, about 1912. 0 392 Childhood in Fullerton EH: I-- from the time I was five, I lived in Fullerton, which is- I don't know if you know where that is. It's a suburb of Allentown, it's north of Allentown. It was out in the country. We were the only Jewish family in that whole community. But my mother was happy. The element was very definitely all Pennsylvania Dutch. And if you came from anywhere but Allentown or Fullerton, you were an outsider. You were a foreigner.
 ; 
 ; GE: Were you considered foreigners or the fact that you were from Allentown...?
 ; 
 ; EH: No. If you weren't Pennsylvania Dutch, you-
 ; 
 ; GE: Were a foreigner, okay, that’s what I thought. 0 444 Education EH: I was the only Jewish kid in grade school as well as high school. But two-- a sister and a brother preceded me so-- but I got along fine. There was no outward anti-Semitism. I had a lot of friends. I, I was never bullied or hassled or-- I was very popular and I fit in very well, although I- late in my teens, [no], early in my teens I started making Jewish friends. But I went to my high school, I went to Whitehall High School and I went to Moravian and I graduated from Moravian. I married my first husband.
 ; 
 ; GE: Excuse me, Moravian — did you go to Moravian College? 
 ; 
 ; EH: It was a women's college. It was only a women's college. 0 559 Family History (cont'd) SC: What was your mother's maiden name? Do you know?
 ; 
 ; EH: It was Ostrovesky.
 ; 
 ; SC: Can you spell that?
 ; 
 ; EH: Yeah. O-S-T-R-O-V-E-S-K-Y. 
 ; 
 ; SC: And her family was from Warsaw?
 ; 
 ; EH: Her family was from- first from Pinchov which is P-I-N-C-H-O-T. O-V? O-V or O-T. Pinchov. It was this very small shtetl. And then they moved, I think to Lodz, which was a big community, and my mother worked there in a knitting- she told me, in a knitting factory. They made caps- hats, knitted caps. And then she met my father and they married there, and then moved to Warsaw, which was even a bigger community then. Lodz was a textile community. 0 631 First Marriage to Marvin Goldberg SC: You graduated from Moravian. 
 ; 
 ; EH: I graduated from Moravian. 
 ; 
 ; GE: And you know what? Actually, I'm sorry. One other question. You said that you started meeting- making some Jewish friends, were they people from the Allentown community?
 ; 
 ; EH: Yes, I would go into the Jewish Community Center, at 6th and Chew Street. And there were a lot of, you know, teenager groups. And we did a lot of things as groups in those days. 
 ; 
 ; SC: And did you meet your husband there?
 ; 
 ; EH: Yes, my first husband. His name was Marvin Goldberg. And I, well, I married my junior year in- I married him my junior year in college. And four years later, I had my oldest son, Richard. 0 834 Post-Divorce: Single-Motherhood and Career SC: Did your first husband pass away or did you divorce?
 ; 
 ; EH: We divorced. My second husband passed away.
 ; 
 ; GE: How long were you married to Marvin Goldberg?
 ; 
 ; EH: I think about 10 years. 
 ; 
 ; SC: And did you have any other children together?
 ; 
 ; EH: Just one. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Just Richard. And then you taught at . . .
 ; 
 ; EH: I taught at the Jewish Community Center, and the reason I did that, I didn't go into public schools, was I wanted to have the same holidays off. Ricky was going to the Jewish Day School and I didn't want to leave him with babysitters, and they weren't that available, so I chose some institution where I would have the same holidays off and I could, you know, be with him. So I taught there for seven years, although I was really overqualified, I felt it was important that I raise my child myself. 0 936 Second Marriage to Bernie Halperin: Widowhood and Taking Over the Contracting Business SC: Then you met Mr. Halperin?
 ; 
 ; EH: Yes, we married. And we weren't married very long before he died. Yeah. And I, I was now-- had a 12 year old and a new baby, Jonathan, and I, I didn't see myself-- How do I go back to teaching public school and leaving two children now? So I chose to go up, although I knew not a thing about the garment industry, I said I see other people in this industry with less talent than I have, so maybe I can make it. So I went up with fresh eyes and I, took me a while because, you know, it took me a year to just adjust myself. But I became very successful there. I guess, fresh eyes and I had a lot of obstacles, but I overcame them. 0 1159 Unionizing the Business GE: Okay, so this is around 1965, you found yourself being a widow, two children, and you decided to take over, go into the business.
 ; 
 ; EH: Right, right. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, great. And there were about eighty-five workers.
 ; 
 ; EH: Then, right.
 ; 
 ; SC: And what did they produce?
 ; 
 ; EH: Well they- the factory produced ladie’s slacks, shorts, skirts and bathing suits. We were non-union — he tried very hard to keep away from the union. Most of the plants in Allentown were unionized, but I soon found that I couldn't get big contracts from non-union places, so I decided it was best if I would unionize because, unless you were a union factory, then ILGWU — you couldn't get the big runs on styles. So I walked into Ike Gordon’s ILG- I don’t know if you ever heard that name.
 ; 
 ; GE: I know ILGWU. 0 1293 Automating the Factory EH: And then I put in a lot of work aids, which most other factories didn't do.
 ; 
 ; GE: Say that again — a lot of what?
 ; 
 ; EH: Work aids for the sewing machine operators.
 ; 
 ; GE: And what does a work aid do, what does it mean?
 ; 
 ; EH: Well, in other words, I would have on their machines automatic cutters that would cut the thread instead of them picking up a scissors and having to cut it and then- So I pursued that area and I became pretty well-automated throughout the factory because I felt that was the wave of the future. You could only get them to produce more if they were able to produce more. And I was one of the first in the area to do that, to highly-automate the factory. 0 1420 The Success of Hands-on Management EH: But I must admit that probably because I was a novice and didn't do things the way they were always done, that I was successful in this business. So I looked for change and I got it and I really liked what I was doing very, very much. And I did a lot of physical work myself. I had two kids to support and instead of having a lot of middle management, I was top management and lots of times middle management. So I physically worked on the as well as ran the business.
 ; 
 ; SC: Which historically-
 ; 
 ; EH: Was not the way it was. 
 ; 
 ; SC: No, but the people who did stay involved in the business and didn't farm out the middle, management jobs really do better because-
 ; 
 ; GE: Well you’re in touch. 
 ; 
 ; SC: You're in touch with everything.
 ; 
 ; EH: Oh yeah, I saw what the problems were. I managed the finishing department, which was the inspecting, the pressing, the hanging and bagging and the tail end of the- I managed that floor as well as running the business. 
 ; 
 ; SC: So you had your hands on quality control? 0 1536 Employees/Discomfort with a Woman Boss SC: Where did you workers come from? Did they come mostly-?
 ; 
 ; EH: That area — Slatington, Palmerton, Walnutport. That whole area. 
 ; 
 ; SC: And were they more of, ethnically, Pennsylvania Dutch or Eastern European?
 ; 
 ; EH: They were a mixture, yeah, they were a mixture. Mostly there were a lot of Welsh in that area and a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch, a lot, and some Slovish or, you know, Polish and Slavic groups. And it wasn't easy. They didn't like having a woman boss in the beginning.
 ; 
 ; GE: Did that- did that then get better? 
 ; 
 ; EH: Well my mechanic — the mechanic said he didn’t know whether he could work for a woman. So I said, “Give it a try. “ 0 MovingImage Esther Halperin talks about how she became a successful sewing contractor due to financial necessity. Esther’s husband died suddenly, leaving her with two children to support. Esther decided to operate her husband’s factory in Slatington even though at the time she knew nothing about the business. As a woman owner back in the early 1960s, she faced many obstacles-- from employees who didn’t want to work for a woman, to customers who didn't want to buy from a woman. Esther persevered and conquered these challenges to run a successful sewing contracting business for about twenty-five years. Interview with Esther Halperin, July 17th, 2012 GAIL EISENBERG: Actually, while we're talking- SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is July 17th, interview with Esther Halperin -- and 2012. Attending are Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder. So I'd like to take you sort of back. We like to put people into their own family context. So first of all, what is your full name? When were you born and where have you lived in your life? ESTHER HALPERIN: Okay, my full name is Esther Waitz Helperin. SC: And can you spell Waitz? EH: W-A-I-T-Z. I was born August 17th, 1925 at 9th and Liberty Street above my parent's bakery, and I've only lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania all my life. SC: And so can you talk a little bit-- putting yourself back into your family history? Can you talk about your family as far back as you know, both sides of your family, where they came from, what their education was and where they worked if you know it? EH: All right. Both parents came from Poland. They lived in Warsaw and also in Lodz, Poland. My father was a baker and my mother, they were married in Poland. And they had a bakery with a retail shop in Warsaw. They both came from very large families. My mother and father left Poland and came to New York City. GE: About when? EH: Let's see, about 1912. My father worked in a very large bakery in New York, and he didn't like being an employee. I think he made seven dollars a week. He said that he wasn't going to work for seven dollars a week because he made more than that when he left Poland. So he bought a bakery in Long Island, and he built it up, and he sold it and moved to Connecticut. And then he bought another bakery there, built it up and sold that. And then he moved to Allentown. He always followed where bakeries were being sold and where he thought they had a good potential. And he bought a bakery at 9th and Liberty, called Long's Bakery, which I think is still there. I was the last of five children. I had two sisters and two brothers who were older than I. SC: What were your parents' full names? EH: My father's name was Abraham Waitz. My mother's name was Shaindel Sadie Waitz. My father, I don't know what kind of education they, he had, but he could read and write English, and read and write Hebrew, and he was a very successful business man for a foreigner who came here with, you know, not a lot of money. GE: How old were your parents when they came, when they came here? EH: When they came here, my mother was pregnant with my oldest brother. He was born-- he was conceived in Europe and born here. And when they arrived in New York, he was born in December and I think they arrived in September. So shortly thereafter. My mother told me that she hired a melamed. You know what a melamed is? A melamed is the Hebrew word for teacher, because in her family, they only educated the boys, but she wanted an education. So when she went to work, she hired a melamed to teach her how to read and write. So she was literate. They came here and I remember it-- Oh, after Allentown, my father sold the place at 9th and Liberty and built a place at 2nd and-- on 2nd Street. No. On Front Street near- built a bakery there. And he really prospered there because I think it was during the Depression and people couldn't afford much more than bread. So bread, you know, was a big seller in the food industry. However, my mother didn't like the area down there. SC: And was that part of the community? EH: Yes, there was a big Jewish community on Front and 2nd Street -- 2nd Street was really the heart of the Jewish community. 2nd and Tilghman, 2nd and Allen. And there were a lot of pool halls down there. And my brother was about 15, 16, and my mother didn't like him hanging around the pool halls. So she urged my father to find another bakery. So he moved to Fullerton -- I was about five years old -- and built a really big bakery. And they had a lot of trucks and trucks would go out and sell door to door, bread, door to door, like they were milkmen. There were also bakers that sold. And they sold to a lot of mom-and-pop grocery stores. There were no big markets then. I-- from the time I was five, I lived in Fullerton, which is- I don't know if you know where that is. It's a suburb of Allentown, it's north of Allentown. It was out in the country. We were the only Jewish family in that whole community. But my mother was happy. The element was very definitely all Pennsylvania Dutch. And if you came from anywhere but Allentown or Fullerton, you were an outsider. You were a foreigner. GE: Were you considered foreigners or the fact that you were from Allentown...? EH: No. If you weren't Pennsylvania Dutch, you- GE: Were a foreigner, okay, that's what I thought. EH: Okay. But, you know, we got along well with my neighbors. I was the only Jewish kid in grade school as well as high school. But two-- a sister and a brother preceded me so-- but I got along fine. There was no outward anti-Semitism. I had a lot of friends. I, I was never bullied or hassled or-- I was very popular and I fit in very well, although I- late in my teens, [no], early in my teens I started making Jewish friends. But I went to my high school, I went to Whitehall High School and I went to Moravian and I graduated from Moravian. I married my first husband. GE: Excuse me, Moravian -- did you go to Moravian College? EH: It was a women's college. It was only a women's college. SC: You didn't go to the academy, though? EH: No. The Academy was high school. I went to Whitehall's High School -- public school. But I went to Moravian and graduated my-- as a English and History Major, and with teaching qualifications. SC: May I stop you here? Do you mind if we turn off the TV? EH: Oh yeah, not at all. [cross chatter, irrelevant to interview] EH: -- too detailed? SC: No, not at all. GE: Not at all. EH: I think it might be boring. SC: No. The more detail you can give, the better. So let me just take you back for one minute. What was your mother's maiden name? Do you know? EH: It was Ostrovesky. SC: Can you spell that? EH: Yeah. O-S-T-R-O-V-E-S-K-Y. SC: And her family was from Warsaw? EH: Her family was from- first from Pinchov which is P-I-N-C-H-O-T. O-V? O-V or O-T. Pinchov. It was this very small shtetl. And then they moved, I think to Lodz, which was a big community, and my mother worked there in a knitting- she told me, in a knitting factory. They made caps- hats, knitted caps. And then she met my father and they married there, and then moved to Warsaw, which was even a bigger community then. Lodz was a textile community. SC: So it's in your blood a little. EH: Well, by marriage only. Bakery -- the baking business is our business. Okay so where [was I]? SC: You graduated from Moravian. EH: I graduated from Moravian. GE: And you know what? Actually, I'm sorry. One other question. You said that you started meeting- making some Jewish friends, were they people from the Allentown community? EH: Yes, I would go into the Jewish Community Center, at 6th and Chew Street. And there were a lot of, you know, teenager groups. And we did a lot of things as groups in those days. SC: And did you meet your husband there? EH: Yes, my first husband. His name was Marvin Goldberg. And I, well, I married my junior year in- I married him my junior year in college. And four years later, I had my oldest son, Richard. Richard- GE: I'm sorry. Your husband, your first husband, what was his first name? EH: Marvin. GE: Marvin. EH: He was also an Allentonian. And Richard lives across the street from me. SC: Oh, that's nice. EH: Yeah. Okay, so where are we? SC: Your first husband, what business was he in? EH: Um, let's see. He was originally an X-ray technician -- when I married him, he- that's what he was doing in New York. And later, he- I think he worked for his parents for a while. They had a delicatessen in Allentown. All right. So we're now-- GE: So he was working and living in New York City? EH: When I married, when I married him. GE: Right, so did you go to New York City? EH: No, he came back. This little girl didn't want to leave Allentown! I was pretty sheltered, I must say, after being the youngest of five children. GE: So he moved back to Allentown, and he worked in his parents' deli. EH: Yeah, he did that, and I think he also did other jobs. I think maybe in the textile industry. I think he worked for Mishkin for a while. Al Mishkin -- they're cousins by the way. They're first cousins. And let's see, where am I? SC: Let's see, your oldest son. How many children? EH: He has four children. He married his college sweetheart and had four children. And he came into, let's see -- do you want to know his statistics? He-- no, not too much. GE: I don't think he. . . SC: Yeah. And do you have any other children? EH: Yes. I subsequently married Bernie Halperin and it was the Halperin family that worked in the textile business. He was in it. He was-- he manufactured, had a clothing factory in Slatington. In the interim, I taught at the Jewish Community Center in the . . . as a nursery school teacher for about seven years, and I did a little teaching for the Jewish Day School, too. SC: Did your first husband pass away or did you divorce? EH: We divorced. My second husband passed away. GE: How long were you married to Marvin Goldberg? EH: I think about 10 years. SC: And did you have any other children together? EH: Just one. SC: Just Richard. And then you taught at . . . EH: I taught at the Jewish Community Center, and the reason I did that, I didn't go into public schools, was I wanted to have the same holidays off. Ricky was going to the Jewish Day School and I didn't want to leave him with babysitters, and they weren't that available, so I chose some institution where I would have the same holidays off and I could, you know, be with him. So I taught there for seven years, although I was really overqualified, I felt it was important that I raise my child myself. SC: So when did you meet. . . .? EH: Oh, I got a Masters too, in the interim. In-- I got a Master of Science in Education from Temple University after oh, I don't know how many years -- Ricky was about six I think, or seven when I, you know, did get my Masters. Okay, now where are we? SC: Then you met Mr. Halperin? EH: Yes, we married. And we weren't married very long before he died. Yeah. And I, I was now-- had a 12 year old and a new baby, Jonathan, and I, I didn't see myself-- How do I go back to teaching public school and leaving two children now? So I chose to go up, although I knew not a thing about the garment industry, I said I see other people in this industry with less talent than I have, so maybe I can make it. So I went up with fresh eyes and I, took me a while because, you know, it took me a year to just adjust myself. But I became very successful there. I guess, fresh eyes and I had a lot of obstacles, but I overcame them. SC: And this was in Slatington with the Halperin family? EH: Not the Halperin family, they had nothing to do with it. It was my husband's factory. He started that factory with one of the Senderowitzs. GE: This is Bernie started it. EH: Bernie. He started that, I don't know what year. I honestly can't remember what year. I have a plaque somewhere. GE: But is this around 1950? 1950 is around when I assume. is Richard about 60? EH: Yes. GE: Okay, so that's around 1950, '51, '52. Right? Around '52. Did Bernie already have the factory? EH: No, it was around. . . .Jonathan was born in '64, so I took over after. Late '64, early '65. GE: And how long did the factory already. . . . was it-? EH: It was there a long time, over twenty years probably. GE: Oh so he and Senderowitz . . . EH: He had been married before. GE: Right. So he and Senderowitz were already in this business for twenty years. EH: No, Senderowitz left the business, and it was my husband's. He bought- they were partners, I think my husband bought him out, and then it was only... But the original name was Halsen, in which was Halperin and Senderowitz. SC: And where was that factory located? EH: In Slatington. SC: It was in Slatington. EH: Yeah. When I took over, there were about 85 people working there. Well it was a pretty daunting -- it was pretty daunting to even think about running it. But I learned fast and my sheltered life was far from sheltered. GE: And Esther, this is around 1965. right? EH: Right. GE: So just to make sure that I understand correctly: So Bernie and one of the Senderowitzs, they started the factory maybe 20 years earlier. But in the meantime, Bernie . . . Senderowitz left, and Bernie- EH: Bernie married. GE: Bernie had bought him out. EH: He had a marriage which was dissolved. GE: Right. And it was just maybe- how many years do you think he was in it himself? Just the last few years? EH: That I can't tell you. I have no idea when they parted. GE: Okay, so this is around 1965, you found yourself being a widow, two children, and you decided to take over, go into the business. EH: Right, right. GE: Okay, great. And there were about eighty-five workers. EH: Then, right. SC: And what did they produce? EH: Well they- the factory produced ladie's slacks, shorts, skirts and bathing suits. We were non-union -- he tried very hard to keep away from the union. Most of the plants in Allentown were unionized, but I soon found that I couldn't get big contracts from non-union places, so I decided it was best if I would unionize because, unless you were a union factory, then ILGWU -- you couldn't get the big runs on styles. So I walked into Ike Gordon's ILG- I don't know if you ever heard that name. GE: I know ILGWU. EH: Right, well he was the head of the union. I walked in and said, "I'd like you to unionize my factory." He almost dropped dead. And he said, "Are you sure, Esther?" I said, "I'm totally sure." "Are you positive?" I said, "I am totally positive." "Well, why?" I said, "Because I need big manufacturers like Bobby Brooks." And oh, I'm trying to think-- Bobby Brooks. I'm trying to think who the other- but really big manufacturers could give me a big lots to sew. So we were just sewing contractors. And the only way you could make any money was if you weren't changing your styles constantly, having to teach the girls new methods. And then I put in a lot of work aids, which most other factories didn't do. GE: Say that again -- a lot of what? EH: Work aids for the sewing machine operators. GE: And what does a work aid do, what does it mean? EH: Well, in other words, I would have on their machines automatic cutters that would cut the thread instead of them picking up a scissors and having to cut it and then- So I pursued that area and I became pretty well-automated throughout the factory because I felt that was the wave of the future. You could only get them to produce more if they were able to produce more. And I was one of the first in the area to do that, to highly-automate the factory. SC: Did that change your work clientele? Ethnically or- EH: No. The clientele- SC: Meaning the operators. EH: Oh no, they were all the same operators -- or I. . . there was constant turnover in the industry. Yeah, Some would go, some would come back, some would get pregnant, Some would come back. There was a constant turnover. But I am I- I really studied the whole thing and I decided where I could make us- how I could make a success of this. In fact, I produced more out of my factory with X amount of girls than most factories in the area did. And the union came in and they audited my books and stayed and watched the production maybe for three or four days because they thought I was cooking the books because I was, I was producing more than anybody else. GE: Your productivity was very high. EH: Yeah. And they thought I- so I opened the books and I said, "stay here and watch, see what I'm doing." And they stayed four days and then they left. But I must admit that probably because I was a novice and didn't do things the way they were always done, that I was successful in this business. So I looked for change and I got it and I really liked what I was doing very, very much. And I did a lot of physical work myself. I had two kids to support and instead of having a lot of middle management, I was top management and lots of times middle management. So I physically worked on the as well as ran the business. SC: Which historically- EH: Was not the way it was. SC: No, but the people who did stay involved in the business and didn't farm out the middle, management jobs really do better because- GE: Well you're in touch. SC: You're in touch with everything. EH: Oh yeah, I saw what the problems were. I managed the finishing department, which was the inspecting, the pressing, the hanging and bagging and the tail end of the- I managed that floor as well as running the business. SC: So you had your hands on quality control? EH: I did. Yeah, as well as going up and sort of supervising my supervisor upstairs. I really worked very hard. I walked- worked sometimes 12 hours a day. SC: Did you have only one shift or did you have more than one shift? EH: I used to have two shifts, but I soon found it wasn't very productive and I stopped. Then I only did one shift. SC: Where did you workers come from? Did they come mostly-? EH: That area -- Slatington, Palmerton, Walnutport. That whole area. SC: And were they more of, ethnically, Pennsylvania Dutch or Eastern European? EH: They were a mixture, yeah, they were a mixture. Mostly there were a lot of Welsh in that area and a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch, a lot, and some Slovish or, you know, Polish and Slavic groups. And it wasn't easy. They didn't like having a woman boss in the beginning. GE: Did that- did that then get better? EH: Well my mechanic -- the mechanic said he didn't know whether he could work for a woman. So I said, "Give it a try. " SC: Was he Pennsylvania Dutch? I shouldn't have asked that. GE: Did the women also give you a hard time or was it more the men? EH: Well, we only had two men. One was a shipper and one was a mechanic. Then Ricky came into the business and he was the industrial engineer. No, I think women sort of resented it in the beginning, too, because most factories had men as the head of the- But, you know, I made very good friends with them. I was their financier, and you know, when they needed money, I would give them my own money. And sometimes I'd get it back, sometimes I didn't. I had to hear all their stories, but I had a lot of empathy for them. I really felt... Pretty horrible because I felt their work was dehumanizing and I- they sat there like a robot all day long and did the same thing, did the same operation, and it was hard work. GE: Absolutely. EH: And I was sensitive to that. And I tried not to be an exploiter. I did everything I could to make life as easy for them -- I air conditioned the place, I put in a system that would clean the air so they weren't breathing all the dust and the lint from- So I did the best to make their workplace comfortable and healthy. I did. And I did empathize with the fact that that was the only way they could make a living. I did. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Esther Halperin, July 17th, 2012
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Esther Halperin talks about how she became a successful sewing contractor due to financial necessity. Esther’s husband died suddenly, leaving her with two children to support. Esther decided to operate her husband’s factory in Slatington even though at the time she knew nothing about the business. As a woman owner back in the early 1960s, she faced many obstacles-- from employees who didn’t want to work for a woman, to customers who didn't want to buy from a woman. Esther persevered and conquered these challenges to run a successful sewing contracting business for about twenty-five years.
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LVTNT-16
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2012-07-17
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Irwin Salitsky
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5.4 May 26th, 2011 Irwin and Claire Salitsky, May 26th, 2011 LVTNT-02 2:08:03 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Irwin Salitsky Claire Salitsky Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SalitskyIrwin_Claire_20110526.mp4 1.0:|25(15)|58(6)|73(4)|104(2)|127(11)|152(4)|165(12)|182(13)|197(16)|214(10)|229(13)|244(9)|267(7)|284(10)|299(6)|316(5)|335(7)|350(9)|365(15)|390(3)|415(7)|450(12)|475(16)|506(2)|539(4)|560(15)|591(3)|620(4)|649(7)|668(2)|691(6)|712(8)|739(2)|760(5)|785(2)|806(2)|837(13)|880(6)|903(9)|920(12)|941(7)|960(3)|993(3)|1008(15)|1023(10)|1044(4)|1061(6)|1086(2)|1103(12)|1122(8)|1137(9)|1166(11)|1191(4)|1208(9)|1237(9)|1258(10)|1273(5)|1288(4)|1309(5)|1328(12)|1353(6)|1376(7)|1395(8)|1422(3)|1445(9)|1464(7)|1485(18)|1512(10)|1531(15)|1550(12)|1571(6)|1596(4)|1627(7)|1652(11)|1673(17)|1702(10)|1719(7)|1736(3)|1753(7)|1770(11)|1795(11)|1814(8)|1837(3)|1856(7)|1871(8)|1888(7)|1915(10)|1934(14)|1959(7)|1976(16)|1999(7)|2022(11)|2059(5)|2084(14)|2107(12)|2132(15)|2157(7)|2180(7)|2225(5)|2262(8)|2287(3)|2308(8)|2331(13)|2360(4)|2383(6)|2400(13)|2429(2)|2456(7)|2485(3)|2520(12)|2545(14)|2570(2)|2605(12)|2640(8)|2669(4)|2696(16)|2721(2)|2742(16)|2765(9)|2784(15)|2813(10)|2838(2)|2861(7)|2880(10)|2899(19)|2922(10)|2949(8)|2978(10) 0 https://youtu.be/WTiPcTtC44A YouTube video 0 Introduction—Irwin Salitsky SCB: Today is-
 ; 
 ; GE: May 26th.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yeah. Today is May 26th, 2011, and we are at an- an interview for the Lehigh Valley Sewing Needle-Trades Oral History Project. That’s what we’re calling it at the moment. So, would you tell me your full name?
 ; 
 ; IS: Irwin Salistky, NMI: “No Middle Initial.”
 ; 
 ; SCB: And would you spell it for me just for the future? Because everything I ask, it seems really stupid, it's just for people in the future.
 ; 
 ; IS: Do you want to read that? It gives you a feeling of the...
 ; 
 ; SCB: I will after, I can, I will afterwards. Yeah. So would you spell your name?
 ; 
 ; IS: I-R-W-I-N S-A-L-I-T-S-K-Y
 ; 
 ; SCB: And also, we are going to be putting you into some kind of personal context. Where were you born? And-
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 ; IS: Brooklyn, New York.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Do you know the street? Do you know the region?
 ; 
 ; IS: Peck Memorial Hospital, which has been eliminated since. No longer there.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Do you know where your parents lived when you were born?
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, Empire Boulevard, three blocks from where now my grandson lives. 0 108 1932: Salitsky Family Moves from Brooklyn, NY to Allentown, PA SCB: And what year did you come?
 ; 
 ; IS: 1932.
 ; 
 ; SCB: To- And that was to Allentown?
 ; 
 ; IS: Pardon?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Is that your birthday or was that to Allentown?
 ; 
 ; IS: No, what it is- Not only did my parents or my father come, but a lot of the garment industries for some reason or other formed in 1932. It was a great time to leave the city, because of what you'll read later. And we started with nothing. I remember they- My father couldn't afford a car ; his partner, Izzy Weinstein had a car, an old Packard. It was in such bad shape that the door wouldn't stay closed, I remember seeing it, and they had the door tied with a piece of rope around the window frame. They came with my Uncle Morris, who was our family accountant. His- He came from New Jersey and his firm grew into the largest accounting firm in the state of New Jersey.
 ; 
 ; SCB: What part of New Jersey?
 ; 
 ; IS: Asbury Park.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And so, you moved when you were four and your brother was one to Allentown?
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 ; IS: We lived on that street, we moved to 231 South West Street. We lived there for ten years until my father could afford to buy a house, which was ten years later, and made their money during the war. 0 255 Irwin's Father—Cutter and Marker in the Garment Industry IS: I educated myself a great deal more than my father did. He never knew how to sew, never cared to learn. He was happy running the cutting room and making markers—that's laying out the patterns for the best yield possible. And he did the paperwork reporting to the manufacturer what the result was of a spread. In other words, the manufacturer had a rough idea of what the yield should be, based on the total yardage that he sent. They would send us the fabric and we would make a marker based on the width and the type of fabric, because the different fabrics had to be done differently. For example, there is such a thing as a one-way pattern where all- it's a print, where all of the patterns had to go in one direction, and that takes more of a yield. There are a lot of tricks to the trade. I'll- Well, I’ll go over some of them with you. 0 347 Irwin's Education SCB: Where were you educated?
 ; 
 ; IS: Educated- I graduated from Allentown High School in 1945. I always had an addiction for flying. So, I was in touch with Parks Air College which is now a part of St. Louis University. And it's in East St. Louis, a shayna [Yiddish for pretty] town you never saw. And this was twenty miles south of East St. Louis. I was a little snot nose kid of 17 and it started July 1st of 1945. It was on a trimester basis. We left, it was funny, we always took a vacation July 4th because that's when the annual vacation for the garment industry was, when the mills were closed and you had a compulsory 2-week vacation. So I got there three days late, because I was up at the Concord, which is in the- in the Borscht Belt. 
 ; 
 ; GE: In the Catskills.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; IS: I left by a Jitney into Penn Station ; we had a reservation at Penn Station for a non-stop train into St. Louis. It didn't stop in East St. Louis which is across the Mississippi, I was- East St. Louis is in Illinois. I- They knew I was going to be late. Classes started July 1st, 1945 and I was still, in July 4th, at the Concord chasing the waitresses. But it was a great experience. 0 923 1945: Irwin Leaves Parks Air College to Join the Family Business IS: So I thought my future was all laid out. But this was in 1945 and it was after the war and my father's business was very good. And I liked it because I went into the factory from age 16 over the summer and I had my own checking account, money wasn't a problem with my family at that time. We had- They had bought a house, took them 10 years but they had finally accumulated enough money to buy this house on 27th and Washington. And I lived there until we got married.
 ; 
 ; GE: So so, you didn’t stay- You didn't graduate from school?
 ; 
 ; IS: No. I- I found out- They had representatives of the various corporations would come on campus, and what they were offering in salary, I would blow in a weekend. So I said, “What am I doing? I'm going to knock my brains out for what?” 0 1005 Jewish Fraternities SCB: For the future, “AZA”, what- what is that? 
 ; 
 ; GE: It's a Jewish- It’s a Jewish-
 ; 
 ; IS: This was a Jewish high school fraternity. It was- We were competitors with AZA. AZA is still active- active. Sigma Alpha Rho, my fraternity, was mainly out of Philadelphia and a lot of the conventions were there and it was, it was- We had a great time. I- I kept saying how lucky I am, growing up in Allentown, maturing with my friends. 0 1047 Early Courtship with Claire IS: At this time when I came home, Claire lived- I was in 27th and Washington, Claire was in 27th and Greenleaf, down the back alley. I needed some surgery for I had a hernia when I came home, and I wanted to take care of it because I kept it in case I was called up for service, which I didn't want to do, go into the service. When I turned 18 in November of that year, I had to go to Chicago because everybody in Illinois had to go to the recruiting station in Chicago. So that was an overnight train deal. I found that, after all the problems, they didn't want to take me because of a hernia, but it was operable. So I waited ‘til I came home and I made- my mother and I made arrangements with a- a urologist in Allentown and I had it taken care of. All of a sudden I'm in the hospital, and I’m lying in bed, and who should come to visit me? Claire. She brought her girlfriend with me- with her because she didn't want to make it too obvious.
 ; 
 ; CLAIRE SALISTSKY: But I had gone out with you already.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yeah, I had dated her. Well, some of the detail you’ll remember better than I.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So you weren’t ever drafted, even though it went to the Korean War years?
 ; 
 ; IS: No, no. I got- I got married in ‘48 and had a child in ‘49. So I was a- I was a husband and a father and that was that.
 ; 
 ; CS: We went to Muhlenberg
 ; 
 ; IS: I went to Muhlenberg for- for 6 months. 0 1329 Recreational Activities at the Jewish Community Center, 1930s-40s IS: One thing about growing up in Allentown, you couldn't lie about your age. Everybody knew everybody else, and what they didn't know they tried to dig up. But growing up was great because the Jewish Community Center was very active. I lived on South West Street for ten years, West and Fairview. All I had to do was walk up to Hamilton Street, take a trolley car—they worked- they worked on Hamilton Street—to 6th street, and if I was lazy, I would take a transfer, get a northbound trolley that would leave me off at Chew Street or I could walk four blocks to the center.
 ; 
 ; GE: Where was it located? 6th and Chew?
 ; 
 ; IS: 6th and Chew, the old center.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Right and then that became the Negro Cultural Center?
 ; 
 ; CS: That's right.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And now it's the Housing- Housing and Health Center, yeah.
 ; 
 ; IS: But it was great because they had Sunday afternoon dances ; they had a jukebox, and we had an active man, George Feldman, who did a fantastic job of being the director. There were many meetings held, they had a restaurant there for a while, a kosher restaurant. AZA and Sigma Alpha Rho had a meeting room by itself on the third floor.
 ; 0 1445 1948: Marriage to Claire IS: So I guess that about sums up my high school, except that, well I might as well swing into getting married. I was- wasn't even 21, but I had sown my wild oats. And Claire was 19 going on 20 in July.
 ; 
 ; CS: No. How old are you?
 ; 
 ; IS: I got two years on you.
 ; 
 ; CS: How old are you? 
 ; 
 ; IS: Eighty-three.
 ; 
 ; CS: And how old am I? 
 ; 
 ; IS: Eighty-one.
 ; 
 ; CS: And how long are we married?
 ; 
 ; IS: Sixty-two years.
 ; 
 ; CS: Yes, so how old was I?
 ; 
 ; IS: Nineteen, you were, weren't you? Eighteen. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Yeah, I was 19 that month, two weeks later.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yeah, you were 18 when we got married July 4th because the mills were closed.
 ; 
 ; SC: The factories were closed.
 ; 
 ; IS: And her birthday is July 16th, so she was two weeks short of being 19.Is that right? Okay. We got married in New York because the Temple wasn't built yet and we had a big wedding. 0 1585 First Home and Neighbors After Marriage IS: When we got married, Schnitzer built those apartments at 18th and Hamilton on the northwest- the northeast corner, those two separate buildings.
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, right by the synagogue? Right by the little synagogue.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, a block away.
 ; 
 ; CS: And I used to walk up with him. He'd walk me- He’d make me walk every day to the temple and we'd walk through-
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 ; IS: We would check the progress of the building.
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 ; CS: And then come back at 4:30 and take me back to see what they did during the day.
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 ; IS: It was a ball living there because it was a prime apartment. My next- across the hall neighbor was Max Stetner and his father, who was a widower ; and Jerry Bright who was a few years older than me and lived across the hall. His mother’s and all my friends- We had Anne a year later. They would all come and play with her, because I was the first one married, even though I was the youngest of my immediate group. Murray Goodman, the multimillionaire, still lived with his parents, and Murray was a builder in Florida. 0 1728 Salitsky Children and Grandchildren IS: And fortunately my daughter—you could wake up in the middle of the night and she was always happy, had a smile, never cried. It was funny when- This was a one bedroom apartment and when we'd go to bed, her crib was in the bedroom with us, and I got a kick out of- We were lying in bed and we'd hear her rustling. Then two little hands would appear on the railing, and then a- a blonde head with real curly hair and big blue eyes would show up. And she just was curious, and she was always that way, even to this day. She would never go and join in playing with anybody until she sat and watched and decided that she wanted to go in because she would never wanted to make a fool out of herself. Even from her childhood days, she was always that way. She went to the right school and thank God they were all right, all right kids.
 ; 
 ; GE: Your daughter's name?
 ; 
 ; IS: Anne. Anne Eleanor. And she was born in 1949. I timed it right—they were all two years apart. In ‘50- ‘51, Irene Vivian was born. She was the first girl admitted to Lafayette [College] when it became co-ed.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh wow.
 ; 
 ; IS: And was the first girl to be Phi Beta Kappa at Lafayette. Her daughter went to the Johns Hopkins, also Phi Beta Kappa. 0 1941 Family Businesses: Clyde Shirt and Highland Sportswear SCB: Could we move on to your- your- the business and a couple of things to think about: Who started the business? And we sort of have some of that on here, but maybe we should have it together. Did they own or manage the business? How did they become connected to the business? So-
 ; 
 ; IS: Well, they were partners in New York before they came to Allentown to escape the union. And they started almost at the time that Billera’s formed the pants factory in Northampton.
 ; 
 ; GE: Who- Who’s Billera? 
 ; 
 ; IS: Huh?
 ; 
 ; GE: You said Billera started the pants—who is that, that's a company?
 ; 
 ; CS: The Billera family.
 ; 
 ; IS: Four or five brothers that were tailors in Italy. And they started Clyde Shirt, which was the four story building. Clyde Shirt was- My Father and Izzy Weinstein, they were on the first and fourth floor. Universal Pants, there were two brothers who ran that, in the second and third floor. Then, further west, they started- they made only pants, but they started a, a—what the hell’s the name of that? 
 ; 
 ; CS: Joey’s father?
 ; 
 ; IS: No. I had it this morning. A clothing business where they made jackets and suits and sport jackets. That was at 21st Street and Main Street in Northampton.
 ; 
 ; CS: And did you have a plant there too?
 ; 
 ; IS: When- When- When Weinstein and my father, shortly after they started Clyde Shirt, business was good, so they started Highland Sportswear in Allentown. 0 2139 Relationships with the Villager and Ladybug Companies in Philadelphia IS: So we were able to make different kind of garments, for example, we made shirts, and if you were from Philadelphia you would know them—Villager and Ladybug, do you remember them?
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes, I do remember them.
 ; 
 ; IS: We were their chief- Most of their-
 ; 
 ; CS: We used to stay at their house. Norman Raab.
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 ; IS: When Norman Raab needed contractors, he came to Allentown and stayed at my parents’ house! And we were lucky, we got their-
 ; 
 ; GE: And that was- that was a Philadelphia firm. I've heard the name, definitely.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And they had an outlet in Telford.
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 ; IS: They made everything. They made purses, they made raincoats, they made shoes.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Huge outlet in Telford, I’ve seen it.
 ; 
 ; GE: Did you know, you know now that you’re saying it, I think it was related to that—my father had a cousin named Bernie Rutberg, and he’s about your age, a little older than you actually. And after- during the war, I think he worked for somebody, then after the war, he went into making dresses, and I thought it was Villager.
 ; 
 ; CS: Probably. 
 ; 
 ; IS: Yeah, they made dresses too. 0 2346 Irwin's Role in the Family Businesses SCB: [W]hat was your role in the business when you came back home and worked for your father?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh I- I imitated my father. We had a good marker maker. But I decided to educate myself much further just in case. And I took- learned pattern making. They would give me a sample garment which was usually a medium- a medium and I would grade a small from it, a large, a medium-large, an extra-large, you know, how to operate it. I used a spec sheet—a specification sheet—and I would enlarge the length or I’d you know, I'd make the patterns. 0 2401 1960s: Irwin Leaves the Family Buisness/Salitsky and Weinstein Families Split the Business Partnership IS: And it served me well because my father and I got into a bruha one time and I had to go around knocking on doors looking for a job. So what had happened, I applied- I knocked on all of the doors I knew in Allentown which a lot of my friends owned businesses. Only one of them would say, "Irwin, I don't want to hire a friend. What do you do if it don’t work out—how do you fire a friend?" So I read the handwriting on the wall. And I- did I get a job locally? I don’t think so. 
 ; 
 ; CS: What?
 ; 
 ; IS: I didn't work locally at all, did I?
 ; 
 ; CS: No, you went to New York.
 ; 
 ; IS: I- My friend- Nate Braunstein made belts and he subscribed to Women's Wear Daily, so he would save me all of the issues. That was the Bible of the sewing business. And I would borrow his old copies and I would check the ads in the back and I would call and make appointments for an interview. Now I never led on that I was calling from Pennsylvania because I rightfully figured that they didn’t want to hire anybody that had to travel that distance. But I did it for probably about five, six years or more. I would get up at 5 in the morning. I was on the road at 5 in the morning, I’m sorry. And I would get there about 7:30 a.m. We would work from about 8 to 12, 15 minutes for lunch ; but we would quit at 4, so it took me a couple of hours at 4, I was home by 6-6:30. It was just like working here, but a lot more mileage on the car. 0 2912 Highland Sportswear Customers—Government Contracts and Villager IS: At Highland we were so diversified, and I didn't mention this before, we made army shirts, we made blouses for the WAVES—white with a Peter Pan collar—the WAVES of the navy girls. We made raincoats with a hood for the women's air force. We even made shirts for the Florida Highway Patrol. 
 ; 
 ; SCB: So you made government contracts?
 ; 
 ; IS: We had government contracts for marine corps shirts with the epaulets, the whole schmear. And we did army shirts, too. And in between we did blouses, which were seasonal, and when that wasn't busy, we made shirts. We had a backbone of Villager because they were always busy, they had two basic styles—a Peter Pan collar, or like a dress collar, long and short sleeves but the patterns were all the same. 0 2985 Overcuts IS: Now the secret of our business was overcuts. That is the ability to make a marker, laying out the patterns, better than they figure that they can do. The way we did this, we’d get the piece goods in, let’s say 60 inch goods. We had a 60 inch- one table was about 66 inches wide so that we could spread wide goods. But- Butting into it was 48 inch table for 45 inch goods. This we learned over time, I mean I make it sound like it’s nothing. But doing it, for example, if we got piece goods in and maybe ten percent of the piece goods were 42 inches wide, the rest were 40 inches. So we took the time and trouble to remake a marker for that extra width. And we were able to have a higher yield. And-
 ; 
 ; GE: So-so with this overcuts, what you're saying that the profit margin is very much if you can get a higher yield?
 ; 
 ; IS: Right.
 ; 
 ; GE: You’ll get a little more production out of it.
 ; 
 ; IS: Right, and then sell them on the open market for cash.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, okay. So in other words, if you're supposed to make 95 for the manufacturer, if you're able to make 100, then the other 5 you can sell?
 ; 
 ; IS: Right. I mean...
 ; 
 ; CS: It’s how flea markets operate.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And would that have been also labeled as Villager or not?
 ; 
 ; IS: Mainly Villager because I had a traveling salesman who we were friendly with, who traveled all the way out to Central Pennsylvania. And I made him promise that do not sell any retail establishment in a city that has Villager on the label, that sells Villager, because it will blow my business there, they would cut me out. And they could tell by the markings on the boxes where it came from, you know, we stamped the lot number, the style number, the size, you know. So fortunately, we didn’t get caught. 0 3421 Irwin Moves to Albany, GA Seeking Work in the Garment Industry After Leaving the Family Business IS: But I was conscientious, I was never late, I was always there on time. But when things got slow, it was like a one-dimensional kind of thing and I was the latest hire and they could supervise a cutting room without me. I even went down South—one of the ads I saw was a big company in- outside Albany, Georgia, near Peanut Country. And I went to New York, the owner worked in- out of New York in the sales room. They made athletic wear, matching pants and jackets with different fabric.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Like a sweatsuit?
 ; 
 ; IS: Like athletic jogging suits. Like a jogging suit kind of.
 ; 
 ; GE: Now are we in the 1970s at this point?
 ; 
 ; SCB: We should be, yeah.
 ; 
 ; IS: About then, yeah. So I went to New York and explained my background and he said, “Irwin, you're hired. Go down, find a place to live,” and he always had a motel in Albany because where the plant was—about 20 miles northeast—it was in a very rural area. So we could talk while we're going to work together, you know. He- He would go down every six weeks or so. And the plant manager was a Jewish guy, was a Kochalech [Yiddish-- possibly a shortened version of kochleffel, a pot stirrer]. He was in charge of the plant and was used to doing things his own way, and I let it go at that. I mean I- He didn't bother me, this was a tremendous cutting room. It was about eight cutting tables. 0 3843 Irwin's Education and Community Values (cont'd) IS: Before my time, then they had three junior high schools—Raub, Central, and Harrison-Morton. Harrison-Morton was down around 3rd Street, where all the Hispanics and Blacks went, the poorer families. Central was around 9th and Liberty, somewhere around there. 
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 ; CS: Linden.
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 ; IS: And that was for what I called the Jewish middle class. There were few Jews there, but it was working class people who worked in the downtown area. Raub was in the western end. It was the most- for the most wealthier citizens, most of the Jewish kids went to Raub. And-
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 ; GE: Where did you go?
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 ; IS: To Raub. I went to Raub for first through ninth grade. And I walked, it was within walking distance of where I lived. But as I said, it was a- It was annoying at the time, but when I look back now, it was a great advantage. For example, we- we didn’t need the- the Gentiles ; we had our own clique, our own friends. I had a high school fraternity of about 15-18 guys, Jewish friends. AZA was big at that time also. Claire missed out on a lot of that because her father struck it rich early. She lived in a nice area, what I call the deep west end of Allentown. So she missed out, she got her- her growing up through the Center, she was lucky that way. But I got mine on a daily basis, from the people I associated with and where I lived. 0 4364 Relationship to Morris and Lena Senderowitz CS: Morris Senderowitz was a great benefactor of Muhlenberg.
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 ; GE: Oh, was he?
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 ; CS: And he was a very good friend of the families. He lived at 18th and Hamilton Street, and Morris got the boys into Muhlenberg and Cedar Crest was the same story. Because my trunk went to Rhode Island, I was going to Pembroke, which is part of Brown and I decided I didn’t want to leave my mother. And my mother told me to be honest, if it was that I was Irwin’s, say it. So she- I said well, I’d rather stay in Allentown. So Lena Senderowitz, we got a phone call, and she was on the board at Cedar Crest, and I went to Cedar Crest.
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 ; SC: Well that’s a good segue. 0 4505 Introduction—Claire Salitsky SCB: So Claire, I’d like to ask you what your full name is and more about your family background, a little bit more about your family background. But let’s- let’s talk a little bit about where your family came from. 
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 ; CS: Oh, I have that inside. Irwin, on the table there’s that paper from Anne, you know, our oldest daughter. I mean, from Alison, our oldest granddaughter, is very interested in genealogy, so I gave her all the records I had and she- she gave me where they came from.
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 ; SCB: Well, let me just ask you, what is your full name, when were you born, and where were you born?
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 ; CS: My full name is Claire Joy Wiener Salitsky. 
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 ; IS: W-I-E-N-E-R.
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 ; CS: And I was born in Paterson, New Jersey, July 16th, 1929. My mother’s name was Mary Mendelson Wiener and my father was Louis Wiener. My mother was born in Paterson ; she was one of nine children who grew up ; there were fifteen originally. 0 4565 Claire's Family History CS: My mother’s name was Mary Mendelson Wiener and my father was Louis Wiener. My mother was born in Paterson ; she was one of nine children who grew up ; there were fifteen originally.
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 ; IS: That was before television.
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 ; CS: And she came from a- a very religious, orthodox family, and she was second from the end. I have a picture of them hanging on the wall. My father was born in Poland in a shtetl [Yiddish for small Jewish village in Eastern Europe] called- Ojikauf is the name of the burial society, but he was born in 1907. No, 1903, and he came to this country in 1907. He was the third child in the family. Now, my grand- My father’s family they were- they were silk weavers. They lived in the shtetl near “Lodz” [Claire pronounces it LODZ]. Lodz was a silk weaving- 
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 ; GE: Lodz [pronounced LUDJ]? I think that’s Lodz. 
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 ; CS: Yes, and they lived in- According to what was found, they lived in- they called it D-O-L-Y-S-Z-I-N. But they called it Russia. Now Lodz was Lodz at that point, you know the boundaries were constantly changing. You didn’t know. My grandmother’s maiden name was Warshawsky. Now I did get a copy of the marriage thing. And her husband, my grandfather’s name was Joel Robilinsky. Okay. In order to get out of the country, he- his- my- took his brother-in-law’s army papers. He was out of the army already. And he came to the United States with his brother-in-law’s army pass. His brother-in-law’s name was Joel—“Yo’el”, Yo’el, whatever—something like Wiener. 0 4771 1987: The Salitskys Seek Family History in Russia SC: My mother’s family, my grandfather, came from a shtetl named Barstitzti, B-A-R-S-T-I-T-Z-T-I, near—I knew it as Lithuania. 
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 ; GE: Right, right now, Vilna, Vilna. 
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 ; CS: Vilna. It was right near Vilna, because when I went to Russia the first time, I went on to Lithuania, and all I could- there I heard- I found anti-Semitism. Terrible. The bus driver wouldn’t take us. There was a group of Jewish girls on the trip. 
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 ; GE: When was this around?
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 ; CS: The first time I went to Russia was 19- When did I open my travel agency? 1980? Your 60th birthday, how old are- how- When was that? 1929… 1989. 
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 ; IS: [19]87.
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 ; CS: Eighty- 1987, it was around then. And they wouldn’t take us, and we got a cab, and I took my sister-in-law who had never been out of the country with me to Russia. My father almost had a bird that the two of us were going where they had struggled to get out. I found it fascinating. 0 4866 Claire's Family History (cont'd) CS: They lived near Vilna and he was a farmer there. When he came to the United States, he came first in ‘04 and she- and he came over in 1896 and she followed in 19- 1897 with one, two, let’s see… The three sons, the one daughter, four of the kids, and every year she had another- another child. But he started out as a huckster guy, and then he got involved in the building business. And he became—as I never found this out, I mean, I knew he owned tenement buildings, because every Friday at three o’clock when we got out of school, we got in the car and we went to Slatington, where my father’s factory was, to pick up my father and he’d drive to Paterson because we had to get there before Shabbos [Yiddish for Sabbath]. And we would come home Sunday night. So on Sundays I would go with my cousin and we would collect the rent. To me it was fun! We went in and out of these buildings on- And there were blocks of them. I- I didn’t know from anything. And- But years later, in Florida, I met somebody and he happened to admire what I was wearing. It was a Valentine’s Day party and I was wearing something red. And he said to me, where are you from? And I said from Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I said where are you from? He said Paterson, New Jersey. I said, oh, I was born there. Oh! Well what did you, you know, what is your name? We go through this whole thing and it ended up he had bought my aunt’s house. And, you know, he said, your grandfather was William Mendelson. I said, yes. He said he gave a lot of money to charity but he was a slum landlord. 0 5293 Louis Weiner's Silk Weaving Business CS: My father was in business with his father in Paterson when the Depression hit. 
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 ; SCB: What kind of business was that?
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 ; CS: He was in the silk weaving business. 
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 ; SCB: He was in the silk weaving business, yeah.
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 ; CS: And he had- He- He couldn’t make it and so he knew he was going to have to go bankrupt. And he went to his father-in-law and he explained the situation. And his father-in-law and his two brothers, two of the three brothers-in-laws agreed he should go through bankruptcy, it wouldn’t hurt. My father went to a stranger who gave- lent him the money to pay all his bills. And he had this opportunity, I don’t know how he heard about it, but there was an empty factory in Slatington. And he- He went- He came here and he was able to make a deal with the city of Slatington, and he was just very fortunate. He- he had- He had when he came here a partner from Paterson, an older man, whose last name was also Wiener, but was spelled W-E-I-N-E-R. And he had a son named Jack who he had- He wanted his son to learn the business so my father- He came along and he was married. He wanted to live in Slatington, my father would not allow my mother- My mother- He thought my mother would want to stay in Paterson and he’d come home weekends. Well, my mother was told by her mother, you go with your husband. And so she came, and she- they lived in Allentown at 2445 Union Street. 0 5772 For Years, Mary Wiener Pays the Dairy Bill for Local Jewish Families Who are Less Fortunate CS: Oh, it was a Triumvirate. Mitchell Katz, he was the family doctor, Rabbi William Greenburg, and Nettie Klass, Mrs. Aaron Klass. And they would find these people who needed help.
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 ; GE: Now is this like the 1950s?
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 ; CS: Oh this is- I’m married 63 years.
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 ; IS: [19]49 or ‘48. Early ‘50s.
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 ; CS: And it was- All I know is, when she went to Florida, she [my mother] said to me, “I’m leaving you signed checks for Freeman’s dairy.” I said for what? She said, “Well,” she says, “I pay for milk for people, and so I want you, you know, to pay the bill.” I said all right. But you know, this went on year after year after year. And one day, I walked- I was then already involved with the Federation, and I asked George Feldman—well then it was called UJA—I asked him, the executive director of the Center and the UJA, I said, “I- I have to ask you something, Mr. Feldman. My mother is buying milk for all these people.” I said, “Do you know—do they still have little children?” And he looked at me and he said, “No.” He said, “Really I should tell Mary to stop.” So I said, “Well, I’m going to tell Mary, I’m not-” Do you know she got mad at me? And she said you will continue and I will continue while I’m alive. If they don’t need it, maybe their children need it. 0 6033 Claire's Childhood and Education in Allentown, PA CS: Well anyway, we grew up ; I walked- I used to walk to school from 25th and Union to the Raub School. I mean when I think about it today, that our parents could let us walk that distance, and it was a- and our neighborhood was gentile. Across the street was a Rumberger family and they were wonderful. I grew up with Janet Rumberger. And we had an empty lot next to the house, my father got permission from the city to clear it. And he put toys out there, you know, kids’ things. But unfortunately, older kids would come and trash it, so my father took it down, took down the toys and that was it. But that’s where we lived. And- Well the Samuels family lived a block away and they were very nice to my parents when they moved here. And then when I was in third grade, I remember it was my parents’ fifteenth wedding anniversary, we moved to the house 2710 Greenleaf Street. And I used to go to school with Ruthie Rappaport, there were very few Jewish kids in the Muhlenberg School. 
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 ; GE: Very few?
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 ; CS: Very few. And- But I guess- My- My childhood memories of Allentown were wonderful. I think this is a wonderful place for kids to grow up. I was happy here, I mean- and then I went to Raub Junior High, and then I went to Allen- It was Allentown High School in those days. 0 6642 The Hess Family (Owners of Hess's Department Store) as Neighbors SCB: So, were your parents good friends of the Hesses?
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 ; CS: Pardon me?
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 ; SCB: Were your parents good friends of the Hesses?
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 ; IS: Nobody really was good friends with the Hesses. 
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 ; CS: Well Max Hess lived on Livingston Street at- at 27th. And he- Richard was his- You see, there was a table in Hess’s patio in the back. A big round table where local businessmen used to eat, the Jewish men. And Max Hess would always join them. And he- I remember once they were working on a thing for the Center, counting Jewish families, and he says you count me, but not my wife and my children. He was married to a gentile woman, Betty Douglass. 0 6889 Louis Weiner's Contributions to the Allentown Jewish Community GE: Going back with your father, Louis Wiener, do you want to tell us a little bit? Because I know he was a major pillar in the community, the Jewish community with the institutions. What were some of the- Was he a president of the synagogue?
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 ; CS: No, he would never be the president. But he was the chairman of the board for umpteen years. And when he gave it up, he felt that it was time for the younger people to take over, he believed strongly in that. And they made him the honorary chairman of the board, which he has- had... 
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 ; IS: He was the driving force for the new building of the new Temple. 
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 ; GE: On 17th and Hamilton?
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 ; IS: Yeah. At that time, Claire and I were just married, and we were living with them until- We didn’t have our own house then. 0 7051 How the Jewish Community Has Grown and Changed Through Its Members Commitment and Philanthropy CS: These men were a different generation. They aren’t like the men of today. Bobby Hammel is like these men. Bobby Hammel is a good- he’s- he’s wonderful. 
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 ; GE: You’re right. Very philanthropic and very community-minded. 
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 ; CS: Yes. These men believed in Rabbi Greenburg. He just drew them in. And he- he felt we needed a bigger synagogue, we had more members, the Hebrew school. I went to Hebrew school at the Lincoln School and confirmation- confirmation class at Greenburg’s house. I was in his first confirmation class and we had up on the Temple of- on 12th and Walnut, I swear the mice used to be running in the cotton. We had one big room. It was awful. So they wanted this. We had the Center, and we needed our synagogue. And these men, they gave from the heart. 
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 ; IS: They were all like Bobby Hammel, but in different stages, it was what they could afford. They had the same ideas like Bobby of being generous and what they could afford and that’s the way most of the men were and that’s the way the Temple was really built. 
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 ; CS: And it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. 0 7328 1970 Bus Accident on Route 22—the Allentown Jewish Community's Response to the Tragedy CS: But you know, we had our center, we had our synagogues, and we had our community. 
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 ; IS: We didn’t have to bother with Gentiles, actually. 
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 ; CS: When we- You know, years and years ago we had that terrible bus accident. 
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 ; GE: I heard about that, I heard.
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 ; CS: That was a terrible, terrible thing.
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 ; GE: This was a bus accident on Route 22, is that the one that you’re saying? 
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 ; CS: It was yeah, out past- 
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 ; GE: It was where it was slippery out by Lafayette.
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 ; CS: It was a terrible bus accident and I know it was a Thursday afternoon. And it was my birthday weekend and my daughter, Joanie was coming home, she was at- went for a summer in Richmond. And she was flying home that weekend. And my- Everything Thursday I was working then for Sandy Zales and Nina. 0 MovingImage Irwin Salitsky talks about how his father (Barney Salitsky) and his partner (Izzy Weinstein) moved the business from New York to Allentown in 1932 to escape the unions. Irwin was four years old. Irwin’s father and his partner started Clyde Shirt and later Highland Sportswear. Irwin loved growing up in Allentown and living in the heart of the Jewish neighborhood [around West and Walnut St.]. Barney Salitsky and Izzy Weinstein were partners for about 40 years. Eventually, when the sons were in the business, the partnership was dissolved.
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 ; Claire Salitsky affectionately talks about the wonderful role models her parents were. Her father was a silk weaver in Paterson, NJ with his father. But when the depression hit, things quickly soured. There was an available factory in Slatington, PA for Claire’s father to purchase but he needed a loan to do so. A veritable stranger gave him the loan and Claire’s father and new partner became very successful. Due to that generosity, Claire’s parents actively helped others in the community who were less fortunate and needed financial assistance.
 ; Interview with Irwin Salitsky, May 26th, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is- GAIL EISENBERG: May 26th. SCB: Yeah. Today is May 26th, 2011, and we are at an- an interview for the Lehigh Valley Sewing Needle-Trades Oral History Project. That's what we're calling it at the moment. So, would you tell me your full name? IRWIN SALISTKY: Irwin Salistky, NMI: "No Middle Initial." SCB: And would you spell it for me just for the future? Because everything I ask, it seems really stupid, it's just for people in the future. IS: Do you want to read that? It gives you a feeling of the... SCB: I will after, I can, I will afterwards. Yeah. So would you spell your name? IS: I-R-W-I-N S-A-L-I-T-S-K-Y SCB: And also, we are going to be putting you into some kind of personal context. Where were you born? And- IS: Brooklyn, New York. SCB: Do you know the street? Do you know the region? IS: Peck Memorial Hospital, which has been eliminated since. No longer there. SCB: Do you know where your parents lived when you were born? IS: Yes, Empire Boulevard, three blocks from where now my grandson lives. GE: Oh, isn't that something? IS: I couldn't wait to get out of Brooklyn and he loves it! Course I was four- four years old at the time, and he was- He was an infant. I am- I was four- No, we came here, I was five, he was one. I'm four years older than him. SCB: And what year did you come? IS: 1932. SCB: To- And that was to Allentown? IS: Pardon? SCB: Is that your birthday or was that to Allentown? IS: No, what it is- Not only did my parents or my father come, but a lot of the garment industries for some reason or other formed in 1932. It was a great time to leave the city, because of what you'll read later. And we started with nothing. I remember they- My father couldn't afford a car ; his partner, Izzy Weinstein had a car, an old Packard. It was in such bad shape that the door wouldn't stay closed, I remember seeing it, and they had the door tied with a piece of rope around the window frame. They came with my Uncle Morris, who was our family accountant. His- He came from New Jersey and his firm grew into the largest accounting firm in the state of New Jersey. SCB: What part of New Jersey? IS: Asbury Park. SCB: And so, you moved when you were four and your brother was one to Allentown? IS: We lived on that street, we moved to 231 South West Street. We lived there for ten years until my father could afford to buy a house, which was ten years later, and made their money during the war. GE: So- So this was an apartment? IS: It was a four- It was a double unit with an upstairs. There were four- four units on South West Street. SCB: Do you remember the number? IS: 231 South West Street. SCB: 231 South West Street. IS: Right. SCB: And where did you live in- IS: 27th and Washington. SCB: Oh, the second one? And when you were in Brooklyn, what- what did your father do when-? IS: He was a cutter. SCB: He was a cutter. IS: I educated myself a great deal more than my father did. He never knew how to sew, never cared to learn. He was happy running the cutting room and making markers--that's laying out the patterns for the best yield possible. And he did the paperwork reporting to the manufacturer what the result was of a spread. In other words, the manufacturer had a rough idea of what the yield should be, based on the total yardage that he sent. They would send us the fabric and we would make a marker based on the width and the type of fabric, because the different fabrics had to be done differently. For example, there is such a thing as a one-way pattern where all- it's a print, where all of the patterns had to go in one direction, and that takes more of a yield. There are a lot of tricks to the trade. I'll- Well, I'll go over some of them with you. SCB: Okay, could we just talk a little bit first about- IS: Oh sure, go ahead. SCB: Also, your- Your educational history. IS: Pardon? SCB: You- How- Where were you educated? IS: Educated- I graduated from Allentown High School in 1945. I always had an addiction for flying. So, I was in touch with Parks Air College which is now a part of St. Louis University. And it's in East St. Louis, a shayna [Yiddish for pretty] town you never saw. And this was twenty miles south of East St. Louis. I was a little snot nose kid of 17 and it started July 1st of 1945. It was on a trimester basis. We left, it was funny, we always took a vacation July 4th because that's when the annual vacation for the garment industry was, when the mills were closed and you had a compulsory 2-week vacation. So I got there three days late, because I was up at the Concord, which is in the- in the Borscht Belt. GE: In the Catskills. SCB: Yeah. IS: I left by a Jitney into Penn Station ; we had a reservation at Penn Station for a non-stop train into St. Louis. It didn't stop in East St. Louis which is across the Mississippi, I was- East St. Louis is in Illinois. I- They knew I was going to be late. Classes started July 1st, 1945 and I was still, in July 4th, at the Concord chasing the waitresses. But it was a great experience. One thing about Allentown--and Claire will bare me out--we loved living in Allentown. You may not be aware of some of the reasons, but in 1932, everybody was new. We had a bunch of fellows that I was friendly with, like Jerry Neff for example. When I tell people that he's been a friend of mine for 70 years, they think I'm crazy. They don't even know their next-door neighbor where they live. But what it did- Having a great group of friends, you mature fast. Claire is two years younger than me, but she was in a different clique. I didn't get together with Claire- Well I'll come to that later on. But we were a different group. In other words, when one guy learned how to jitterbug, we all got to learn. And at the time, I was six feet tall like I am today. And believe it or not, I weigh now what I did then. I used to weigh a little over 200 and now I weigh 165. So, I was able to lie about my age and get away with it. So what had happened--they met me, the grounds- the head groundskeeper met me at the station in St. Louis and brought me to the campus which was in a little village of Cahokia in Illinois. It's a- the scene of a big Monsanto chemical plant. You always got the stink from the chemicals. And what is a kid of 17 do when he doesn't know a soul, never been there before, the first weekend? So I looked up in the telephone book the address of the YMHA or Jewish Community Center. And I got the address and I found out how to get there. I had to take a bus from the campus into East St. Louis, another bus crossing the Mississippi and this, the YMHA, was in West St. Louis. I took another bus there. I had a car which my father sold but really I should have had it there. It annoyed the hell out of me because when my kid brother, who was four years younger, went to college he had a car. I was low man on the totem pole. But anyhow, I go to the YMHA and they had- It was a great deal because Scott Field was an army air base in Illinois about 20 miles from St. Louis. And the Lambert Municipal Airport in St. Louis was a naval training station. They had a lox and bagel deal every Sunday morning for the servicemen who came to the YMHA and they also honored veterans. I'm 17 years old. Nothing- I lied my way all the way through, but I was able to get away with it because I was tall, I even grew a mustache for the occasion. And I come there and who do I see walking in the door? Three of my high school fraternity brothers from Wilkes Barre. We had a high school fraternity in high school, and we had branches in Wilkes Barre, Scranton, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and we always had conventions. GE: Is this like AZA? IS: Well yeah. GE: That type of thing? IS: We were competitors. AZA was there at the Jewish Community Center, where we met. And it helped us mature. I was able to lie about a lot of things. In fact, I was dating a girl--gorgeous, 24 years old--she said, "I would never go out with anybody younger than me." But I lied and I got away with it. Anyhow, one of the guys that I met was Mendy [Yiddish name] Rudolph. The name may not mean anything to you, he ended up being a very well-known basketball referee for professional basketball. And he was still in the army. His father was a basketball referee, he came from Wilkes Barre. And there were a couple other guys that I used to see. And I met- we met girls, and I had lox and bagels, and I'll never forget- This is in July, and it's coming up to November, and I made a sob story that we're gonna have spam for Thanksgiving. So I got myself invited to Thanksgiving dinner by one of the girls there. And I- I had a ball, I really enjoyed it. I learned how to fly, I- I had 5 hours solo in an airplane by myself. But as things went along, I was never that studious. I would say I was above average intelligence, but not- nothing super. What I liked about this school was I hated taking a foreign language in high school and it wasn't a requirement. So that sort of cemented why I would go there ; plus it was a- an accelerated program, a trimester for three years, at which time you graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aeronautical Engineering and an A& ; E Certificate which allowed you to work on airplane engines--I could get a job as a mechanic--and a private pilot's license, that you had to accumulate 25 hours of solo. So I thought my future was all laid out. But this was in 1945 and it was after the war and my father's business was very good. And I liked it because I went into the factory from age 16 over the summer and I had my own checking account, money wasn't a problem with my family at that time. We had- They had bought a house, took them 10 years but they had finally accumulated enough money to buy this house on 27th and Washington. And I lived there until we got married. GE: So so, you didn't stay- You didn't graduate from school? IS: No. I- I found out- They had representatives of the various corporations would come on campus, and what they were offering in salary, I would blow in a weekend. So I said, "What am I doing? I'm going to knock my brains out for what?" SCB: Couple follow-ups. For the future, "AZA", what- what is that? GE: It's a Jewish- It's a Jewish- IS: This was a Jewish high school fraternity. It was- We were competitors with AZA. AZA is still active- active. Sigma Alpha Rho, my fraternity, was mainly out of Philadelphia and a lot of the conventions were there and it was, it was- We had a great time. I- I kept saying how lucky I am, growing up in Allentown, maturing with my friends. At this time when I came home, Claire lived- I was in 27th and Washington, Claire was in 27th and Greenleaf, down the back alley. I needed some surgery for I had a hernia when I came home, and I wanted to take care of it because I kept it in case I was called up for service, which I didn't want to do, go into the service. When I turned 18 in November of that year, I had to go to Chicago because everybody in Illinois had to go to the recruiting station in Chicago. So that was an overnight train deal. I found that, after all the problems, they didn't want to take me because of a hernia, but it was operable. So I waited 'til I came home and I made- my mother and I made arrangements with a- a urologist in Allentown and I had it taken care of. All of a sudden I'm in the hospital, and I'm lying in bed, and who should come to visit me? Claire. She brought her girlfriend with me- with her because she didn't want to make it too obvious. CLAIRE SALISTSKY: But I had gone out with you already. IS: Yeah, I had dated her. Well, some of the detail you'll remember better than I. SCB: So you weren't ever drafted, even though it went to the Korean War years? IS: No, no. I got- I got married in '48 and had a child in '49. So I was a- I was a husband and a father and that was that. CS: We went to Muhlenberg IS: I went to Muhlenberg for- for 6 months. CS: No. IS: Yeah, it was- Wasn't it? Somewhere along three months, whatever. CS: It was longer. IS: Claire, of course, was 19. Not even 19, you were- CS: You went to Muhlenberg and- while I was still in seminary, Moravian Seminary. IS: Yeah, she went to Moravian Seminary. CS: You were- You went to Muhlenberg by two years, Irwin. IS: Yes, two years. Claire was very bright. She had her choice of colleges. Her father was well to do and she could afford any college, but she chose Cedar Crest much to her parents' annoyance, because she didn't want to leave dear old Irwin. SCB: You know, you and Max Hess both left Muhlenberg. IS: Max Hess? SCB: Yes, he came back home from World War II, went to Muhlenberg for a while, and then left Muhlenberg to take over the business. IS: Max Hess lived up the block from- We lived- She lived on Greenleaf Street and 27th Avenue, he lived on 28th Street and- CS: And Livingston. IS: Greenleaf. Not Greenleaf. CS: Livingston. Max Hess lived on Livingston. IS: Livingston Street. GE: Is he a contemporary of yours? CS: No, he was older. IS: No, he was a little older. CS: He- He- He was actually, well he was younger than my father, but they were friends. IS: Yeah. We had the first two- Max Hess and my father-in-law had the first extra large screen television set in the city of Allentown. It was one of those, not a direct tube that large, it was a projection model. GE: Oh my goodness. SCB: Yeah. I was talking about Max Hess Jr., came home and- CS: No, are you- You're talking about his son. SCB: Yes, his son. Came home and went to Muhlenberg College and then dropped out. CS: There were three Max Hesses. IS: Max Hess was Max Hess Jr., actually. That was his real name. His son was I guess the third. CS: Tommy. SCB: Tommy? IS: Tommy. CS: Tommy was his son. Tommy was Anne's age. IS: One thing about growing up in Allentown, you couldn't lie about your age. Everybody knew everybody else, and what they didn't know they tried to dig up. But growing up was great because the Jewish Community Center was very active. I lived on South West Street for ten years, West and Fairview. All I had to do was walk up to Hamilton Street, take a trolley car--they worked- they worked on Hamilton Street--to 6th street, and if I was lazy, I would take a transfer, get a northbound trolley that would leave me off at Chew Street or I could walk four blocks to the center. GE: Where was it located? 6th and Chew? IS: 6th and Chew, the old center. SCB: Right and then that became the Negro Cultural Center? CS: That's right. SCB: And now it's the Housing- Housing and Health Center, yeah. IS: But it was great because they had Sunday afternoon dances ; they had a jukebox, and we had an active man, George Feldman, who did a fantastic job of being the director. There were many meetings held, they had a restaurant there for a while, a kosher restaurant. AZA and Sigma Alpha Rho had a meeting room by itself on the third floor. GE: And this is the 1930s and 1940s? IS: Yes, in- Well in- CS: The '30s even. Late '30s into '40s. IS: So I guess that about sums up my high school, except that, well I might as well swing into getting married. I was- wasn't even 21, but I had sown my wild oats. And Claire was 19 going on 20 in July. CS: No. How old are you? IS: I got two years on you. CS: How old are you? IS: Eighty-three. CS: And how old am I? IS: Eighty-one. CS: And how long are we married? IS: Sixty-two years. CS: Yes, so how old was I? IS: Nineteen, you were, weren't you? Eighteen. CS: Yeah, I was 19 that month, two weeks later. IS: Yeah, you were 18 when we got married July 4th because the mills were closed. SC: The factories were closed. IS: And her birthday is July 16th, so she was two weeks short of being 19.Is that right? Okay. We got married in New York because the Temple wasn't built yet and we had a big wedding. Her- My parents and Claire's parents were very well known in Allentown. My father-in-law was chairman of the board of the Center. My father was on the committee that built the Temple and my father-in-law was the chairman of the building committee... GE: This is which synagogue? Temple Beth El? IS: Of the new building. GE: Okay, this is when it was just being built on 17th and Hamilton. When was that built? Right around this time? CS: I- I would have to think. Anne is going to be 62 in June, correct? So Anne was born in '49--yeah we were married in '48. IS: We were married in '48. CS: Anne was born in '49, the Temple was being constructed. And I remember walking, every morning--my father's first stop in the morning was to pick me up, stop at the- and then- I lived- We lived at 18th and Hamilton. IS: When we got married, Schnitzer built those apartments at 18th and Hamilton on the northwest- the northeast corner, those two separate buildings. GE: Okay, right by the synagogue? Right by the little synagogue. IS: Yes, a block away. CS: And I used to walk up with him. He'd walk me- He'd make me walk every day to the temple and we'd walk through- IS: We would check the progress of the building. CS: And then come back at 4:30 and take me back to see what they did during the day. IS: It was a ball living there because it was a prime apartment. My next- across the hall neighbor was Max Stetner and his father, who was a widower ; and Jerry Bright who was a few years older than me and lived across the hall. His mother's and all my friends- We had Anne a year later. They would all come and play with her, because I was the first one married, even though I was the youngest of my immediate group. Murray Goodman, the multimillionaire, still lived with his parents, and Murray was a builder in Florida. CS: He built Village West. And he built- GE: Village West is what? CS: Shopping center, across the street from you know, at Tilghman and Cedar Crest Boulevard. GE: Oh, oh, oh, where Giant is? CS: Where the Giant is. SC: And that's Murray Goodman? IS: Where the Giant is, yeah. He was a commercial- His father was a commercial builder, but he out-distanced his father. CS: He made it big time. IS: And Stanley Finkel lived there, and I mustn't forget Larry Somach, the crazy one--the cheap SOB. GE: You know, I know the Somach family very well. IS: He was just married. CS: He was married the same summer. SCB: That was Larry Somach? IS: Larry Somach. Norman grew up with me, his brother, his younger brother. And- CS: Mrs. Bright only wanted to know which one was my husband? She always saw me with all these guys! IS: They kept coming in to play with my daughter, 'cause you know, they were all bachelors. And fortunately my daughter--you could wake up in the middle of the night and she was always happy, had a smile, never cried. It was funny when- This was a one bedroom apartment and when we'd go to bed, her crib was in the bedroom with us, and I got a kick out of- We were lying in bed and we'd hear her rustling. Then two little hands would appear on the railing, and then a- a blonde head with real curly hair and big blue eyes would show up. And she just was curious, and she was always that way, even to this day. She would never go and join in playing with anybody until she sat and watched and decided that she wanted to go in because she would never wanted to make a fool out of herself. Even from her childhood days, she was always that way. She went to the right school and thank God they were all right, all right kids. GE: Your daughter's name? IS: Anne. Anne Eleanor. And she was born in 1949. I timed it right--they were all two years apart. In '50- '51, Irene Vivian was born. She was the first girl admitted to Lafayette [College] when it became co-ed. GE: Oh wow. IS: And was the first girl to be Phi Beta Kappa at Lafayette. Her daughter went to the Johns Hopkins, also Phi Beta Kappa. CS: And what about Jared, her son? IS: Her son? Well... CS: He was Phi Beta Kappa at Wesleyan [University]. IS: Yeah, at Wesleyan, decided he wanted to be a lawyer. GE: This is still Irene's children? IS: Irene's children. She had three children. Anne never wanted children. She wanted to travel. And that's why she got divorced, because before they got married, Richard and she agreed they weren't going to have children, but he was an athletic kind of guy. In a pickup basketball game he got elbowed in the neck and he lost his voice. Temporary thing. But he realized how helpless he was because he couldn't even answer the telephone. And they decided to get a friendly divorce. So they got a divorce and he married another Jewish girl. [Some lost conversation here]-- Paid for the wedding. My father had to pay for his own wedding. CS: Did you tell Gail where your father met your mother? In Roseland. IS: In Roseland. In New York. They were both good dancers. Claire's parents unfortunately weren't--I had to push your mother around the floor. But the Salistskys were good dancers. SCB: Could we move on to your- your- the business and a couple of things to think about: Who started the business? And we sort of have some of that on here, but maybe we should have it together. Did they own or manage the business? How did they become connected to the business? So- IS: Well, they were partners in New York before they came to Allentown to escape the union. And they started almost at the time that Billera's formed the pants factory in Northampton. GE: Who- Who's Billera? IS: Huh? GE: You said Billera started the pants--who is that, that's a company? CS: The Billera family. IS: Four or five brothers that were tailors in Italy. And they started Clyde Shirt, which was the four story building. Clyde Shirt was- My Father and Izzy Weinstein, they were on the first and fourth floor. Universal Pants, there were two brothers who ran that, in the second and third floor. Then, further west, they started- they made only pants, but they started a, a--what the hell's the name of that? CS: Joey's father? IS: No. I had it this morning. A clothing business where they made jackets and suits and sport jackets. That was at 21st Street and Main Street in Northampton. CS: And did you have a plant there too? IS: When- When- When Weinstein and my father, shortly after they started Clyde Shirt, business was good, so they started Highland Sportswear in Allentown. GE: So Clyde Shirt was your father and Izzy Weinstein's company? IS: Right. And they were partners all the way through. They were partners in Highland. The reason they chose the name Highland, Izzy Weinstein's daughter went to Highland Manor which was a fancy girls' private school. CS: And Clyde Shirt was from the steamship company. IS: Yeah, Clyde- there was a Clyde steamship company in New York. I don't know how they found that. GE: So Clyde Shirt made shirts and blouses? IS: Well, we did a lot of things. We-- We had about over one hundred operators there. GE: With Clyde Shirt? IS: With Clyde Shirt. And they mainly did shirts. But Highland was a fairly large company. We had over 100 machines there. And our girls, we treated them right and they stayed. So we were able to make different kind of garments, for example, we made shirts, and if you were from Philadelphia you would know them--Villager and Ladybug, do you remember them? GE: Yes, I do remember them. IS: We were their chief- Most of their- CS: We used to stay at their house. Norman Raab. IS: When Norman Raab needed contractors, he came to Allentown and stayed at my parents' house! And we were lucky, we got their- GE: And that was- that was a Philadelphia firm. I've heard the name, definitely. SCB: And they had an outlet in Telford. IS: They made everything. They made purses, they made raincoats, they made shoes. SCB: Huge outlet in Telford, I've seen it. GE: Did you know, you know now that you're saying it, I think it was related to that--my father had a cousin named Bernie Rutberg, and he's about your age, a little older than you actually. And after- during the war, I think he worked for somebody, then after the war, he went into making dresses, and I thought it was Villager. CS: Probably. IS: Yeah, they made dresses too. CS: When Anne went to college- IS: Let me talk, please! CS: Oh, okay. IS: When- We had such a close relationship. When my oldest daughter left for college, they said--and they made everything, from soup to nuts, I mean from purses to coats, to- everything but bras and panties I think they made. They said, "Bring your daughter to Philadelphia and she could have whatever she wants." GE: Wow, that's very lucky. IS: She made a complete- CS: Outfit. IS: Outfits. CS: Wardrobe. IS: When my daughter, Joan, went to college--she went to BU, Boston--she went with a halter and jeans. GE: I was going to say, everything changed. Because I know- CS: And what did it say on the shirt? IS: Shit. CS: No, it didn't. It said, come on. IS: What? CS: "Damn It". IS: Oh, "Damn It", whatever. CS: I was so mad at her all the way up to Boston, and when I got there, I apologized. They were all dressed the same way, I saw. IS: But Anne- GE: It's- It's really changed, it's amazing. IS: She didn't give a damn about clothing, you know? And- And Anne, when she went, she came to a new dorm that was just built. CS: At University- She went to the University of Chicago. IS: Chicago. Irene went to- CS: Northwestern for a year, and then transferred. IS: Irene went to Northwestern, and she started going with her soon- eventually husband, who was at Muhlenberg. And that's why she switched to Lafayette. GE: I see. IS: And we know him, since they're married, I mean, he's taking her out. I regard him as a son, not a son-in-law. He's a wonderful guy. SCB: So at that time, after you graduated from high school and then went to college, etc., what- what was your role in the business when you came back home and worked for your father? IS: Oh I- I imitated my father. We had a good marker maker. But I decided to educate myself much further just in case. And I took- learned pattern making. They would give me a sample garment which was usually a medium- a medium and I would grade a small from it, a large, a medium-large, an extra-large, you know, how to operate it. I used a spec sheet--a specification sheet--and I would enlarge the length or I'd you know, I'd make the patterns. And it served me well because my father and I got into a bruha one time and I had to go around knocking on doors looking for a job. So what had happened, I applied- I knocked on all of the doors I knew in Allentown which a lot of my friends owned businesses. Only one of them would say, "Irwin, I don't want to hire a friend. What do you do if it don't work out--how do you fire a friend?" So I read the handwriting on the wall. And I- did I get a job locally? I don't think so. CS: What? IS: I didn't work locally at all, did I? CS: No, you went to New York. IS: I- My friend- Nate Braunstein made belts and he subscribed to Women's Wear Daily, so he would save me all of the issues. That was the Bible of the sewing business. And I would borrow his old copies and I would check the ads in the back and I would call and make appointments for an interview. Now I never led on that I was calling from Pennsylvania because I rightfully figured that they didn't want to hire anybody that had to travel that distance. But I did it for probably about five, six years or more. I would get up at 5 in the morning. I was on the road at 5 in the morning, I'm sorry. And I would get there about 7:30 a.m. We would work from about 8 to 12, 15 minutes for lunch ; but we would quit at 4, so it took me a couple of hours at 4, I was home by 6-6:30. It was just like working here, but a lot more mileage on the car. GE: Now this is the 1950s? CS: No, this is later. GE: 1960s? CS: You were in business with your father after you- Don't forget, when the Weinstein's kids got married, and you were married, all these kids were taken in and the fathers decided better they split. IS: No, no, let me get into that. CS: That was- that was- that was about the '50s. IS: Harris was about four years younger than me and he got well-trained even though his father had a Jewish accent that you could cut with a knife, but the importance- My father had an overestimated, and frankly--and I call a spade a spade--he had an overestimated opinion of his ability. GE: Your father? IS: My father. GE: Of his ability? Your father's. IS: Right, right. And his value to the business. Make a long story short, Harris came into the business about four years after, and his father trained him in pricing garments. And the most important part of the business was securing business from manufacturers in New York, and he learned that very well. And he realized that my father, being an equal partner with his father, earned the same amount of money, but he could be replaced for a man of $200-$250 a week. So why the hell should he be your partner? Even though they were in business together about 40 years. And I was mad as hell, he insisted that they break the partnership. In the meantime, they- we had three factories going on--Highland, in 10th and Walnut over the bowling alley ; Clyde Shirt, which was the biggest, but both of those had cutting departments. And then we had Sylvania Sportswear up at 18th and Main, which was a small three-story building that didn't have cutting facilities. In other words, it- they used to cut- Well what they- They broke up the partnership, they did us a favor in as much as they instigated the break up. They gave us the choice of whoever took up Clyde, the other two factories would be opposite, and in addition, there would be a monetary exchange because Clyde was still bigger than the other two combined. So we opted to take the two factories. GE: You took Highland and then also Sylvania? IS: Highland and Sylvania Sportswear. GE: Sportswear. How many operators were at Sports- Sylvania? IS: About 50. And we- My cousin, Sydney, who was my uncle's son, older son, was discharged from service and needed a job and we took him in with us to run Sylvania, to learn the business. And he would stop at Highland, and after the trimmers cleaned up the garments, we'd roll it up by the dozen and tie it and they would take it up to Sylvania for pressing and finishing. There was pressing there- There was a pulley, you put a truck on the bottom, you pull the rope, you can hoist it up to the third floor. We made it through that way- and that way... In retrospect I can't really blame Harris for what he did. I was mad as hell, but my father kept saying, "Oh they're gonna go broke in no time." Well they never did. He had my mother sold on his ability, but I call a spade a spade. And I knew that sooner or later I'm going to have to get out of here. So when that happened, and I went around- I couldn't get a job locally, and I'd seen- GE: So that's when you went to New York? IS: That's when I checked out the ads and called, made it sound like I lived in Jersey or you know--because everyone commuted a half hour, an hour to work. Even if you lived in Long Island, it took you an hour by train to get into downtown New York. So I set up appointments and I did- I went to interviews and I got jobs. But it was an expense, because I drove and I had to go- I went to 12th Avenue because that was the cheapest rental you know for a garage to park your car and if you worked in the garment center it was very expensive- those garages. GE: And about when is this? Is this around 1960 now or? CS: It was- I would say the '60s. IS: The '60s. GE: And- and- Did you think that the business that, the business that your family took--Sylvania and Highland--was it not viable? Did that- IS: It was average. We worked like hell and we made a profit, but barely. CS: But Irwin, then your father decided he wanted to get out. Remember? So then you were back with him. IS: My father- Oh. Because my- At Highland we were so diversified, and I didn't mention this before, we made army shirts, we made blouses for the WAVES--white with a Peter Pan collar--the WAVES of the navy girls. We made raincoats with a hood for the women's air force. We even made shirts for the Florida Highway Patrol. SCB: So you made government contracts? IS: We had government contracts for marine corps shirts with the epaulets, the whole schmear. And we did army shirts, too. And in between we did blouses, which were seasonal, and when that wasn't busy, we made shirts. We had a backbone of Villager because they were always busy, they had two basic styles--a Peter Pan collar, or like a dress collar, long and short sleeves but the patterns were all the same. Now the secret of our business was overcuts. That is the ability to make a marker, laying out the patterns, better than they figure that they can do. The way we did this, we'd get the piece goods in, let's say 60 inch goods. We had a 60 inch- one table was about 66 inches wide so that we could spread wide goods. But- Butting into it was 48 inch table for 45 inch goods. This we learned over time, I mean I make it sound like it's nothing. But doing it, for example, if we got piece goods in and maybe ten percent of the piece goods were 42 inches wide, the rest were 40 inches. So we took the time and trouble to remake a marker for that extra width. And we were able to have a higher yield. And- GE: So-so with this overcuts, what you're saying that the profit margin is very much if you can get a higher yield? IS: Right. GE: You'll get a little more production out of it. IS: Right, and then sell them on the open market for cash. GE: Oh, okay. So in other words, if you're supposed to make 95 for the manufacturer, if you're able to make 100, then the other 5 you can sell? IS: Right. I mean... CS: It's how flea markets operate. SCB: And would that have been also labeled as Villager or not? IS: Mainly Villager because I had a traveling salesman who we were friendly with, who traveled all the way out to Central Pennsylvania. And I made him promise that do not sell any retail establishment in a city that has Villager on the label, that sells Villager, because it will blow my business there, they would cut me out. And they could tell by the markings on the boxes where it came from, you know, we stamped the lot number, the style number, the size, you know. So fortunately, we didn't get caught. SCB: Would some of them have possibly gone to an outlet? Like the one in Telford. IS: What? SCB: Would some of those garments have gone to the Telford outlet, the Villager, or was that totally- IS: Oh yeah! In other words, they would say- My father would make out the cutting report when we finished cutting it. For example, let's say there was- we took- They wanted a man's shirt. Small, medium, medium-large, and extra large. The extra large was always the least amount. Next came small, next the larger, and the medium was the most numerous. And dependent- You had to study the cutting table. In other words, they may want a scale of two small, five mediums, three and a half large- medium large, and two extra large. So we would take the half amounts, the two and a half for example, and if another size was a half, we would put the two together because if you spread two sizes, you can make a tighter mark than a single bundled marker. Do I- Do you understand what I'm saying? SCB: Yes, I sewed a lot when I was young. GE: Well she understands better than I do. IS: Okay. And we always had overcuts, because we knew what the hell we were doing. SCB: Well it's like an intelligence test when they take things apart and you have to figure out how to put them back together again. If you can do that well, then you can make a lot more. IS: Oh, yeah. Well, we took the extra labor we did by making a 62 inch marker and also a 60 inch marker with the same scale ratio of sizes. And we also had- We cut- We saved the cuttings when you cut a lot you know you have some parts, you don't have everything butting up. So we saved the cuttings and we sold the rags. GE: Did you sell those rags to like Sheftel? IS: That's what they did, but we didn't use them, we used-- CS: Jack Pearlman. IS: Jack? CS: Pearlman. IS: Pearlman. CS: That was your father's start, the same Pearlman. GE: But that same- And they all- right right. CS: And all the- They all did this. I mean not just him, they all- IS: It was great for the classification of the fabric. In other words, white all-cotton paid the most because that was shipped to like Crane Stationary. A fine stationary. If it had a rayon content, it was maybe two cents a pound. White cotton was maybe like ten cents a pound. And it was, you know, the- the- the guy who would pick up the rags would store them under the cutting room and they deliver- Was putting fifty pound burlap potato bags. The cutter would clip it, keep all fabrics the same, and if they didn't finish loading the bag, they would put it aside and wait for a similar kind of fabric, and that was sold for us. Mainly I found that knocking around like I did, going to New York, I worked in Staten Island, I worked in Manhattan, I worked in Long Island, and I gave it- I worked right before the Holland Tunnel one time. They broke into my car there and I had a- a... telephone. It came in- GE: A car phone. IS: Those little boxes and I had it there because I wanted to amuse myself. They broke into my car. But I was conscientious, I was never late, I was always there on time. But when things got slow, it was like a one-dimensional kind of thing and I was the latest hire and they could supervise a cutting room without me. I even went down South--one of the ads I saw was a big company in- outside Albany, Georgia, near Peanut Country. And I went to New York, the owner worked in- out of New York in the sales room. They made athletic wear, matching pants and jackets with different fabric. SCB: Like a sweatsuit? IS: Like athletic jogging suits. Like a jogging suit kind of. GE: Now are we in the 1970s at this point? SCB: We should be, yeah. IS: About then, yeah. So I went to New York and explained my background and he said, "Irwin, you're hired. Go down, find a place to live," and he always had a motel in Albany because where the plant was--about 20 miles northeast--it was in a very rural area. So we could talk while we're going to work together, you know. He- He would go down every six weeks or so. And the plant manager was a Jewish guy, was a Kochalech [Yiddish-- possibly a shortened version of kochleffel, a pot stirrer]. He was in charge of the plant and was used to doing things his own way, and I let it go at that. I mean I- He didn't bother me, this was a tremendous cutting room. It was about eight cutting tables. GE: Here you were used to just a couple of cutting tables? IS: Right, and what I did, I wanted to increase production. And I made big signs, numerical signs, and as soon as they were finished spreading, I had it cut right away and I said, "When you're done, you go to table number three, you go to table such and such," and I kept them busy that way. They didn't need to wait around for the next assignment. So I built up production. Then it came out that somebody mentioned that they used to sell the garments to the workers. And somebody once mentioned, "Oh I can buy the same thing cheaper in town, there's an outlet store." So the next time my boss comes, I mention that, "You know you have a retail outlet?" I told him where it was, he went out, and he couldn't very well fire the manager because he was a more valuable asset than I was. You know, he was responsible for running the whole shabang. So, and I worked there for what, about 6 months? CS: I don't know, but I went down and I took one look at that place and I said it was a shame! And Rabbi Greenburg- IS: Wait a minute! CS: Knew the rabbi- IS: After I was there a couple of months, and this was before this incident happened, the boss came down and then got the report and saw what I had done, and he said, "Irwin, tell your wife to come down. Make- Make plans to move here permanently." So--and I was living in a motel--and Claire comes and we knew that this town Albany, Georgia was named after Albany, New York. It was about 20,000 people, it had one hospital, one synagogue, a reformed synagogue, and we met the rabbi and we told him of our background. Claire had already been the president of Beth El. CS: No, I wasn't President. IS: Oh, wasn't? Oh, whatever. CS: Sisterhood. IS: We impressed him. CS: No, but he knew Rabbi Greenburg. And I just got this feeling, he was telling me, "Don't come here!" And I wasn't about to go because I took one look at that red dust and- and- you picked up the telephone and heard music or cowboy music or whatever type of music. And I had just lost my sister. And I remember my mother, when I told her I was going down, and she started to cry and my father said, "You go where your husband goes. Your mother came with me to Allentown." He said, "If that's where you want to be, then you go. And don't listen to your mother, she will stop crying, she'll be all right. She has me." Well I went, and I said to her, "Well, I'm not staying! This is not for me!" SCB: Was the population in-in-in the factories, were they mostly African American or were theySouthernsers? IS: No, they were Southerners. For example, they got away with so many things that-that the way that- that- because of the way that the place was built that they would never do up North. For example, the whole place was cement block. The men's room--there was no mens or ladies, they--they were just booths with a door in the front with a lock on it and a toilet, not a urinal, just a regular toilet. And to wash your hands afterward you had to go out and there was a couple of few sinks close by, no ceiling--[lost some conversation] CS: Can I talk? IS: Only Buck Friedman who was exceptional- exceptional in sports was able to get on an Allentown High School athletic team. CS: Your brother played football for Raub. IS: Well, it was a little different. Before my time, then they had three junior high schools--Raub, Central, and Harrison-Morton. Harrison-Morton was down around 3rd Street, where all the Hispanics and Blacks went, the poorer families. Central was around 9th and Liberty, somewhere around there. CS: Linden. IS: And that was for what I called the Jewish middle class. There were few Jews there, but it was working class people who worked in the downtown area. Raub was in the western end. It was the most- for the most wealthier citizens, most of the Jewish kids went to Raub. And- GE: Where did you go? IS: To Raub. I went to Raub for first through ninth grade. And I walked, it was within walking distance of where I lived. But as I said, it was a- It was annoying at the time, but when I look back now, it was a great advantage. For example, we- we didn't need the- the Gentiles ; we had our own clique, our own friends. I had a high school fraternity of about 15-18 guys, Jewish friends. AZA was big at that time also. Claire missed out on a lot of that because her father struck it rich early. She lived in a nice area, what I call the deep west end of Allentown. So she missed out, she got her- her growing up through the Center, she was lucky that way. But I got mine on a daily basis, from the people I associated with and where I lived. There were a lot of many Jews around me, the working class. There was a kosher meat market a half a block away that a lot of Jews patronized and so forth. So growing up with all of these friends, we learned from each other. We learned how to jitterbug--one guy learned how to jitterbug, the rest of us learned. I realized this when I left college. I left and started college at 17. I always wanted to fly, study aeronautical engineering. When do I leave for college? I graduate high school in June ; college would normally start around September. Unfortunately, in the garment industry, July 4th is a vacation time where all the factories close down for the first two weeks of July. When does my college curriculum start? It's on a trimester basis, it starts- it starts July 1st. I graduated the middle of June and I had to go to college two weeks later. What the hell did I know about being away from home? Anyhow- CS: But you went to camp. IS: That's different. You're there with a bunch of Jewish guys, it's like at home. SC: Which camp? IS: Camp Hickory Run. It's run by the Federation, its White Hall- White- White Haven, Pennsylvania, where Boulder Field is. You know where Boulder Field is? SCB: Yes. IS: It's right near there. So I'm- It's July 1st, of 1945, that's when my college career started. Where is Irwin? Irwin is up at the Concord, with my parents. I'm having a ball for the two-week vacation. But I left early--I left after four days. I took a jitney to Penn Station in New York--17 years old, never been away from home--I got on the train to St. Louis, because it- The college was in East St. Louis, south of East St. Louis in Illinois. But the closest I could get to was in St. Louis. The head groundskeeper knew I was coming late. He picked me up in St. Louis and took me to campus. And I got- I was the last one to arrive. I had missed four or five days of school already. Luckily, the one remaining room spot was with another Jewish guy who was graduating. But from him I didn't learn much because he wasn't in a classmate, or didn't have any classes that I had. So I had a double job. I had to learn all about the campus, and I had to make new friends from my classmates. So, I managed to do- do that because I was personable, because of my growing up with all my boyfriends, not afraid to talk. And I was very, very personable. So the first weekend rolls around, what does a nice Jewish boy do when he's there for the first time? He doesn't have a car. He goes to town. So I took a bus into downtown East St. Louis, another bus from East St. Louis across the Mississippi River to St. Louis, and I looked up the address of the YMHA in St. Louis, which was in the west end, Union and Delmar. I took another bus all the way out there. And every Sunday morning, this was in '45, the war was just about over, and every Sunday morning they would have a bagel breakfast. They had Jewish hostesses for veterans and St. Louis was a hub for military activity. Lambert Field, which was the St. Louis municipal airport, was a naval air station. And 20 miles east in Illinois was Scott Field, which was an army air base. And all the Jewish boys like me would grab a ride into St. Louis and we'd meet. I go walking in there the first Sunday and whom do I see? Four of my high school fraternity brothers from Pennsylvania. Well what a reunion we had. I bullshitted about my age because I was about the same height and weight as I am now. I even grew a mustache. And I passed myself off for a veteran, so I met girls, I had a breakfast every Sunday morning, and that was my social activity. We had a dance about 3 weeks later--my classmates would have to depend--and it was a Catholic nursing school in East St. Louis--they would have to depend on the girls. I brought the best looking girl I found in the Y. And they said, "Irwin, how the hell do you know a nice looking girl already?'' They didn't stop to think that the Jewish [unclear]. "How do you know somebody nice looking that don't have to depend on- on the dating list?" I said, "Well, I have abilities." But I blame it on my growing up. If I didn't have the background, I wouldn't have been able to pass myself off. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the lifestyle I did. Fortunately, it was just after the war, my father was in much better financial shape. I had a- my own bank account, you know, I could do what I wanted. The only mistake I made, I didn't- I let him sell my car. I should have driven out, I didn't realize it was so far away from everything. But I only stayed there a year, and I went back with my father. He wanted me to come into the business. And they were doing interviews in my school for engineers, and the salaries at that time--I was spending more on the weekend. So I said this isn't for me, I'll go back to Pennsylvania, which I did. Then a couple of years later I went- CS: You went to Muhlenberg. IS: I went to Muhlenberg. He said finish your education. GE: Did you finish it at Muhlenberg? IS: No, I went two years to Muhlenberg. I had business, you know, which was general. And Claire suddenly discovered- CS: Yeah, Muhlenberg was very hard to get into. SC: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. IS: That was before girls even. And we had to pull strings to get me in because I applied late. You know, I went home over Christmas, and I wanted to start that September. CS: Morris Senderowitz was a great benefactor of Muhlenberg. GE: Oh, was he? CS: And he was a very good friend of the families. He lived at 18th and Hamilton Street, and Morris got the boys into Muhlenberg and Cedar Crest was the same story. Because my trunk went to Rhode Island, I was going to Pembroke, which is part of Brown and I decided I didn't want to leave my mother. And my mother told me to be honest, if it was that I was Irwin's, say it. So she- I said well, I'd rather stay in Allentown. So Lena Senderowitz, we got a phone call, and she was on the board at Cedar Crest, and I went to Cedar Crest. SC: Well that's a good segue. CS: But yeah, there's a great deal of anti-Semitism, there was. When Irene went to Northwestern- GE: And Irene is? CS: -- That was 1960. That's our daughter, our middle daughter. She was rushed for sororities, you know, that's a very- sorority school. And the Halperin girl was out there, Marion Halperin's older daughter. And you know, she kind of took Irene. Irene had been a cherub there and she loved the school. She had a Muhlenberg boyfriend when she went there though. At any rate, she was rushed by these different sororities, and I got a phone call from Bill Hacker's wife. Oh my daughter! She wants- All these wonderful things you know she's heard about her. She's top- one of the top students and- and all this junk. And then, her finally- She hopes that, you know, she's going to join this sorority. And I don't say anything, you know, I say that's going to be up to her. I know that I- I'm not going to interfere with what she wants to do. She said, oh by the way, who is your minister? I said, "My rabbi is William Greenburg. I belong to Temple Beth El." And I called my daughter and I said don't you dare join that sorority. I was livid. SC: Let me turn this off-- ________________ Interview with Claire Salistky, May 26th, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: So Claire, I'd like to ask you what your full name is and more about your family background, a little bit more about your family background. But let's- let's talk a little bit about where your family came from. CLAIRE SALISTSKY: Oh, I have that inside. Irwin, on the table there's that paper from Anne, you know, our oldest daughter. I mean, from Alison, our oldest granddaughter, is very interested in genealogy, so I gave her all the records I had and she- she gave me where they came from. SC: Well, let me just ask you, what is your full name, when were you born, and where were you born? CS: My full name is Claire Joy Wiener Salitsky. IRWIN SALISTSKY: W-I-E-N-E-R. CS: And I was born in Paterson, New Jersey, July 16th, 1929. My mother's name was Mary Mendelson Wiener and my father was Louis Wiener. My mother was born in Paterson ; she was one of nine children who grew up ; there were fifteen originally. IS: That was before television. CS: And she came from a- a very religious, orthodox family, and she was second from the end. I have a picture of them hanging on the wall. My father was born in Poland in a shtetl [Yiddish for small Jewish village in Eastern Europe] called- Ojikauf is the name of the burial society, but he was born in 1907. No, 1903, and he came to this country in 1907. He was the third child in the family. Now, my grand- My father's family they were- they were silk weavers. They lived in the shtetl near "Lodz" [Claire pronounces it LODZ]. Lodz was a silk weaving- GAIL EISENBERG: Lodz [pronounced LUDJ]? I think that's Lodz. CS: Yes, and they lived in- According to what was found, they lived in- they called it D-O-L-Y-S-Z-I-N. But they called it Russia. Now Lodz was Lodz at that point, you know the boundaries were constantly changing. You didn't know. My grandmother's maiden name was Warshawsky. Now I did get a copy of the marriage thing. And her husband, my grandfather's name was Joel Robilinsky. Okay. In order to get out of the country, he- his- my- took his brother-in-law's army papers. He was out of the army already. And he came to the United States with his brother-in-law's army pass. His brother-in-law's name was Joel--"Yo'el", Yo'el, whatever--something like Wiener. Okay? GE: So he took on the name. CS: And my grand- My grandmother's- He- He was my grandmother's brother. Her- Her mother had remarried, her father had died. And they came to- He came to the United States alone in 1904. And he went to Connecticut. And I'm trying to think what city it was where they made felt hats. And he couldn't take the inhaling of the felt, and so he had- they shipped him down to Paterson, where he had more relatives, and he was able to do his- Paterson was the silk center of this country at that time. Anyhow, that was that. My mother's family, my grandfather, came from a shtetl named Barstitzti, B-A-R-S-T-I-T-Z-T-I, near--I knew it as Lithuania. GE: Right, right now, Vilna, Vilna. CS: Vilna. It was right near Vilna, because when I went to Russia the first time, I went on to Lithuania, and all I could- there I heard- I found anti-Semitism. Terrible. The bus driver wouldn't take us. There was a group of Jewish girls on the trip. GE: When was this around? CS: The first time I went to Russia was 19- When did I open my travel agency? 1980? Your 60th birthday, how old are- how- When was that? 1929-- 1989. IS: [19]87. CS: Eighty- 1987, it was around then. And they wouldn't take us, and we got a cab, and I took my sister-in-law who had never been out of the country with me to Russia. My father almost had a bird that the two of us were going where they had struggled to get out. I found it fascinating. SCB: And that was right before the fall of the Soviet Union, too. CS: Oh, it was- It was unbelievable. I- I felt it was one of the best trips I ever took. But, at any rate, he lived near- They lived near Vilna and he was a farmer there. When he came to the United States, he came first in '04 and she- and he came over in 1896 and she followed in 19- 1897 with one, two, let's see-- The three sons, the one daughter, four of the kids, and every year she had another- another child. But he started out as a huckster guy, and then he got involved in the building business. And he became--as I never found this out, I mean, I knew he owned tenement buildings, because every Friday at three o'clock when we got out of school, we got in the car and we went to Slatington, where my father's factory was, to pick up my father and he'd drive to Paterson because we had to get there before Shabbos [Yiddish for Sabbath]. And we would come home Sunday night. So on Sundays I would go with my cousin and we would collect the rent. To me it was fun! We went in and out of these buildings on- And there were blocks of them. I- I didn't know from anything. And- But years later, in Florida, I met somebody and he happened to admire what I was wearing. It was a Valentine's Day party and I was wearing something red. And he said to me, where are you from? And I said from Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I said where are you from? He said Paterson, New Jersey. I said, oh, I was born there. Oh! Well what did you, you know, what is your name? We go through this whole thing and it ended up he had bought my aunt's house. And, you know, he said, your grandfather was William Mendelson. I said, yes. He said he gave a lot of money to charity but he was a slum landlord. I came home, I was shocked. I mean I never knew what he did, but he was a very religious man. But at any rate, my parents met--my mother was sixteen when she met my father, he was older. Can I think how much older my father was than my mother? Maybe four- four years older. Anyhow, he took her on a May Walk. Don't ask me what a May Walk is, but anyhow, they were engaged for two years, because he said he would not get married until he could buy a house. My grandfather had apartment houses, too, on this street where he lived. And his children were all on this one street. My father said, "That's not for me. We are going to move out, a full place," so that's what they did after they were married. And they were married in '29- in '27 in the- in Paterson. And it was funny, yesterday I was at a Friendship Circle luncheon that one of our friends sponsored and had invited us to come, and the director of the Jewish Community Center was from Paterson. And we were talking about all the places we went when we were little, because as I said, I went there every weekend until I was in junior high. And it was- well- well- Of course I was too young to know, but I was born in 1929, and my father was in business with his father. He had- My father left school at the age of thirteen, when he graduated from eighth grade, or fourteen. And he went to work on the railroads. And he earned, whatever money he earned, he turned over to his mother. And at the time when you know the war, they got bonuses, the First World War and all that, and he was able to buy his parents a house and put his father in business. And so, he- My father was a remarkable man. He was self-educated--after eighth grade, he never went to school. My mother, on the other hand, was educated, finished high school, and then went to Katharine Gibbs, or one of those kinds of schools. And her brothers- GE: What is that, like a finishing school or? CS: No, a secretarial school. IS: It's like a business college. CS: And she- she went to- The youngest sister went to Columbia. The two brothers were lawyers, and one brother was in the hosiery business. And my mother worked for her older brother who was a lawyer. She was his secretary. And so, anyhow, I was born and she- Well they were all stay-at-homers. You know, they cooked, they- they did everything together, though. The sisters, there were six sisters. And, I mean, when they made a Seder, [Jewish ritual service and ceremonial dinner to celebrate Passover] you would think an interior designer came in and fixed the table and everything else. They- they were- My mother had golden hands. She could knit, crochet, sew, she arranged flowers, she- and she was a marvelous hostess and a wonderful cook. But- And she was a wonderful mother. I was very blessed, I had a mother and father that were like no other. That's how I feel. They were very giving, they were very loving, and they believed in their kids, and they spent a lot of time with us, they put a lot into us. And I can remember when my brother graduated law school, my father stood and cried like a baby. He had put his brother through law school, he had put another brother through to become a- an accountant, and he had a third brother that was in medical school when he died. So, to them, education was important and service to the community, that was one thing I learned growing up in Allentown. You- You can't just take, you must give back, you must be a part of your community and if you are more fortunate, you are to help others. But we came- My father was in business with his father in Paterson when the Depression hit. SCB: What kind of business was that? CS: He was in the silk weaving business. SCB: He was in the silk weaving business, yeah. CS: And he had- He- He couldn't make it and so he knew he was going to have to go bankrupt. And he went to his father-in-law and he explained the situation. And his father-in-law and his two brothers, two of the three brothers-in-laws agreed he should go through bankruptcy, it wouldn't hurt. My father went to a stranger who gave- lent him the money to pay all his bills. And he had this opportunity, I don't know how he heard about it, but there was an empty factory in Slatington. And he- He went- He came here and he was able to make a deal with the city of Slatington, and he was just very fortunate. He- he had- He had when he came here a partner from Paterson, an older man, whose last name was also Wiener, but was spelled W-E-I-N-E-R. And he had a son named Jack who he had- He wanted his son to learn the business so my father- He came along and he was married. He wanted to live in Slatington, my father would not allow my mother- My mother- He thought my mother would want to stay in Paterson and he'd come home weekends. Well, my mother was told by her mother, you go with your husband. And so she came, and she- they lived in Allentown at 2445 Union Street. And I was three, that was- GE: Claire, did that become- I'm sorry. Did that become a rift in the family that-? CS: Pardon me? GE: Was there a rift in the family with that the father-in-law- CS: No. My grandmother was one of the wisest women in the world. My father was very bitter about it, but it taught him a lesson, because later on when my father was doing very well and he had gotten involved with dyeing plants and throwing plants and machinery and everything else, and he had a blouse business on the side, and- It- He was just very lucky and very bright, and he worked very hard to get where he was. And he made fur coat linings, which was the main thing and fabrics for the Catholic Church, because he once gave me a spool of gold thread to have. The vestments and everything else, you know, that was the kind- the kind of fabric that he made. But- GE: I- I had- No, I had asked in regards to, you said that your father was bitter, that his- that his father-in-law and brother- CS: Yes, but he learned that- He had an accountant, Frank Berg. It was Berg, Schultz, Green, you know. Frank Berg was a senior partner. They were the first people my father met, and my mother met when they moved to Allentown, Frank and Molly Berg. And as my father did well, Frank would always find- there were people who needed help, and he would come to my father, and my father always- would never, never say no to anyone, and that's what he taught us. SCB: So when- When you moved- When they moved from Paterson, the factory was in Slatington but the family was in Allentown? CS: Yes. And he drove to Slatington. IS: Well they set up the factory in Slatington, it wasn't a case of moving the factory. SCB: No, no, right. But they set up- IS: They have a building, found a building, and started the business. SCB: Right. And was it an extension of the silk industry in Paterson because they were making silk linings? CS: Well it was but it was weaving the fabrics for the- He wove fine fabrics for fur coat linings, jacquards [fabrics]. I can still remember him sitting and he used to look through a- a thing and they'd see the designs that go into a fur coat lining. And the fabrics for the- the church were beautiful. SCB: Were they mostly silk? CS: Pardon? SCB: Were they mostly silk? CS: Oh, all silk. Yeah. IS: They had a good position with DuPont. CS: DuPont, Eastman Kodak SC: Oh, wow, so also synthetic fabrics. Yeah. CS: And he, as I said, he- he prospered. He bought a lot of real estate, not in Allentown, but in Paterson and Newark. His brother would hear of something and tell him. And he got involved in a lot of things. And he got very much involved in Temple Beth El. Harry Neff- GE: I don't know the name Louis Wiener.. CS: Harry Neff, that's Jerry Neff's father- GE: I don't know if I know Jerry Neff. CS: Jerry and Norman. Well, if you go to Trivet on Friday at noon time, you'll find a group of old men who sit and talk about their youth, and Jerry Neff is one of them. But Harry Neff came calling on my father and mother, they were new in town, you know, and he told them where the Kosher butcher was. My mother used to have her meat brought in from Paterson on our carrier, which was used to deliver yarn to my father's factory, you know. And I used to say that I hated liver, and I used to say that it smelled like the silk, bails of silk that used to come in. So my father joined Temple Beth El and- GE: Claire, did your father- Did the partnership- CS: That- That partnership stayed until- when the father- This man had a son in Slatington and he had a son-in-law in the New York sales office. But when he died, the sons and the son-in-law were bought out. GE: By your father? CS: Yeah. GE: Okay, so- so- so during that older man's lifetime- IS: He was active in Slatington. Her father ran the whole show in Paterson- in Slatington. GE: Right, right. But the relationship- the partnership was maintained while the man was alive, and then when he died they bought out- CS: Yes. GE: They bought out the two sons. IS: He was just content that his son had a job. GE: Right, right. CS: And the sons, they both retired to Florida. But my mother was not--how can I say it?--she was not involved like I am. You know? That generation--she was there to see you got off to school in the morning and she came- she was there when we came home from school. She had a mahjong group, they played at night, not in the afternoons. A mother's place was home with her kids, and she instilled that in my sister and me. But I- See, I'm getting ahead of myself, but there was what I used to call a Triumvirate, which Dr. Katz- SCB: -- Triumvirate again, because that turned off. CS: Oh, it was a Triumvirate. Mitchell Katz, he was the family doctor, Rabbi William Greenburg, and Nettie Klass, Mrs. Aaron Klass. And they would find these people who needed help. GE: Now is this like the 1950s? CS: Oh this is- I'm married 63 years. IS: [19]49 or '48. Early '50s. CS: And it was- All I know is, when she went to Florida, she [my mother] said to me, "I'm leaving you signed checks for Freeman's dairy." I said for what? She said, "Well," she says, "I pay for milk for people, and so I want you, you know, to pay the bill." I said all right. But you know, this went on year after year after year. And one day, I walked- I was then already involved with the Federation, and I asked George Feldman--well then it was called UJA--I asked him, the executive director of the Center and the UJA, I said, "I- I have to ask you something, Mr. Feldman. My mother is buying milk for all these people." I said, "Do you know--do they still have little children?" And he looked at me and he said, "No." He said, "Really I should tell Mary to stop." So I said, "Well, I'm going to tell Mary, I'm not-" Do you know she got mad at me? And she said you will continue and I will continue while I'm alive. If they don't need it, maybe their children need it. SCB: And the U-U- GE: And this is not your mother, this was- CS: Pardon? SCB: The UJA is the United Jewish Appeal? CS: Yeah. SCB: Yeah, I just wanted to put that on the- Yeah, I wanted to put that on the tape. GE: You- You said- Was this your mother? Or this was that woman- CS: They would find these, they would find people- IS: Nettie was the local nurse. CS: They- they- they used to find other women who used to do this. GE: And who were- Who were the different women? What were their names? "Nettie"... CS: Nettie Klass- IS: K-L-A-S-A CS: -- Rabbi Greenburg, and Doctor Katz. And they lived right across the street from the center, the new center. And then- When I would go by and see the three of them sitting outside, I knew somebody was in trouble. SC: Well then was it your mother that was involved in telling you, "No, you keep doing it?" CS: That's right. SCB: And then what about Nettie at that point? CS: Huh? SCB: What about Nettie at that point? CS: Well after Nettie died, she didn't get any new names, so. SCB: Oh, but your mother was involved too? CS: My mother- Just- If Nettie said so and so needs, then I'll order it and they'll bill you. That's it. My mother probably didn't even know who they were. GE: Isn't that beautiful? CS: But that's how she was. My father was very involved- I mean, she would hostess for my father. Oh, I remember she used to have Oneg Shabbats [desserts and beverages served after Friday evening Sabbath services] growing up. GE: Which is- Which is Friday night after services. CS: It's a- It's a Saturday thing with family. She used to have- GE: Kiddush [food served after Saturday morning Sabbath services]? CS: No, Oneg Shabbat, like a study session. And she used to do it- She used to have stuff from Hadassah [popular women's Zionist organization]. And of course, every time they were raising money for the Temple or the Center because my father was co-chairman of the building fund of the Center on 22nd Street and he was chairman of the Temple. GE: And that was what, in the 1950s was that built? IS: Yeah. GE: 1950s. SCB: So if she was- If she having a study group after Shabbat, was this men and women or just women? CS: Just women. That was the women. Just the women. GE: And that would be like a Saturday afternoon after services? CS: Yes. We used to have a- a Sisterhood. I'm trying to think what it was, what we called it, but we used to have it on- occasionally on- I remember Adrienne Warshawsky was chairman of it. That's when I was Sisterhood President, I can't remember though what we called it. Well anyway, we grew up ; I walked- I used to walk to school from 25th and Union to the Raub School. I mean when I think about it today, that our parents could let us walk that distance, and it was a- and our neighborhood was gentile. Across the street was a Rumberger family and they were wonderful. I grew up with Janet Rumberger. And we had an empty lot next to the house, my father got permission from the city to clear it. And he put toys out there, you know, kids' things. But unfortunately, older kids would come and trash it, so my father took it down, took down the toys and that was it. But that's where we lived. And- Well the Samuels family lived a block away and they were very nice to my parents when they moved here. And then when I was in third grade, I remember it was my parents' fifteenth wedding anniversary, we moved to the house 2710 Greenleaf Street. And I used to go to school with Ruthie Rappaport, there were very few Jewish kids in the Muhlenberg School. GE: Very few? CS: Very few. And- But I guess- My- My childhood memories of Allentown were wonderful. I think this is a wonderful place for kids to grow up. I was happy here, I mean- and then I went to Raub Junior High, and then I went to Allen- It was Allentown High School in those days. IS: She used to ride with Harry Neff and he used to take us in his car. And she couldn't stand Irwin. So she would get out a block before I did so she didn't have to come with me. CS: And Harry Neff said they are going to end up married. SCB: And he was prophetic. CS: But I went to Allen- Allentown High just for one year. My father could not figure out how anybody who went to school every day and never did homework, or rarely did homework, came home with all 100s on her report card. And- Because I could figure out, the classes were so big, when I'm going to get called on and that's when I would do- I- I wasn't a good student, but I became a better student at Moravian. GE: Oh okay, so you went to Moravian after Allen. CS: I- I- I was- There was a family in town, one Marilyn Levine, she lived down South 16th Street. GE: Now is that part of the Levine's, the fabric store? CS: No, no. This was a Mr. Levine who had the cotton shop, right? IS: Yeah. His- Her father had a merchant shop- CS: On Hamilton Street. In fact, they used the second floor of his building when they had services in the beginning when Temple Beth El- you know before they got the building at 12th and Walnut. IS: The attitude of the Jews at that time was a lot different than it is today. They were all one hundred percent behind the Temple. They were all in the same economic group. Claire missed out on a lot because she- her family was fortunate to live and buy a house in the deep west end. She didn't grow up like I did in the working-class Jews of around 16th and Fairview, in that area. So it was a lot different. We weren't aware of it at the time, but when you think back now, you know, you realize the difference. And it made a- CS: This you know was after the war. And there were a lot of girls that were pregnant in high school and my father just thought that was a- So he decided- GE: Just curious, you're not talking about Jewish girls in the neighborhood? CS: No. GE: You're just talking about kids. CS: Just kids pregnant. And he just- He just didn't think it was the right place for me. He heard about different private schools, so he- The first school I thought about was--I read about different schools--the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. And Marilyn Levine also heard about it and she applied, and they wouldn't take two Jewish girls from the same town yet. So I then- the Mary Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, okay? Well, I applied and we went down for an interview, and I can still see that lady ; I know her name. And we sat there and she said to us, "Well, we will take your daughter. We have never had a Jewish boarding student. She will have to room alone." My father said, "Stop." He said, "You can take your damn school and shove it." And he told me to get up. Her name was Rosamond Cross. Today, Beverly Bloch's grandchildren go there, and I told them the story. She said, "Claire, the school is all Jewish now." I said that lady is turning over. SCB: And that wasn't a Quaker school? That was a Episcopal maybe, an Episcopal? CS: No, right, the Quaker schools are called the Friends Schools. SCB: Right, Friend Schools, and there are a lot of them in the area. CS: Right, in Philly. SCB: Was this, was it Episcopal perhaps? CS: Probably. I- I don't know. I mean, that ended it. My father said you are going to Moravian. So I went to Moravian and I learned how to study and I- I had a very- I was very happy there. And I went to look at colleges and I fell in love with Pembroke. I loved Brown, I loved the city of Providence, and that's where I was going. The trunk went, and I stayed home. I went to Cedar Crest and then got married. SCB: Because you already knew Irwin by that time? CS: Oh, yes. Well when he came home from St. Louis, his mother must have told him that that nice little girl around the corner- IS: No, no, you're getting ahead of yourself. After the first year, 1942, early part of the war, my father accumulated enough money to move out of South West Street. And he thought- We bought a house at 2709 Washington. CS: So Washington is here and Greenleaf is here. IS: She lived a block away. CS: And there was a service alley. IS: Yeah, I used to go up and down the alley to see her all the time. And of course her parents were- went to Florida for the whole winter and we had the run of the house. They had an excellent housekeeper all those years. CS: And I had- I had the biggest television set in the city of Allentown. Max Hess called my father up, he said, "I have two of them, I'm taking one, I think you should have the other one." The whole Phi Ep house used to come to watch the television. IS: They had a finished basement and they had this projection model TV, which was about three feet by four feet. At that time, the television screens- We used to have parties and galore over there. SCB: So you stayed, did you- Did your other brothers- Your other siblings stay in Allentown when your parents went to Florida? IS: Oh yeah. CS: My sister- My brother went to Blair Academy and my sister went to Emma Willard. IS: With Jane Fonda. CS: Jane Fonda was her roommate, in her suite, one of her suitemates. Margie went to Emma Willard. GE: Blair Academy is where? IS: Blairstown, New Jersey. SCB: Hackettstown in that area? IS: Blairstown, New Jersey. SCB: Yeah, but it's near Hackettstown. GE: And where is that, Emma Willard? IS: In Troy, New York. GE: Oh that's the one you were saying, okay. CS: Yeah, Margie went to- Well, I mean, I went to camp in the summer. I loved camp. I went to camp until I was seventeen. SCB: Which camp was that? CS: Camp Akiba. It was a Jewish camp in the Poconos. Bartonsville? Yeah, the village was Appenzell, the mailing address was Bartonsville. IS: Outside of Stroudsburg. CS: It was near Stroudsburg. And I loved my summers at camp. My brother hated camp because he said they have brother and sister meetings, but she never talks to me, she talks to the boys. My sister and I loved camp. He didn't. So my father said well if you don't want to go to camp, you can come home, and I'll take you to the mill and you'll work in the mill. That was like- He stayed in camp. But I loved camp. And- And at the Center, you know, we had a high school sorority, a Jewish high school sorority. And they had sororities at Allen High, Allentown, and I get such a kick out of it--whenever Charlie Dent runs for office, his mother, Marjorie Wieder Dent, calls to remind me of the wonderful times we had at Allen High. And I tell her, I only stayed there one year and that's it. SCB: So, were your parents good friends of the Hesses? CS: Pardon me? SCB: Were your parents good friends of the Hesses? IS: Nobody really was good friends with the Hesses. CS: Well Max Hess lived on Livingston Street at- at 27th. And he- Richard was his- You see, there was a table in Hess's patio in the back. A big round table where local businessmen used to eat, the Jewish men. And Max Hess would always join them. And he- I remember once they were working on a thing for the Center, counting Jewish families, and he says you count me, but not my wife and my children. He was married to a gentile woman, Betty Douglass. IS: He was not community-minded as such. He was involved only in his- the store. And- CS: And from the day- Even after I was married, when I would see him in the street, he'd said, "Miss Wiener! Miss Wiener!" He'd never call me Claire. And I'm so used to everybody calling me Claire I don't even know when they- I don't turn around. IS: He used to have the greatest Christmas parties. He would have Hollywood celebrities come to- CS: Oh and I thought your Christmas party- The first time you took me to a Christmas party at the factory, I had the best time of my life. All they did was polka dance. It was in a- Where was it? It was in a- IS: Saint Joe's. CS: Saint Joe's in Northampton. It was wonderful. But I loved growing up in Allentown. I was very happy. SCB: And one of the women who I interviewed, now I'm- Was it Joanne Spencer whose mother worked for the Hesses? IS: Could be, yeah. SCB: And I'm trying to think of her maiden name. Oh... I'll think of it, I'll let you know. She worked, and- and actually- Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was Hazel Aisley. CS: Hazel? SCB: Hazel Aisley, yeah. IS: He didn't have that many Jewish employees. SCB: No, they were African American. IS: That's why Max- he chose Irwin Greenburg. His son wasn't interested and Irwin was the most amazed person when he was selected because he only had only worked there a few- CS: What about Jerry Mandel? IS: And Jerry Mandel. He had a couple- And Roy Hertz was there for a while. CS: Yes, Roy Hertz was there. IS: They were controllers so, not- CS: And what about my father's friend, Mitch Kauffman and- IS: Well he was a bigshot. He was a widower or a bachelor. He was never married, Mitch Kauffman. Was he? CS: He's married- Yeah! To a girl named- to a woman named Nancy. She's a very good friend of Anna Frankel. IS: Well that's only a couple of executives, a handful, and at the time they had ten stores. That's when they branched out. SCB: And this was a woman who worked for his family, I guess cooking and- CS: Yes, Hazelman. Because he had a swimming pool and you could look in and it was unbelievable. You know he invited us up because he lived up the hill from us. And he used to ride a motorcycle down 27th Street and Richard would follow in the Cadillac. Richard was the- IS: And they had two Great Dane dogs that were chasing after all of them. CS: And then the house next to us was bought by Mr. Becker, who was one of the- one of his big managers there. He used to come down and park in Mr. Becker's driveway, visit him, then come over and visit my father. And he was a very nice man. He was a brilliant- IS: He respected those who had money. CS: He respected those who had brains, too. IS: Well yeah. CS: He was a very bright man in merchandising. GE: Right, right, right. He was one of the best. Going back with your father, Louis Wiener, do you want to tell us a little bit? Because I know he was a major pillar in the community, the Jewish community with the institutions. What were some of the- Was he a president of the synagogue? CS: No, he would never be the president. But he was the chairman of the board for umpteen years. And when he gave it up, he felt that it was time for the younger people to take over, he believed strongly in that. And they made him the honorary chairman of the board, which he has- had... IS: He was the driving force for the new building of the new Temple. GE: On 17th and Hamilton? IS: Yeah. At that time, Claire and I were just married, and we were living with them until- We didn't have our own house then. CS: No, first we were living in the apartment. IS: Well, we had the apartment. Then we moved- We lived in the Schnitzer's apartment on 18th and Hamilton. CS: But I had to move- When we had a baby, I had to leave. IS: No. But I remember he had the big shots at the Temple come and make all of the pledges and the groundwork for the building fund and all, were all held in Claire's father's house. Major planning, including bringing in the architect from New York, who designed the building and not only after they had the money, but the initial planning of the building, and who would do it, and how they were going to do it. And there were fights and yells and screams--I remember Abe Benioff and the architect got into an argument, almost socked each other. CS: And that architect, do you- You know Max Stetner? GE: I know who he is, yeah. CS: Okay, Mr. Stetner was a past president of the Temple, his father. He was a quiet, gentlemanly little man. And when he came to this country, he was an architect from Europe. And he got a job with this Mr. Courland, who was the architect. SCB: Courland? IS: Courland. K-O-U-R-L-A-N-D.[the correct spelling is with a "C."] SCB: Okay. CS: He was from New York, I think. And when Mr. Stetner met him for the first time, Max told me, he said to him, "Thank you very much," you know, he said, "for giving me a job." And then I think he let him out, and Mr. Stetner got into the laundry business and did very, very well. So you see, these- These men were a different generation. They aren't like the men of today. Bobby Hammel is like these men. Bobby Hammel is a good- he's- he's wonderful. GE: You're right. Very philanthropic and very community-minded. CS: Yes. These men believed in Rabbi Greenburg. He just drew them in. And he- he felt we needed a bigger synagogue, we had more members, the Hebrew school. I went to Hebrew school at the Lincoln School and confirmation- confirmation class at Greenburg's house. I was in his first confirmation class and we had up on the Temple of- on 12th and Walnut, I swear the mice used to be running in the cotton. We had one big room. It was awful. So they wanted this. We had the Center, and we needed our synagogue. And these men, they gave from the heart. IS: They were all like Bobby Hammel, but in different stages, it was what they could afford. They had the same ideas like Bobby of being generous and what they could afford and that's the way most of the men were and that's the way the Temple was really built. CS: And it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. Well we lived at 18th and Hamilton. My father's first stop in the morning was to pick- to come to the apartment, I'd be outside, and he'd park the car in front of the apartment and we'd walk up to the Temple, a block. And he'd walk through and I'd walk through with him. And he's looking at this and telling them that. And then at 4:30 in the afternoon we'd go through this again on his way home. So that Temple was a part of my life from the beginning. When Anne was born, Rabbi Greenburg didn't let kids in the sanctuary ; that was a no-no. But I would- We wheeled her up, the first Rosh Hashanah, in the service and he stayed outside and I went in. And then he went in and I stayed outside with her. But it- It was different. It was just different growing up. We were a very close-knit community and the friends are still. The boys he grew up with are the boys he eats lunch with and- and they're- it's- SC: It was a community. Can you say something about Bobby Hammel for the future? Just, you know, to have that on tape. GE: He is a current leader in the community and I would say also- actually, he grew up in Pottsville and he had- He is an exterminator. But- but again, where he became a very- The family became a very successful business, and he is really a major- But he's not just a philanthropist in terms of money, he is a philanthropist in the whole way, where he has been a leader in the Boy Scouts, a leader in the Federation, a leader at the synagogue. CS: He's just- GE: Right, right, right. Yes, no, I would also say, when you were saying with Bob Hammel, Rance Block might not be in a financial position to give- CS: But Rance Block is another- GE: He's also completely committed. CS: He- He was- Rabbi Greenburg used to say it was a pleasure for him because he watched- you know saw him right through, like me. Rance Block once introduced me, at Rabbi--was it Rabbi Greenburg's 80th birthday? It was the Center, it was at the Center. We were all sold out, we had to take it all out of the Temple and go to the Center. And he introduced me and he said, "When I was in grade school, she was in college. And when I was in high school, she got married. And when I was in college, she became a sisterhood president. Now she's the synagogue president!" But he- Well, Rance is a good boy. GE: Oh yeah. Very committed. CS: Bobby and Rance are great. I- I think they're wonderful, both of them. But you know, we had our center, we had our synagogues, and we had our community. IS: We didn't have to bother with Gentiles, actually. CS: When we- You know, years and years ago we had that terrible bus accident. GE: I heard about that, I heard. CS: That was a terrible, terrible thing. GE: This was a bus accident on Route 22, is that the one that you're saying? CS: It was yeah, out past- GE: It was where it was slippery out by Lafayette. CS: It was a terrible bus accident and I know it was a Thursday afternoon. And it was my birthday weekend and my daughter, Joanie was coming home, she was at- went for a summer in Richmond. And she was flying home that weekend. And my- Everything Thursday I was working then for Sandy Zales and Nina. I would- But every Thursday afternoon, the girls knew my mother was in the beauty shop around the corner and I would take her home and make a- Get lost for an hour or so with her if she had to go to the Farmers' Market or something. And my father used to play golf on Thursdays with his foursome. Anyhow, I go and I hear these sirens. Sirens after sirens. And I turn on the radio and they are talking about a bus accident and a Jewish day school. And I was- I was then an officer in the temple. I don't know what I was, but Milt Berman was the president, I remember, and he was playing golf. And I said to my mother, "I have to take you home. I- I have to go right down to the Temple, we've got to open up the Temple for these people," and that's what we did. And it was horrible. Seven children died. That night, where we used to buy gas at 17th and Liberty, Mike Tizzio, Irwin called Mike, and he said, "Could you open up the gas station? There are seven hearses that have to be filled up." The parents came, United Airlines flew in- They were extremely religious. They flew in Glatt Kosher food. You can't imagine what went on. It was- It was the most horrible thing and kids were in the hospital for weeks here. Parents and people opened up their homes and their hearts to them. GE: When- when- was that in the-? I did hear of it. I don't know if that was the '70s? IS: It was a long time ago. CS: I think it's in the archives, but- I was president from '64 through '67. It was probably the late '60s or early '70s. Wait, Joanie graduated from high school, wait a minute. Anne was class of '67, Irene was '69, Joanie in '71. So this was 1970 because it was the- she went between her junior and senior year. GE: I knew it was before I came to town. CS: That's when it happened. It was terrible. GE: Yeah, I heard of that. CS: And when I saw my daughter get off that plane, I want to tell you- How- How many parents look at a bus's tires when kids go away? You know, when I saw that red and white laundry bag come in front of her, I broke into tears. I wasn't- I couldn't see, I couldn't stop. SCB: Was she on that bus? CS: No, no. She was at school coming- She was at a summer in Richmond program. SCB: Right, right, I just wanted to clarify that. IS: It was from a Jewish day school from Lawrence, Long Island. CS: Five points, five points in New York. SCB: Were the students on a class trip or did they board there? CS: They were on a field trip. They were taking them up to Lancaster County. GE: I think it was raining. Was it raining or something? CS: I don't know, I don't think it was, no. SCB: Those curves are horrible. GE: Do you know how now it's like ridged. That's why. That's when it was put in. CS: It was just terrible. I mean- That's what I mean. The community, our community, came together so fast ; I couldn't believe it. I called Betty Griff. Do you know Betty? GE: No. CS: Well she used to be great in the kitchen. She came down and she was like a general. She caught him eating a roll and she told him, "You were told to set the table!" You know, we served food for these people constantly. And the rabbis all came together. SCB: They came in from Long Island. CS: Yeah. SCB: The families came from Long Island. IS: They didn't know which kids were killed. Nobody knew. All they heard was that seven kids killed on the bus and the parents didn't know if it was their child or not. CS: They were finding out when they got here. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Irwin and Claire Salitsky, May 26th, 2011
Description
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Irwin Salitsky talks about how his father (Barney Salitsky) and his partner (Izzy Weinstein) moved the business from New York to Allentown in 1932 to escape the unions. Irwin was four years old. Irwin’s father and his partner started Clyde Shirt and later Highland Sportswear. Irwin loved growing up in Allentown and living in the heart of the Jewish neighborhood [around West and Walnut St.]. Barney Salitsky and Izzy Weinstein were partners for about 40 years. Eventually, when the sons were in the business, the partnership was dissolved.
Claire Salitsky affectionately talks about the wonderful role models her parents were. Her father was a silk weaver in Paterson, NJ with his father. But when the depression hit, things quickly soured. There was an available factory in Slatington, PA for Claire’s father to purchase but he needed a loan to do so. A veritable stranger gave him the loan and Claire’s father and new partner became very successful. Due to that generosity, Claire’s parents actively helped others in the community who were less fortunate and needed financial assistance.
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LVTNT-02
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2011-05-26
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Interviewer
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Irwin Schneider
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5.4 August 10, 2011 Irwin and Ellen Schneider, August 10, 2011 LVTNT-11 1:46:00 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Irwin Schneider Ellen Schneider Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SchneiderIrwin_Ellen_20110810.mp4 1.0:|27(10)|42(18)|63(8)|86(4)|127(2)|158(9)|185(5)|216(6)|241(9)|268(2)|307(7)|328(14)|367(2)|396(6)|415(3)|446(8)|469(17)|492(13)|513(14)|532(16)|557(6)|590(18)|613(11)|636(11)|661(10)|688(2)|717(2)|742(13)|777(15)|804(11)|829(13)|852(3)|879(13)|908(3)|927(9)|952(3)|975(9)|996(6)|1021(8)|1050(11)|1083(2)|1102(16)|1125(7)|1146(12)|1171(12)|1198(5)|1229(12)|1260(9)|1289(11)|1316(11)|1345(8)|1368(5)|1393(8)|1416(3)|1449(5)|1478(5)|1505(14)|1538(3)|1561(6)|1582(12)|1607(2)|1632(6)|1651(12)|1668(16)|1697(14)|1718(12)|1753(17)|1780(2)|1799(13)|1826(3)|1853(16)|1880(5)|1903(8)|1938(5)|1963(2)|1994(2)|2017(17)|2046(16)|2069(12)|2090(8)|2111(6)|2132(10)|2159(8)|2182(8)|2209(13)|2232(2)|2263(4)|2286(13)|2313(14)|2340(8)|2363(12)|2404(2)|2431(4)|2464(4)|2497(7)|2518(8)|2545(10)|2566(5)|2595(4)|2614(15)|2629(7)|2654(3)|2689(4)|2706(3)|2727(2)|2744(17) 0 https://youtu.be/OEE5o7n_Wfc YouTube video 0 Introduction—Irwin Schneider SCB: Today is August 10th, 2011, an interview with Irwin Schneider. And we’ll start, if you will, with all of your information, your name, where you live currently, and your birthdate.
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 ; IS: My name is Irwin Schneider. I live in Macungie, PA, during the summer months, and I live in Florida for seven months during the winter months.
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 ; SCB: Where were you born?
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 ; IS: I was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1931. 0 36 Irwin's Family History SCB: Can we talk a little about your family background, and then we will get back to you again. Where, what do you know about your parents, your grandparents, great-grandparents, where they came from, where they lived, and their education?
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 ; IS: Alright, my family, everyone came from Poland. My parents were born in Poland and my parents came to the United States in the early 1920s. Both came from Poland, and my parents immigrated to the United States, and they moved to Brooklyn. They met in Brooklyn, and they married in January of 1930. And they met and lived in Brooklyn and worked very, very hard. And my father decided to get into the garment business. He worked in NY as a foreman in a sewing factory. And in 1931, the factory that he was working for decided to move to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to get away from the union. And he was working as a foreman, and he was making $35 a week, which was a very nice salary at that time. He decided to come to Allentown to test it out, and he came to Allentown, and he didn’t know where to go so, he went to Friday night services at Sons of Israel which was located at 6th and Tilghman Street. And he met a man with a beard, and my father was only 28 years old at the time, and I was six months old. And he introduced himself, said my name is Sam Schneider. The Factory I am working for is moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I am thinking of coming to Allentown. I do not know a single soul. I do not know where to go. I am thinking of coming to Allentown, and I am at a loss at what to do and where to go. The man said you look like a nice young Jewish man. What I am going to do for you is I’ll let you stay at my place. I will give you room and board. I will give you breakfast and dinner and a clean bed for five dollars a week. 0 693 Irwin's Education SCB: So can you talk a little bit more about your childhood? What you did? Maybe where you worked? Where you went to school?
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 ; IS: I went to Penn State University. I got a degree in commerce and finance. And during the summer years, I worked at the factory at Schneider Manufacturing. And after the graduation, I went into the Army. I was in the medical corps, and after I graduated from the Army, I went into the business.
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 ; GE: And that’s already the ’50s?
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 ; IS: I graduated from Penn State University in 1953. And then I went into the Army for two years. I got out in 1955. And then I went into the business.
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 ; SCB: Did you go to Allentown High School?
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 ; IS: I went to Allentown High School.
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 ; SCB: How about Elementary School?
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 ; IS: I went to Raub. I went to Raub for nine years. 0 768 Growing up in Allentown, PA GE: And where did you live? Where did you grow up? Where in Allentown? What neighborhood?
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 ; IS: We lived in, we grew up in the West End of Allentown.
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 ; GE: What street?
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 ; IS: We first lived on South St. Cloud Street.
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 ; GE: OK. That is between the 17th and 18th.
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 ; IS: Between 17th and 18th, and then we moved to South West Street.
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 ; GE: Ok, and South West Street, that is off of Walnut.
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 ; IS: South West Street is between 16th and 17th Street.
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 ; GE: OK, right by Temple Beth El.
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 ; IS: Yes.
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 ; GE: And what do you remember as a child, maybe some of your friends you want to name for us or? At that time, your father was still working. While you were a small child, he was still working.
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 ; IS: No, he was in business already because he went into business in 1941. 0 934 Family's Involvement in the Jewish and Allentown Communities SCB: As far as being connected with the Jewish community, were you connected with the synagogue, was your family connected?
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 ; IS: Oh, yes. We have been members of Beth El since we moved into Allentown.
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 ; GE: So all the way back since 1931?
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 ; IS: Yes. I think the Temple Beth El was started around 1928, sometime around there.
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 ; GE: Probably.
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 ; IS: And we have been members since 1931, since we moved into Allentown. So we are long-time members of Beth El.
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 ; SCB: Was your father involved in the community at all? Did he have any connection to community organizations? Or was he mostly working in the business?
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 ; IS: He was an active member of Beth El. He was on the Board of Directors of Beth El. And he was an active member of the Locust Valley Country Club. He was one of the original charter members. 0 1039 Irwin's Work Experiences SCB: So can you talk about the jobs you’ve had in your life? From the very first place that you made a little bit of money all the way through to the business?
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 ; IS: The only job I had prior was one year as a counselor in a camp, and then being in the Army and then going right to Schneider Manufacturing.
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 ; SCB: And what camp was that?
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 ; IS: It was a camp in, it was Blue Mountain Camp, one summer.
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 ; SCB: Was that specifically connected to the synagogue, or was it a general camp?
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 ; IS: No, it was a summer camp in the Pocono Mountains. So basically, I have had no other employers besides the U.S. Army and Schneider Manufacturing. 0 1098 1941: The Origins of Schneider Manufacturing GE: Do you want to share with us a little bit about how the business got started?
 ; 
 ; IS: Alright. How the business got started. My father, my father, actually in 1941 borrowed five hundred dollars to start the business and buy six sewing machines. And he started it in Pearl Harbor week. He started with six employees, and he took one of the employees from the business that he had been working for, a teenager named Valeria Lukish, who was a very promising girl, who had a lot of potential. She was a combination sewing machine operator and a floor girl, and she eventually rose to the position of plant manager. And this woman today is 97 years old. She is still alive. And I visit her occasionally, she’s sort of in dementia and is very feeble, and she barely recognizes me, and I still get to see her once in a while. But anyway, the business started in 1941 during Pearl Harbor week, and my father started with six sewing machines. He borrowed the five hundred dollars to start the business. 0 1273 Early Business Practices Under Samuel Schneider SCB: And what kind of clothing did they make when your dad owned it?
 ; 
 ; IS: They were making knitwear.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So knitwear for women?
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, for women.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Were there certain labels they were making the knitwear for? Specifically, or was it more general?
 ; 
 ; IS: More general.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And so they would be shipped up to New York.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Could you talk a little bit about the process that your dad had. Do you know anything about the processes that he used, the way he organized the business and the manufacturing?
 ; 
 ; IS: In what respect?
 ; 
 ; SCB: So how did he go about it, did he have certain people as cutters? Did he have people, women, probably. Did he hire men? What was the factory like under him?
 ; 
 ; IS: In the beginning, he just had sewers and sewing equipment. As he got a little larger, he opened up a cutting room, and he hired cutters and spreaders. And he would get piece goods in and get a cutting department in. 0 1418 1955: Expansion Under Irwin Schneider SCB: How did it change when, or did it change when you took over the business?
 ; 
 ; IS: When I came into the business, he already had a full-fledged operation going on, a full-fledged from cutting, shipping, and packing, the full operation going.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So it did not expand at all after you took over?
 ; 
 ; IS: It expanded in volume, the number of people, the number of employees. When I came into the organization, we expanded, and we gradually built it up, and when I came into the business in 1955 we kept expanding and getting larger and larger. 0 1465 1957: Samuel Schneider's Retirement IS: And a couple years later in 1957 my father said, “Irwin, you are doing such a great job in here, in two year you already know everything, I do not even have to be here anymore,” he said. “I am going to retire to Florida. I am going to move to Florida. I will remain the president of the corporation, and you are going to take over the everyday duties of running the factory. What I’m going to do is, I am going to call you every Friday afternoon, you are going to tell me everything you shipped, how many dozens went out, what the volume was and what you are going to do is send me my paycheck for the week. And I will speak to you every week. Once a quarter I will come up for a couple days and walk around the factory, check and see what you are doing. Then I will fly back to Florida, and that is the way we will do it.”
 ; 
 ; SCB: Sounds like a nice business relationship, too. 0 1622 Learning the Business—Summer Work at Schneider Manufacturing SCB: And during those summers then, did you work at specific machines or did you just learn - and I shouldn’t say “just” - learn the management of the business without being involved in the various processes to understand what people were doing?
 ; 
 ; IS: Actually I spent a little time in the office, a little time on the sewing floor, a little time in the cutting room, a little time in every area of the business. Trying to pick up a little bit.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So you were managing mostly?
 ; 
 ; IS: Not actually management, my father had me in every single department trying to pick up.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So did you actually operate, go through the process in the department? And the reason I am asking this is because in some of the textile industries in Philadelphia in the 19th century the son would be brought in and would have to go through every process and learn every process so he would learn how to do everything.
 ; 
 ; GE: So he would actually work on a press.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Right, do everything, and learn all the skills.
 ; 
 ; IS: I did not. Actually, I did not actually sit on a sewing machine, I did not actually go to the cutting room and use any of the cutting equipment. 0 1713 Employees of Schneider Manufacturing IS: I had a very good relationship with the employees. They loved me. I worked very good with them. I had a nice relationship with them. I treated them very, very well.
 ; 
 ; ES: Can I interject something?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Certainly!
 ; 
 ; ES: He still does to this day. There is a group, now these are elderly ladies by now, but there is a group of them who still meet once a month for lunch, they go to the City View Diner.
 ; 
 ; IS: On Seventh Street.
 ; 
 ; ES: And in the summertime when Irwin is home, he comes there and joins them once or twice.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Wonderful.
 ; 
 ; ES: They love it. 0 1944 Letter from Rance Block, President of Temple Beth El, to Employees of Schneider Manufacturing, 1988 IS: This is something from Rance Block who was President of Beth El in March of 1988:
 ; 
 ; Dear Employees of Irwin Schneider,
 ; 
 ; The officers and Congregation at Temple Beth El acknowledges with gratitude your generous donation made in honor of Irwin Schneider. The funds will be placed in the Samuel Schneider Philanthropic fund. This contribution shows the esteem in which Irwin Schneider is held by all his former employees. I am sure that Mr. Schneider is deeply touched and appreciative of this gesture. Once again, thanks for your generosity.
 ; 
 ; Sincerely,
 ; 
 ; Rance Block
 ; 
 ; President 0 2024 Letter from Irwin Schneider to Schneider Manufacturing Retirees, 1977 IS: This is something I did February 1, 1977. I wrote this letter, and each and every one of the girls who retired got a letter like this. I will read the letter that I wrote:
 ; 
 ; Dear So and So,
 ; 
 ; The bicentennial year of 1976 was a very important milestone in our nation’s history, it was the 200th birthday celebration of the United States. The year 1976 was also a very important one for the Schneider Manufacturing Corporation, as this marked the 35th anniversary of our being in business. These 35 years of continued growth would not have been possible without the loyal and dedicated support of our many hundreds of employees throughout the years. In tribute to the service of our most recent retirees, we are backtracking to our celebration year of 1976 and to this year of 1977 and presenting each of you with a fifty dollar retirement savings bond which will set a precedent for all union employees retiring in the future. This savings bond is in addition to the monthly retirement check you are presently receiving from the ILGWU. These checks are the result of retirement contributions that we have sent to ILGWU throughout the years based upon your payroll earnings. Our very best wishes for your continued good health, and please feel free to visit us at any time.
 ; 
 ; Very Truly Yours,
 ; 
 ; Schneider Manufacturing Corporation
 ; 
 ; Irwin J. Schneider
 ; 0 2146 Press Release Covering the Selling of Schneider Manufacturing to Robert Marzano, 1988 IS: I also want to read the press release. This is the press release sent out by Chambers Association Advertising Public Relations Company on Linden Street in Allentown. The press release that was going to be sent out to the Allentown Morning Call.
 ; 
 ; A 47-year-old Allentown apparel manufacturing firm has a new name and a new owner, assuring the continued employment of more than a hundred and twenty-five men and women. Schneider Manufacturing Company, 315 Linden Street, has been purchased from Irwin J. Schneider by Robert Marzano of Whitehall, and is now Linden Apparel Company. Marzano, who is also President of JoMar Manufacturing in Alburtis, stated that ownership of the Schneider Firm increases his ability to continue to make a better line of ladies knits sportswear, and to expand both the Linden and JoeMar operations. JoeMar, with its 50 employees, is too small to compete alone in the better knits field, he said, so Linden will reinforce our Alburtis plant’s production. Schneider pointed out that the sale of his firm involved two second-generation apparel makers. 0 2449 Long-time Contractor for Beeline Fashions GE: Can you tell us both about that business, Beeline Business, as well as were you their sole supplier?
 ; 
 ; IS: No, I was not their sole supplier.
 ; 
 ; GE: But they were your sole customer.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: But if you could share with us if you could tell us about the Beeline Business and then also what were the years you were saying you had that contract for 25 years and how that really helped your whole business?
 ; 
 ; IS: Well, we were starting to do some business with Beeline starting in the late 1950s, and the relationship started to work out very, very nicely. They started growing very, very fast, very, very quickly and we got a nice relationship with them, and we saw that they were increasing their business so fast and so quickly. It was the era of stay-at-home moms. 0 2856 Samuel Schneider's Contributions to the War Industry SCB: Can we go back and could you talk for a minute about what your dad produced during World War II for the war effort? What kind of garments did he produce, the t-shirts?
 ; 
 ; IS: I know he made a lot of t-shirts for one company that had a contract with the army, plus he made work for other jobbers too, but I am not sure too much because I was only a youngster. I was not really familiar. But he had other contracts.
 ; 
 ; SCB: But he was a war industry then.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes. And it is sad to say that he had to have the war to expand his business.
 ; 
 ; GE: That is the reality.
 ; 
 ; IS: But he got in at the right time and for a man who did not have any education.
 ; 
 ; GE: He was obviously business savvy. 0 2920 Unions SCB: Can you talk a little bit about how the union came into your business, so going back to women how as you mentioned off-camera, were happy with the business and they were getting union wages, but the truckers pushed that, pushed the union, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union?
 ; 
 ; GE: Were really aggressive. Do you want to just share that with us again? We just didn’t capture it. 
 ; 
 ; IS: From what I understand, the union was actually going to the girls' houses at night and saying that the Schneider Manufacturing should go union because a very large majority of the factories in Allentown are all unionized, and you would be better off with the union. A lot of the girls were saying we do not need the union because Sam and Irwin Schneider are good employers, they are paying us basically the same wages as union shops are paying, and they are also paying us vacations, they’re also paying us holidays, so there is no need for us to join the union. So you ought to leave. We don’t have to join the union. 0 3064 Beeline (cont'd)—How the Relationship was Formed GE: I was wondering, excuse me, were you finished? I was wondering with Beeline, how was that original association formed? How was that developed?
 ; 
 ; IS: Okay, we were working with a jobber in New York under the name of the Golder Company, Golder Company and Climax Specialties. This jobber had two names, Golder and Climax Specialties, and they had the contact with Beeline Fashions, and we got the initial contact with this Golder Climax Company, and they were involved with Beeline, and they got the work for us.
 ; 
 ; GE: Beeline did well?
 ; 
 ; IS: And when Beeline got busy, and we were given the opportunity to work for them full time, we gave up the other two accounts we had. It was the start, the best thing that ever happened to us. 0 3148 Creating a Positive Work Environment for Employees SCB: So did the women ever ask for flex time, for instance if they had families? Did they ever ask to have time off during their workday? Was there flexibility about the hours that the women worked?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh yes, we would give, we worked along with them. Our regular hours were from seven to two-thirty, and overtime was usually from two-thirty to four-thirty. If they had problems we let them come in at eight or eight-thirty. We worked with them. And another thing, we were like a savings and loan association, in other words we, my bookkeeper was not too happy about it, it made extra work for her, but we would lend the employees money with no interest and have a payroll deduction plan of five dollars a week for fifty weeks or. . . it was unbelievable I was so good to the employees. 0 3290 Modernized Machinery at Schneider Manufacturing SCB: Did the technology change over the years when you were the sole owner of the business? So did you get more sophisticated machinery?
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, newer equipment, newer equipment, faster equipment, new different types of equipment.
 ; 
 ; GE: Were you constantly updating?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh, yes, sure. I always had top-notch mechanics on my payroll. I was always buying new equipment, new machinery that came out. I was always on top of everything.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So the mechanics would fix the machinery…
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh yeah.
 ; 
 ; SCB: But then if they knew something or you knew something was going to speed up the production and make it more…
 ; 
 ; IS: We always went to trade shows. My mechanics went to trade shows. We had good equipment, the best equipment. We always had modern equipment too. 0 3340 Membership in Trade Organizations SCB: And you were a member, you were an officer in the Needle Trades Workers Organization…
 ; 
 ; IS: The Lehigh Valley, I was a member of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, which was formed in the late 1950s. This was an association that was strictly for public relations, and I was also a member of the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association, with Arnold Delin. You interview Arnold Delin?
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes.
 ; 
 ; IS: By the way, he is very sick.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Oh, no.
 ; 
 ; IS: Arnold Delin, he looked very thin when you saw him?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yes, he did.
 ; 
 ; IS: He’s had a lot of health problems, a lot of health issues. Arnold Delin, when I joined the association in our peak years the association had about 450 members. And we had a headquarters in Wind Gap, a regular building and Arnold Delin would do the negotiations for the contracts for our association. It was a powerful association, and we had wonderful conventions overseas, in Italy, in Hawaii. 0 3468 1988: The Manufacturing Business in China ES: And after the business was sold, we were taking a trip to the Orient for a number of weeks, and we went through the state department.
 ; 
 ; IS: In Washington.
 ; 
 ; ES: Yes, this was in 1988.
 ; 
 ; IS: And Arnold Delin worked for us.
 ; 
 ; ES: And got us permission to visit a Chinese garment factory, and we did.
 ; 
 ; IS: Arnold Delin had to ask permission from the State Department in Washington because, in 1988, China was not so liberal.
 ; 
 ; ES: And we went in, and there was a whole delegation there that was meeting us. They took us around to their factory, and we were immediately struck by the youth of their employees. They were women, and they were all young. And then they took us downstairs and they showed us their daycare center, right on the premises. Infants, they had them all lined up, all bundled up, it was nap time when we were there. But we were immediately struck by the differences between the Oriental manufacturing and the United States.
 ; 
 ; GE: Tell us, describe to us some of the differences.
 ; 
 ; ES: Well, first of all, the age of the employees was far younger than ours. Ours were middle-aged and-
 ; 
 ; IS: Older. 0 3780 Irwin and Ellen's Involvement in the Jewish Community SCB: If we could go back and if you could talk a little bit about your involvement with the community and with the synagogue and the Jewish community and the greater Allentown community, are there organizations other than what you showed us here that you belonged to and connected you to the community?
 ; 
 ; IS: Ok as far as the organizations, I have been on the board of directors of the Temple Beth El. I have also served on the endowment foundation of the Temple Beth El. I have been on the six-man investment committee of the Endowment Foundation of the Temple Beth El. Now those are all in the past already. And also I have been on the committee . . . Board of Directors of the Jewish Family Service. I was also the Treasurer of the Jewish Family Service. I was also on the Russian Resettlement committee and I was very active with Jewish Family Services. This goes back a number of years ago. Also, I was on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Federation of Allentown. And also a solicitor for many, many years. So I was very involved with those three organizations. 0 4096 Evolution of Allentown and Its Communities SCB: How has the wider community of Allentown changed over the years? And how has the Jewish Community changed over the years in Allentown?
 ; 
 ; IS: How has it changed over the years, well definitely it has, the Jewish community over the years, it was more…
 ; 
 ; ES: Cohesive.
 ; 
 ; IS: Cohesive. One section was actually down in the 6th Street area, 6th Street, 5th Street, 4th Street, 3rd Street, and another section was strictly down 6th Street and Fulton Street, and that was called the ghetto, and basically nobody was out in the West End area. And then, after the war years the Jewish community started to filter out towards the West End of Allentown, toward 24th Street, 25th Street, 26th [and] 27th Street. Of course all of the Jewish community were living inside the city limits of Allentown. It wasn’t until I would say until the last 15 to 20 years that they started to move outside of the city limits of Allentown. And during the early years all of the Jewish kids went to Allentown High School, now you do not see a single Jewish student going to Allentown High School. 0 4324 Irwin and Ellen's Values SCB: So, what do you value the most in life?
 ; 
 ; IS: Value most in life, my family, the fact that I have a nice family that I am proud of how we raised our children. I mean we have wonderful children. They are well-educated. We have grandchildren, they’ve been raised so wonderful. They do not have tattoos, rings in their ears. They are well-educated. They are loving children. They call us often, they are just so wonderful. Our kids are just such great kids. We have good family values with our children, we raised them well, and our grandchildren are just super kids in general.
 ; 
 ; ES: I would say one of the nicest things I can see is, you spoke of the family values, watching our children passing those same family values on to their children. 0 4409 Irwin's Inspiration SCB: And what has made you feel the most creative in life, the most artistic in life and this can be more metaphoric, it doesn’t have to be concrete but giving you a sense of connectedness in life?
 ; 
 ; GE: Have you felt you have been artistic or made a difference, productive?
 ; 
 ; IS: I do not know how to answer that.
 ; 
 ; ES: Artistic talent kinda doesn’t run in our family.
 ; 
 ; GE: Doesn’t have to be literally.
 ; 
 ; SCB: But a sense of completion is another way to say it. It doesn’t have to be art, but just a sense of completion. 
 ; 
 ; IS: The fact that I have done well in life, that I have had a successful life.
 ; 
 ; ES: That you have been respected. 0 4519 Introduction—Ellen Schneider nee Ross SCB: So could you tell your full name, including your maiden name, when you were born, and where you were born?
 ; 
 ; ES: Alright. My name is Ellen Schneider, Ellen Ross Schneider.
 ; 
 ; GE: I’m sorry, was that Ross, R-O-S-S?
 ; 
 ; ES: R-O-S-S. Yes, Ross was my maiden name. I was born in New York, and at the age of ten, my family moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which is a very small town in the middle of Pennsylvania.
 ; 
 ; GE: I am sorry, when were you born?
 ; 
 ; ES: In 1936, I am 75 years old. I will help you out with your math. And I was raised in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
 ; 
 ; GE: Why did the family move there?
 ; 
 ; ES: My father opened a business in Williamsport. 0 4631 Meeting Irwin Schneider ES: When I was at Penn State, my mother and my brother moved back to New York. And then I met Irwin.
 ; 
 ; SCB: At Penn State?
 ; 
 ; ES: No, we both went to Penn State but did not meet there was no overlap.
 ; 
 ; IS: She graduated, no I graduated in June of ‘53, she started in September of ‘53.
 ; 
 ; ES: We never were there at the same time.
 ; 
 ; IS: And when she started in ‘53, I was already going into the Army.
 ; 
 ; ES: We met on a blind date here in Allentown, actually.
 ; 
 ; GE: Who fixed you up?
 ; 
 ; IS: Irwin Greenberg.
 ; 
 ; ES: Irwin Greenberg. My Aunt lived across the street. 0 4690 Seeking Family History in Poland SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your family as much as you know about your family, work, education, where they came from?
 ; 
 ; ES: Alright. Both my mother and father were born in the United States. My grandparents came from Poland. And the area of Poland that they came from was in- had been Austria. And as I mentioned, we took a trip back to Poland. We took my mother for her 80th birthday. And we went to visit the small village where her parents came from which was outside of Krakow and then we went to the area which was outside of Warsaw where Irwin’s father came from. And in the area where my grandparents came from we found evidence of our family being there. We went into the hall of records, and I had said to my mother, “What do you think you are going to find, my grandparents came out of there in 1899, what do you think you are going to find?”, “Maybe I can find my parent’s marriage certificate.” So we went into the hall of records with the guide, and the women asked could we find a marriage certificate, and she said, “Yes,” and my mother gave her a date, and she turned to the shelf behind her and pulled a raggedy old book and she was going through the pages, and she stopped, said something in Polish and it was translated to there was had been a fire there in 1910 and everything burned down. 0 5193 Ellen's Family History IS: Tell them the rest of your history. Ask her more questions.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Let me ask you one question, do you know if any extended family, is there any extended family left?
 ; 
 ; ES: In Poland?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yes?
 ; 
 ; ES: If there are, we have no contact, we do not know. As I said my grandparents came here with-
 ; 
 ; SCB: Which is a long time ago.
 ; 
 ; ES: Yes, 1899. And my grandmother came here with four children, one of whom was an infant, and had four more children including my mother here. My father, his parents, were from Hungary. They met in the United States and married in the United States. So all of their children were born in the United States. If my father were alive today he would be a hundred and something years old, so they went back a very long time. 0 5364 Ellen's College Education SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your college years and also after you met Irwin, how you came here?
 ; 
 ; ES: Well, actually my college years actually came in two parts. I had two years of college when I met Irwin and we’re talking the ‘50s, and it was very common to leave school.
 ; 
 ; IS: And get married.
 ; 
 ; ES: And get married, it was called getting an MRS degree, which I got. After my children were grown, and they were in high school and had started college themselves, I went back to college here, and I went to Cedar Crest and finished, and I got a degree in social work, and I worked for the Jewish Community Center. 0 5446 Children and Grandchildren SCB: Can you talk about your family, your children, and your life?
 ; 
 ; ES: You want me to talk about my grandchildren, you will have to put another one of those things in there. We have two children. Our daughter, Janet, our children both live in the New York area.
 ; 
 ; IS: Wonderful children, we raised them wonderfully, and they have great values.
 ; 
 ; ES: She is married to a very, very lovely man who is on television, he is a sports broadcaster, and you can see him here.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Is he Allentown?
 ; 
 ; ES: No, no, no, he is in New York.
 ; 
 ; SCB: He is on a New York station?
 ; 
 ; IS: Do you get Service Electric?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes.
 ; 
 ; ES: You can see him, Channel 7- Channel 17.
 ; 
 ; GE: What is his name?
 ; 
 ; ES: Bruce Beck. 0 5693 Ellen's Admiration for Samuel Schneider SCB: So you were talking about that your father-in-law was just 11 years out of Poland when he came here.
 ; 
 ; ES: 1931-1932, he was 11 years out of Poland, and he had ambition, he did not have an education, he could not read and write English, but his job was as a foreman, and it was a good job. Thirty-five dollars a week in 1931 at the depths of the depression was a good job. He had a wife and a very young child, and he had the courage to leave the familiar, which was his whole family, whatever family he had, which came out of Poland, were all living in the same area of Brooklyn. And against his parent’s wishes. “Please, Sam, don’t go, don’t go.” You know they were shtetl [small Eastern European villages where Jews lived] people.
 ; 
 ; IS: They begged him to stay in Brooklyn.
 ; 
 ; ES: To go out into the wide world, it took courage.
 ; 
 ; IS: “Sam, you’re going to get lost in Allentown, don’t go, don’t go.”
 ; 
 ; ES: Right, but he had the courage, he had the ambition. And thank God he did because all of us have had a wonderful life from the beginnings that he gave us. And we are very grateful to him. He was a wonderful man. I loved him, I did. 0 5786 Ellen's Dedication to the Jewish Community Center SCB: Can you talk about your role in the Synagogue and the community, the wider Allentown community and the Jewish community.
 ; 
 ; ES: My role was not much in the synagogue, that was Irwin’s area. I devoted my energies to the Jewish Community Center. I devoted a lot of time and a lot of effort and I served in many capacities.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Can you talk about that?
 ; 
 ; ES: Yes, I was President of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center, which in the days that I was there had a membership of 600 and it had a Board of 60 ladies. And after I got finished with that, after having been President of…
 ; 
 ; GE: And you were President, this is about what decade?
 ; 
 ; ES: Late ‘60s, early ‘70s. And I served on the Board of the Jewish Community Center for 15 years. 0 5927 Ellen's Perspective on the Changes in Allentown and Its Communities SCB: And can you talk a little bit about how you think that the community has changed, and the Jewish community has changed? You talked some about that, but is there more?
 ; 
 ; ES: The community of Allentown, the wider community, has changed vastly as I think all of us realize. The ethnicity has changed completely. We were just driving through the old neighborhoods a week or two ago, and we were saying that this Allentown traditionally had been pretty much a blue-collar community.
 ; 
 ; IS: All white.
 ; 
 ; ES: White and the factory owners who employed the blue-collar people. That has changed a great deal. It was a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch. I do not think there are even too many Pennsylvania Dutch even around anymore. Very, very mixed ethnicities here, for the good, for the bad, I don’t really know, but it has changed. The Jewish community, as I mentioned before, I think one of the biggest changes has been the death of the family-run businesses. 0 6174 Ties to the Jewish Community Center GE: You mentioned with the JCC that Irwin was more involved with Beth El, what do you think attracted you? In other words, what from the JCC or about the JCC?
 ; 
 ; ES: What attracted me to the JCC was growing up without a JCC and realizing what this did for my peers who are still here and they grew up in Allentown, they went to the JCC. That is why I gave my time and talents to that organization. Irwin grew up at Temple Beth El, he has never belonged to another synagogue in his life. Never. People have asked, “Are you going to go to children’s for the holidays?” And I say, “No we go to the Temple Beth El.” I think even when you were in college, I think you used to come home to go to Temple Beth El for the holidays. No, that is what we do. 0 6276 Ellen's Values and Inspirations SCB: What do you value in life?
 ; 
 ; ES: I value my family, whom I love. I value good health. I value my husband.
 ; 
 ; GE: What has made you feel creative?
 ; 
 ; ES: What has made me feel creative? My goodness. I would have to say that the years I spent working with the elderly. I discovered I had a rapport with the elderly that I never knew that I had. When I started taking social work and intended to work in the field, I thought I would work with children. And just happenstance got me working with the elderly and discovered that I liked them. Now I am one of them. 0 MovingImage Irwin Schneider talks about his father’s journey from being a sixteen year old immigrant textile factory worker, to foreman, to owner of a contract sewing factory. The Schneider business prospered due to hard work and good timing. Irwin joined the family business in the 1950s and further grew the business by producing for Beeline Fashions through the early 1980s. 
 ; 
 ; Ellen Schneider talks about meeting Irwin, leaving college to get married and start a family, and then returning to college many years later after her children grow up. With her degree in social work, Ellen enjoyed a fulfilling career working with the local Jewish senior population.
 ; Interview with Irwin Schneider, August 10, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is August 10th, 2011, an interview with Irwin Schneider. And we'll start, if you will, with all of your information, your name, where you live currently, and your birthdate. IRWIN SCHNEIDER: My name is Irwin Schneider. I live in Macungie, PA, during the summer months, and I live in Florida for seven months during the winter months. SCB: Where were you born? IS: I was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1931. SCB: Can we talk a little about your family background, and then we will get back to you again. Where, what do you know about your parents, your grandparents, great-grandparents, where they came from, where they lived, and their education? IS: Alright, my family, everyone came from Poland. My parents were born in Poland and my parents came to the United States in the early 1920s. Both came from Poland, and my parents immigrated to the United States, and they moved to Brooklyn. They met in Brooklyn, and they married in January of 1930. And they met and lived in Brooklyn and worked very, very hard. And my father decided to get into the garment business. He worked in NY as a foreman in a sewing factory. And in 1931, the factory that he was working for decided to move to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to get away from the union. And he was working as a foreman, and he was making $35 a week, which was a very nice salary at that time. He decided to come to Allentown to test it out, and he came to Allentown, and he didn't know where to go so, he went to Friday night services at Sons of Israel which was located at 6th and Tilghman Street. And he met a man with a beard, and my father was only 28 years old at the time, and I was six months old. And he introduced himself, said my name is Sam Schneider. The Factory I am working for is moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I am thinking of coming to Allentown. I do not know a single soul. I do not know where to go. I am thinking of coming to Allentown, and I am at a loss at what to do and where to go. The man said you look like a nice young Jewish man. What I am going to do for you is I'll let you stay at my place. I will give you room and board. I will give you breakfast and dinner and a clean bed for five dollars a week. My father said, "Thank you so much." Then he took that opportunity, and that is what he did. And he stayed at this place, and he stayed there, and he worked for six days a week, and he took the train back to Brooklyn. He spent Saturday night and Sunday in New York, and then he came back to Allentown and worked six days a week. And then went back to New York for the weekends and after two months he decided this is what he is going to do. He is going to move my mother and me to Allentown. And this he did against his family's wishes. His parents and all of his relatives still were in Brooklyn, and they said, "Sam, Sam," his Jewish name was Shimon, "Shimon, Shimon, do not do this. All of your family members are in New York and Brooklyn. You are going to Allentown, and there are probably no Jewish people. There is nothing but goyim, goyim [Yiddish word for gentile]." My father said there is a synagogue there, and there are Jewish people there. I got to do this, I got to start, and I got to try and go there and make a living for myself. And that is what he did. And we, and he moved my mother and me down to Allentown. That is how we came to Allentown. SCB: Do you know what his mother and father's full names were? IS: My mother's name? ELLEN SCHNEIDER: Your father's family. SCB: Your father's family. What your father's mother and father's full names. GAIL EISENBERG: Your grandparents. ES: Your grandparents. SCB: Yes, that would be another way to say it. IS: My father's father's name was Avram. ES: Or Abe. IS: Abraham and mother's name was Lottie. GE: And how about your parents' name? IS: Samuel and Florence. GE: And you said they were from Poland, do you know where in Poland? Ellen Schneider: Not only do we know, but we visited. GE: Oh, OK. Where? ES: Lomza. They pronounce it womja. IS: He was Lomza, Poland. And what town was she from, Ellen? ES: That I don't know. IS: That we don't know. SCB: And you visited it? ES: Yes, we did. We visited it. GE: And I am also wondering, you said that "their parents were here", is that correct? In other words, when your father came here and your mother came, do you know what their experience was? Did they come by themselves or with their parents? IS: No, when my father came here his- ES: His sister and your grandfather were already here. IS: That's right. ES: They came first. GE: Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Do you know anything about that, when your grandfather came and your aunt? IS: My father's father came first, and his one sister came also, and they worked to save some money up, so that they could later send money over so my father and his mother could come over later after the war years. SCB: So they came before WWI. IS: Yes, so my father's father and my father's sister came over ahead of time and then after the war. ES: And then the war intervened, which is why there was a number of years that they did not come. SCB: What part of Poland is that ; where is that located in Poland? Was it passed between Russia and Poland, Germany, or is it in an area that was pretty much the territory of Poland, do you know? GE: Because the borders keep changing, that's why we are wondering where that is. ES: It was an hour outside of Warsaw. An hour east of Warsaw. GE: OK. That is probably Poland. ES: Oh, yes, it was definitely Poland. GE: The reason we were asking this is because the border changed so some areas. . . GE: My father was part of an area of Poland that before WWI was part of Russia and then after WWI is Poland and now is part of Lithuania. ES: My mother's family, it was Austria, and then it became Poland. IS: And when my father came over, he was a sixteen-year-old boy. Within three days, he was already working in a pocketbook factory. And there were tough days. SCB: Did he meet, did your father's father meet his wife here in the United States? GE: His father did but not his grandfather. SCB: But not his grandfather. So was married when he came to the United States, your grandfather? IS: Yes, he was. GE: Right, right, they brought the mother right. SCB: So, as far as your mother's family? Do you know more about your mother's family? IS: My mother came over as a fourteen-year-old girl. My mother's family, her oldest sister, came over first and all of her sisters, her other sisters, she was one of eight sisters and all of her other sisters except for her oldest remained in Europe and they all were killed by the Germans. SCB: Do you know your mother's maiden name? Your grandmother's maiden name, excuse me? And your mother's maiden name? ES: I do not think you know your grandmother's maiden name. Your mother's maiden name was Schillis. IS: Schillis. SCB: How do you spell that, just for the future. IS: S-C-H-I-L-L-I-S. SCB: Do you know any stories about your family in Poland or in the United States? Any anecdotes that you think would help to make them come alive more? GE: For your children and their children. And what kind of work did they do in Poland? IS: I have no idea what kind of work they did in Poland. But when my grandfather came here, he was a presser in a garment factory. GE: Did they leave, do you know what prompted them to leave Poland, specifically? IS: To come over here and get a better life. GE: OK. IS: That was the main reason that most of the Jewish refugees came over here. SCB: So if you can talk a little bit more about, do you have any more questions about the family's past? GE: Do you know what kind of education your father had? IS: He did not have any education at all. GE: Not even a couple years in Cheder [basic Jewish education in Hebrew and prayer] to learn to pray. IS: I guess he went to Hebrew School. SCB: Any of the other people in your family, do you know what their education level was? GE: The generation above you. IS: They did not have any education at all, none. My mother came here as a fourteen-year-old child, she went to a couple years of grade school, and then after that, she went to work as a sewing machine operator. GE: So your father was- IS: My father came here at age sixteen, he didn't go to school at all, he went to work immediately. GE: So your father was a presser, and your mom was- IS: No, my grandfather was a presser. GE: I'm sorry, your Grandfather was a presser, right, right. Your father- SCB: In a pocketbook factory. IS: My father when he eventually went into the garment industry, he worked his way up to become a foreman. GE: What did he start out as? IS: He started out work as a laborer in the garment factory and in 1931 when the factory left Brooklyn to come to Allentown he had gotten up to the position of a foreman making $35 dollar a week, and that was very good money, and he did not want to give that up, so he decided to try it out. GE: Come to the Netherlands. SCB: Cause that was in the real depths of the depression. IS: Absolutely. SCB: So can you talk a little bit more about your childhood? What you did? Maybe where you worked? Where you went to school? IS: I went to Penn State University. I got a degree in commerce and finance. And during the summer years, I worked at the factory at Schneider Manufacturing. And after the graduation, I went into the Army. I was in the medical corps, and after I graduated from the Army, I went into the business. GE: And that's already the '50s? IS: I graduated from Penn State University in 1953. And then I went into the Army for two years. I got out in 1955. And then I went into the business. SCB: Did you go to Allentown High School? IS: I went to Allentown High School. SCB: How about Elementary School? IS: I went to Raub. I went to Raub for nine years. ES: Oh, at that time, it was K to eight. IS: Yes. GE: Ok. IS: It was nine years. GE: Right, right, right. IS: Nine years at Raub and then the tenth, eleventh and twelfth at Allentown High School. GE: And where did you live? Where did you grow up? Where in Allentown? What neighborhood? IS: We lived in, we grew up in the West End of Allentown. GE: What street? IS: We first lived on South St. Cloud Street. GE: OK. That is between the 17th and 18th. IS: Between 17th and 18th, and then we moved to South West Street. GE: Ok, and South West Street, that is off of Walnut. IS: South West Street is between 16th and 17th Street. GE: OK, right by Temple Beth El. IS: Yes. GE: And what do you remember as a child, maybe some of your friends you want to name for us or? At that time, your father was still working. While you were a small child, he was still working. IS: No, he was in business already because he went into business in 1941. GE: In 1941, okay. So from 31 to 41, up until that time, then what was he doing, was he just a foreman? IS: Yes. GE: So for ten years, during those ten years, your first ten years of life. Do you want to share anything? Do you have any friends from that time that are still people we would know in Allentown? For example. Did you go to the JCC? IS: During those years, I spent time, spent time. Actually, we started going to the JCC in the early, in the early 1940s at 6th and Chew Street. GE: Is that when that was built, the 1940s? IS: Yeah, well, it was built way before the 1940s, but the JCC then were at 6th and Chew. And some of the friends that are still around-- Irwin Greenberg. GE: And tell me Irwin Greenberg, who was his wife? ES: He was the President of Hess's. IS: The President of Hess's. GE: Okay, alright. So he grew up here. IS: He grew up here. GE: Ok, ok. Interesting. IS: And another one of my closest friends was Sherwood Zilinsky, who passed away. He was the other brother of Irwin Zilinsky. GE: Okay. SCB: And Mr. Greenberg was on the documentary about Hess's. He spoke on Hess's. As far as being connected with the Jewish community, were you connected with the synagogue, was your family connected? IS: Oh, yes. We have been members of Beth El since we moved into Allentown. GE: So all the way back since 1931? IS: Yes. I think the Temple Beth El was started around 1928, sometime around there. GE: Probably. IS: And we have been members since 1931, since we moved into Allentown. So we are long-time members of Beth El. SCB: Was your father involved in the community at all? Did he have any connection to community organizations? Or was he mostly working in the business? IS: He was an active member of Beth El. He was on the Board of Directors of Beth El. And he was an active member of the Locust Valley Country Club. He was one of the original charter members. GE: Where is that? I am not familiar with that. IS: It is not in existence anymore. It was a country club that was formed in the early 1950s, in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. GE: I am just wondering because this came up in another community where we spoke to people. Was there, I don't know if he was interested in becoming a member of any other country clubs, but were there any issues, did he find any social discrimination because he was Jewish in trying to join any country club? IS: Not that I know. He did not try to join any other country clubs. He was very involved in the business. GE: Okay. SCB: So can you talk about the jobs you've had in your life? From the very first place that you made a little bit of money all the way through to the business? IS: The only job I had prior was one year as a counselor in a camp, and then being in the Army and then going right to Schneider Manufacturing. SCB: And what camp was that? IS: It was a camp in, it was Blue Mountain Camp, one summer. SCB: Was that specifically connected to the synagogue, or was it a general camp? IS: No, it was a summer camp in the Pocono Mountains. So basically, I have had no other employers besides the U.S. Army and Schneider Manufacturing. GE: Schneider Manufacturing began when you were like ten years old. IS: Yes. GE: Do you want to share with us a little bit about how the business got started? IS: Alright. How the business got started. My father, my father, actually in 1941 borrowed five hundred dollars to start the business and buy six sewing machines. And he started it in Pearl Harbor week. He started with six employees, and he took one of the employees from the business that he had been working for, a teenager named Valeria Lukish, who was a very promising girl, who had a lot of potential. She was a combination sewing machine operator and a floor girl, and she eventually rose to the position of plant manager. And this woman today is 97 years old. She is still alive. And I visit her occasionally, she's sort of in dementia and is very feeble, and she barely recognizes me, and I still get to see her once in a while. But anyway, the business started in 1941 during Pearl Harbor week, and my father started with six sewing machines. He borrowed the five hundred dollars to start the business. And the first manufacturer that gave him work was Bob Sussman. His son is Fred Sussman, who lives here in Allentown. He is a member of Temple Beth El, Fred and Barbara Sussman. And my father started with Bob Sussman and luckily he got started at the right time. He prospered, and each year, he got more and more work in with various manufacturers, and each year got more and more equipment, machinery. And did very, very well. And by the time I came into the business in 1955, he had about a hundred and ten machines already. He was doing quite well. And my father was a hustler and a pusher, and this girl, Valeria Lukish, wound up as a plant manager. SCB: The Sussmans, were they manufacturers? IS: They were manufacturers. SCB: And were they out of Allentown or New York? IS: Their main office was in New York, but they were giving work to contractors in Allentown. SCB: And they lived in Allentown? IS: Yes, the Sussmans lived in Allentown. SCB: Wow. That is unusual. IS: Yes, Bob Sussman lived in Allentown on South 16th Street. SCB: And what kind of clothing did they make when your dad owned it? IS: They were making knitwear. SCB: So knitwear for women? IS: Yes, for women. SCB: Were there certain labels they were making the knitwear for? Specifically, or was it more general? IS: More general. SCB: And so they would be shipped up to New York. IS: Yes. SCB: Could you talk a little bit about the process that your dad had. Do you know anything about the processes that he used, the way he organized the business and the manufacturing? IS: In what respect? SCB: So how did he go about it, did he have certain people as cutters? Did he have people, women, probably. Did he hire men? What was the factory like under him? IS: In the beginning, he just had sewers and sewing equipment. As he got a little larger, he opened up a cutting room, and he hired cutters and spreaders. And he would get piece goods in and get a cutting department in. Then cutting and sewing and then opened up a finishing department with pressers and finishers and shippers and so on. And then, we made the complete product from cutting up to finishing and packing and shipping. GE: Now, I am curious when you said that happened when he got more business. You said initially they just did sewing. IS: Right. GE: If they just did the sewing, did they partner, did they have to then provide, did they then get, whatever has to occur for you to sew, there's something that happens before- IS: The work would come in already cut. SCB: Did the person that provided that, was it a manufacturer? Was it the Sussmans? Another factory or another organization that did the cutting? IS: Yes. SCB: Do you know any of the names of the cutters? That was when you were a kid. IS: I have no idea. SCB: Of course not, but I thought I would ask anyway. How did it change when, or did it change when you took over the business? IS: When I came into the business, he already had a full-fledged operation going on, a full-fledged from cutting, shipping, and packing, the full operation going. SCB: So it did not expand at all after you took over? IS: It expanded in volume, the number of people, the number of employees. When I came into the organization, we expanded, and we gradually built it up, and when I came into the business in 1955 we kept expanding and getting larger and larger. And a couple years later in 1957 my father said, "Irwin, you are doing such a great job in here, in two year you already know everything, I do not even have to be here anymore," he said. "I am going to retire to Florida. I am going to move to Florida. I will remain the president of the corporation, and you are going to take over the everyday duties of running the factory. What I'm going to do is, I am going to call you every Friday afternoon, you are going to tell me everything you shipped, how many dozens went out, what the volume was and what you are going to do is send me my paycheck for the week. And I will speak to you every week. Once a quarter I will come up for a couple days and walk around the factory, check and see what you are doing. Then I will fly back to Florida, and that is the way we will do it." SCB: Sounds like a nice business relationship, too. IS: I ran the factory, and he was very, very pleased. And this woman, Valeria Lukish, who we talked about who was a teenager back in 1941 who he felt would eventually be a plant manager, he saw that she was very talented as a seventeen-year-old teenager. Anyway, so the factory actually grew in size and numbers while I was there, and we eventually grew to about 230 to 240 people at its peak. GE: About when is that - 1960? IS: 1960s and 1970s. SCB: As far as your learning the business, where did you start, and how did you go through that until your father got to the point that you knew everything I am going to retire? IS: Well, when I went in in 1955, I started to grasp everything pretty quickly within the two year period. GE: But you were, tell us about your involvement prior to that. I think you said you worked there during the summers. IS: Yes, during the summers, I would work for him. GE: Actually one thing I was curious, how about the 1930s? I realize your Dad didn't open his own factory until 1941. But during the 1930s how was the garment industry? There was the Depression, but was the garment industry in depression, or was that still a thriving industry? IS: I do not think it was thriving. It was struggling, it was growing, but it was struggling. SCB: And during those summers then, did you work at specific machines or did you just learn - and I shouldn't say "just" - learn the management of the business without being involved in the various processes to understand what people were doing? IS: Actually I spent a little time in the office, a little time on the sewing floor, a little time in the cutting room, a little time in every area of the business. Trying to pick up a little bit. SCB: So you were managing mostly? IS: Not actually management, my father had me in every single department trying to pick up. SCB: So did you actually operate, go through the process in the department? And the reason I am asking this is because in some of the textile industries in Philadelphia in the 19th century the son would be brought in and would have to go through every process and learn every process so he would learn how to do everything. GE: So he would actually work on a press. SCB: Right, do everything, and learn all the skills. IS: I did not. Actually, I did not actually sit on a sewing machine, I did not actually go to the cutting room and use any of the cutting equipment. SCB: So it was more observation and watching. IS: Observation, right. SCB: Watching what worked and what didn't. IS: Right, right. SCB: Do you have any memories of those times and stories? GE: And even the interactions with the employees? IS: I had a very good relationship with the employees. They loved me. I worked very good with them. I had a nice relationship with them. I treated them very, very well. ES: Can I interject something? SCB: Certainly! ES: He still does to this day. There is a group, now these are elderly ladies by now, but there is a group of them who still meet once a month for lunch, they go to the City View Diner. IS: On Seventh Street. ES: And in the summertime when Irwin is home, he comes there and joins them once or twice. SCB: Wonderful. ES: They love it. SCB: Was there a specific ethnic group that were the workers in the factory or was it the diversity of ethnicity in Allentown? IS: Diversity, a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch. And I would say the last several years in business we had quite a few Vietnamese girls, quite a few Vietnamese girls, and they were the best sewing machine operators we've ever had. They were so wonderful. And I was the only one in town that had any Jewish sewing machine operators. There were a total of three Jewish sewing machine operators in Allentown, and I had all three of them. GE: Now this, when you say Jewish sewing machine operators, what that in the '40s? IS: No, No, they were the last 10 years I was in business. GE: Ok, ok. So 60s and 70s, I was just curious. SCB: So the Vietnamese women, when did they come? Did they come after 1973, mostly? IS: The Vietnamese operators were there in the last 15 years I was in business. SCB: When did you actually stop? IS: 1988, I sold the business. The Vietnamese operators I had were the best. They used to beg me for so much overtime. When we were very, very busy, they would work every single hour that I would give them, and they would say they would call me "Mr. Bossman." "Mr. Bossman, give me more overtime, more overtime, more overtime." Sometimes when we very busy, I would have to beg the American girls to work overtime, and the Vietnamese girls they would work all the overtime and then some. They would beg me and beg me. GE: That is why this industry exists so well in China. SCB: So, in those years with managing and owning the business or managing for your Dad, how long did your Dad live by the way? IS: He lived until 1978. SCB: So those last years that this was your business, you owned the business solely. So do you have any memories of times there were struggles? Or times that were absolutely wonderful where you had lots of contracts and were really thriving? SCB: Today is August 10, 2011, interview with Irwin Schneider. Susan Clemens, and Gail Eisenberg attending. GE: Sue, we did not get this little bit. Is that correct? SCB: Yes. GE: So I am going to let you read the whole thing. So just as you did, you did it so beautifully, if you will go back, so we have the opportunity for your family to have this and for us to have this. Yes, read these same things again because we just did not capture it. IS: This is something from Rance Block who was President of Beth El in March of 1988: Dear Employees of Irwin Schneider, The officers and Congregation at Temple Beth El acknowledges with gratitude your generous donation made in honor of Irwin Schneider. The funds will be placed in the Samuel Schneider Philanthropic fund. This contribution shows the esteem in which Irwin Schneider is held by all his former employees. I am sure that Mr. Schneider is deeply touched and appreciative of this gesture. Once again, thanks for your generosity. Sincerely, Rance Block President Here's also in the Temple Beth El bulletin of March of 1988: Donation made to the Samuel Schneider Philanthropic fund of Temple Beth El in honor of Irwin Schneider for all the years of love and understanding he has given to us, his employees, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Geiger, bookkeeper, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Kein, production manager, the girls in his office, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Lukish, general manager. This is something I did February 1, 1977. I wrote this letter, and each and every one of the girls who retired got a letter like this. I will read the letter that I wrote: Dear So and So, The bicentennial year of 1976 was a very important milestone in our nation's history, it was the 200th birthday celebration of the United States. The year 1976 was also a very important one for the Schneider Manufacturing Corporation, as this marked the 35th anniversary of our being in business. These 35 years of continued growth would not have been possible without the loyal and dedicated support of our many hundreds of employees throughout the years. In tribute to the service of our most recent retirees, we are backtracking to our celebration year of 1976 and to this year of 1977 and presenting each of you with a fifty dollar retirement savings bond which will set a precedent for all union employees retiring in the future. This savings bond is in addition to the monthly retirement check you are presently receiving from the ILGWU. These checks are the result of retirement contributions that we have sent to ILGWU throughout the years based upon your payroll earnings. Our very best wishes for your continued good health, and please feel free to visit us at any time. Very Truly Yours, Schneider Manufacturing Corporation Irwin J. Schneider SCB: That is very nice. IS: I also want to read the press release. This is the press release sent out by Chambers Association Advertising Public Relations Company on Linden Street in Allentown. The press release that was going to be sent out to the Allentown Morning Call. A 47-year-old Allentown apparel manufacturing firm has a new name and a new owner, assuring the continued employment of more than a hundred and twenty-five men and women. Schneider Manufacturing Company, 315 Linden Street, has been purchased from Irwin J. Schneider by Robert Marzano of Whitehall, and is now Linden Apparel Company. Marzano, who is also President of JoMar Manufacturing in Alburtis, stated that ownership of the Schneider Firm increases his ability to continue to make a better line of ladies knits sportswear, and to expand both the Linden and JoeMar operations. JoeMar, with its 50 employees, is too small to compete alone in the better knits field, he said, so Linden will reinforce our Alburtis plant's production. Schneider pointed out that the sale of his firm involved two second-generation apparel makers. His father, the late Sam Schneider, founded the company at 8th and Pittston Streets in Allentown in 1941, with six employees. Marzano's father, Joseph, who is now retired, founded JoMar in 1957 on North 8th Street in Allentown. Schneider Manufacturing moved to 315 Linden Street in 1942 and grew to 230 employees at its peak in the late 1970s, making it Lehigh Valley's largest contract manufacturing. Irwin Schneider joined his father in 1955 after serving with the US Army medical corp. A native of New York City, he earned a bachelor's degree in commerce and finance at Penn State University. He is a former vice-president and treasurer of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association and served on the Executive Committee of the Allentown Lehigh County Chamber of Commerce Manufacturing Division. JoMar moved to North Wall Street Allentown, a location that was closed when the Alburtis plant was opened in 1974. Marzano is a native of New York City and graduate of Parkland High School. He served in the US Navy for two years before joining his father in 1960. Past president of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association in Allentown, also the Optimist's District Lieutenant Governor. Schneider stated that he decided to sell his company, which makes ladies knit and woven sportswear, because he wanted to pursue other business interests. "I wanted to make sure the company would be a going concern that would preserve the jobs of our people. I searched for a buyer who was experienced in the industry and who shared with me a commitment to the needle trades." Schneider added that it was through working together as board members of Needle Trades Association that he developed a rapport with Bob Marzano. A mutual respect for each other's business abilities followed. He stated, "It was fortuitous that my search for a buyer coincided with Bob's desire to expand his operations." Schneider emphasized that, in his opinion, tighter quotas and shorter cycle times have given the domestic apparel industry a new lease on life. He know that smaller lots is a definite advantage over plants in the Orient and other offshore areas. SCB: Because you were more flexible? IS: Yes. GE: Or willing to do a niche. SCB: Right. IS: So I had a successful run in the garment industry. I was very happy with the years I was in the industry. I did very, very well, and I feel that it was time to move on to other areas, so I was happy I had a good run, and I moved on. GE: What did happen? Do you know with the company that bought this, how have they fared? I am just wondering that... IS: Well he was able to keep the company going for ten years. I was happy that my employees had jobs for a while, but he struggled for a while. It was not that he was not a good businessman, it was a condition of the times. A lot of work was being funneled overseas. He did struggle a bit, and he did have to keep on shrinking the company, keep on making it smaller and smaller, as I had to do the last couple years that I was in business. I also had to shrink the business down, this was just a condition of the times. There was not enough work that was available, the company that I worked for exclusively for a number of years, Beeline Fashions, on the house party plan. I'd worked for them exclusively for well over 25 years, and they kept me busy going day and night time, full time. And they kept me as busy as I could be. GE: Can you tell us both about that business, Beeline Business, as well as were you their sole supplier? IS: No, I was not their sole supplier. GE: But they were your sole customer. IS: Yes. GE: But if you could share with us if you could tell us about the Beeline Business and then also what were the years you were saying you had that contract for 25 years and how that really helped your whole business? IS: Well, we were starting to do some business with Beeline starting in the late 1950s, and the relationship started to work out very, very nicely. They started growing very, very fast, very, very quickly and we got a nice relationship with them, and we saw that they were increasing their business so fast and so quickly. It was the era of stay-at-home moms. Mothers were not going to work at that time, they were having house party plans. They were selling garments. They would have a house party, coffee clutch. They would invite maybe 15 to 18 women at a house, and they would have catalogs and garments on display, and they would order garments through catalogs and through sample garments on display. And their business was mushrooming like crazy, and Beeline was expanding so quickly. We had about two or three other accounts, and we dropped them because Beeline was after us for our entire production, and they said give us your entire production, and we will keep you busy. We will keep you busy going day and night. We expanded our night shift, we started working our employees full time, overtime, Saturday mornings. We gave our employees as much time as they could handle. And we even went into a real-estate partnership with Beeline, we bought another building in order to expand our operations. We worked exclusively with them for well over 25 years, so we didn't have to go into New York looking for other work, they came to us. They just piled us up with so much work ; it was just mind-boggling. It was an unbelievable setup that we had with them, they were pushing us and pushing us, "Please give us more production, please add more operators, please give." And they were giving us the bulk of the work that they were giving us the most difficult styles because our quality was top notch. It was a nice little gravy train. So it worked out very, very well for us. GE: When did it end? Like how long did that go until? IS: It is hard to end. I would say in the early 1980s when their business started to go downhill, and they eventually went out of business. And then in the early 1980s, after they went out of business, I had to start going into New York looking for other work. At one point in the early 1980s I was probably working for six or seven different manufacturers at one time, and that started to make it a little bit rough at that point. SCB: The organization changes, doesn't it? IS: At that point, business was getting a little bit tougher, and more and more stuff was going overseas, and I found out going to New York, it was tougher finding work. And then when I would get the work, I would find that prices were tougher, and margins were very, very tight, profits were getting smaller and smaller. My organization was getting smaller, and I was not hiring any new people. As my employees were retiring, I was not replacing them, and my organization was shrinking, and my employee base was getting smaller and smaller. By the time I did sell out to Bob Marzano, I did not have the 230 people I did once. I had, I was probably down to 130 people or 120 people at that point. SCB: Did you have to lay anyone off or did you just downsize. IS: Just downsize-- SCB: Downsize by attrition. IS: Yes, by attrition. I saw the handwriting on the wall, but thankfully I had enough good years that I was thankful I was in the garment business, but I did see the handwriting on the wall. You know my son during his college years would spend the summers in the factory learning the business the same way that I did, and he was willing, he wanted to come into the business, but after a couple summers in the business, Ellen and I steered him away. We said you know if you would come into the business, we feel that by the time you were in the business about seven or eight years, you would maybe be 28 or 29 years old, we feel the business would not be a viable business for you, and you will be out in the street looking for something else. And we coaxed him and told him it is not a good idea to come into the business. GE: How lucky he was. IS: Yes. And Ellen and I-- ES: He listened to parents. IS: Ellen and I said we ought to shift your interests elsewhere, and we coaxed him into going on for a Master's Degree in business. He went to George Washington University and got a Master's degree and eventually went into New York and became a stockbroker for several years and then got another job with another organization, and he is doing very well. He is a head trader with a financial institution. That worked out well. GE: Right. SCB: To go back to Beeline, did they like Tupperware and other organizations that were based on a party system, did they give you orders that were based on the orders they got or did they have you producing on projected orders? IS: They were based on orders that they had. They had a large volume. GE: Were they doing this door to door all over the country? Were these house parties all over the country? IS: Pretty much so. GE: And what kind of clothing were they, were they knit? IS: Yes. GE: So they were like women's pants suits? ES: That is exactly right. GE: I remember that type of thing, I just do not remember the house parties. IS: Such volume it was unbelievable. SCB: Can we go back and could you talk for a minute about what your dad produced during World War II for the war effort? What kind of garments did he produce, the t-shirts? IS: I know he made a lot of t-shirts for one company that had a contract with the army, plus he made work for other jobbers too, but I am not sure too much because I was only a youngster. I was not really familiar. But he had other contracts. SCB: But he was a war industry then. IS: Yes. And it is sad to say that he had to have the war to expand his business. GE: That is the reality. IS: But he got in at the right time and for a man who did not have any education. GE: He was obviously business savvy. IS: Business savvy, yes. GE: He was at the right time and he knew how to make an opportunity work. ES: He had street smarts. GE: Yeah. ES: He did. SCB: Can you talk a little bit about how the union came into your business, so going back to women how as you mentioned off-camera, were happy with the business and they were getting union wages, but the truckers pushed that, pushed the union, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union? GE: Were really aggressive. Do you want to just share that with us again? We just didn't capture it. IS: From what I understand, the union was actually going to the girls' houses at night and saying that the Schneider Manufacturing should go union because a very large majority of the factories in Allentown are all unionized, and you would be better off with the union. A lot of the girls were saying we do not need the union because Sam and Irwin Schneider are good employers, they are paying us basically the same wages as union shops are paying, and they are also paying us vacations, they're also paying us holidays, so there is no need for us to join the union. So you ought to leave. We don't have to join the union. And the union was flabbergasted by the employees saying no to them when they were going to the employees' houses. So what the union did they got the whole of the truckers, like Arrow Trucking Company and Silverline Trucking Company company just to name two of the truckers and said look you have to work along with us and just prevent the trucks from coming in to deliver piece goods and prevent the trucks from coming in and delivering the cutwork and stop work from coming in to Schneider Manufacturing factory. If the trucks don't come in, Schneider Manufacturing can't exist, and they will be forced to join the union, and that is what happened. After a week or two or three of this happening we were forced to join the union. And the girls said why are you joining the union, and we said, "we are forced to," we told them. SCB: Did any of them try to infiltrate the factory? That sounds like a very negative terminology. Did any of the union organizers or people interested in the union try to come into the factory and work in the factory? Or was it only at night? IS: They tried to come into the factory too, but it didn't help. GE: I was wondering, excuse me, were you finished? I was wondering with Beeline, how was that original association formed? How was that developed? IS: Okay, we were working with a jobber in New York under the name of the Golder Company, Golder Company and Climax Specialties. This jobber had two names, Golder and Climax Specialties, and they had the contact with Beeline Fashions, and we got the initial contact with this Golder Climax Company, and they were involved with Beeline, and they got the work for us. GE: BeeLine did well? IS: And when Beeline got busy, and we were given the opportunity to work for them full time, we gave up the other two accounts we had. It was the start, the best thing that ever happened to us. As Beeline grew, we grew. The faster Beeline grew, the faster we grew. And Beeline eventually became a public corporation. They went on the NASDAQ. We also bought shares of Beeline, and we made a fortune with the shares that we bought, we got in on the initial public offering too. GE: That is wonderful. SCB: So did the women ever ask for flex time, for instance if they had families? Did they ever ask to have time off during their workday? Was there flexibility about the hours that the women worked? IS: Oh yes, we would give, we worked along with them. Our regular hours were from seven to two-thirty, and overtime was usually from two-thirty to four-thirty. If they had problems we let them come in at eight or eight-thirty. We worked with them. And another thing, we were like a savings and loan association, in other words we, my bookkeeper was not too happy about it, it made extra work for her, but we would lend the employees money with no interest and have a payroll deduction plan of five dollars a week for fifty weeks or. . . it was unbelievable I was so good to the employees. I mean, I had such a good rapport with the employees. In fact as Ellen said to this day there are a number of employees that are in their eighties and nineties, a lot of them, and they have these weekly lunches, excuse me monthly lunches at the City View diner on North 7th Street, the third Thursday of every month and during the summer I go to one or two of these lunches, and needless to say, I pick up the tab for the whole group. They just love me, I come there, and they hug me and kiss me. It is a nice unbelievable situation. GE: Irwin, what would you say are the reasons that you offered and provided your employees, tried to have that better working environment for them? In other words, what were the convictions you have that you think brought about that you did treat your employees well? That made sure they had decent wages-- IS: To keep them in tow, to keep them from leaving me. GE: Okay. IS: I mean, I mean-- GE: So you are saying it was a good business decision? IS: Yes, a good business decision-- GE: Happy employees. IS: Happy employees, have a low turnover because if you have a low turnover-- GE: You do not have to keep retraining-- IS: No training expenses. SCB: Did the technology change over the years when you were the sole owner of the business? So did you get more sophisticated machinery? IS: Yes, newer equipment, newer equipment, faster equipment, new different types of equipment. GE: Were you constantly updating? IS: Oh, yes, sure. I always had top-notch mechanics on my payroll. I was always buying new equipment, new machinery that came out. I was always on top of everything. SCB: So the mechanics would fix the machinery-- IS: Oh yeah. SCB: But then if they knew something or you knew something was going to speed up the production and make it more-- IS: We always went to trade shows. My mechanics went to trade shows. We had good equipment, the best equipment. We always had modern equipment too. SCB: And you were a member, you were an officer in the Needle Trades Workers Organization-- IS: The Lehigh Valley, I was a member of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, which was formed in the late 1950s. This was an association that was strictly for public relations, and I was also a member of the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association, with Arnold Delin. You interview Arnold Delin? GE: Yes. IS: By the way, he is very sick. SCB: Oh, no. IS: Arnold Delin, he looked very thin when you saw him? SCB: Yes, he did. IS: He's had a lot of health problems, a lot of health issues. Arnold Delin, when I joined the association in our peak years the association had about 450 members. And we had a headquarters in Wind Gap, a regular building and Arnold Delin would do the negotiations for the contracts for our association. It was a powerful association, and we had wonderful conventions overseas, in Italy, in Hawaii. We had great trips that used to be charged off to the business. Arnold Delin was quite a guy. Also with the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association we took some good trips, too. One year we went to, we went to Europe-- ES: It was a trade mission. IS: Describe the trade mission, Ellen. ES: It was a trade mission. And they-- IS: Why don't you come here so you can be televised. ES: I will sit next to you. IS: OK. ES: It was a trade mission where we went to Europe, and they were all from the Lehigh Valley, and we visited, how many? IS: Five countries and seven apparel factories. ES: Right. And it ended up in Basel, Switzerland, which was-- The latest machinery. IS: Tradeshow. ES: Yes, the tradeshow. ES: And after the business was sold, we were taking a trip to the Orient for a number of weeks, and we went through the state department. IS: In Washington. ES: Yes, this was in 1988. IS: And Arnold Delin worked for us. ES: And got us permission to visit a Chinese garment factory, and we did. IS: Arnold Delin had to ask permission from the State Department in Washington because, in 1988, China was not so liberal. ES: And we went in, and there was a whole delegation there that was meeting us. They took us around to their factory, and we were immediately struck by the youth of their employees. They were women, and they were all young. And then they took us downstairs and they showed us their daycare center, right on the premises. Infants, they had them all lined up, all bundled up, it was nap time when we were there. But we were immediately struck by the differences between the Oriental manufacturing and the United States. GE: Tell us, describe to us some of the differences. ES: Well, first of all, the age of the employees was far younger than ours. Ours were middle-aged and- IS: Older. ES: And older workers, these were all young twenty-something, thirty-something women. The quality of the goods was excellent, and they were very speedy, they were working very quickly. We also made note of the fact that the factory floor looked very clean because we also went to an acupuncture place where it was the dirtiest thing I ever saw in my life. And I said the factory was cleaner than the acupuncture place. GE: At that time the women in the factories were already older, but how about when you were a child looking at your father's business or when you first went into the business was it typically young women, or was it more middle-aged? IS: I think it was more middle-aged. ES: It was not a young person's business. While I was listening to him talk about Beeline and the fact that Beeline did eventually go out of business, and you have to wonder if that didn't reflect a change in the workforce of women. When they started that business, he said they were stay-at-home at mothers back in the fifties and the sixties, by the time the seventies and the eighties came around- IS: The mothers were all working. ES: They were all working. IS: The house plan part fell apart. ES: Right. So there was a lot of tenor of the times kind of thing. GE: It had a business model that worked well for the '50s and '60s, but as time went on, less and less. ES: For a while, but it didn't change. Or their business model didn't change with the time, they kept it as it was, and as a result, they went out of business. SCB: And so in the '70s did you have a sense that the sort of stagflation of the '70s, the economic woes of the '70s, did that affect you at all? Or because of the Beeline products, did that keep you going? IS: The Beeline kept me going, but I saw on the outside, I saw that if I ever lost the Beeline account that I would start to be in a little bit of trouble. I saw what other contractors were facing. I saw other contractors in Allentown that were struggling. And I thought if I ever lose the Beeline account would I be in the same position as some of the others. Well Beeline was still fairly busy yet in the '70s, but by the very late seventies Beeline was starting to struggle. They went out of business in the very late seventies. And so by 1980 or '81 or '82, then Beeline was out of business, and I started to have to run to New York looking for work for the first time in twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. Which was something new for me to do. SCB: Today is August 10th, 2011, tape three, interview with Irwin Schneider, and Susan Clemens-Bruder and Gail Eisenberg interviewing and attending. If we could go back and if you could talk a little bit about your involvement with the community and with the synagogue and the Jewish community and the greater Allentown community, are there organizations other than what you showed us here that you belonged to and connected you to the community? IS: Ok as far as the organizations, I have been on the board of directors of the Temple Beth El. I have also served on the endowment foundation of the Temple Beth El. I have been on the six-man investment committee of the Endowment Foundation of the Temple Beth El. Now those are all in the past already. And also I have been on the committee . . . Board of Directors of the Jewish Family Service. I was also the Treasurer of the Jewish Family Service. I was also on the Russian Resettlement committee and I was very active with Jewish Family Services. This goes back a number of years ago. Also, I was on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Federation of Allentown. And also a solicitor for many, many years. So I was very involved with those three organizations. SCB: When you say solicitor, can you explain that a little bit more? ES: Fundraising. SCB: Fundraising. GE: Asking for donations. IS: Yeah. SCB: And that is just because language changes over time. GE: Actually, one thing that might be nice to share is to tell us what you mean about the Russian resettlement. IS: Well back around 20 years ago, at that point we were bringing a lot of Russian families into Allentown, I was on the committee and I was also the treasurer and dispensing money for the Russian resettlement. We were actually paying their expenses for their first four months. Taking care of the Russians and I was helping out with the funds and also helping out placing them, placing them with their various families in Allentown. And so I was on the committee bringing them in. ES: We visited with a family in St. Petersburg who had family here, some of the newly arrived Russians. And we visited with them, and we knew that they were on the list to come to Allentown. And they did come to Allentown, and we met them here, and we took them -- these people were two days out of St. Petersburg, and we took them to the Giant supermarket. GE: And they were shocked. IS: Yes, they were shocked. ES: And we told them now you are going to go and buy things for your home. They absolutely did not know what to do. IS: They were shocked. ES: They thought it was artwork. GE: Something that was not real. ES: Absolutely, that was--. GE: What was the family's name? ES: It's Nellie Gerstein's parents. Margaret. IS: We visited them in Russia. ES: We visited them in Russia, we visited Vladimir's family and Nellie's family. IS: And Nellie's mother, Margaret. ES: And they had us to their home for lunch, and they were toasting us and saying that you are the only link between we and our children, and they were translating. We said that when you come, and you are on the list, and when you come to Allentown, we will host you in our home, and we did. We had them for a Thanksgiving dinner. We were explaining to them what Thanksgiving was. SCB: Was this connected to the synagogue? ES: It was connected to the Jewish Family Service. SCB: Jewish Family Services. IS: We always tried to stay involved with the Jewish activities. In fact, Ellen was also involved with the Jewish Community Center. ES: I was President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center for four years. I served on the Board of the Jewish Community Center for about 15 years. And I went back to college after my children were grown and got a degree in social work, and then I was asked to join the staff of the Jewish Community Center, and I ran their senior adult program for 15 years. GE: What years were those? About? ES: About-- probably from about 1978 until... IS: Until 1992, when we went to Florida. ES: Yes, until we went to Florida. SCB: How has the wider community of Allentown changed over the years? And how has the Jewish Community changed over the years in Allentown? IS: How has it changed over the years, well definitely it has, the Jewish community over the years, it was more-- ES: Cohesive. IS: Cohesive. One section was actually down in the 6th Street area, 6th Street, 5th Street, 4th Street, 3rd Street, and another section was strictly down 6th Street and Fulton Street, and that was called the ghetto, and basically nobody was out in the West End area. And then, after the war years the Jewish community started to filter out towards the West End of Allentown, toward 24th Street, 25th Street, 26th [and] 27th Street. Of course all of the Jewish community were living inside the city limits of Allentown. It wasn't until I would say until the last 15 to 20 years that they started to move outside of the city limits of Allentown. And during the early years all of the Jewish kids went to Allentown High School, now you do not see a single Jewish student going to Allentown High School. I think in the last issue of Hakol, I saw one Jewish student graduating from Allentown High School. All the rest are in the various area high schools outside of Allentown. SCB: Parkland? IS: Parkland and Emmaus. ES: The other thing that I have noticed is primarily because of the garment industry, which was a family business, a father to son business, and Irwin's story is not unique in that the next generation did not go in. As a result, young people have not stayed in the area. IS: Young people are going to New York and big cities now. ES: Any kind of big cities, but they are not remaining in Allentown. IS: In Allentown, they are leaving. ES: I think that has been the biggest change in the Jewish community. SCB: But some new people have come to it? ES: New people have come in. IS: A lot of professionals are coming, doctors, especially doctors. We have a load of doctors, professionals, lawyers coming in. ES: The high school- the hospital rather is quite a draw. It is the larger employer in the Valley right now. It is. And that has been the draw and that I think has been one of the biggest changes that we have seen in the 50 odd years we have been here. GE: In some ways, it is more transient in terms that they didn't grow up here, they come here-- ES: Yes, they come here. It has been and so many of our friends who remained here, none of their children have. IS: But we've got other cities, we have friends like from Pottsville and Hazleton, those cities are dying with Jewish people. There is nothing left in those cities. GE: You remember them having small but thriving communities like 30 to 40 years ago, is that correct? IS: 30 years ago, they had thriving communities and synagogues, but now they are dying out completely. No Jewish people are there anymore. SCB: So, what do you value the most in life? IS: Value most in life, my family, the fact that I have a nice family that I am proud of how we raised our children. I mean we have wonderful children. They are well-educated. We have grandchildren, they've been raised so wonderful. They do not have tattoos, rings in their ears. They are well-educated. They are loving children. They call us often, they are just so wonderful. Our kids are just such great kids. We have good family values with our children, we raised them well, and our grandchildren are just super kids in general. ES: I would say one of the nicest things I can see is, you spoke of the family values, watching our children passing those same family values on to their children. GE: And what would you say those values are? ES: Honoring your past, staying... IS: Close with parents. ES: Close with parents, staying Jewish. IS: YES! ES: Yes. IS: Staying Jewish, staying close with Temple, staying close with Jewish holidays. ES: They all belong to a synagogue. IS: Yes, they all belong to a synagogue, they all have Jewish traditions at home, and so on. SCB: And what has made you feel the most creative in life, the most artistic in life and this can be more metaphoric, it doesn't have to be concrete but giving you a sense of connectedness in life? GE: Have you felt you have been artistic or made a difference, productive? IS: I do not know how to answer that. ES: Artistic talent kinda doesn't run in our family. GE: Doesn't have to be literally. SCB: But a sense of completion is another way to say it. It doesn't have to be art, but just a sense of completion. IS: The fact that I have done well in life, that I have had a successful life. ES: That you have been respected. IS: That I have been respected by my peers, that people look up to me, my employees look up to me. That I have a wealth of good friends, a load of friends in Allentown who we socialize with who look up to me, and I look up to them. The fact that I do not have a single enemy in town, people respect Irwin Schneider. I have such a good name in town, a good name in the synagogue. GE: So maybe a good name? IS: My good name will live forever. That's what is important to me. Nobody, nobody in town has a bad word for Irwin Schneider, from my employees on down to everybody. That's important to me, very important. SCB: Thank you so much. Ellen, so may we talk to you now? ES: Absolutely. SCB: And we will go back in your history. ES: Goodness. SCB: So could you tell your full name, including your maiden name, when you were born, and where you were born? ES: Alright. My name is Ellen Schneider, Ellen Ross Schneider. GE: I'm sorry, was that Ross, R-O-S-S? ES: R-O-S-S. Yes, Ross was my maiden name. I was born in New York, and at the age of ten, my family moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which is a very small town in the middle of Pennsylvania. GE: I am sorry, when were you born? ES: In 1936, I am 75 years old. I will help you out with your math. And I was raised in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. GE: Why did the family move there? ES: My father opened a business in Williamsport. SCB: Now, were you in Brooklyn? ES: In Brooklyn. SCB: You were in Brooklyn and then moved. ES: Right. Back in the day, Brooklyn was a very lovely middle-class Jewish area, and people were raised very nicely, and they went on to college. It was a very nice place to live. And Williamsport was also a nice place to grow up in, but it certainly was not too nice to stay there after you were grown. It was very limiting. After I graduated high school, my father died when I was 16 years old, and I was halfway through my junior year of high school, and I knew that nothing was going to keep us staying in Williamsport. I had a brother who was 12, and I just asked my mother [to] let me finish high school here because I knew we were not going to stay there. And she did. I went off to Penn State. When I was at Penn State, my mother and my brother moved back to New York. And then I met Irwin. SCB: At Penn State? ES: No, we both went to Penn State but did not meet there was no overlap. IS: She graduated, no I graduated in June of '53, she started in September of '53. ES: We never were there at the same time. IS: And when she started in '53, I was already going into the Army. ES: We met on a blind date here in Allentown, actually. GE: Who fixed you up? IS: Irwin Greenberg. ES: Irwin Greenberg. My Aunt lived across the street. GE: With Sheftel, I think it was Salitsky [who] fixed them up. ES: Right. Back in the day, a blind date was very nice. Try and get your kids to do it today, forget it. SCB: No, they have the Internet. ES: Absolutely. They are not interested in that. And that is where we met. SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your family as much as you know about your family, work, education, where they came from? ES: Alright. Both my mother and father were born in the United States. My grandparents came from Poland. And the area of Poland that they came from was in- had been Austria. And as I mentioned, we took a trip back to Poland. We took my mother for her 80th birthday. And we went to visit the small village where her parents came from which was outside of Krakow and then we went to the area which was outside of Warsaw where Irwin's father came from. And in the area where my grandparents came from we found evidence of our family being there. We went into the hall of records, and I had said to my mother, "What do you think you are going to find, my grandparents came out of there in 1899, what do you think you are going to find?", "Maybe I can find my parent's marriage certificate." So we went into the hall of records with the guide, and the women asked could we find a marriage certificate, and she said, "Yes," and my mother gave her a date, and she turned to the shelf behind her and pulled a raggedy old book and she was going through the pages, and she stopped, said something in Polish and it was translated to there was had been a fire there in 1910 and everything burned down. My mother said she remembered that her mother, my grandmother, went back there to see her mother who never left the village. And she went in 1926, and they got word a few months later that she died. She said, "Could you find a death certificate?" She said, "Yes," and she said to start looking in May of 1926. And she pulled another dusty book out, and she is going like this, and she stopped. My mother had given her a name, and she said Eva Goldblatt, and my mother said, "Yes" that is her name. She said here it is. She lived to be 89 years old, and there was an address, and she died of natural causes in her own home. She died on October something or other, and was buried November 1st. And we figured she must have died on a Friday and was buried on Sunday. Now we had a name and an address. And we asked, "Is there a Jewish cemetery?" First of all, we asked, "Are there any Jewish people still left?" And she said there was one, and he had a shoe store around the corner. She gave us an address, and we went around the corner with the guide, spoke to the young man who owned the shoe store, and we asked if we could go to the cemetery. He said, give me a half an hour. I will get somebody to stay in my store, and I will take you to the cemetery. Well, we went back, and sure enough he took us to the cemetery, and it was a small town, so it was a small cemetery, but it had a neatly painted gate with a Jewish star on it, and he opened it up. Now we had someone we were going to see there, and the stones had all been smashed by the Nazis. You couldn't tell one grave from the other. So you know we knew that would be something we would suspect. Then I said we went to the area where Irwin's family was. IS: Tell why the fellow was still there. ES: Oh, yes. SCB: Oh yea, absolutely. For the future. Why was there one Jewish man still there? IS: Why was there one Jew, listen to this story. ES: He said, do we know a place called Brooklyn? My mother said, "Oh yes we know that place." And he gave us a name and address, and he said would you please call. My mother and my sister live in Brooklyn, would you call them and tell them you met me and that I am okay. We said okay. We left, and then when we came home we did call, and we spoke to his sister, who spoke very good English. She said, "Did he give you a message for me?" We said, "No, he just said he is okay." Did you have a guide and a driver with you? I said, "Yes." That is why he could not give you a message. So she told us why he didn't leave, she said he could have come with us when we left Poland, but he had married a Polish woman, and she would not leave her family there. So he chose to stay. IS: He is the only Jewish person there. ES: Only one Jewish person. But that one Jewish person is maintaining this cemetery. GE: Isn't that interesting. IS: So he is maintaining the cemetery and painting the gate every year. ES: He is mowing the grass. We went to the area where Irwin's family, where Irwin's father came from, which was a larger community. We knew the local mayor here, Joe Daddona. He gave us a key to the city and he gave us a proclamation with a blue ribbon and a gold seal, and he gave us Allentown All-American t-shirts to bring- IS: To give to the mayor. ES: And we had made arrangements to have a meeting with the mayor of that town. We had a private guide and he said what do you think you are going to find there. We said could you find my father-in-law's birth certificate and he gave us, we gave him a date, an approximate date and we got there, and this mayor had a reception for us with Pepsi Cola and pretzels. Irwin read him the proclamation, and it was translated. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out his proclamation. IS: In Polish. ES: In Polish and he is reading his proclamation, so after all those festivities were done, we asked, "Is there a cemetery here?" No, first we asked, "Are there any Jews still left in the town?" And he said, "Regretfully no." "Are there any cemeteries, is there a Jewish cemetery?" He said, "Yes there is," and he gave our guide directions to find it. So we went over there, and we found the cemetery. IS: It was being used as a garbage dump. ES: That is the difference between one Jew and none. GE: My brother-in-law was just there now this past summer for the first time. We are Holocaust survivors, and so is my brother-in-law's family. It was very difficult. He went, actually it was interesting, because in that family, it was him and his sister, a cousin from Israel, a cousin from Sweden and a cousin from Paris. They all met, but they were able to find . . . and he said it was a little heartbreaking because of the conditions but they were able to find their grandfather's stone. ES: They were able to find it? GE: He said at least we were able to light a candle and say Kaddish [Jewish prayer recited for the dead]. ES: One of the things that we did, we took a little stone from the town where my grandparents came from and where his father came from, and when we came back here we went to the cemetery and put the stone there. IS: Tell them the rest of your history. Ask her more questions. SCB: Let me ask you one question, do you know if any extended family, is there any extended family left? ES: In Poland? SCB: Yes? ES: If there are, we have no contact, we do not know. As I said my grandparents came here with- SCB: Which is a long time ago. ES: Yes, 1899. And my grandmother came here with four children, one of whom was an infant, and had four more children including my mother here. My father, his parents, were from Hungary. They met in the United States and married in the United States. So all of their children were born in the United States. If my father were alive today he would be a hundred and something years old, so they went back a very long time. SCB: So you were going to say something more about the family, your history? GE: I was just wondering in Williamsport, you said your father went there to start--. ES: He went there to open up a business. SCB: What kind of business? ES: The kind you can't have anymore, a juvenile furniture and toy store. A retail store, the kind that Toys R Us put out of business. That is the history of retail. GE: Right. SCB: And until he passed away, he had that store? ES: Yes, he had the store until he became ill. And then, you know, we left Williamsport. GE: I assume you left because it was such a tiny Jewish community, and you wanted to go back to Brooklyn? ES: Actually, my mother's whole family was in New York, and there was really nothing to keep her there anymore. I remember her coming up to Penn State one day which was really not far from Williamsport. She came up one day and she said, "Ellen, how would you feel about moving back to New York?" I said you know it really is not going to affect me as much, how about Arthur, who was my brother. And she said Arthur is willing to do it, and he was just going into high school, so it was a good time to make that break. So we did, and it turned out to be a very fine move because all of us went on to make a very nice life for ourselves, and my mother eventually met and married a lovely gentleman, she married again. So everybody you know there is a time to do some things and a time to move on, and that was the time to move on. SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your college years and also after you met Irwin, how you came here? ES: Well, actually my college years actually came in two parts. I had two years of college when I met Irwin and we're talking the '50s, and it was very common to leave school. IS: And get married. ES: And get married, it was called getting an MRS degree, which I got. After my children were grown, and they were in high school and had started college themselves, I went back to college here, and I went to Cedar Crest and finished, and I got a degree in social work, and I worked for the Jewish Community Center. GE: Did you do that around the same time as Beverly Bloch? ES: Yes, we were there just about I think I was there a few years before. GE: It sounded like a similar story. ES: I went there and Diane Silverman went there. We were all going there. They were running a program at the time where they were encouraging women who had dropped an education to go and pick up the threads of their interrupted education because, as I said, it was very, very common to stop school and get married. SCB: Can you talk about your family, your children, and your life? ES: You want me to talk about my grandchildren, you will have to put another one of those things in there. We have two children. Our daughter, Janet, our children both live in the New York area. IS: Wonderful children, we raised them wonderfully, and they have great values. ES: She is married to a very, very lovely man who is on television, he is a sports broadcaster, and you can see him here. SCB: Is he Allentown? ES: No, no, no, he is in New York. SCB: He is on a New York station? IS: Do you get Service Electric? SCB: Yes. GE: Yes. ES: You can see him, Channel 7- Channel 17. GE: What is his name? ES: Bruce Beck. GE: Bruce Beck, I'm going to try that. ES: And he is with NBC in New York. And our son, who we said, "Don't come into our business, honey," he listened to mom and dad, and he is on Wall Street, he is a trader. IS: He is the head trader, a securities business, and has done very, very well. ES: Except this not such a wonderful day to be in the market. IS: He is better off than being in the shmata [Yiddish for rags or garments] business, he listened to us. ES: And we have four grandchildren. We have big grandchildren and little grandchildren. GE: What was it like raising your children here in Allentown? ES: It was a wonderful place to raise children, an excellent place. As I said, I grew up in Williamsport, but I always had family that lived here, and I used to come here as a teenager, and I would go down to the Center on 6th Street. GE: So it was very familiar to you? ES: Yes, very familiar to me, and I felt so jealous of these kids had a place to go, and they could socialize with other Jewish kids, and we had a handful of them in Williamsport. GE: It was just enough to really be a community. ES: Yes, absolutely, and that was it, there were about 50 Jewish families if there were that. Probably less now. GE: In Williamsport. IS: I am sure there are a lot less. SCB: Did your children go through the Allentown School District? ES: Yes, they both did. They graduated from Allen High School and they both went to the same college, they went to Ithaca College. They each came out with business degrees. SCB: What Elementary School and Middle or Junior High School did they go to? ES: They went to Muhlenberg Elementary and Trexler Junior High School, which was the popular one at the time. GE: And this is the '70s I am assuming? ES: Yes, one graduated High School in '75 and the other '78, so it was the '70s. It was a different time. SCB: And where did you live during those times? And you talked about more than one building, where were the buildings? Just to place you in Allentown spatially both in business and personal. ES: We lived on 24th Street, and we built that house primarily because of its school district that it was in but also because of its proximity to the Jewish Community Center. GE: And when did the Jewish Community Center open, about? ES: That building? GE: Yes. ES: That building opened I would say in '57, '56 or '57. GE: And who were the major contributors, was it really the generation before you, like your father's generation? IS: Yes. ES: Yes, they were the builders. IS: It was a joint effort. Interview with Ellen Schneider SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: This is tape four, interview with Irwin and Ellen Schneider, and Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder interviewing and attending. So you were talking about that your father-in-law was just 11 years out of Poland when he came here. ELLEN SCHNEIDER: 1931-1932, he was 11 years out of Poland, and he had ambition, he did not have an education, he could not read and write English, but his job was as a foreman, and it was a good job. Thirty-five dollars a week in 1931 at the depths of the depression was a good job. He had a wife and a very young child, and he had the courage to leave the familiar, which was his whole family, whatever family he had, which came out of Poland, were all living in the same area of Brooklyn. And against his parent's wishes. "Please, Sam, don't go, don't go." You know they were shtetl [small Eastern European villages where Jews lived] people. IRWIN SCHNEIDER: They begged him to stay in Brooklyn. ES: To go out into the wide world, it took courage. IS: "Sam, you're going to get lost in Allentown, don't go, don't go." ES: Right, but he had the courage, he had the ambition. And thank God he did because all of us have had a wonderful life from the beginnings that he gave us. And we are very grateful to him. He was a wonderful man. I loved him, I did. SCB: Can you talk about your role in the Synagogue and the community, the wider Allentown community and the Jewish community. ES: My role was not much in the synagogue, that was Irwin's area. I devoted my energies to the Jewish Community Center. I devoted a lot of time and a lot of effort and I served in many capacities. SCB: Can you talk about that? ES: Yes, I was President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center, which in the days that I was there had a membership of 600 and it had a Board of 60 ladies. And after I got finished with that, after having been President of-- GAIL EISENBERG: And you were President, this is about what decade? ES: Late '60s, early '70s. And I served on the Board of the Jewish Community Center for 15 years. And after I had finished my interrupted education and got a degree in social work. Actually I was placed with Jewish Family Services as part of some of my course work. And an opening came up, they said to me go down to the Friendship Circle and interact. I did not know what that was, but I figured I'll figure it out. And I went down there and interacted. And after a few months an opening occurred, and the director of the center came to me and said, "Would you like to come and work here?" I said "Lenny, I haven't finished my course yet." He said, "Take some extra courses finishing up and start work here." I actually started the job while I was still finishing up my coursework. GE: And the Friendship Circle is? ES: The senior adult group. Yes, and I ran that. And the days that I was running that program that was the only organized activity for the Jewish elderly in Allentown. GE: Are there no . . .? ES: I think it has been fragmented. I think there are several other groups, I think some of them are self-run. GE: I see. SCB: And can you talk a little bit about how you think that the community has changed, and the Jewish community has changed? You talked some about that, but is there more? ES: The community of Allentown, the wider community, has changed vastly as I think all of us realize. The ethnicity has changed completely. We were just driving through the old neighborhoods a week or two ago, and we were saying that this Allentown traditionally had been pretty much a blue-collar community. IS: All white. ES: White and the factory owners who employed the blue-collar people. That has changed a great deal. It was a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch. I do not think there are even too many Pennsylvania Dutch even around anymore. Very, very mixed ethnicities here, for the good, for the bad, I don't really know, but it has changed. The Jewish community, as I mentioned before, I think one of the biggest changes has been the death of the family-run businesses. Whether they were retail businesses or garment businesses or other businesses they are not passed down father to son as they had been. Children are being educated, girls too, are being educated in areas that are really pretty foreign to us. And they are seeking their fortunes outside the area. So how that, what that portends for the Jewish community I don't know, but it's changed. SCB: Did you, in your married life, shop in Allentown? Did you actually patronize Allentown in sort of an encapsulated way? ES: Absolutely. Absolutely. Hess's department store was a legend in its time. You could find the finest things there. Up and down Hamilton Street had beautiful ladies' clothing stores. I shopped a lot there. Those days are over and regretfully so. And I do my shopping out of town and I would, very much, if this ever gets shown to people who are in retailing, think about your customer who is still here and would like to shop, and there is not a lot around. SCB: Any specific stores that you remembered where you shopped for clothing? ES: Hess's, mostly Hess's absolutely. SCB: Mostly Hess's, anything smaller? ES: Yes, there were some individually run very nice ladies shops. I cannot even remember the names of them anymore. SCB: Marilyn's, maybe. ES: That store was out of Reading. SCB: Oh okay. And then came here. ES: Yes, and then came here. SCB: Emil Otto? ES: Yes, that had a nice clientele. There was a shop on 8th and Hamilton, I cannot remember the name, but that was gone a long time ago. But it was going downtown when I first came to town, I mean, you got dressed up to go downtown. And going to Hess's was an event. And having dinner-- IS: Back in the late '40s, we used to go downtown, people would wear a sports jacket and a tie on a Thursday night to go shopping. ES: I got dressed up to go shopping. IS: On a Thursday night in the 1940s. ES: Those days are gone. GE: Times have changed. ES: Oh, have they changed. GE: You mentioned with the JCC that Irwin was more involved with Beth El, what do you think attracted you? In other words, what from the JCC or about the JCC? ES: What attracted me to the JCC was growing up without a JCC and realizing what this did for my peers who are still here and they grew up in Allentown, they went to the JCC. That is why I gave my time and talents to that organization. Irwin grew up at Temple Beth El, he has never belonged to another synagogue in his life. Never. People have asked, "Are you going to go to children's for the holidays?" And I say, "No we go to the Temple Beth El." I think even when you were in college, I think you used to come home to go to Temple Beth El for the holidays. No, that is what we do. GE: You said that it was certainly important, valuable in his growing up with the JCC and his peers, you didn't have that. Do you feel your children did? ES: Yes, absolutely, that was why we built that house that we did on North 24th Street, which was within two blocks of the Jewish Community Center. That is how much I felt about the Jewish Community Center because I grew up without it. SCB: So you could walk there? ES: Yes, absolutely. SCB: What do you value in life? ES: I value my family, whom I love. I value good health. I value my husband. GE: What has made you feel creative? ES: What has made me feel creative? My goodness. I would have to say that the years I spent working with the elderly. I discovered I had a rapport with the elderly that I never knew that I had. When I started taking social work and intended to work in the field, I thought I would work with children. And just happenstance got me working with the elderly and discovered that I liked them. Now I am one of them. SCB: Thank you so much. ES: Oh, you are welcome. I would love to see what this turns out to be. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Irwin and Ellen Schneider, August 10, 2011
Description
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Irwin Schneider talks about his father’s journey from being a sixteen year old immigrant textile factory worker, to foreman, to owner of a contract sewing factory. The Schneider business prospered due to hard work and good timing. Irwin joined the family business in the 1950s and further grew the business by producing for Beeline Fashions through the early 1980s.
Ellen Schneider talks about meeting Irwin, leaving college to get married and start a family, and then returning to college many years later after her children grow up. With her degree in social work, Ellen enjoyed a fulfilling career working with the local Jewish senior population.
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LVTNT-11
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2011-08-10
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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James Hartzell
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5.4 March 6, 2012 James Hartzell and Georgine Banko, March 6, 2012 LVTNT-10 1:25:26 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg James Hartzell Georgine Banko Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 HartzelJim_20120306.mp4 1.0:|19(18)|58(9)|91(7)|130(5)|167(9)|190(13)|211(18)|230(12)|255(8)|284(4)|311(5)|346(3)|377(7)|408(3)|433(9)|456(5)|491(5)|512(15)|537(3)|558(2)|583(3)|600(9)|623(7)|646(8)|685(8)|714(10)|753(10)|774(13)|809(12)|842(15)|865(8)|888(5)|907(15)|936(14)|965(7)|994(5)|1029(13)|1062(16)|1093(10)|1112(9)|1135(5)|1154(11)|1179(9)|1204(3)|1233(8)|1258(10)|1279(9)|1300(7)|1323(10)|1348(6)|1371(3)|1394(11)|1421(9)|1446(14)|1469(2)|1498(8)|1523(8)|1552(2)|1577(2)|1612(15)|1635(9)|1666(10)|1687(3)|1706(12)|1721(11)|1742(10)|1763(2)|1788(4)|1815(13)|1844(4)|1869(10)|1892(5)|1915(14)|1934(5)|1957(15)|1984(5)|2015(5)|2036(14)|2055(14)|2080(7)|2111(5)|2132(11)|2163(6)|2194(10)|2227(7)|2238(6) 0 https://youtu.be/iQ7jtQIrPQw YouTube video 0 Family History SC: Today is March 6, 2012, interview with James Hartzell, attending Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder. Should I call you Jim? Jim, could you tell me your full name, where you were born, and just start with that?
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 ; JH: Okay, my full name is James W. Hartzell. I was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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 ; SC: And can you tell me the year you were born?
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 ; JH: 1932.
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 ; SC: 32. And also as far as your family background, as far back as you know-- your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, their names and where they were from, and what they did as far as work will really be helpful just to see a line of work and progress.
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 ; JH: Okay, my father’s name was George. He was a fireman for the city of Bethlehem. My mother’s name was Goldie, and she had worked in the factory when I was in high school. And she eventually became a forelady in that same factory and became a part-owner of it, a silent partner. 0 313 Education SC: And can you tell me a little bit about your educational background?
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 ; JH: I graduated in 1950 from high school, and I was shortly drafted into the army. And I went, was sent to Korea, spent 16 months in Korea. In the meantime, while I was working while I was in high school, I was working part-time in a factory. Its Acme Children’s Wear in Fountain Hill, I worked part-time there, learning the industry, from one part to the other. From sweeping to cutting, and so forth. I was working part-time. I was then drafted into the army, spent two years in the army. Sixteen months in Korea, and upon discharge, I went to Lafayette College. While at Lafayette College, I still worked part-time in the factory. I got married, wife, Lorraine, had one son, Archie. I worked part-time at the factory while going to college. And after three years, I decided that I wanted to get back in the industry, and stay in the industry, and make a career out of it. At college, I was taking up industrial engineering. So after three years, I dropped out of college, and went back in the factory full-time. 0 462 The Business GE: And what part of the business were you in? Were you still in children’s?
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 ; JH: Yeah, this was, the business we started was Panzell. P-A-N-Z-E-L-L. We started as a contractor sewing for various New York manufacturers. Okay, we soon grew to about 50 operators, and we had plenty of work at that time. That was back in, like I say, 1962. Soon after that, we bought out the factory that we both worked for previously, Acme Children’s Wear. We bought that factory. We bought it out. So we now had that factory along with ours. My sister then entered the field. My sister, Georgine Banko, she entered the field and became a partner with us. Okay, along with her, my son came into the industry, Archie. He was the cutter. She has two sons ; Donny, who became our mechanic. 0 693 How Did You Learn the Industry? SC: And before I forget, do you see yourself as sort of a looper in the textile industry because you went into your mother’s where she worked and then got to learn the very, I’m thinking of Bethlehem Steel now, you get to learn from the bottom up, and you got to learn the entire industry.
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 ; JH: Absolutely.
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 ; SC: That’s amazing. it really is.
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 ; JH: Absolutely. Well she knew, she had a thorough knowledge of the floor and everything else and how to—business. My mother was business smart, also. And between us, the other aspects of it, the cutting and the shipping, and I began to set-piece rates, and do one thing at a time more and more, I became involved in the business. 0 745 Worker Wages and Discussion about Unions GE: With the labor, was it typically, I guess let’s say minimum wage? For the operators?
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 ; JH: The minimum wage-
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 ; GB: That was for learners. There was also piece-rate. 
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 ; SC: Okay, and it wasn’t unionized?
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 ; JH: No.
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 ; GE: Okay.
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 ; JH: The average wage I think was like 7 dollars or something like that. That’s back in the 80s. In the 70s it was lower than that.
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 ; SC: Yeah.
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 ; JH: But it was, you know, it’s where it all started, the wages.
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 ; GE: Was there much pressure to get it unionized, from union organizers? 
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 ; GB: At times, there was, yes.
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 ; JH: Yeah, there was. We never unionized. Because I always felt if we did, we couldn’t stay in business. That’s one of the things that began to happen. 0 958 Some Businesses Begin Moving South GE: Oh, so where it became much easier to go to Mexico and the whole North America.
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 ; JH: Yeah, the manufacturers in New York would go down, instead of Pennsylvania, would start moving to Mexico and down South. 
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 ; GE: Right.
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 ; SC: Yeah.
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 ; JH: For various reasons, you know the labor I guess was cheaper.
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 ; GE: Right.
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 ; JH: So they began to move down South. 0 1049 Partners GE: And who was the person you were working with?
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 ; JH: That was Atlas Childrenswear, A-T-L-A-S Childrenswear, in New York, and the person’s name was Albert Papa, P-A-P-A. He was in manufacturing, so we had the factories, and he had a showroom up there in New York. So I joined him as a partner, and between us, we would then buy the piece goods, we would showroom-- the buyers would come into the showroom, and we would design our own garments. It was mostly childrenswear at that time. 0 1130 Manufacturer Versus Contractor GE: And you were saying how you define the difference between being the manufacturer versus the contractor, can you just tell us a little bit more about that?
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 ; JH: Well, the manufacturer buys the piece goods, does the marketing, usually has a showroom, and will send the goods to a contractor who will cut the goods for him. Some cut, some didn’t. And sew it and then send it back, the finished garment, back to the manufacturer’s warehouse, where he would distribute to the stores in retail. Now the manufacturer had all these aspects of it, while the contractor only did sewing. And that basically what, in this area, most of them were. Not all of them, but most of them were only sewing in this area. 0 1378 Why Was Your Business Successful? SC: And the reason that you didn’t sort of fail in those years, is there a reason that you put to it? That you could expand? Was it because you got a partner, was it because you diversified into cutting also?
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 ; JH: Well, we began working on a shoestring ourselves, you know. We weren’t making much money, you know, everything was, as things began, the competition got tighter. We were able to expand in the beginning because, and we were doing alright because we had automated machinery, too. In other words, we invested in things like this equipment in here, things like, we had an automated loop machine where it set the loops on garments. The girl would just sit there, stand there and she would just put it in the machine, and that was it. It was things like Paul has upstairs there. I mean it became automated anyway, but-
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 ; GB: The main thing was jeans then. 0 1690 Lorraine's Factory Outlets JH: Okay, after we bought the building we were doing everything else and then my wife Lorraine became more or less involved in the business, and we opened up outlet stores. They had three outlet stores at that time also. 
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 ; GE: And this is the 1980s?
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 ; JH: This the 19, Yeah that would be the 1980s.
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 ; SC: What were the names of the factories?
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 ; JH: Lorraine’s Factory Outlets.
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 ; SC: Oh, okay, and where were they located?
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 ; JH: One was in Fountain Hill.
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 ; GB: Palmerton. 0 1787 More About the Business GE: Prior to that, it was, prior to that, how was that hauling done?
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 ; JH: The hauling was done by common carriers.
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 ; GE: Okay, and now you were able to do it through your own truck?
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 ; JH: Yeah we got our own trucks because the trucks would go at least two to three times a week to New York. We’d take a bunch of cut goods up to New York and here in this area, and they’d give them the cut goods to sew, and they’d bring back the finished goods, back to our warehouse. 
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 ; SC: That’s such a good lesson in business sense too!
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 ; JH: Like I said, the business in the 1980s was good, it continued for us even though there was a slow decline. 
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 ; GE: But you survived fine. 0 2037 Life After the Business GE: Okay, okay. At this point, what did they do? In other words, when you went to this other factory, what did they end up doing?
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 ; JH: Well, my son ended up working. He did two things. He became a game warden, and also he worked for BARC. Bucks County Association of Retarded Citizens. 
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 ; GE: Okay.
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 ; JH: So he had really left the industry at this time. My advice also. Telling him to get out, you know.
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 ; GE: Right, right.
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 ; JH: You can’t stay in this. I keep telling Judy that, but she always wants to come in somehow. I said it’s not for you anymore, but maybe it is. 0 2310 In Business with Paul Reid JH: So anyway he was on the verge of- We left before he closed out. But after that happened, we got out. In the meantime, Paul Reid, this guy you met upstairs, was working for the manufacturer as a- he would place work, his job was placing work and so forth. By the way, he knows the industry in and out. He’s a good person to interview when you can. Him and I then decided, I became good friends with him, and we decided we are going to go in business ourselves, again, we are going to take another crack at it, so we bought this building first. Him and I. Then we had contacts with two girls, one was in Washington, one in San Francisco, another one in Chicago. They were buyers and salespeople for Target. Target stores and Gymboree. 0 2588 Silent Partner JH: And we came down and were, eventually in the beginning, the government said you can only send the cut goods over, that they can only sew over there. Then next they said, now you can send yarn over. Now you can send, they can cut themselves, they can dye themselves. Then the dye houses and everything else began to be set up offshore. And so everything in that went offshore. So in the meantime, we had hired a third party, a money person, who was a signup partner because we needed a lot of money with the manufacturing. And that too after about three-four years ago?
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 ; GB: Yeah.
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 ; JH: Around mid-2000, we decided to, the competition again was too much, too many headaches and everything else, so we decided to-
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 ; SC: So did you lose the silent partner? 
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 ; JH: Yeah, well, we, then again we closed it down, we didn’t lose money at this. I mean, it was a thing where everybody got paid, and we decided that was it. 0 2714 A New Niche Business JH: And what this involves is somebody will come, and they have an idea they want to make a garment, and they don’t know anything about manufacturing or anything of the sort, and where to even start at. So I’ll take the garment, I'll tell them what is going to take, how to go about doing it and so forth. We’ll work, we’ll get a sample made, I’ll send it to another person that makes a sample for us and so forth. And that’s it, we’ll either if they like it then we’ll grade for it, get different sizes and make a little marker and that’s where it goes. And 99% of them, they don’t realize what is involved. They really die before they get started. But some slip through, it’s a tough little business now. 0 2789 Business Description SC: Could you talk a little about this process that you do? Where it starts, and how you go to sending the pattern out to the person who wants to be in this business?
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 ; JH: Well, it starts with a person that’s interested in getting into the clothing line, and usually they are designers. They will come to us and ask how to get going into it, and how to make that first pattern, the first garment. So they either will give us something similar to what they want, maybe a picture or the garment or a drawing, and say this is what we want. From there, we will make the base pattern on card paper by hand. And we’ll make them according to the dimensions, maybe a certain size that they want. Maybe a medium or whatever, or ladies, and we’ll make it into that. And then we’ll have them send, the one that’s asking for it have her send the goods she wants it made on. So she will send us a couple yards of goods, and then we will then send it to a sample maker, a girl we have. They will make that first sample. When the first sample is made, we then will send it to this first-person, or they will stop in here. 0 3259 Changing Composition of Workers Through the Years JH: The apparel industry was at one time the largest employer in Pennsylvania, okay. It was certainly the largest in the Lehigh Valley. The industry and the low wages and so forth because of that 85% of that its unskilled labor, production workers, it’s probably one of the reasons why the labor has been so low, anyway. In the beginning, when we started the business, there were years ago you had different groups of people came into the industry. One time I could imagine way back, it was probably the blacks came into the industry and then maybe-
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 ; GE: You’re saying as workers? As the sewing machine workers?
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 ; JH: As the sewing machine operators I’m talking about, right. And I guess Italians from immigrants and so forth. It came, that’s how we got, they were busy at that time, and we kept things going. Eventually, it came, and I know with us in those years it was the Portuguese. 0 3374 Factory Owner Demographic GE: How about what you saw as who were the factory owners? Who tended to be the factory owners and why do you think that you and other people that you saw as factory owners? What do you think were some of the characteristics and why was you know that certain types of people or went into this business, were successful in this business?
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 ; JH: You mean the owners?
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 ; GE: Yeah.
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 ; JH: I think then it was probably Jewish and Italians that were mostly in the industry. Not me, I’m Pennsylvania Dutch, but I know when I joined the Association, I eventually became president of it, the Jewish and Italians were primarily in it.
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 ; GE: Why do you think the Jewish and Italians were primarily in it? Any thoughts?
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 ; JH: No.
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 ; GB: I think some of it might have been money, to get started. 0 3646 Connections with Philadelphia? SC: Did you ever have any connections with Philadelphia? Any of the surviving textile clothing places in Philadelphia?
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 ; JH: No.
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 ; SC: It was more of a New York, Lehigh Valley connection.
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 ; JH: Yeah.
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 ; SC: Because it did survive.
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 ; JH: The only thing in Philadelphia I think I ever did was maybe garment washing. Even the laundries, you had laundries that did garment washing, not these little typical laundry.
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 ; GB: They did tie-dye.
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 ; JH: They did tie-dye, your jeans, the slow washing goods, all that stuff.
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 ; SC: Beat them to death.
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 ; JH: Then I would get them all in Philadelphia but even that business . . . if you wanted one of them, you can’t find one. I don’t think there is anything in the United States anymore. Everything is offshore there, even that aspect of it. 0 3844 Apparel Industry Needle-Trade Association JH: Okay, besides being involved with what I just mentioned, those organizations, I was like I said president at the time of the Apparel Industry Needle Trades Association. In that association, this was made up of about 50-60 members of contractors and manufacturers, in the Lehigh Valley area. We would meet once a month. We would have dinner. We’d then have a speaker, usually from the industry, or anything concerning it, or a politician. We’d have dinner, and then we’d have a speaker and then a program, and we’d discuss the industry itself. That Lehigh Valley Needle Trade Association was an active group, and we held, every year, we held a banquet. We would go to Harrisburg and sit with the governor, and he would acclaim an apparel week for the year. It would be apparel week, and in that week, we would hold our banquet and have other activities and so forth. In the banquet we would either have the governor would come sometimes or a congressman or other politician. And we would then have, again, a program. We’d have speech by the president of the association on the state of the industry and so forth. We would have a speaker, and then we would have entertainment. It was high-class entertainment. 0 4355 Impact of Free Trade GE: Free trade.
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 ; JH: Yeah, and before that there was the other act, what was that Act? Anyway, before that was then, let's see . . . from 1978 to 1988, we lost 12,000 apparel jobs in the Lehigh Valley. And my opinion, what happened, the decline came because of the modernization, and the wages, and everything else. But then, the low wages of undeveloped countries, and the government wanted to more or less help them, and the wages became so low there that everything had to go offshore. They brought in these two Acts. I think the Multifiber Act is the other one from 1974 to maybe 2005 or something like that, where they put a limit on quotas importing to countries that were developed from undeveloped countries. It was at first a limit on it, and then in 2005 they put the NAFTA, it was NAFTA, the trades act eliminated these tariffs, I mean quotas, it dropped the tariffs down almost to nothing. Because of that imports came in, and all the flood of the clothing came in from offshore. It practically wiped out the industry. 0 4640 What Do You Value Most in Life? SC: Yeah, I have two filmy questions. Two what the heck is she asking me this for. The first one is, what do you value in life the most? And these are, these are questions I think are really important because it gets into who you are as a person?
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 ; JH: Well, that’s really a good question. I ask myself sometimes, what's it all about. 
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 ; SC: Don’t we all.
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 ; JH: What do I value in life? To tell you the truth, I, the way I am today, I am more content I think than I ever was to be honest with you. Because you know, you get older and it's supposed to get easier, but it doesn’t. You know your health begins to go, you have other problems, and your children and everything else, and financial, that gets harder, but I think, I don’t know about my sister here. But, I’m more content because I’m semi-retired, and I don’t have the pressure anymore. I don’t have the people problems, and the finances and everything else involved. What I value, I don’t know just living my life today as it is, I guess. 0 4845 What Makes You Feel the Most Artistic or Complete in Life? SC: My other question is what makes you feel the most artistic or completed in life? Just in general, what makes you feel most creative, completed, artistic? What's given you the most sense of satisfaction?
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 ; JH: Well, one of them is just being here in this, right here, because we’re on our own. We can come in and go when we want to, do what we want to do. And you know I still have a family, and so does she. She has her own family, and we don’t have the pressures, and we enjoy doing this. We still learn more every day in this industry, really, especially in this apparel and this pattern business, and creating the sizes and so forth. Every day we are just learning more, we get garments you would never dream of, such as the dog clothing. 0 MovingImage Jim Hartzel talks about how his mother, Goldie Hartzell, went from being a worker in a clothes factory to being the forelady, later a silent partner in the business and finally an owner of a contract sewing business with her son, Jim. Goldie and Jim were successful quickly. Within a few years, Jim’s sister (Georgine Banko) and both of their sons entered the business, as well. Jim and Georgine credit their mother with being “business smart.” 
 ; Interview with James Hartzell and Jim's sister, Georgine Banko, March 6, 2012 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is March 6, 2012, interview with James Hartzell, attending Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder. Should I call you Jim? Jim, could you tell me your full name, where you were born, and just start with that? JIM HARTZEL: Okay, my full name is James W. Hartzell. I was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. SC: And can you tell me the year you were born? JH: 1932. SC: 32. And also as far as your family background, as far back as you know-- your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, their names and where they were from, and what they did as far as work will really be helpful just to see a line of work and progress. JH: Okay, my father's name was George. He was a fireman for the city of Bethlehem. My mother's name was Goldie, and she had worked in the factory when I was in high school. And she eventually became a forelady in that same factory and became a part-owner of it, a silent partner. GAIL EISENBERG: What did they make? JH: They make children's clothing. SC: Okay, so she was in the textiles. JH: She was in the textile industry then. SC: And would you repeat the name? JH: Her name was Goldie. SC: No, no, the name of the textile industry JH: It was Acme Children's Wear. SC: Acme? JH: In Fountain Hill. SC: Okay, I've heard of it. GE: Acme A-C-M-E JH: A-C-M-E. Fountain Hill. And she was born in the United States and my father was also. But their parents were from Germany. Pennsylvania Dutch-- my father. And my mother was Hungarian. SC: Do you know what, approximately what year her parents came to the United States? JH: Oh, I don't know. Sis, do you know? GEORGINE BANKO: My mom was born in 1911. So I would say, grammy was born probably around 1905. SC: Okay, that would make sense, yeah. GB: She was only 15. SC: When she came? Wow. Do you know about where in Hungary they came from? GB: Near Budapest but I'm not sure. It was a little village. SC: Yes, and you don't know anything about their parents if they had any background in the industry, or if they were farmers or anything? GB: They were farmers. SC: They were farmers, yeah. So, that was your dad and- JH: That was our mother. GE: That was their mother SC: But your dad was a fireman, do you know what his father did? JH: His father was a-- I guess he was a bartender, wasn't he? GB: I think he worked at the silk mill, too. JH: The silk mill, he worked at the silk mill, that's right. SC: Wow, yeah. JH: Silk mill at Goepp Street. SC: Okay, do you know the name of the silk mill on Goepp Street? JH: No, I wouldn't know the name. SC: We could probably find that out. And, so they were in Bethlehem. Your mother's family came to Bethlehem from Hungary? JH: Correct. SC: And do you know what her father did? JH: No. GB: He died quite young. I don't remember much about him. SC: Oh, okay, yeah. JH: Well, it was hard tracing back ; we did try to trace the family history, but it's lost somewhere. SC: Yeah. Do you know your mother's maiden name? GB: Poczak. JH: Well, that was, oh, our mother? SC: Yeah. JH: Yeah, Poczak. P-O-C-Z-A-K. SC: Okay. And were they connected with any churches or any connections that people might be able to look into within Bethlehem? Any specific religious organizations? Because sometimes they have records. JH: Well, no, they weren't active. Was she active in church? Our mother was. Hetzel: Our mother was, yeah. Saint Stevens Lutheran. JH: We were Saint Stevens Lutheran Church. My grandparents were Lutheran, and my father the same thing. SC: Okay, so both of them were Lutherans? JH: Right. GE: Were both sides involved with Saint Stevens Lutheran Church? JH: Yeah. GE: And is that a Bethlehem church? JH: Bethlehem, yeah. SC: Okay yeah, so that may be a place for researchers to look back into. GE: So, do you know anything about their education? JH: My father was what, 6th grade, I think, so he didn't have much of an education. And my mother, I don't really know either. GB: She was about 8th grade. SC: Then, that was pretty typical. JH: Yeah. SC: It really was. And can you tell me a little bit about your educational background? JH: I graduated in 1950 from high school, and I was shortly drafted into the army. And I went, was sent to Korea, spent 16 months in Korea. In the meantime, while I was working while I was in high school, I was working part-time in a factory. Its Acme Children's Wear in Fountain Hill, I worked part-time there, learning the industry, from one part to the other. From sweeping to cutting, and so forth. I was working part-time. I was then drafted into the army, spent two years in the army. Sixteen months in Korea, and upon discharge, I went to Lafayette College. While at Lafayette College, I still worked part-time in the factory. I got married, wife, Lorraine, had one son, Archie. I worked part-time at the factory while going to college. And after three years, I decided that I wanted to get back in the industry, and stay in the industry, and make a career out of it. At college, I was taking up industrial engineering. So after three years, I dropped out of college, and went back in the factory full-time. In the meantime, my mother was still there, and she was running it as a forelady. So we both worked there a couple of years. I'm going to look at my notes here and see what I did write down for you. Okay, after Lafayette College, like I said I got married, son Archie. My mother was running the factory, and in 1962, my mother and myself decided to go in business. We knew enough about the business as a whole to get into our own business and run it. So we decided to go into business, her and I. We started with 12 sewing machines. Rented out a factory, I remortgage my house, and that's how we started the business. From there, the business began to grow. GE: And what part of the business were you in? Were you still in children's? JH: Yeah, this was, the business we started was Panzell. P-A-N-Z-E-L-L. We started as a contractor sewing for various New York manufacturers. Okay, we soon grew to about 50 operators, and we had plenty of work at that time. That was back in, like I say, 1962. Soon after that, we bought out the factory that we both worked for previously, Acme Children's Wear. We bought that factory. We bought it out. So we now had that factory along with ours. My sister then entered the field. My sister, Georgine Banko, she entered the field and became a partner with us. Okay, along with her, my son came into the industry, Archie. He was the cutter. She has two sons ; Donny, who became our mechanic. GE: Okay, just excuse me, sorry, what is your name? JH: Georgine Banko. SC: And you married to a Banko from. Georgine Banco: Bethlehem. SC: Bethlehem. Were they in the steel industry? GB: No. SC: Okay, were they, they weren't in, and this is a separate tangent, I'm sorry but did they own a business? GB: My husband was an auto mechanic. SC: He was an auto mechanic. JH: So out of the three sons, one ran the cutting room, my son ran the cutting room. Her son, one of her sons, was a mechanic for the factory, and the other one was our accountant. GE: And what are the boys, what are your sons' names? GB: Don was a mechanic. JH: Donald, mechanic. And James as the accountant. Okay, at this time the business was booming. Like I say, we couldn't get enough help. Nobody could get help in the industry. You had ads all over the place trying any way you could possibly to get help for some machine operators and floor help. We had started another factory called Jad, J-A-D, Fashions. That was in Bethlehem. GE: And this is about what year? JH: This was about the early 1970s, I think it was. Okay, and between the three of us and our three sons, we would handle all aspects of the business from mechanics and running back and forth to the so forth. Again like I say we couldn't, the business just kept growing and growing. SC: Do you think that the inability to get people was because of this post-war expansion and people getting jobs out of blue-collar industries and into white-collar industries? JH: Well I think yeah people were beginning to leave the industry, I believe at that time because of the low wage scales and the jobs were plentiful. SC: Yeah. GE: And, unemployment was low. SC: Yeah unemployment was low. JH: 5% something like that. SC: Yeah. JH: So, you know, they didn't come into the industry. That's why eventually, with our association, I'll give you some information on that a bit later ; we had a Vo-Tech course that we sponsored, just to train operators and so forth. SC: At Bethlehem Vo-Tech [Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School]? JH: Bethlehem Vo-Tech. They did other things besides training operators, but that was part of the focus, to bring people into the industry. SC: And before I forget, do you see yourself as sort of a looper in the textile industry because you went into your mother's where she worked and then got to learn the very, I'm thinking of Bethlehem Steel now, you get to learn from the bottom up, and you got to learn the entire industry. JH: Absolutely. SC: That's amazing. it really is. JH: Absolutely. Well she knew, she had a thorough knowledge of the floor and everything else and how to--business. My mother was business smart, also. And between us, the other aspects of it, the cutting and the shipping, and I began to set-piece rates, and do one thing at a time more and more, I became involved in the business. SC: Yeah. JH: But that's where it started, with these other factories and so forth. GE: With the labor, was it typically, I guess let's say minimum wage? For the operators? JH: The minimum wage- GB: That was for learners. There was also piece-rate. SC: Okay, and it wasn't unionized? JH: No. GE: Okay. JH: The average wage I think was like 7 dollars or something like that. That's back in the 80s. In the 70s it was lower than that. SC: Yeah. JH: But it was, you know, it's where it all started, the wages. GE: Was there much pressure to get it unionized, from union organizers? GB: At times, there was, yes. JH: Yeah, there was. We never unionized. Because I always felt if we did, we couldn't stay in business. That's one of the things that began to happen. SC: And the association helped that? JH: No, our association was both union members and non-union. Now, with the Atlantic Apparel, I understand it was a different association. They were union members. GE: Atlantic Apparel. Who was Atlantic Apparel? JH: That was-- SC: Delin. JH: Delin. GE: Oh, oh, oh, oh. JH: I think Delin was running that then. GE: Okay he did have one first then he became involved with this. JH: Yeah. GB: Then our girls decided they didn't want a union, and they were being pressurized, so they formed an inside union amongst themselves. GE: Okay, that's interesting. JH: They formed a company union for our factory. SC: Oh, interesting. JH: The competition became when you had trouble getting help, and the wages were beginning to be lowered. The industry began to move down south because there were non-union shops. Here there was mostly union shops, to stay, we didn't have a union, except the company union. But like I said to stay afloat we had to give all the benefits, if not more than the union did. We at one time were giving them what, twelve paid holidays, GB: And 3 to 4 weeks vacation. JH: 3 to 5 weeks. We would give, gave 3 to 5 weeks vacation. More than what the union was giving-- what they were pushing for. SC: Yeah. JH: Anyway, the business began to move down South, so that was the first step of it moving out ; the competition and so forth, and modernization and factories combining, and other reasons that you lost the help. GE: Would you say this is mid-1970s? Just to have a time frame. JH: That was, well, the industry began to decline in the 70s. But, you didn't see a real decline until around I guess until the late 80s, early 90s, then you saw a real decline. And that's because in the 90s other trade barriers came into effect. The government put these trade--NAFTA and another one that they-- GE: Oh, so where it became much easier to go to Mexico and the whole North America. JH: Yeah, the manufacturers in New York would go down, instead of Pennsylvania, would start moving to Mexico and down South. GE: Right. SC: Yeah. JH: For various reasons, you know the labor I guess was cheaper. GE: Right. JH: So they began to move down South. SC: And there was a good exchange up to Canada even I guess, I don't know if there were any textile industries at this point up in Canada, but I mean our exchange rate was so good in the 90s. JH: You mean the money rate? SC: The money rate, yeah. GE: Right that it was strong here- SC: It was strong here and weaker then as opposed to now JH: Anyway, all this time, we were contractors. My sister and I, my mother, you know, like I said we were in this business. And then I was approached with an individual from New York, to join him in manufacturing. Which I did, so I became then a manufacturer instead of a contractor. GE: And this is about when? When did this occur? JH: This occurred oh I guess this was. GB: The 80s sometime, I think. JH: Probably late 80s. GE: And who was the person you were working with? JH: That was Atlas Childrenswear, A-T-L-A-S Childrenswear, in New York, and the person's name was Albert Papa, P-A-P-A. He was in manufacturing, so we had the factories, and he had a showroom up there in New York. So I joined him as a partner, and between us, we would then buy the piece goods, we would showroom-- the buyers would come into the showroom, and we would design our own garments. It was mostly childrenswear at that time. We would design our own garments. Buyers would come into the showroom, and they would place orders. We had more orders again and that you couldn't handle. And the work that went to our three factories down here, to our contractors. That even expanded to about ten more contractors in the New York area, small contractors, and maybe ten more in this area that we would send the work out to. GE: Okay so you were doing, you were not only filling your own factories business, but you were going beyond that to other contractors. JH: At least ten in New York and ten here, something like that. GE: Wow. And you were saying how you define the difference between being the manufacturer versus the contractor, can you just tell us a little bit more about that? JH: Well, the manufacturer buys the piece goods, does the marketing, usually has a showroom, and will send the goods to a contractor who will cut the goods for him. Some cut, some didn't. And sew it and then send it back, the finished garment, back to the manufacturer's warehouse, where he would distribute to the stores in retail. Now the manufacturer had all these aspects of it, while the contractor only did sewing. And that basically what, in this area, most of them were. Not all of them, but most of them were only sewing in this area. SC: And originally, were they called oftentimes, maybe not specifically Allentown, but in the region, shirtwaist companies? In the earlier years? JH: Called what? SC: Shirtwaist companies. JH: I don't know. SC: No, okay, because I know there were, especially up in near Hazelton and that area, there were a lot of shirtwaist companies, also sewing factories, there were a lot of sewing factories. JH: See a lot of people, didn't know really the difference between a contractor and a manufacturer. Like I say, the contractor didn't own the piece work, didn't own the garments ; all they did was sew. Some, like I say some in this area were, most in this area were that. But, there were a few manufacturers. Anyway, the business was still growing then. Then we purchased this equipment that we have there. Then my daughter in law, Judy Hartzell, joined the company. And she became a pattern maker, grader, designer, and so forth, working what my sister now does. Now she was brought into the fold. GE: That's around 1990 or still in the 80s? JH: That was in the 80s I guess, the late 80s. Then, I guess the business was growing all around, and we needed more factories and more work and so forth and we kept, you know, kept expanding, to the point, and then, in the meantime, in the 70s, the decline had started. But it wasn't affecting us really. The decline that began then was the wages, and it began to move down south. And factories were automated and new machinery, and we needed to cut help at that time. We kept expanding, and things were going alright until, well let's see, the early 1980s, now that when things were probably at a peak. Then my partner in New York and I, then my mother, bought a building at Fountain Hill. A two-story building and from that building we then began to do all the cutting and receiving of goods from the factories, inside that building on the second floor. And the first floor was all sewing. So that was our operation, it was centralized there. Except the showrooms in New York. So we had that showrooms in New York and so forth. And in the meantime there was another line that was opened up, it was called Georgi Girl Sportswear, Georgi Girl. And that we made large-sized clothing for women, for what was Layne Bryant and so forth that we would make goods for. SC: And the reason that you didn't sort of fail in those years, is there a reason that you put to it? That you could expand? Was it because you got a partner, was it because you diversified into cutting also? JH: Well, we began working on a shoestring ourselves, you know. We weren't making much money, you know, everything was, as things began, the competition got tighter. We were able to expand in the beginning because, and we were doing alright because we had automated machinery, too. In other words, we invested in things like this equipment in here, things like, we had an automated loop machine where it set the loops on garments. The girl would just sit there, stand there and she would just put it in the machine, and that was it. It was things like Paul has upstairs there. I mean it became automated anyway, but GB: The main thing was jeans then. JH: They were making jeans. That's what made it hard. That's another reason. It was a hard garment. GE: Yeah, a lot of operations on it SC: And in the 70s, jeans, oh my goodness GE: That became so popular SC: Yes that was so popular GE: Were there a lot of places that couldn't make jeans, and you were one of the few that could? JH: I don't think there were any in this whole area. GE: Okay, okay, so that gave you a competitive advantage. JH: And then there were things that would pop up and like I remember Davey Crocket back to those days. Everything became Davey Crocket. We put a screen printing on a pocket, and it would sell before, as many as you could buy. GB: And the fringe on the pocket too. JH: And the styles would change, it became from straight legs to bell-bottoms, and everybody was buying bell bottoms. All this made the industry. You know, it made us, those were the reasons. SC: So you had a sense of where the market was going and what you should- JH: We could do it right away. GE: Because you were both manufacturer and factory? Do you think in other words, do you think that helped, as the manufacturer, you received some of the trends quicker? You weren't just being given the order, but you were being able to be a little bit ahead of it. JH: Well we hired eventually sales reps, and they had their own sales office, and I know one of them would go, like every year, he would go to France and this and that and pick up the latest trends and so forth, and we'd then design the garments for the coming trends. And it worked, it worked, yeah. SC: Did you ever have any connection with Hess's because they were always trying to be in the cutting edge of products. And did you have any connections with people who might have worked with Hess's on what the cutting edge was? JH: No. SC: No, and that was just a complete, I never thought of that before question, that maybe there was some connection. Thank you. GE: The kind of product that you were making, the jeans, were they store brand or like, you know, whose label was it? JH: It was our label. GE: So you were, okay, so what was your name? JH: Our name then was Atlas Childrenswear. GE: Okay, and this was primarily children's? JH: Children's, strictly children's. GE: Okay, so it was strictly children, right, and these were being sold in which stores? JH: In department stores all over the area. GE: Okay, okay. JH: We had no major, big, at that time, no major accounts. I mean the department stores, Walmarts, it was all the individual department stores. GE: Right, okay. And you feel that part of what also what helped you in the 80s is your operation became much more capital intensive, so you used a lot more machinery, and a lot less labor? JH: Right. GE: Okay. JH: So getting back to that, with the manufacturer and the contractors, see that's one of the big differences, too. A manufacturer has to buy the materials, and lay the money out, and wait for the money to come back after the goods are sold. Where a contractor gets paid from the manufacturer usually within ten days upon delivering those goods. So there was a big difference. I remember as we went into the manufacturing, we ended up working with Target and Mervyns and some of these large stores, and by the time the order came in, and then we had to make the goods, and send it overseas and everything else, and then they would want their terms like after they received it, like 60 days. Because they could dictate terms. These big stores could tell you they was 30, 60, or 90, and you're going to have to accept it. And it would be six months for the money to turn around, so you had to invest a lot of money. SC: But did that make you survive? Just because you had a manufacturer partner and he was the contractor? JH: Well let's go on with this. SC: Okay sure. JH: Okay, after we bought the building we were doing everything else and then my wife Lorraine became more or less involved in the business, and we opened up outlet stores. They had three outlet stores at that time also. GE: And this is the 1980s? JH: This the 19, Yeah that would be the 1980s. SC: What were the names of the factories? JH: Lorraine's Factory Outlets. SC: Oh, okay, and where were they located? JH: One was in Fountain Hill. GB: Palmerton. JH: Palmerton. And up there in- GB: I can't think of that, by the flea market place. JH: Yeah the flea market up there, it was like -- anyway there were three. Palmerton was one, Fountain Hill was another, and Emmaus or something. SC: Not in the Poconos. JH: Where that race track used to be up there. SC: Umm. GE: Nazareth. SC: Oh, Nazareth, of course, that makes sense, so smart. JH: It was Nazareth, Fountain Hill, and Palmerton. SC: Yeah. GE: And I assumed that helped the lot, did it just help to kind of offset or complement the other business. JH: Well, yeah, it offset. It didn't complement. It was another business. Because then we through that business, we bought two trucks and began hauling for the other business with the piece goods, to New York and back and forth, and so forth. GE: Prior to that, it was, prior to that, how was that hauling done? JH: The hauling was done by common carriers. GE: Okay, and now you were able to do it through your own truck? JH: Yeah we got our own trucks because the trucks would go at least two to three times a week to New York. We'd take a bunch of cut goods up to New York and here in this area, and they'd give them the cut goods to sew, and they'd bring back the finished goods, back to our warehouse. SC: That's such a good lesson in business sense too! JH: Like I said, the business in the 1980s was good, it continued for us even though there was a slow decline. GE: But you survived fine. JH: Yeah, up until then, yeah. And like I said, the decline was caused by again, the modernization, the wages, competition, merging of mills, and so forth. Anyway, we stayed in the business because of, to be honest with you, because of her sons and my son and everybody else. In the meantime, my mother had passed away, and my wife had passed away, too. We, because of the family involved and everything else, we held on to the business. We saw the decline come. It came in New York, the showrooms, and then our factories here, and it was getting less and less, and we began to lose money until we ended up like most of these other people in the area, we lost everything. So we came from one time very, more or less wealthy, and then nothing. So anyway, then along came this guy upstairs Paul Reid. And I was, after the closing of the factories, I went to work in the cutting room and my sister, then, we set this up here. GE: And this is about when? JH: This was about the early 19.. GB: No mom died in 95, it was right about 96, 97. JH: Because we shut, when did we shut the mill? - 94 we shut down. 94 we finally shut down. We paid all our debts. We didn't file bankruptcy. GB: And we didn't stick anybody. JH: We didn't stick anybody. We paid everything but doing that we were broke. So you know we kept this part of the business, and I went to work at another factory. SC: So let's repeat that in 1994 you went to another place to run the cutting room? JH: Yeah, then after closing down we went to another factory and ran the cutting room. And we still have this equipment with us, my sister and I. We took this with us over there. And I ran the cutting room, and she ran the markers and the grating and everything else, with these machines, for that factory. SC: What was the name of that factory? Do you remember where it was? I could look that up. I could look that up in Allentown books. JH: Well that was, umm... SC: It will come to you. GE: And I was just wondering, how old were your children at this point? Your children had been in the business already for a while. In their 50s? No, they would have been much younger.. in their 40s? JH: Well they, when they were with us they were in their thirties, really. GE: Right so let's say by 1995, that you were trying to hold onto this for the next generation. JH: Right. GB: They were in their forties. GE: Okay, okay. At this point, what did they do? In other words, when you went to this other factory, what did they end up doing? JH: Well, my son ended up working. He did two things. He became a game warden, and also he worked for BARC. Bucks County Association of Retarded Citizens. GE: Okay. JH: So he had really left the industry at this time. My advice also. Telling him to get out, you know. GE: Right, right. JH: You can't stay in this. I keep telling Judy that, but she always wants to come in somehow. I said it's not for you anymore, but maybe it is. And her sons, one was an accountant from the beginning, he stayed an accountant and still is. And the other one is right now, where did he go to work? GB: He went to work for cable companies, he was installing satellites. JH: Cables, he got on with that too. GH: And he had his own construction company. GE: Okay. SC: With skills, you can do anything. JH: So then, anyway, like I say I went to work for this r cutting factory, and she ran the room for that, we did quite well then, my sister and I. This factory was busy yet, and other ones were closing down, and one of the reasons that he was busy is because... GE: Everything else closed down. JH: Well, not only that he got tied in with a big manufacturer, and he was hiring illegals, and this sorta thing, and maybe you read about it, but he did get raided. GB: (inaudible . . . Sportswear) JH: You know what, he had different names. GB: Yeah so that's why we can't remember. SC: Oh that's true if he's hiring illegals, yeah. JH: And he had illegals, and I remember one day they, it was raided by the... GB: INS. JH: The INS, immigration and GE: When was this about? When was this about 2000? GB: At least 2000. JH: Yeah that had to be early. GB: Early 2000. JH: Yeah around 2000, yeah. GE: Around 2000, yeah. JH: And he was, half of them got hauled away and everything else. You know he was, that's who he hired. SC: So many people did that. GE: I was just going to say, was that happening? JH: Yeah, you were forced to. Unfortunately, that's what it's coming back to, with these little factories that are still around. SC: Yeah. JH: Not like Paul upstairs. They are legitimate, they go by everything they should be, and they are lucky they have the accounts they do. But there are still these little factories around, who knows how they are operating. SC: Plus it was so many people's history ; they work for sweatshops. That's American history, but-- GE: Who was this firm? Who was the owner of this firm? JH: Jacob . . . was his last name? We should look it up somewhere. SC: Well we can look that up, we can definitely, we can go back in the Morning Call. GE: But what was the name? SC: They were raided, we can find it. JH: Yeah, they were raided ; it was a big thing at that time. SC: Yeah. GE: I don't remember, did they go under as a result? JH: Yeah. GB: He was deported. He's over in . . . JH: Yeah, the one owning it or running it, he paid cash with everybody. Everybody except us, we were smart enough. You know, we did work for him but here are the checks. So we stayed clear of everything but those other people that worked for him, half of them were illegals, and they paid cash and everything else. SC: Was he from Mexico himself? GB: He was from the Middle East. JH: Egypt. SC: Oh, okay. GB: A lot of the illegals were Syrian. JH: A lot of the illegals were Syrian. GB: Lebanese. SC: Makes so much sense. JH: So anyway he was on the verge of- We left before he closed out. But after that happened, we got out. In the meantime, Paul Reid, this guy you met upstairs, was working for the manufacturer as a- he would place work, his job was placing work and so forth. By the way, he knows the industry in and out. He's a good person to interview when you can. Him and I then decided, I became good friends with him, and we decided we are going to go in business ourselves, again, we are going to take another crack at it, so we bought this building first. Him and I. Then we had contacts with two girls, one was in Washington, one in San Francisco, another one in Chicago. They were buyers and salespeople for Target. Target stores and Gymboree. GE: Oh, yeah JH: So through them, and with our knowledge, we began to set up a business of manufacturing for Target stores. And we began to do that here. We first started buying finished pieces. Like those rolls up there, and cutting the work. We knew now at this time we can't compete with labor because now the labor from overseas was so low that you couldn't even think of making it here. For the same garments, you couldn't sell them. So we cut the goods here, and send it overseas, we went over there, him or I, went to Haiti and set up a factory over there. We didn't buy it or anything, we just got a contact and sent the goods over there, and they made the goods for us, and sent it back. We would have to send container loads over. In fact, there's a picture up on that wall, of our first container coming back on the other end, coming back from Haiti. So they would sew the goods for us, bring it back here, we'd put it in the warehouse here, inspect it and so forth. We had people working for inspecting and so forth, but no sewing, and we'd send it to the stores. Even that competition became more and more. Now the competition was from other factories, other manufacturers, other countries that the goods start going from Haiti, Dominican, Honduras. Even they became, as the labor went up in these countries, we moved to other countries and so forth. Competition became stiffer yet, so we then began to buy the cotton and converting the goods ourselves, we then had to buy the cotton, take the fibers and convert it into yarn and then we would send the yarn then to a weaving house, finish it then to make the piece goods. Whatever we were making, woven and knits at that time, and then from there we would send it to a finishing house, the piece goods, and then back here we would cut it. Then we'd send the cutwork offshore to be sold. Now, as an example, I think for a garment at that time, a little t-shirt was maybe 12 dollars a dozen labor in the United States. We were able to make it oversees in Haiti and Dominican for 3 dollars a dozen, and that included the shipping over and . . . GE: That included the shipping? JH: That included the shipping and the insurance. So that was the big difference. It was so cheap for us and that's what began to happen going back to the decline of the industry. The wages start going down, and they move to Mexico, and so forth, the manufacturers start shipping to be made overseas. Instead of sewing factories in the United States GE: Oh, the manufacturers just went directly. JH: The manufacturers were now beginning to go directly over there just like we did, so now you eliminated the sewing here and in this country. GE: Right! JH: And we came down and were, eventually in the beginning, the government said you can only send the cut goods over, that they can only sew over there. Then next they said, now you can send yarn over. Now you can send, they can cut themselves, they can dye themselves. Then the dye houses and everything else began to be set up offshore. And so everything in that went offshore. So in the meantime, we had hired a third party, a money person, who was a signup partner because we needed a lot of money with the manufacturing. And that too after about three-four years ago? GB: Yeah. JH: Around mid-2000, we decided to, the competition again was too much, too many headaches and everything else, so we decided to- SC: So did you lose the silent partner? Yeah, well, we, then again we closed it down, we didn't lose money at this. I mean, it was a thing where everybody got paid, and we decided that was it. GE: And that was a few years ago? JH: Yeah, that was only a few years ago. SC: Was the silent partner really silent? Are you allowed to say? JH: No, he was silent. SC: Silent. Okay, so you can't say his name. Just was investing. JH: Yeah, he was the money person at that time. SC: Next time we'll know not to ask that. JH: No, that's alright. So we eventually cut it down, we kept the building there, and we kept this part of it then, her and I have been here doing this, and like I say working with entrepreneurs. GE: And is this just let's say the last two or three years that you're doing this now, the two of you? JH: Yeah, this is about, maybe the last five years, yeah. GE: Okay. JH: And what this involves is somebody will come, and they have an idea they want to make a garment, and they don't know anything about manufacturing or anything of the sort, and where to even start at. So I'll take the garment, I'll tell them what is going to take, how to go about doing it and so forth. We'll work, we'll get a sample made, I'll send it to another person that makes a sample for us and so forth. And that's it, we'll either if they like it then we'll grade for it, get different sizes and make a little marker and that's where it goes. And 99% of them, they don't realize what is involved. They really die before they get started. But some slip through, it's a tough little business now. GH: We went from making jeans to making dog clothes SC: They can be small and intricate, that's very difficult. GE: It's interesting because the pets, it is a big thing. It's a really big thing today, I'm amazed because I don't have a pet, so I'm amazed, but it is, it's part of the family. SC: Could you talk a little about this process that you do? Where it starts, and how you go to sending the pattern out to the person who wants to be in this business? JH: Well, it starts with a person that's interested in getting into the clothing line, and usually they are designers. They will come to us and ask how to get going into it, and how to make that first pattern, the first garment. So they either will give us something similar to what they want, maybe a picture or the garment or a drawing, and say this is what we want. From there, we will make the base pattern on card paper by hand. And we'll make them according to the dimensions, maybe a certain size that they want. Maybe a medium or whatever, or ladies, and we'll make it into that. And then we'll have them send, the one that's asking for it have her send the goods she wants it made on. So she will send us a couple yards of goods, and then we will then send it to a sample maker, a girl we have. They will make that first sample. When the first sample is made, we then will send it to this first-person, or they will stop in here. And they will put it on, see if it's the way they want it made, and how it fits. If they like it, they will tell us now we want it, from this is a size medium, now we want it from maybe extra small to extra large. We will then with our equipment here, grade it then from one size up to the other. Then if it goes beyond that, it's into the, when they buy piece goods, and we know the width of the goods, we make these markers, and the markers then will go to the factories to cut, but they're all such small, and I advise any of these entrepreneurs to start small. Pay more, and start small, because if it doesn't take off, you aren't going to lose that much. And they think that they have to make 500 garments and you don't know if it's going to sell. To be honest with you, they have trouble. They don't know how to market it first before they get going with it. And this is where we come in, also, by trying to advise them what it's going to involve, what money you are going to need, and how to make up a job description plan and how to go about getting the loan. They're going to need money and everything else, and what it involves. Sometimes when they know what it involves, it ends, because they just don't know. But some are, they have enough sense to go slow. We have a couple of them right now that are going slow with paying more for a couple of garments and seeing how it sells, and it may work for them. GE: Now you take care of the beginning part? The actual, let's say they want to make 50. Is that when you then help them contract that out someplace? You don't do that anymore, right? JH: No, in fact, I have to watch one girl at work, I gave her a price, I go into the factory then, and say this is the garment we want, how much is it going to be to make 25? How much is it to make 50? How much is it to make 100? And then, we'd be getting into the big time, a thousand garments or so. But again, when it ever gets there, my advice to any of these girls or who's involved, if you get to the big time, go offshore. You can't make it here in the states. SC: Do you charge a fee for the advice, or do you just charge what they actually get from you? JH: Well, sometimes I charge a fee for advice, and sometimes I don't. We'll help them. We're here to help them. We're not individuals that don't want to tell you what we know. Because it doesn't matter anymore, we'll tell you anything we know. So I'll give them my advice, and we'll help them. We will place the work for them, and help them. Like right now we have a girl, she's doing 25 at a time, these dog things and the other ones doing the tops, and they are paying more because of that, but they have their internet sales and see how it works. SC: Is this the model? JH: She's one of them. GE: I'm curious, how do you find your clients or how do they find you? JH: Here's even a hat we make for them, the dogs. This visor hat. GE: I have a friend who recently got, I forget what kind of dog, a havanese I think, anyway, got two little havanese, she was like, for me I don't have dogs, so it's hard for me to quite understand it all, but she said she just can't wait to go to the store and be able to buy some clothes, and I was like, oh my God. JH: There's little jackets right there for a boy dog. SC: That's adorable. GE: So how do they find you? How do you develop the clients and they find you? JH: We don't advertise. We don't even have, I think, a number in the phone book. We're not really, to be honest with you, not, I don't know what would happen if I put it on the internet and advertise. I'd probably, I don't know, maybe nothing, maybe we'd have too much business. We don't want too much. We're both semi-retired, so when we get- GE: You just like a little bit. JH: Yeah a little bit here and there, it's enough to like keep going. GE: What I didn't know was like let's say, in other words, do you attend anything in terms of something where you are likely to meet people who are starting off in, you know as entrepreneurs or chambers of commerce. JH: The only thing I do anymore is I go to the New York shows. . . the piece good show and so forth once a year, I'll go there, but not to meet people. Just to keep myself up on the industry. So I'll spend the day up there and so forth. Because there are different types of materials that have come along today. But we don't advertise. But we do. . . just when one goes another one seems to come in, and I don't know where they come from. We just got a phone call from, I think, Detroit, and the one girl that we work with now is Connecticut. GE: Okay so how they heard of you, you're not even sure. Wow. SC: That's really interesting. JH: But like I say it's, it's the way we want it almost. GE: No, I understand, I was just curious. SC: So do you have any other, did we miss any other business questions? Do you have more? Do you have more stuff? JH: Well, no that's my personal, but you know, there's my thoughts on what the industry was and why it's [inaudible] SC: Great, yes, please, please. JH: Well I'm gonna go off my notes then. GE: Great, fine, absolutely. JH: The apparel industry was at one time the largest employer in Pennsylvania, okay. It was certainly the largest in the Lehigh Valley. The industry and the low wages and so forth because of that 85% of that its unskilled labor, production workers, it's probably one of the reasons why the labor has been so low, anyway. In the beginning, when we started the business, there were years ago you had different groups of people came into the industry. One time I could imagine way back, it was probably the blacks came into the industry and then maybe- GE: You're saying as workers? As the sewing machine workers? JH: As the sewing machine operators I'm talking about, right. And I guess Italians from immigrants and so forth. It came, that's how we got, they were busy at that time, and we kept things going. Eventually, it came, and I know with us in those years it was the Portuguese. GB: We were fortunate with that, we had some great Portuguese workers. JH: Great workers. SC: In Bethlehem. Wow. GB: Absolutely. JH: They were among the best ever, these girls, anyway that what we had mainly at this time, was Portuguese. And then from there or even before then, I guess, it was the Puerto Ricans were in the factories, and then the Portuguese came in, then eventually the Vietnamese, the Koreans and Chinese, which are in it mostly now. So the industry did change, and so the average girl isn't going to go into the industry because they complete college and high school, and they don't come back in the industry. GE: How about what you saw as who were the factory owners? Who tended to be the factory owners and why do you think that you and other people that you saw as factory owners? What do you think were some of the characteristics and why was you know that certain types of people or went into this business, were successful in this business? JH: You mean the owners? GE: Yeah. JH: I think then it was probably Jewish and Italians that were mostly in the industry. Not me, I'm Pennsylvania Dutch, but I know when I joined the Association, I eventually became president of it, the Jewish and Italians were primarily in it. GE: Why do you think the Jewish and Italians were primarily in it? Any thoughts? JH: No. GB: I think some of it might have been money, to get started. JH: Well, you see, starting a business in the apparel business was fairly cheap at that time. You know you bought a couple of machines and had work and had the contacts, it was really a cheap business to get into until the automation came and everything else. I guess because probably you could say because they were hustlers, I don't know. They had more gumption than anybody else. GE: Entrepreneurs. JH: Yeah, they went into the business and gave it a shot. It's easy, you know it's the same old thing, if you don't try, you'll never know. SC: Right, did you ever hear any stories about people's families being relegated, who were Jewish, relegated to being tailors and some other industries in Europe? JH: Yep. GE: That they already knew the business because they were tailors and weavers. JH: Well GE: They were the tradesmen of that type. JH: Well the tradesmen, this business started, I guess. The manufacturing really started, got heavy in New York is when the civil war, when they needed uniforms for it, that's when it really started. Before that it was all handmade and made from things at home. Then they had to have some factories started because of the clothing. GE: So then they were a lot of the tailors--the Italians, and Jews JH: Yeah, I imagine that they were doing it at home and so forth. Doing their own knitting, the piece goods and so forth, and sewing, you know, whatever they do to make the clothing. SC: Are there any factories in Rosetta, still? Because I think of Rosetta, which was almost one village, relocating into that village. GE: Where was Rosetta? SC: It's up in... it's not far from here. GB: Up in the coal regions. SC: Coal regions, yeah. JH: Like 15 miles away? SC: Yeah. JH: Well, there were a lot of factories up in that area. See at one time there were, I think in the Lehigh Valley, I think it was 4000 people we employed, something like that, like 150 factories. SC: Wow yeah, amazing. GE: So the typical factory had only maybe, well I mean there were small ones, that they may have just had 5, 10, 20. JH: Yeah, probably the average factory there was maybe 10, 25, something like that. GE: How many people did you have, at the largest, how many employees did you have? JH: Well, we had about, I would say, two to three hundred. Not counting the contractors I worked with. GE: Right, just your own employees. And would you say that a lot of it sounded like, a lot of what you would attribute your success is how many family members were involved? I remember you said it was your mom, the two of you, your son, her two sons, and so you had a lot of family members, you know really looking after every part of it. SC: Did you ever have any connections with Philadelphia? Any of the surviving textile clothing places in Philadelphia? JH: No. SC: It was more of a New York, Lehigh Valley connection. JH: Yeah. SC: Because it did survive. JH: The only thing in Philadelphia I think I ever did was maybe garment washing. Even the laundries, you had laundries that did garment washing, not these little typical laundry. GB: They did tie-dye. JH: They did tie-dye, your jeans, the slow washing goods, all that stuff. SC: Beat them to death. JH: Then I would get them all in Philadelphia but even that business . . . if you wanted one of them, you can't find one. I don't think there is anything in the United States anymore. Everything is offshore there, even that aspect of it. SC: Do you have anything else in your notes that we interrupted you with? JH: Well let's see where we are at. Okay, and anyway we know that there's many aspects of it. Not only the sewing, there's the shipping and the management, and office workers, and there's truck drivers and so forth. I always felt they never realized what's all involved in the apparel industry, not always sewing. But anyway, in this area at one time we had the contractors like I said at one time we had them, the manufacturers, the company that would make the goods, we had your dye houses, and we had finishing things. And we had your jobbers and your guys that would handle the scraps and everything else. We had everything here. Today, all I know that probably left in this area is small factories dotted here and there. And someone like Paul and the reason he's busy is because he works for a company like Under Armour, who is 90% offshore. But if they need something fast, he'll get it or repairs from offshore. By the way, when we began to working offshore, we found many other problems too which contributed to us coming back was the work wasn't good. And we had to end up going to Haiti and Dominican, flying there and staying down there a couple of days. We ended up hiring a person down there to work for us and stay in the mill all day long. And still we would get the work back and the color- and still I guess that problem is today with going offshore. GE: Right, but it's still-- Unfortunately, I guess what your saying is even with all that headache. It was still worth it. JH: Yeah, that's why these companies, that's why they are. That's where they are-- There's no doubt about it. It's how they can survive. Okay, besides being involved with what I just mentioned, those organizations, I was like I said president at the time of the Apparel Industry Needle Trades Association. In that association, this was made up of about 50-60 members of contractors and manufacturers, in the Lehigh Valley area. We would meet once a month. We would have dinner. We'd then have a speaker, usually from the industry, or anything concerning it, or a politician. We'd have dinner, and then we'd have a speaker and then a program, and we'd discuss the industry itself. That Lehigh Valley Needle Trade Association was an active group, and we held, every year, we held a banquet. We would go to Harrisburg and sit with the governor, and he would acclaim an apparel week for the year. It would be apparel week, and in that week, we would hold our banquet and have other activities and so forth. In the banquet we would either have the governor would come sometimes or a congressman or other politician. And we would then have, again, a program. We'd have speech by the president of the association on the state of the industry and so forth. We would have a speaker, and then we would have entertainment. It was high-class entertainment. Maybe 300 people would attend, which was, the banquet was open to anybody in the industry. It could be the factory workers and the owners. We would have the entertainment, then dancing afterward. So it was a really big time for the industry. The same week, we would have a fashion show, and there would be an open house at the Vo-Tech school, and we would have open houses at the factories. Anyway, the association itself sponsored the Vo-Tech school, and the purpose then was to bring people into our industry. And they taught sewing in these schools, and we taught pattern making, designing and so forth. And the pupils, the girls in the school would design their own, design something for the fashion show, the yearly fashion show. They would design something themselves. They would then cut the goods out and sew it themselves and wear it in the fashion show. Awards would be awarded by the association, to the winners in there . . . at the show. Now all the materials for the goods, the fashions, were supplied by members of the association. The machinery in the Vo-Tech schools was supplied by the members of the association. We even had a CAD with- GE: CAD CAM. JH: CAD CAM, we had this kind of equipment in there donated by the Gerber company, to the school. So we had a good cross-section and then, but the main thing is that's how you get people into it including operators, which was getting harder and harder to get. GE: Were you able to get them? Since the operators were the very lowest skill and lowest paid, were you able to get more of the higher, the pattern makers or the machine, the CAD CAM programmers, like did you feel it was pretty successful that way with what you were doing? JH: Well, things began to happen in the school that I always saw. That was everybody wanted to be a fashion designer. Nobody wanted to be a sewing machine operator. GE: Right, but how about the printmaker and the CAD-CAM? JH: Well, that was always hard to get somebody because they were so complicated. But I don't think the teacher even knew enough eventually. In fact we would hire the Vo-Tech teachers then, too. We would not hire, we would suggest who did get hired. The Association, our association would. And then we would teach the teachers off some of these units, and so forth. So the school worked, you know, it was good. It was good for a while but again it's how much it brought in the . . . eventually it began to phase out too because its people didn't want to be sewing machine operators anymore. GE: And was this just Bethlehem Vo-Tech or was it, Lehigh? JH: It was Bethlehem Vo-Tech, then Lehigh county Vo-Tech had a course. And then we also had a course- GE: Bucks. JH: No. But other associations I'm sure did. But we had, then we had a mechanics course in Miller Heights, for mechanics that we sponsored also. And then again the Association was, and then we would meet, and if somebody needed a certain machine that the other factory didn't have, we would help each other. If one person had too much work, he'd tell them, and it's just we'd work together. GE: Right, does the association still exist? JH: No. The Association, it held on I guess longer than anything even when the industry went down but- GE: Okay so the small little factories now there's no Association? JH: No. GE: When did that end about ten years ago? Or even earlier? JH: The Association, I imagine that's probably about ten years. GE: Yeah, you have to have enough members. JH: So we would hire the students from the school, bring them into our factories. Train during the summer months, maybe put them in the factory for a week or two and so forth. Anyway, in our association, we served on other committees. That's why I would be on maybe the private industry council or this and that. The economic development I was on that board, too. GE: Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation. JH: Allentown. GE: Yeah. Allentown Economic Development Corporation. JH: Okay, and then, like I said we held this apparel week, which consisted of the banquet like I mentioned, and the Vo-Tech and so forth. And we would give out scholarships in the schools and have open houses and so forth, all week. SC: And were the scholarships for? JH: For the students who were mostly in the fashion design. SC: The fashion design, yeah. JH: The ones who made the best design, the best clothing and so forth. Really basically I think that's the schools. And I don't think we want to get into the declining industry and all that other stuff. We all know it was a booming area, we know that it employed thousands of people, there were many job opportunities, they put many people to work. And truthfully, it was the low-income people which if you can get them off the streets today, they, I mean if you had those jobs now. Of course, then you've got the minimum wage begin to play into it. SC: But we do really want to get into the declining industry because it is really about the deindustrialization of America in many ways. JH: Well that's part of it, but the main thing of the declining industry I think it became an- see in 1905 which wasn't even too long ago, when they took all quotas off. SC: 2005? JH: Yeah. SC: 2005, yeah. JH: All quotas off imported goods. And the tariffs were down almost lower than nothing. GE: Free trade. JH: Yeah, and before that there was the other act, what was that Act? Anyway, before that was then, let's see . . . from 1978 to 1988, we lost 12,000 apparel jobs in the Lehigh Valley. And my opinion, what happened, the decline came because of the modernization, and the wages, and everything else. But then, the low wages of undeveloped countries, and the government wanted to more or less help them, and the wages became so low there that everything had to go offshore. They brought in these two Acts. I think the Multifiber Act is the other one from 1974 to maybe 2005 or something like that, where they put a limit on quotas importing to countries that were developed from undeveloped countries. It was at first a limit on it, and then in 2005 they put the NAFTA, it was NAFTA, the trades act eliminated these tariffs, I mean quotas, it dropped the tariffs down almost to nothing. Because of that imports came in, and all the flood of the clothing came in from offshore. It practically wiped out the industry. But there still are people surviving, like Paul there and these little shops and that. If it's ever going to come back, they say it's coming back. I know there was, I've seen an article, Obama says he wants to bring manufacturing back to the United States. I doubt if it's going to be the apparel industry. GE: Correct. JH: Not the low wage. Maybe the higher machinery will, but not that. But, who knows with the wages are coming lower in the United States. The same time in other countries it is going up, the oil and everything else is becoming crazy and so forth. And this is making a changing thing, and we are a modern nation more so in this country now, and there are reasons it probably could come back to maybe a certain extent. There is a need for small factories for these entrepreneurs and people that, and even manufacturers, that do a very small amount. There is a need for them for these small factories. Because they can't send the container load over there. See that's the only reason why what we did. We had that price because it was a container load of goods, and they can't do that, so they can't. You know there's a need for that type of thing. And these entrepreneurs, and the fast turnover people, are the ones that probably like Under Armour there that can't get enough goods made offshore that they still have him help out and so forth. GE: There will be little niches here and there. JH: There has to be a niche. SC: Everything on PCN. Pennsylvania Community Network. All the little factories, they show the factories that are still surviving in Pennsylvania. JH: Yeah, but you know it is, I wouldn't want to be in it anymore, because you couldn't compete. Like I said, we made a lot of money in the business. We lost a lot of money, too. So luckily, we had enough to come back to a certain extent. In fact, turn around ourselves. GE: Right, right, right. JH: Of the industry, we turned ourselves around more or less. GE: Right SC: Yeah. Can you say that again? That you turned yourselves around, in the industry, and there. . . JH: You can't turn the industry around. SC: That is beautiful. GE: You have to personally adapt. Because you can't, the other is unchangeable. JH: It's unfortunate for the small people who are still trying to make a living with a factory because it's really almost impossible. Unless, they, unfortunately, do things they are not supposed to do. GE: Right, or find some sort of clever niche. JH: Go ahead. Any last questions? GE: Want to ask the last couple questions? SC: Yeah, I have two filmy questions. Two what the heck is she asking me this for. The first one is, what do you value in life the most? And these are, these are questions I think are really important because it gets into who you are as a person? JH: Well, that's really a good question. I ask myself sometimes, what's it all about. SC: Don't we all. JH: What do I value in life? To tell you the truth, I, the way I am today, I am more content I think than I ever was to be honest with you. Because you know, you get older and it's supposed to get easier, but it doesn't. You know your health begins to go, you have other problems, and your children and everything else, and financial, that gets harder, but I think, I don't know about my sister here. But, I'm more content because I'm semi-retired, and I don't have the pressure anymore. I don't have the people problems, and the finances and everything else involved. What I value, I don't know just living my life today as it is, I guess. I don't know how to answer that. You answer this. GB: It has been a long journey. We've been together so many years. Our children grew up in this industry. They've gone their own ways now, but they know what it's all about. They know how hard we worked. Value our family. JH: And it was hard work at times. I remember at the end of the business we would be there at nighttime-- ten, eleven o'clock at night, her and I, working there. The place was dark, light on because we were doing things, needed it for the next day, just to stay alive. And there's many many others in this apparel industry. I'm sure that many others that were forced to close down, and owed the government or the union large amounts of money, and went into debt and so forth. But, at least with us, we closed down, we were clean, and could start up a life and live today like we are, you know. SC: And it seems as if, it's very unusual oftentimes for families to work together. That it's just too difficult and there are rifts among the various family workers and having your children working you'll be working. JH: Well, we had that too. GB: Yeah, we had the ups and downs. SC: Yeah. GE: That's challenging. SC: It's very challenging. GE: Especially, I assume when business was when everything's good, it's much easier. When things unravel a little bit, it's much harder, and it's easy to blame. GB: Exactly. You want to see them get out on their own before they lose everything. JH: Yeah, that was, it was hard at times, because of that. SC: And that's preservation, you know, don't let them go down with the ship. JH: Okay, what's your other question? SC: My other question is what makes you feel the most artistic or completed in life? Just in general, what makes you feel most creative, completed, artistic? What's given you the most sense of satisfaction? JH: Well, one of them is just being here in this, right here, because we're on our own. We can come in and go when we want to, do what we want to do. And you know I still have a family, and so does she. She has her own family, and we don't have the pressures, and we enjoy doing this. We still learn more every day in this industry, really, especially in this apparel and this pattern business, and creating the sizes and so forth. Every day we are just learning more, we get garments you would never dream of, such as the dog clothing. GB: Believe it or not, dog clothing is harder than a regular shirt or something. JH: Who in the world would of ever thought that I would end up grading dogs. It was bad enough doing the human beings, but again, it's more or less helped us. GB: It's a challenge. JH: Sure. GE: But it sounds like if I understand, in terms of the creativity, it's kind of nice at this particular time that you are able to, you're not working so hard, and so you are able to kind of enjoy the business, as opposed to just kind of working, working, working. JH: You hit it one hundred percent. GE: Right. SC: Do you have a different, what makes you feel creative, completed, artistic? GH: No I don't think so. Like I said, it's challenging when you get all different things from . . . we've done bathing suits already, we've done pants, of course, shirts, now we're into dog clothes. It's interesting. JH: Anything that comes along, there's entrepreneurs. GE: Right, right, right. SC: And isn't that the best of business? Creativity where you can enjoy it? GE: And it's probably a little fascinating to see where some of those people are coming from, and their ideas. JH: And you know, and I really believe that if I advertised, put it on the internet or let it be known out there, just what we do, that I could probably get all the business we want. I think, I'm not sure. But again, we are getting older, the equipment is getting older, and we don't want a whole lot. SC: You'd be getting all the business and all the headaches. JH: Yes, your right, back into the people problems and everything else. GE: And at this point, it's all, it exists, so as long as you are able to use it, whatever it brings in, it brings in. If you had to make an investment in something, it wouldn't be worth it. JH: Yeah. Right. And when they break down, then, I don't know what we are going to do. GE: Right, right. JH: To get somebody to even look at that, it cost a thousand dollars even to look at it, even if it's some little screw somewhere. GB: It's a Gerber company. JH: Because they have it locked up so much, you know. Nobody else can repair them. GE: Ohh. Do they still exist? Oh, well obviously you've had them. SC: Gerber is owned by Nestle actually. GB: Oh, I don't know, Gerber is just Gerber, right? SC: Is it Gerber? Is it owned by Nestle? JH: I don't know who owns it. GB: I mean when somebody retires and comes down and repairs, they have to sign a contract that they won't go to any of the old businesses, you know, you can't even call them. JH: See if a guy retires from them, and you need somebody here, it's nice to call one of these guys, who are cheap and maybe it's in the area somewhere, but they can't do it because they will lose their pension or whatever agreement they have with the Gerber company. So you got to call the company directly, and it's costly. GE: Right, isn't that something, interesting. Well, everybody tries to protect their piece. SC: Well, thank you so much. This was wonderful. This was so instructive to us. It really was. JH: Well, I hope it was. GE: Oh, it was, yes. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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James Hartzell and Georgine Banko, March 6, 2012
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Jim Hartzel talks about how his mother, Goldie Hartzell, went from being a worker in a clothes factory to being the forelady, later a silent partner in the business and finally an owner of a contract sewing business with her son, Jim. Goldie and Jim were successful quickly. Within a few years, Jim’s sister (Georgine Banko) and both of their sons entered the business, as well. Jim and Georgine credit their mother with being “business smart.”
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2012-03-06
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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a6cc59c61829ff223d4eb144e4334054
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Judy Miller
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5.4 May 31, 2016 Judy Miller, May 31, 2016 LVTNT-05 23:35 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Judy Miller Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 MillerJudy_20160531.mp4 1.0:|25(2)|48(16)|69(13)|90(6)|111(12)|130(18)|151(11)|168(13)|187(6)|210(2)|229(11)|258(14)|299(6)|324(4)|347(16)|372(3)|397(16)|432(6)|455(14)|482(16)|513(18)|534(12)|563(9)|572(12) 0 https://youtu.be/ZsV2nCZa3Mc YouTube video 0 Introduction—Judith Miller nee Farmer SC: Okay. Yes. Would you say your full name, when you were born, and where you were born?
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 ; JM: Okay. Judith Rose Miller — at that time, I was Rose Miller. Now I'm Judith Farmer Miller. 
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 ; SC: So your maiden name was Farmer?
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 ; JM: Right, right. I was born in, coincidentally, Borough Park, Brooklyn. My mother and father lived in Brooklyn at that time, at the same hospital that Mort [Miller]’s brother and sister were born — same hospital, which is no longer there, of course. It was a maternity hospital. I was born February 19th, 1931. That’s- And shortly after I was born, my parents moved to Manhattan on West 79th Street. I think it was 181. 0 75 Family History SC: But can you talk about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents on both sides as much as you know?
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 ; JM: Well, I do not know my maternal great-grandparents- well. I don't really know them. No, my grandmother came to the United States from probably Russia or Poland, wherever the borders were at the time, to Newark, New Jersey, at 15 and worked in the cigar factory. I don't really know anything about my paternal grandfather. I don't know where he came from, but he was also an immigrant. They- when they married — which I don't know when that was either — they were in the shoe business. My grandfather had a shoe store. That's- and that's probably goes back to the ‘30s because then I was born and I was more aware of what was going on there. He had a- just a general shoe store and they owned the building that had, I think- was a three storey building, and I think they had apartments there. And- and my grandfather had this shoe store and they were very active in the Workmen's Circle at the time. We won’t say what that was, right? And they lived in- and that was in Newark, New Jersey. That's my- my maternal side. 0 417 Judith Miller's Childhood and Early Education in New Jersey JM: My mother- in the 40s, we then moved from Manhattan. I do not remember where I went to school, to kindergarten. I don't know why I have no memory of this. I was not happy to move to New Jersey. We had to move to my grandparents’ house and I went to an elementary school, probably I think- I know it was third grade, maybe second half of second grade. At that time, we had half, half years. Then we moved to Hillside, New Jersey, from Newark, because my mother went into business. She had a children's shoe store, and that's why we moved. 0 482 Mother's Children's Shoe Store in Newark, NJ JM: My mother was working. It was pre-and post-war, post-war, World War II, and she worked every night. I think the store was open until seven o'clock at night. And I had a very happy, successful time in Hillside. I never really knew that things were not too good when the big bands failed. I never felt deprived. And because of my mother, we both were sent to college and my brother is a physician.
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 ; SC: So did you live near the store or above the store? 
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 ; JM: We lived- we lived in Hillside and she worked- The store was in Newark. It was- we lived very close. I guess it was maybe four or five, maybe six blocks away. 0 563 Attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA JM: I graduated from Hillside High School and I am go- I was one of four of us. We were all Home EC majors because we had a wonderful teacher. One of us became a designer, she was an artist. Two of us- three of us were education majors. Anyhow, I applied to the University of Maryland. It was post-war, I was there twice. They did not give me housing because women had to live in approved housing. The veterans were all coming back. It is June. I have nowhere to go to college because I really wanted to go to the University of Maryland. And my mother said, oh one of her friends had a daughter who went to the school in Allentown. And I said, “Where's Allentown?” She said, “That's where the Meislins come from, who you may have- Yeah, that’s Ruth!” Well, it was Ira, her husband. His mother spent summer at camp where my brother and I went, and my mother met her. So I came to Allentown for an interview and I was accepted and I never left Allentown. 0 684 Meeting Mort Miller JM: At the time, the Lehigh Valley Railroad went from Allentown to Newark. And I, of course, was at- where? Well, it went to New York, but I got off at Newark. And I was on a return trip to Allentown and I sat with this lady, was a very nice lady, and we started to talk. And when we got off the train in Allentown, her son was picking her up and she said, “You told me there are no nice Jewish girls in Allentown, at Cedar Crest. Here is one.” So the next Sunday-
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 ; MM: I tell you that the- this woman was the mother of my very, very-
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 ; JM: Oh, that’s right. He- Mort’s best friend. 
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 ; MM: We were almost like brothers. 0 842 Identity as a Homemaker and Volunteer for the Jewish Community Center SC: So how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as the homework maker, do you see yourself as-
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 ; JM: Yes. I was a homemaker. We have two children. Do we do that, do you want that? 
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 ; SC: Yes.
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 ; JM: Andrew, who was born in 1953, and Nancy, who was born three years later, 1956, both of them in October, one in the beginning and one at the end. I was home with the children. I did a lot of volunteer work. I started the blood bank here, which is no longer- not the blood bank, the Jewish Community Center had a drive. I visited my grandmother at the Princeton Hospital and did a double take because on the wall it said something about blood — “It is never necessary to replace blood here.” And I went back in and then I said, why? And they said, because we have enough donors from the college. And I came back and I went to the Center and they- we started it. As a matter of fact, the woman who started it with me was Miller, Lois Miller, Stanley's wife. She was very organized. And then after the first year, she left for her career. In any case, I did that, I guess, for twenty-four or five years. And now you don't have to do that because they replaced blood or your insurance pays for it. So that was what I did. 0 935 The Hole in the Wall Outlet Store JM: And then I guess Nancy was in high school, maybe before- yeah, maybe high school, I'm not sure. And I had an outlet store at the factory. I sold overruns and peace goods and lace and elastic, in a little shop that was called the Hole in the Wall. 
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 ; MM: [inaudible]
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 ; JM: Yes, yes it was. And my showcases were tables that my father-In-law made out of doors. He was a collector of wooden doors, do you remember that? Yes. So that's about it, I guess. I don't think, you know, I was never a president, but I was always involved in the organization.
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 ; SC: That’s important.
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 ; JM: I read to two blind children, that's right. 
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 ; SC: So you do see your role as wife and mother as being the primary, and this was after the fact-
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 ; JM: Yeah, when they were grown up. Probably made a mistake, I should probably have done something more of a- But that was the ‘50s! The ‘50s. I might not have gotten married so young either.
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 ; GE: Was that the ‘70s and ‘80s when you were running that store? 
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 ; JM: Yes, I think so. 0 1054 Father's Career as a Musician GE: When your family moved from Manhattan to New Jersey, can you just tell us what was the impetus, why did they have to move? 
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 ; JM: I think there was no more business for my father. And also, I think he was involved in some- trying to sell- I don't know, he always had a get rich scheme, like he was doing importing pasta machines. It didn't work. And something happened with a recording company, I don't- it was, what was it? RCA Victor, it was a big one and the guy was crooked. My father was the sweetest, nicest man, but people-
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 ; MM: He was not a businessman.
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 ; JM: He was not a businessman, although he was very, very active in the Musician's Union. 0 1210 Home Addresses SC: Do you know where you lived, what street you were on in Manhattan? 
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 ; JM: Yes, West 79th Street, 181. And in New York? forget what street I lived on, but I know where I lived in Hillside. 
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 ; SC: Good.
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 ; JM: You want to know that?
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 ; SC: Yes.
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 ; JM: I lived on Williamson Avenue in Hillside, New Jersey. 
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 ; SC: Okay. And where did you live in Allentown?
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 ; JM: We lived- oh! We lived at the Highland Apartments when we were first married on the third floor. 0 1310 Elizabethtown Gas Company JM: You want to know what I did as a home service representative? They don't do that anymore. When you bought a stove, a hot water heater, a dryer because they had gas dryers, they would send me out with a car and I would come to your house and show you how to use it. And I would adjust thermostats, which I can't do anymore. But now it's too digital, and that's about it. And that's why I knew what was being built in the neighborhood. And it was Elizabeth, New Jersey, which was the next town from Hillside. 0 MovingImage Judy Miller talks about growing up in New York and New Jersey then later attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown. While there, she met Mort. Many years later, when their children were older, Judy opened a small outlet store at the family factory. Interview with Judy Miller, May 31, 2016 GAIL EISENBERG: Ready? SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Okay. Yes. Would you say your full name, when you were born, and where you were born? JUDITH MILLER: Okay. Judith Rose Miller -- at that time, I was Rose Miller. Now I'm Judith Farmer Miller. SC: So your maiden name was Farmer? JM: Right, right. I was born in, coincidentally, Borough Park, Brooklyn. My mother and father lived in Brooklyn at that time, at the same hospital that Mort [Miller]'s brother and sister were born -- same hospital, which is no longer there, of course. It was a maternity hospital. I was born February 19th, 1931. That's- And shortly after I was born, my parents moved to Manhattan on West 79th Street. I think it was 181. I'm not sure. What else do we want here? SC: Okay, and- JM: I'm sorry. SC: No, that's fine. And so, when you were small, we'll come back to that. But can you talk about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents on both sides as much as you know? JM: Well, I do not know my maternal great-grandparents- well. I don't really know them. No, my grandmother came to the United States from probably Russia or Poland, wherever the borders were at the time, to Newark, New Jersey, at 15 and worked in the cigar factory. I don't really know anything about my paternal grandfather. I don't know where he came from, but he was also an immigrant. They- when they married -- which I don't know when that was either -- they were in the shoe business. My grandfather had a shoe store. That's- and that's probably goes back to the '30s because then I was born and I was more aware of what was going on there. He had a- just a general shoe store and they owned the building that had, I think- was a three storey building, and I think they had apartments there. And- and my grandfather had this shoe store and they were very active in the Workmen's Circle at the time. We won't say what that was, right? And they lived in- and that was in Newark, New Jersey. That's my- my maternal side. You want my grandparents now? GE: Yes. JM: On the other side? My grandfather, whom I never knew, died at forty-five of cancer. But he was from this long line of barber men, musicians. There all the men are musicians, the women, no talent. I being one of no talent. And my father had a sister also who was not a musician. There were three- yes, three boys and the grandfather and they lived- also lived in Borough Park, Brooklyn. They did not know each other, our families -- although I think so? Somebody knew your uncle, but that's okay. SC: So the types of musicians that they were? JM: Yes, okay. I think the great-grandfather was a violinist and he- I think played in Warsaw somewhere. The whole family came to the States. I think one of my father's oldest brothers was born in Europe. One, the oldest- the second oldest one was a very, very successful musician, played with- want to know that? The A& ; P Gypsies, which was the first radio program on early radio. And he was responsible for getting my father into the music business. My father was thirteen years old and my uncle was asked to go on tour, on the road with- I don't know which band of all these bands. And they said, well, what instrument does he play? Well, what instrument do you need? And at that point, my father, who I think was playing the violin, became a drummer because they needed a drum. That's- what'd I forget here? Nothing, huh? SC: So- JM: But everybody else- ah, the other uncle, what it is, what did he do? He was a musician, and then there's a cousin from that side of the family, are all musicians as well, but one of them is a Juilliard graduate and a composer and a timpanist player. He was the youngest- one of the youngest members with the Boston Symphony until he retired. But my brother, on the other hand, he plays instruments, his children play instruments, and his grandchildren. So it only goes down on the men's side, although one is a little girl, one of the grandchildren, who is very, very talented. That's about it. I mean, they lived in Brooklyn all that time until my father married my mother. I don't know where they met. Huh? Oh and my father had a big band! I forgot that. In the 30s. SC: In New York? JM: In New York City, and as I have written in that book, that he- the only time I saw him [perform], I was five years old. He was on the radio also. I was taken to Rockefeller Center and- for lunch, and his band was playing, I guess, a tea dance or something. So that was the first time, and then I never heard his band again until we went to a wedding, after our wedding, of a friend. And I think I've said that to you before, that he was- he looks so happy. And I said, you're having a good time. You always said you hated the music business. He said, that's right. I hated the business. But look, everybody is having a good time and I'm the reason. So that was my father. My mother- in the 40s, we then moved from Manhattan. I do not remember where I went to school, to kindergarten. I don't know why I have no memory of this. I was not happy to move to New Jersey. We had to move to my grandparents' house and I went to an elementary school, probably I think- I know it was third grade, maybe second half of second grade. At that time, we had half, half years. Then we moved to Hillside, New Jersey, from Newark, because my mother went into business. She had a children's shoe store, and that's why we moved. And oh! I have a brother, forgot my brother. He's four years younger, and I was ten, and he was six. No! Yeah, right, that's right.. And I pretty much took care of him. My mother was working. It was pre-and post-war, post-war, World War II, and she worked every night. I think the store was open until seven o'clock at night. And I had a very happy, successful time in Hillside. I never really knew that things were not too good when the big bands failed. I never felt deprived. And because of my mother, we both were sent to college and my brother is a physician. SC: So did you live near the store or above the store? JM: We lived- we lived in Hillside and she worked- The store was in Newark. It was- we lived very close. I guess it was maybe four or five, maybe six blocks away. And coincidentally, Philip Roth was a customer of my mother's. And when she read that book, Portnoy's Complaint, "I never knew Philip was- knew those things!" That's just an aside. I guess that- did I miss anything? I don't know when she went out of business. Okay, then it's time for me to go to college. We want that? I graduated from Hillside High School and I am go- I was one of four of us. We were all Home EC majors because we had a wonderful teacher. One of us became a designer, she was an artist. Two of us- three of us were education majors. Anyhow, I applied to the University of Maryland. It was post-war, I was there twice. They did not give me housing because women had to live in approved housing. The veterans were all coming back. It is June. I have nowhere to go to college because I really wanted to go to the University of Maryland. And my mother said, oh one of her friends had a daughter who went to the school in Allentown. And I said, "Where's Allentown?" She said, "That's where the Meislins come from, who you may have- Yeah, that's Ruth!" Well, it was Ira, her husband. His mother spent summer at camp where my brother and I went, and my mother met her. So I came to Allentown for an interview and I was accepted and I never left Allentown. I met Mort in the second half of my senior year, probably just around the time of our birthdays, and that was it. We were married in December, Christmas Eve. My father played the wedding, his band in New York City at the Ambassador Hotel, which is probably no longer there. It isn't. And that's our story. Did I miss anything? SC: And what college did you go to in Allentown? JM: Oh I forgot! Cedar Crest College. MORT MILLER: It was my luck that she couldn't get into, to Maryland. JM: Yeah well, you know how we met. Isn't that on the second half of that--? GE: I think so, but why don't you just tell us. JM: You want that again? SC: I think so. I'm not sure if it was. I didn't see it. JM: At the time- right. At the time, the Lehigh Valley Railroad went from Allentown to Newark. And I, of course, was at- where? Well, it went to New York, but I got off at Newark. And I was on a return trip to Allentown and I sat with this lady, was a very nice lady, and we started to talk. And when we got off the train in Allentown, her son was picking her up and she said, "You told me there are no nice Jewish girls in Allentown, at Cedar Crest. Here is one." So the next Sunday- MM: I tell you that the- this woman was the mother of my very, very- JM: Oh, that's right. He- Mort's best friend. MM: We were almost like brothers. JM: No no! She never traveled alone, my mother-in-law. GE: Lanethea's father-in-law, I assume. Is that who it was? MM: What's that? GE: Lanethea's. Was it her father-in-law -- Schultz? MM: Yes. JM: Yes! Who are you saying? GE: Lanethea JM: Oh of course, yes! John. SC: John's father. JM: John's Pappa, John 's father. Right. Mort and Murray were like this, from day one. And then they ended up at college together after the war. Everything together. We- in fact, we introduced them. MM: What's that? JM: We introduced them. SC: Lanethea and Jonathan? JM: No, Murray and Elaine, Jonathan's mother. I mean, that's a small world. Anyhow, so the next weekend, Murray called me for a date. Mort called my roommate for a date. She couldn't go, she had a French exam. And by the end of the evening. Mort and I were- MM: Well Murray said come along. JM: Come along anyhow. So he joined us. MM: And by the end of the evening, Murray was out of the picture. JM: And had gone back to his house, his mother gave us dessert. I still remember what she did it -- in little compote dishes, she gave us ice cream with creme de mints on them, and that was pretty something. So that's the story of Allentown, and then by Christmas Eve, we were married. After graduation, we were engaged. We weren't engaged until the end of October because his mother and father were just coming back from El Paso. And then they- they stayed. They stayed, at that point. We waited for them to come home. SC: So how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as the homework maker, do you see yourself as- JM: Yes. I was a homemaker. We have two children. Do we do that, do you want that? SC: Yes. JM: Andrew, who was born in 1953, and Nancy, who was born three years later, 1956, both of them in October, one in the beginning and one at the end. I was home with the children. I did a lot of volunteer work. I started the blood bank here, which is no longer- not the blood bank, the Jewish Community Center had a drive. I visited my grandmother at the Princeton Hospital and did a double take because on the wall it said something about blood -- "It is never necessary to replace blood here." And I went back in and then I said, why? And they said, because we have enough donors from the college. And I came back and I went to the Center and they- we started it. As a matter of fact, the woman who started it with me was Miller, Lois Miller, Stanley's wife. She was very organized. And then after the first year, she left for her career. In any case, I did that, I guess, for twenty-four or five years. And now you don't have to do that because they replaced blood or your insurance pays for it. So that was what I did. And then I guess Nancy was in high school, maybe before- yeah, maybe high school, I'm not sure. And I had an outlet store at the factory. I sold overruns and peace goods and lace and elastic, in a little shop that was called the Hole in the Wall. MM: [inaudible] JM: Yes, yes it was. And my showcases were tables that my father-In-law made out of doors. He was a collector of wooden doors, do you remember that? Yes. So that's about it, I guess. I don't think, you know, I was never a president, but I was always involved in the organization. SC: That's important. JM: I read to two blind children, that's right. SC: So you do see your role as wife and mother as being the primary, and this was after the fact- JM: Yeah, when they were grown up. Probably made a mistake, I should probably have done something more of a- But that was the '50s! The '50s. I might not have gotten married so young either. GE: Was that the '70s and '80s when you were running that store? JM: Yes, I think so. When was Nancy-- Yeah. No, wait. She was born in '53. GE: So she was in high school in the later '60s. JM: Well yeah, '60s and '70s, I guess. MM: Well she graduated from high school- I mean from college in 1979, I know that. JM: Right. GE: So therefore '75. JM: Or maybe even before that. Yeah, you're right, the '70s -- until Mort retired. GE: And then may I ask you a quick question? JM: Go ahead. SC: Sure. Yes. GE: So when your family moved from Manhattan to New Jersey- JM: No. I'm sorry, yes, yes. GE: When your family moved from Manhattan to New Jersey, can you just tell us what was the impetus, why did they have to move? JM: I think there was no more business for my father. And also, I think he was involved in some- trying to sell- I don't know, he always had a get rich scheme, like he was doing importing pasta machines. It didn't work. And something happened with a recording company, I don't- it was, what was it? RCA Victor, it was a big one and the guy was crooked. My father was the sweetest, nicest man, but people- MM: He was not a businessman. JM: He was not a businessman, although he was very, very active in the Musician's Union. And that was part of the business, I think, where he didn't like, I mean, because things were tough then. And that was about the time -- no, it was later. When you had to have live musicians on the stage in spite of the fact there was recording music, recorded music. So they used to have to have- depending on the size of the house, he did play some shows. He did do something with Mike Todd. With that, I have pictures of that. But it's- that's- that was it. And I was miserable, I have to tell you, in New Jersey. But I think my mother was miserable. I think everything was not good then, but I don't know. And I never felt deprived. So, isn't that interesting? [cross chatter] GE: So when you went to New Jersey, your father continued to work in the music industry. JM: Oh yeah, he went to New York. GE: It was just there, it was much cheaper the living. JM: I think my grandparents weren't charging them rent. GE: Oh they were living with- you were living with your grandparents? JM: No, not with them. This was a multi- I think there were maybe five or six apartments. It was a three-story walk up and the store was below. I used to play dominoes with my grandfather in the back. And it was also- well no, during the Depression, my father made a very big living because like the movie business, people who had any money wanted to be entertained. It was so terrible. And they were, and he was really making a lot of money, which is, I guess, why they moved to Manhattan. GE: Right. JM: So that's it. SC: Do you know where you lived, what street you were on in Manhattan? JM: Yes, West 79th Street, 181. And in New York? forget what street I lived on, but I know where I lived in Hillside. SC: Good. JM: You want to know that? SC: Yes. JM: I lived on Williamson Avenue in Hillside, New Jersey. SC: Okay. And where did you live in Allentown? JM: We lived- oh! We lived at the Highland Apartments when we were first married on the third floor. And then we had Andy, and we bought a lot. And we didn't think we were going to build right away, but we built a house right away. We built a split level- Oh I forgot! I did have a career. I forgot. I was a home service representative for the Elizabethtown Gas Company after graduation. Not very long because we got engaged and after I graduate- before I graduated, I got the job. And that was 1952, and everybody was building split levels. Well, when it came time for us to build a house, Mort wanted a two story. No, you wanted a ranch, and I always lived in apartments, I wanted steps. So we built this split level which is why we moved out of our house and we are now at an apartment. Okay, so that was pretty much- we built our house and I thought I knew everything. Okay. You want to know what I did as a home service representative? They don't do that anymore. When you bought a stove, a hot water heater, a dryer because they had gas dryers, they would send me out with a car and I would come to your house and show you how to use it. And I would adjust thermostats, which I can't do anymore. But now it's too digital, and that's about it. And that's why I knew what was being built in the neighborhood. And it was Elizabeth, New Jersey, which was the next town from Hillside. That's- I forgot about that, it was so short. Okay? We're done. SC: Yes. Okay, thank you. JM: You're getting out in time? GE: Yeah, yeah, no it's perfect. It's going to be fine anyway. Honestly, I remember, it's just- JM: You've got so many people. GE: We've had a lot of people. At this point, we've interviewed- JM: Are you almost done? GE: Yeah, we're going to continue to do this this year, this summer. We've been doing every summer for a while. This summer and next summer, and then at the end, is the collection. [cross chatter] JM: You've brought a lot of stuff back! Just not that. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:23:34
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Judy Miller, May 31, 2016
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Judy Miller talks about growing up in New York and New Jersey then later attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown. While there, she met Mort. Many years later, when their children were older, Judy opened a small outlet store at the family factory.
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LVTNT-05
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2016-05-31
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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