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https://textile.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/1c6349a0b144a244135f62e054001a50.png
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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
The person(s) being interviewed
Mort Miller
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-14.xml
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5.4 June 25, 2014 Mort and Judy Miller, June 25, 2014 LVTNT-14 38:08 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Mort Miller Judy Miller Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 MillerMort_MillerJudy_20140625.mp4 1.0:|17(7)|34(9)|51(15)|68(15)|85(10)|104(15)|125(10)|144(5)|159(13)|176(11)|197(4)|220(5)|237(10)|252(12)|267(10)|280(10)|299(10)|312(11)|329(4)|346(14)|363(12)|384(5)|407(2)|426(18)|445(11)|458(6)|471(14)|494(7)|513(6)|526(9)|547(6)|570(10)|587(2)|604(17)|625(6)|650(2)|661(6)|670(7)|671(10) 0 https://youtu.be/x5z3Qfqn_Lk YouTube video 34 College Experiences MM: When I graduated from Allen High, I applied to four schools: Columbia, NYU, Penn, and Lehigh. I got into Columbia, NYU and Penn. I did not get into Lehigh because Lehigh in those days had a 2% quota. For every hundred students they took in, two were Jewish. I had an interview and they had my records 9th through 12th grade, and it listed the Hebrew Institute of Boro Park. The man who was interviewing me said, ‘Hebrew Institute of Boro Park, what kind of school is that?’ And I figured that’s it I’m not getting in. And I didn’t. I got into two Ivy League schools but did not get in there.
 ; 
 ; GE: And then if you could just recap for us, since we talked about it off tape, what you did as far as your educational career. 
 ; 
 ; MM: I started out as an accounting major. I was still an accounting major when I was drafted in the middle of my sophomore year. When I came back after the war, I stopped being an accounting major and became just a general economics major. I took liberal arts classes whenever I could. 0 201 1943-1945: Time in the Eighth Air Force MM: I was drafted in March of 1943 ; I had my basic training at Miami Beach. I was then sent to Finance School at Wake Forest College. I was then sent back to Saint Petersburg, Florida. Then I was sent overseas to a little town called Sudbury, which was north of London. I was there for almost two years then I came back to this country. The group that I was with, the war was over, but we were still fighting in Japan. My group was scheduled to be sent to the pacific. They gave us a thirty day leave and we came home. While I was on that thirty day leave, they dropped the atomic bomb and the war was over and three months later I was out of the army. I was in the Eighth Air Force in England. 0 263 The Family Business GE: So now, tell us about the business. So as you said, it was first started by your father and his brother, it sounds like. 
 ; 
 ; MM: It was started by my father. He then brought his brother from Poland to this country, and took him into the business immediately, and made him a partner. They remained together until 1943 or ‘44 and then they split up.
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 ; GE: By that time did the two of them pretty much retire?
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 ; MM: No. My uncle remained in business. My father did retire in 1945 but then he went back into business in 1947. 
 ; 
 ; GE: And now if you want to share with us about you and your brother-in-law.
 ; 
 ; MM: Yes. We were both working for my father, and my father then merged his business with a cousin in New York. And part of the agreement was when they merged the businesses, that there would be no children in the business. So my brother-in-law and I left, and we started our own business. 0 384 1948-1979: Millcrest Manufacturing GE: Tell us about what products. 
 ; 
 ; MM: We started out originally manufacturing panties and then we switched to ladies sleepwear. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Why did you make that switch?
 ; 
 ; MM: I think we just started manufacturing overseas and panties were not very labor intensive. But they began to manufacture them in the Caribbean and it was difficult to compete with that. On the other hand, sleepwear was being manufactured only in this country, and that we could compete with. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Were you a contractor or were you a manufacturer?
 ; 
 ; MM: We started out as contractors. We remained as contractors for a few years. 0 484 Sears, Cresty, Newberry, & ; JCPenny MM: We sold to many of the major chains. We sold to Sears, Kresge, Newberry, JCPenny, most of the major chains. And we also sold to many of the department stores around the country through buying offices. Our product was a low-end product. 
 ; 
 ; GE: What was the label? What was the brand?
 ; 
 ; MM: Well the label was Ardru Undergarments. A-R-D-R-U. That came from, my son was Andrew and my nephew was Sheppard. We took the last part of both of their names and made it Ardru. That was the name we sold uner.
 ; 
 ; GE: Was it exclusively under that name?
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 ; MM: The name of the company itself was Millcrest [Manufacturing].
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 ; GE: But the product, the brand was Ardru. Did you also do private labeling? Did you do store brands or everything was under Ardru?
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 ; MM: Everything was under Ardru. 0 740 Relationship to Unions GE: You said it was never unionized?
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 ; MM: For forty years they tried to unionize us, and they were never able to. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Why?
 ; 
 ; MM: We provided wages that were as good or better than union wages. We provided all the same benefits, and in some cases even better. We had complete healthcare. All of our employees were registered with Blue Cross/ Blue Shield. And they paid nothing toward that. We also had something that appealed to people. We did not have seniority. In the union shop, if you were a collar sewer, and they ran out of collars, you were sent home. In our shop, if you were a collar sewer, and we ran out of collars, we had you sewing sleeves. So we never sent anybody home and that appealed to many people. 0 855 Problems Between Partners GE: And how would you say the relationships were between you as the owner and the managers and the people working there?
 ; 
 ; MM: I think everything was really good. The only one I didn’t get along with was my brother-in-law. I ran the sewing. My brother-in-law took care primarily of the cutting of the fabric and the pattern making.
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 ; GE: So he took care of the first part?
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 ; MM: And then I did the sewing. 
 ; 
 ; GE: What were the difficulties?
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 ; MM: He was not an honest man. Had a sense of cheating. He was Syrian. He had this Arab mentality. He lied. He lied quite a bit. He misinformed. I didn’t particularly like him, and he didn’t particularly like me. 0 1102 1979-1989: Millcrest Contracting GE: Who was it that you became contractors for? Like were they ones in the area here?
 ; 
 ; MM: No, they were in New York. Our biggest was Katz up in Pennsylvania, and they were big manufacturers. They owned the factory in Coatesville that we bought from. We did a great deal of contracting for them.
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 ; GE: At this point did you still have both factories for them?
 ; 
 ; MM: No, we closed the Coatesville factory ; we had both of them up until right before I retired. That was one of the things I did every week or twice a week. I drove down to Coatsville and took care of things there. We closed that a few years before I retired. Also the other thing was that my two nephews, my brother-in-laws’ sons, came into the business and for a while one of the sons was managing the plant and living in Coatesville. The other one was working here with us. 0 1280 The Workforce MM: The largest part of the workforce were the Hungarian women. The Hungarians were native to Bethlehem. Then there was the Hungarian revolution where the Russians invaded Hungary, and a lot of Hungarians got out because they had family and friends in Bethlehem so they came to Bethlehem. A lot of them came to work for us. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Was it primarily women?
 ; 
 ; MM: Yes.
 ; 
 ; JM: There was a name.
 ; 
 ; SC: Windish.
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: Was that the community?
 ; 
 ; SC: Yeah they came from Slovenia.
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 ; MM: The majority were Catholic. 0 1407 The End of Millcrest Contracting GE: Tell us about the ending of the business.
 ; 
 ; MM: The business had declined, I was 66 years old, and I’d decided that I had enough. I told my brother-in-law that I wanted out. One of the things we had done at that time was we had sold the building so I was no longer involved in that, just the business. I told him I wanted out, and he wanted to stay in the business because his sons were in it. So he bought me out at a fair price. 
 ; 
 ; GE: How long did his business continue?
 ; 
 ; MM: Well he stayed in business I think 3 or 4 years after that. The building was sold, and he at that point had to move out. He opened another factory, and he was there for about 3 years. And then he stopped as well. 0 1487 Mort's Employees Win the Lottery MM: An interesting thing, one day one of the women working there said I’m going out to buy lottery tickets, anyone want to contribute? Thirty-five women gave her a dollar a piece, and my nephew gave her a dollar. They won two million dollars. I think everyone who was in the pool got something like $65,000. Those days that was a fair amount of money. When they closed the business, the Morning Call ran an article about how they won the lottery and a year later they were closing. 0 1567 Impact of the Industry on Women GE: At this point, this was a very prominent industry in the area from around the 1930s to 1980 or so. How do you think the area has been affected by its life?
 ; 
 ; MM: Not that much in a sense that most of the work was through the women. There were very few men so the husbands were not really affected. I guess, the women who wanted to work were able to get jobs. One of the things about the industry was there was always a shortage of sewing machine operators. The other thing was that almost from the very beginning, coming back to the 1900s, the women who worked in sewing were primarily immigrants. By the time I got ready to retire and the industry started to close up here, the children were now second or third generation. They were going to school, going to college, they were able to do other things. And so that was dwindling as well. 0 1689 Judy Miller's "Hole in the Wall" Outlet Store SC: But, did you ever work with the business at all?
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes. When did I start that? I think Nancy was in high school. So in the 70s. And I had an outlet store, and it was called The Hole in the Wall. And it was a hole in the wall. 
 ; 
 ; SC: In the factory building?
 ; 
 ; JM: At the factory building, on the ground floor. It was a true outlet. I sold ribbons and lace and all leftover rolls from the lingerie business. I had ends of piece goods, rolls of piece goods. I froze in that building because it wasn’t heated. I had a space heater. I did have a telephone. I didn’t make a lot of money, and I was open only two days a week. I had a lot of customers. 0 1941 Volunteering in the Jewish Community SC: We didn’t talk about volunteering in the Jewish community. Did you do that?
 ; 
 ; JM: The blood bank was with the Jewish Community Center. I did flowers with Ida Kinberg at the synagogue for Oneg Shabbat. She was our across the street neighbor, and she did that, and I always helped her cut and do flowers. I did Hadassah. I can’t remember. . . . what you have done for me is... wow.
 ; 
 ; SC: It’s wonderful, isn’t it? To think of everything. 
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes. 0 1998 Judy's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: Okay, the two filmy questions that I always ask, “What do you value most?
 ; 
 ; JM: That I’ve been so lucky, and I’ve had a good life. I really do. I’m getting teary. I don’t usually cry easily.
 ; 
 ; SC: You’ll make us teary, too. The other is, what has made you feel the most artistic or creative?
 ; 
 ; JM: I guess flowers. I did have more of a garden before we moved here. We never talked about that at our house.
 ; 
 ; SC: Oh, tell us about your house. 0 2198 Donation to Cedar Crest College SC: So he has the mechanical skills, and you have the decorating?
 ; 
 ; JM: Well, he’s wiring. We had all kinds of wiring because we had HiFi. We had CDs. And Mort didn’t tell you, but we had 350 LPs that we gave to Cedar Crest College. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Oh, that’s nice.
 ; 
 ; JM: I wish we would’ve kept some vinyls.
 ; 
 ; SC: So you turned vinyls into CDs?
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes. First, they were cassettes. 0 MovingImage Mort Miller talks about growing up around his father’s contract sewing business. Later, Mort partnered with his brother-in-law to open their own contract sewing factory. Originally they made women’s underwear, later they switched to making women’s lingerie, which wasn’t as price competitive.
 ; 
 ; Interview with Mort and Judy Miller, June 25, 2014 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 25, 2014. Interview with Mort Miller, tape number 2. GAIL EISENBERG: Mort was just sharing with us a little bit about his college experience. Tell us again about your experience. MORT MILLER: When I graduated from Allen High, I applied to four schools: Columbia, NYU, Penn, and Lehigh. I got into Columbia, NYU and Penn. I did not get into Lehigh because Lehigh in those days had a 2% quota. For every hundred students they took in, two were Jewish. I had an interview and they had my records 9th through 12th grade, and it listed the Hebrew Institute of Boro Park. The man who was interviewing me said, 'Hebrew Institute of Boro Park, what kind of school is that?' And I figured that's it I'm not getting in. And I didn't. I got into two Ivy League schools but did not get in there. GE: And then if you could just recap for us, since we talked about it off tape, what you did as far as your educational career. MM: I started out as an accounting major. I was still an accounting major when I was drafted in the middle of my sophomore year. When I came back after the war, I stopped being an accounting major and became just a general economics major. I took liberal arts classes whenever I could. JUDY MILLER: How about the fraternity? GE: If you'd like to share with us that's fine. MM: I had belonged to two fraternities which is something no one did. The way that happened was the fraternity that I was in originally was suspended during the war, and when I came back they were closed. Then my best friend, who belonged to Kappa Nu, said 'come on join us.' So I went there and spent the rest of my time in Kappa Nu. So I was actually in two fraternities. GE: And tell us briefly about the war experience that you had just shared with us. MM: I was drafted in March of 1943 ; I had my basic training at Miami Beach. I was then sent to Finance School at Wake Forest College. I was then sent back to Saint Petersburg, Florida. Then I was sent overseas to a little town called Sudbury, which was north of London. I was there for almost two years then I came back to this country. The group that I was with, the war was over, but we were still fighting in Japan. My group was scheduled to be sent to the pacific. They gave us a thirty day leave and we came home. While I was on that thirty day leave, they dropped the atomic bomb and the war was over and three months later I was out of the army. I was in the Eighth Air Force in England. GE: So now, tell us about the business. So as you said, it was first started by your father and his brother, it sounds like. MM: It was started by my father. He then brought his brother from Poland to this country, and took him into the business immediately, and made him a partner. They remained together until 1943 or '44 and then they split up. GE: By that time did the two of them pretty much retire? MM: No. My uncle remained in business. My father did retire in 1945 but then he went back into business in 1947. GE: And now if you want to share with us about you and your brother-in-law. MM: Yes. We were both working for my father, and my father then merged his business with a cousin in New York. And part of the agreement was when they merged the businesses, that there would be no children in the business. So my brother-in-law and I left, and we started our own business. Subsequently, three of the partners' children wound up in business. Even though that was the initial condition. But we remained in the building we started in. A few of the people who came to work with us were people that had worked for my father. One of them in particular who worked for my father for many many years, she [Mary] became our floor lady. She was a great floor lady. GE: Tell us about what products. MM: We started out originally manufacturing panties and then we switched to ladies sleepwear. GE: Why did you make that switch? MM: I think we just started manufacturing overseas and panties were not very labor intensive. But they began to manufacture them in the Caribbean and it was difficult to compete with that. On the other hand, sleepwear was being manufactured only in this country, and that we could compete with. GE: Were you a contractor or were you a manufacturer? MM: We started out as contractors. We remained as contractors for a few years. We had a gentleman who sold for us in New York. He was an older man. He retired. So we took on a new salesperson. We had a New York office on Madison Avenue. And he took over the office and then asked to become a partner, which we accepted. He ran the sales out of New York. And so the manufacturing began. GE: So you were their exclusive supplier? MM: It was our business. We manufactured ladies sleepwear. We sold to many of the major chains. We sold to Sears, Kresge, Newberry, JCPenny, most of the major chains. And we also sold to many of the department stores around the country through buying offices. Our product was a low-end product. GE: What was the label? What was the brand? MM: Well the label was Ardru Undergarments. A-R-D-R-U. That came from, my son was Andrew and my nephew was Sheppard. We took the last part of both of their names and made it Ardru. That was the name we sold uner. GE: Was it exclusively under that name? MM: The name of the company itself was Millcrest [Manufacturing]. GE: But the product, the brand was Ardru. Did you also do private labeling? Did you do store brands or everything was under Ardru? MM: Everything was under Ardru. You know there was one store brand, it was Sears. I think Sears, JCPenny was its own name, Kresge was its own name. GE: So the ones that were its own name, you used the store name. Any difference in those products? Between Ardru and Penny or Ardru and Sears? MM: Sears we only made them one star. Just that same one year in and year out. Made of the same material, exactly the same garment. Huge, extra large. But yes they were different than we sold to other people. GE: So there, in these cases, the store specified. MM: In cases of major chains. For other stores, it was ours. To be honest, they were knockoffs of more expensive garments. GE: How was the relationship between your end, the operations end, and the sales end? Were there any conflicts? MM: No, we worked well together. GE: What was your brother-in-laws' name? MM: Charles Dweck. D-W-E-C-K JD: He's a Syrian Jew from Brooklyn. GE: So the two of you started in the business together in 1947? MM: '48. GE: Can you just give us a sense of how things went through the fifties, sixties? MM: Everything went well, it was smooth. At our peak, we put in Bethlehem about 125 people. We also put another factory in Coatesville. GE: Coatsville is where? MM: Coatesville is northwest of Philadelphia. 50 miles. Primarily west. GE: So more like Reading? MM: No, it's south of here and slightly west. SC: Close to Lancaster. MM: Yeah. We had almost about 175 people working there. GE: You said it was never unionized? MM: For forty years they tried to unionize us, and they were never able to. GE: Why? MM: We provided wages that were as good or better than union wages. We provided all the same benefits, and in some cases even better. We had complete healthcare. All of our employees were registered with Blue Cross/ Blue Shield. And they paid nothing toward that. We also had something that appealed to people. We did not have seniority. In the union shop, if you were a collar sewer, and they ran out of collars, you were sent home. In our shop, if you were a collar sewer, and we ran out of collars, we had you sewing sleeves. So we never sent anybody home and that appealed to many people. One of my operators, she and two sisters and a nephew and a niece worked for us. Her husband was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Union. And I used to say to her, Margaret, how does your husband feel about you working in a non-union shop. She said, Mort, we've talked about it, and he said, "Margaret, you like the people, you like the shop, they give you everything you would get at a union shop, stay there." So here I had this woman whose husband was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Union. GE: And how would you say the relationships were between you as the owner and the managers and the people working there? MM: I think everything was really good. The only one I didn't get along with was my brother-in-law. I ran the sewing. My brother-in-law took care primarily of the cutting of the fabric and the pattern making. GE: So he took care of the first part? MM: And then I did the sewing. GE: What were the difficulties? MM: He was not an honest man. Had a sense of cheating. He was Syrian. He had this Arab mentality. He lied. He lied quite a bit. He misinformed. I didn't particularly like him, and he didn't particularly like me. GE: How long did you two stay in business together? MM: We stayed in business for 40 years. I retired first. And the reason I retired was that offshore manufacturing had become big, and the business was going down. The man we had selling at the New York office, was 10 years older than I was. And he retired. And we closed the sales office and had no one to run the sales office. GE: When was that about? MM: That was the 1980s. GE: How old do you think he was when he retired? MM: My partner [New York]? He was exactly 65. GE: When were you born? MM: 1924. So he was born 1914. GE: So '79 he retired. MM: And we went for the next 10 years, until I retired, we were contractors. Except Sears. GE: Okay Sears was the one client you were able to keep. This is still pajamas? MM: Once we started contracting, we manufactured other things like blouses, t-shirts, almost anything. GE: And your women had the skills? MM: Yeah. GE: So the one customer you still managed was Sears but you became a contractor for others. Who was it that you became contractors for? Like were they ones in the area here? MM: No, they were in New York. Our biggest was Katz up in Pennsylvania, and they were big manufacturers. They owned the factory in Coatesville that we bought from. We did a great deal of contracting for them. GE: At this point did you still have both factories for them? MM: No, we closed the Coatesville factory ; we had both of them up until right before I retired. That was one of the things I did every week or twice a week. I drove down to Coatsville and took care of things there. We closed that a few years before I retired. Also the other thing was that my two nephews, my brother-in-laws' sons, came into the business and for a while one of the sons was managing the plant and living in Coatesville. The other one was working here with us. GE: When did they come into the business? Like in the '70s? MM: Probably the early '80s, I would imagine. GE: So when would you say were the best times? MM: Best times I think were the early '50s probably to the early '80s. GE: Okay so during that whole time it was still thriving? MM: Yes. GE: And then in the 80s was when you saw steady decline. MM: Yes. JD: Tell them about the workforce. MM: The largest part of the workforce were the Hungarian women. The Hungarians were native to Bethlehem. Then there was the Hungarian revolution where the Russians invaded Hungary, and a lot of Hungarians got out because they had family and friends in Bethlehem so they came to Bethlehem. A lot of them came to work for us. GE: Was it primarily women? MM: Yes. JD: There was a name. SC: Windish. JD: Yes. GE: Was that the community? SC: Yeah they came from Slovenia. MM: The majority were Catholic. SC: There were Windish Catholics and Windish Lutherans in Bethlehem ; there were two groups. MM: They gradually were replaced by Puerto Ricans and there were some Portuguese. GE: Was there anything done to accommodate the women, since many of them were moms? Anything that was often needed to accommodate them and the families or children's schedules? MM: If they had to take time off, I would certainly allow that. JD: One woman worked until the day before she had her baby. Helen Donovan. MM: We didn't really do anything special but if they needed something, we worked with them. GE: Tell us about the ending of the business. MM: The business had declined, I was 66 years old, and I'd decided that I had enough. I told my brother-in-law that I wanted out. One of the things we had done at that time was we had sold the building so I was no longer involved in that, just the business. I told him I wanted out, and he wanted to stay in the business because his sons were in it. So he bought me out at a fair price. GE: How long did his business continue? MM: Well he stayed in business I think 3 or 4 years after that. The building was sold, and he at that point had to move out. He opened another factory, and he was there for about 3 years. And then he stopped as well. GE: How about his children? MM: His one son left earlier and had jobs, I think he was living primarily in Connecticut. And the one son stayed with him until the day that he closed the business. An interesting thing, one day one of the women working there said I'm going out to buy lottery tickets, anyone want to contribute? Thirty-five women gave her a dollar a piece, and my nephew gave her a dollar. They won two million dollars. I think everyone who was in the pool got something like $65,000. Those days that was a fair amount of money. When they closed the business, the Morning Call ran an article about how they won the lottery and a year later they were closing. GE: When the business closed, how many people were still working there? MM: I'm guessing about 75. GE: Okay, and then just a couple of other more broad questions. At this point, this was a very prominent industry in the area from around the 1930s to 1980 or so. How do you think the area has been affected by its life? MM: Not that much in a sense that most of the work was through the women. There were very few men so the husbands were not really affected. I guess, the women who wanted to work were able to get jobs. One of the things about the industry was there was always a shortage of sewing machine operators. The other thing was that almost from the very beginning, coming back to the 1900s, the women who worked in sewing were primarily immigrants. By the time I got ready to retire and the industry started to close up here, the children were now second or third generation. They were going to school, going to college, they were able to do other things. And so that was dwindling as well. GE: So it was becoming even more acute, the shortage of operators. MM: Yes. I think the fact that there were no longer these kinds of jobs didn't affect the women of the area very much because they didn't want to do that. GE: Thank you. Interview with Judy Miller, June 25, 2014 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: So you were talking about your volunteer work. But, did you ever work with the business at all? JUDY MILLER: Yes. When did I start that? I think Nancy was in high school. So in the 70s. And I had an outlet store, and it was called The Hole in the Wall. And it was a hole in the wall. SC: In the factory building? JM: At the factory building, on the ground floor. It was a true outlet. I sold ribbons and lace and all leftover rolls from the lingerie business. I had ends of piece goods, rolls of piece goods. I froze in that building because it wasn't heated. I had a space heater. I did have a telephone. I didn't make a lot of money, and I was open only two days a week. I had a lot of customers. People would come in-- oh, he forgot to tell you, Mort was a contractor for Christian Dior-- I sold some of their leftover things. That was when I met the woman who had said she rode our elevator in the factory because her friend's father owned the silk mill, when it was a silk mill. Anyhow, I sold whatever our leftovers were. And somehow, my brother-in-law always managed to-- shrink the patterns. SC: Oh, we've heard that before. JM: As a matter of fact, our scrap went to the Sheftels ; they were our neighbors. GAIL EISENBERG: Right, that was his business. SC: It's wonderful how everything connects. If I could just interrupt for a second. I can't tell you how many families have said, "What do you value most? Family and a community." JM: Well, we were a close-knit community. Okay, back to my business, people would come in for laces because they were making confirmation dresses and wedding gowns. I would sell it by the yard and measure it out. It was so basic. Oh that's the other thing, my father-in-law was the king of repossessing doors, and the doors were the tables. SC: About what year did you start the outlet? JM: This says '86, but I think I must have started earlier. GE: You said your daughter was born in 1956, and you said you did it when she was in high school. So that would be '72, '73. JM: Yeah. SC: And that was the heyday of outlets, too. JM: Yes. GE: How long do you think you ran that business? JM: From when I started until Mort retired. It wasn't that much of a business, but it put me on the payroll. At the time, my sister-in-law, Charles' wife, his sister Shirley, was working in the office. We did have an office. That's about it for the factory. SC: You said you did volunteering. We didn't talk about volunteering in the Jewish community. Did you do that? JM: The blood bank was with the Jewish Community Center. I did flowers with Ida Kinberg at the synagogue for Oneg Shabbat. She was our across the street neighbor, and she did that, and I always helped her cut and do flowers. I did Hadassah. I can't remember. . . . what you have done for me is... wow. SC: It's wonderful, isn't it? To think of everything. JM: Yes. SC: Okay, the two filmy questions that I always ask, "What do you value most? JM: That I've been so lucky, and I've had a good life. I really do. I'm getting teary. I don't usually cry easily. SC: You'll make us teary, too. The other is, what has made you feel the most artistic or creative? JM: I guess flowers. I did have more of a garden before we moved here. We never talked about that at our house. SC: Oh, tell us about your house JM: Well, we were married in 1952, Christmas. We lived in the Highland Street Apartments at 22nd and Highland and Livingston. Andy was born there. Then we bought a lot, and he said we are going to build a house. And I said wonderful, we are going to build a split level because when I was a home service representative, I loved the split levels. I always lived in apartments, and Mort always lived in two-story houses. So this was our, we made a mistake, that we should have bought a ranch house so we wouldn't be here [living in an apartment] because I decided that we would move before we needed to. We could still be in the house, we are both fine. GE: So where was your house? JM: Right around the corner from here. 3030 Tremont Street. On the corner of Marshal and Tremont St. GE: You moved there in '55? JM: No, '54. We built the house because I knew everything. I was a home economics major and it ended up that I had to redesign my kitchen too, but that was okay. SC: Because kitchens change so much. JM: No, it wasn't that. I was getting electric shocks from my refrigerator because where I had it was at right angles to the stove, I mean the sink, and when I did something, I think. I don't remember how long after we did it. SC: It's always nice to redo a kitchen. JM: Yeah, we are lucky. 46 years we had the house. SC: So he has the mechanical skills, and you have the decorating? JM: Well, he's wiring. We had all kinds of wiring because we had HiFi. We had CDs. And Mort didn't tell you, but we had 350 LPs that we gave to Cedar Crest College. SC: Oh, that's nice. JM: I wish we would've kept some vinyls. SC: So you turned vinyls into CDs? JM: Yes. First, they were cassettes. SC: This was beautiful - thank you so much. 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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Mort and Judy Miller, June 25, 2014
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Mort Miller talks about growing up around his father’s contract sewing business. Later, Mort partnered with his brother-in-law to open their own contract sewing factory. Originally they made women’s underwear, later they switched to making women’s lingerie, which wasn’t as price competitive.
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2014-05-25
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Stan Miller
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5.4 May 22, 2014 Stan Miller, May 22, 2014 LVTNT-07 1:24:44 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Stan Miller Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 MillerStan_20140522.mp4 1.0:|37(8)|62(6)|87(8)|112(2)|131(15)|152(9)|177(15)|200(15)|225(7)|248(16)|271(15)|292(4)|311(4)|332(5)|359(6)|382(11)|403(12)|428(6)|455(2)|478(2)|495(6)|514(13)|533(8)|552(3)|571(15)|596(16)|615(5)|640(8)|663(8)|684(12)|707(18)|730(16)|757(7)|780(7)|799(7)|818(3)|843(2)|872(12)|893(5)|916(5)|933(15)|952(3)|977(2)|994(13)|1015(8)|1042(2)|1071(4)|1102(5)|1125(5)|1150(15)|1173(12)|1202(13)|1223(8)|1252(4)|1271(15)|1292(12)|1309(7)|1328(16)|1353(2)|1386(5)|1407(8)|1430(9)|1451(18)|1474(3)|1495(13)|1516(7)|1537(3)|1558(7)|1581(12)|1614(3)|1631(7)|1650(17)|1669(12)|1690(14)|1717(16)|1736(8)|1759(8)|1786(12)|1809(2)|1836(8)|1855(10)|1876(11)|1897(5)|1918(15)|1931(4) 0 https://youtu.be/fr_LeNNxwFs YouTube video 8 Introduction—Stan Miller SC: OK. Today is May 22nd. This is an interview with Stan Miller. And what I’d like to do first is just put you into place very briefly and then we'll go back to your family. So just if you could give me your full name when you were born, where you were born, where and where you grew up?
 ; 
 ; SM: Stanley Zane Miller, or May 24th, 1932. I was born in Brooklyn. What else do you want?
 ; 
 ; SC: And where did you grow up?
 ; 
 ; SM: I grew up in Brooklyn til I went through high school in Brooklyn.
 ; 
 ; SC: Do you remember that address . . . 
 ; 
 ; SM: Of the high school?
 ; 
 ; SC: Of where you were born and where you grew up.
 ; 
 ; SM: Yeah, 2047 East 37th Street. I don't know the zip. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Did they have one? Didn't have one when I was a kid.
 ; 
 ; SM: Oh, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't remember my phone number. Actually, I remember my father's phone number where he used to work. I was always calling my father. 0 95 Family History SC: And so let's talk a little bit about your family as far back as you remember, your parents, your grandparents, great grandparents.
 ; 
 ; SM: Never. I never knew my grandparents. I, I never had them. They were around, I suppose. My mother's parents, well, her mother died when she was a teenager. And I think her father ran off and left she and her two sisters. So I know nothing about her parents. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Can you tell us their names?
 ; 
 ; SM: My mother's maiden . . . my mother was Ruth Vernick was her maiden name. That is V-E-R-N-I-C-K. She had a sister Lena and another sister Ida.
 ; 
 ; SC: And and you mentioned her parents, what were their names?
 ; 
 ; SM: Don't know. OK. I don't know. 0 258 Louis Miller's Start in the Garment Industry SC: So can you talk a little bit about you mentioned the business and any of the businesses that they were involved with?
 ; 
 ; SM: Well, let's see. My father, when he came here, I think it was his first job. He started working for a gentleman named August Neilsen. Mr. Nielsen had an embroidery business and made some infant sleepwear. And, well, I'm sure you haven't used these, but remember when years ago when babies were born, they used belly bands?
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes, I read about that..
 ; 
 ; SM: And these belly bands really were just strips of cloth, strips of flannel so long and the edges weren't finished, the edges were pink. You know that this so that it doesn't ravel. I still have this pinking machine downstairs. And they made belly bands, so he started working for Mr. Nielsen.
 ; 
 ; GE: And and this is in Brooklyn?
 ; 
 ; SM: This was in New York City on Wooster Street, not far from where NYU is, OK. And he started working for Mr. Nielsen and became his right hand man. And then for sales, they hired another fellow named Irving Wollims. And as time went on, I think Mr. Nielsen . . .I think his wife became ill, and he made some arrangements with my father and Irving Wollims to take the business and they paid him, or either paid off his wife's bills, or took care of him . . . I don't remember what the deal was, but they paid him out. They kept the name. 
 ; 
 ; GE: The name was?
 ; 
 ; SM: August Nielsen Company. 0 642 1949: Miller Family Moves Business to Allentown, PA GE: Or do we want to start . . .with what came after high school. He only told us up to high school for yourself.
 ; 
 ; SC: Yeah. OK, so I should start there. Yes. Just go on with your life.
 ; 
 ; SM: I graduated high school and my parents, the business, is moving out here. I had to go to college, so I applied to Lehigh and Muhlenberg, and I went to Muhlenberg. The first year I lived in the dorm because they hadn't moved out here physically, the home. My father came out with my brother-in-law and set up the business out here in the summer of 1949 or maybe in the spring. And then we didn't move out here until the fall of 1949. So he was a weekend husband for that period of time. I don't . . and he did go into business with Mort Miller's father. Mort Miller's father, Harry, owned the building out here. 0 749 Stan Miller's Education at Muhlenberg College/Early Work Experiences SM: As for me, I know on your sheet you had something about what kind of work I did. I guess my first job must have been as every young boy, a waiter in the Catskills. I was a counselor at summer camp. I was a lifeguard when I was at Muhlenberg at the old Jewish Community Center, when it was on 6th Street. And then in my spare time or sometimes summers or what have you, I worked at the factory. And, of course, as a young guy who was young and strong, I did all the scutwork, you know, took out the garbage . . .And I think my most interesting job was I was working in the shipping room, and my first duty to the guy who ran the shipping was at two o'clock every day. I had to stop whatever I was doing, and listen to the radio, and get the results of the horse races that he was betting on, and then somehow getting the daily number. He was a gambler and that . . . I had to do that.
 ; 
 ; I was . . . I took out the garbage. I loaded the trucks. And I did find out that for years I was unloading trucks. And I discovered now that I've done it all wrong because now they offload trucks. And all these years I was screwing up. 0 922 Stan Miller Works in the United States Army Finance Department, 1952-1953 SM: Anyway, I was in the Army, they sent me to Korea. 
 ; 
 ; GE: That's about what year . . . 1952?
 ; 
 ; SM: 1953 — 22 months and 27 days later, I got out. I was in Korea and then I was in Hawaii.
 ; 
 ; SC: What was your position in the services?
 ; 
 ; SM: Finance, fortunately. I was told by a friend of a friend who was working in personnel at the time that if you want to get into Army finance, which is the cushiest job you can find, don't tell them that you were an accounting major. I said why not? He says, because then the army feels that they have to unteach you regular accounting and teach you the army way. There is the right way, the wrong way, and the army way. And they feel that if you had accounting knowledge before, it's really going to be a mess. 0 1015 Strong Partnership and New Technology in the Family Business SM: When I got out, I started working and started learning. I think one of the . . . as I mentioned before, how well we got along. It wasn't a problem where you might hear that if you want to put in a new machine, the older gentleman like the father, oh, no, no, we can't do that or not. Not with my father took just a little explaining. The first thing we put in, I think, was a conveyor belt because we had a machine that would put the garments in plastic bags that we used to put them in boxes and have to pick the boxes up. Conveyor belt . . so at first he said, no, no, we don't need a conveyor belt. We can use boxes. But once we put it in, I remember he used to stand there and smoke a cigar and watch the conveyor belt and the garments go up. It was wonderful. We got along extremely well, extremely.
 ; 
 ; SC: And this was you and your father . . . 
 ; 
 ; SM: and my brother-in-law, and we all got along extremely well. Ultimately, when my father died, it was my brother in law and I and my father's partner who was still alive, and his son. Ultimately, my father's partner died. So it was the one, the son in New York, and Walter and I in Pennsylvania. And and we we ran, we were, I think, in business for maybe seventy seven years. 0 1109 1957: Stan and Lois Meet SC: How did you meet your wife?
 ; 
 ; SM: Blind date — Cedar Crest. She was . . . strange. She had gone to some party in Philadelphia with some guy from Lehigh and one of my friends from Muhlenberg. Well, his sister was at this party. You probably know her-- Sheva Rapaport. Remember Sheva Rapoport? She was a periodontist. You know, the judge Arnold Rappoport, he is a federal judge. Well, anyway, anyway, Sheva was at this party, and she told her brother, my friend, there's this nice girl for you. He called her, didn't work out. Picked up the phone, he called me, and he says, there's this girl she's just right for you. So I went over to Cedar Crest, and I met her, and I asked her out. And she told me the first thing she said to her roommate after our little parlor date, she says, if I ever go out with him again, I'm going to have to change the way he dresses. So we met in October. We were married in June. 0 1255 Stan Miller's Children SC: Can you tell us about your children?
 ; 
 ; SM: My children. I have my oldest daughter, who was born in nineteen sixty, who is currently not married. She's living in Florida with a wonderful, wonderful guy and she's a travel agent. His occupation, which is sort of unusual. You've heard of concierge medicine. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SM: But he's selling it, he's getting doctors to go into concierge medicine. He's establishing their practices as concierge doctors. It's really interesting.
 ; 
 ; My number two daughter was born in [19]62 and she is now director of marketing for the United States and Canada for a software company that specializes in software design for anybody fooling around with real estate. For example, Hanes underwear ; they've got facilities all over the place. That was one of them. Not Seventh Day Adventists. What's the other one? Ones with Kingdom Halls?
 ; 
 ; SC: Jehovah Witnesses.
 ; 
 ; SM: That’s it, they just signed Jehovah's Witnesses. They must have thousands of establishments, and you need this software so that you can know when to pay the taxes. If you own apartments, it's perfect. Your percentage of rentals of occupancy will. So it's all to do with with real estate as opposed to some who will have for medical or dental or something. 0 1494 Community Involvement SC: Were you and your wife active in the greater community and the Jewish community?
 ; 
 ; SM: My wife was active in ORT. 
 ; 
 ; GE: What's your wife's name?
 ; 
 ; 
 ; SM: Lois. She was active in ORT, especially when it first came to town. Is it still active? Is it still around?
 ; 
 ; GE: Not really.
 ; 
 ; SM: OK, well, it used to be. And she was president at one time. And this was all her contemporaries at that time, all the young women of the time. Other than that, she didn't get involved in the Jewish community at all. She ended up spending about six years with my youngest daughter when she was doing television. They were spending time in Hollywood, in Los Angeles --for seven, eight, nine months. I was home. Sometimes with no daughters, sometimes with one daughter who was going to Rider for a while. And so all I had was a cat and a dog. So she didn't do much with the Jewish community. Quite honestly. I guess I really, I think, wasn't active in the community center and I wasn't active at Temple Bethel. I did sing in their choir for about forty some odd years. So I guess that was my contribution. Other than that, that wasn't my thing. 0 1678 Home Addresses SC: Where did you live in Allentown after you came with your parents and all the way through?
 ; 
 ; SM: You know where Alton Park is? You go down 24th Street, you remember there was a covered bridge,
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SM: All right, and go up further. And before you get to Lehigh Street, it's off to the right a little bit.The block we lived on was a block that was two blocks long. I had a real nice house. After you you come from New York where you live in a semi-detached house with grass about the size of that hassock and no property. We had this house with an adjacent lot and a big, big house, I mean, big compared to what we lived in. And it was planted trees, I planted all the shrubs, it was wonderful. I never had such a good time. I love mowing the lawn. We had a power mower then. Power mowers were sort of new at that time. And and my father loved to love to put a cigar in his mouth.And he cut the property, and he loved it. And we could look out the front door, from before there were a lot of buildings, and you could see, well, they were not mountains, you know hills in Emaus. But you could you could see green green hills. For him after living in New York and for me, it was a treat. Then they continued to live there, and after Lois and I got married, we lived one block away at Tremont Apartments. And from there we moved, we built a house on South Glenwood Street, within spitting distance of the Swain school. And my kids went to Swain school while we were there. And then when we had our third child, we needed more room. So we built here and we've been here for forty six years. I was the first one on the block. So we've been here, raised our kids here. 0 1817 Factory Machinery SM: I also have -it's a toy- not a toy - this is my father's original cutting machine, you've seen factories with the cutting machines that are electric.
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SM: Ibis is his cutting machine, it's still as sharp as can be, and the way it worked is, they had a table with a slot cut in it and the slot was shielded by metal so you couldn't cut the wood and you ran this up and down up and down in the slot and you moved the fabric around. To cut out an arm hole you'd just keep going and you'd move this around. And his handwriting says 1918, on here. 0 1946 Louis Miller's Pinless Diapers SM: Matter of fact, my oldest sister, when she was an infant, I don't know how it happened but she was stuck with a pin, and she ended up with this serious infection, which she ultimately got over. And my father was so angry about using pins that he created,- it didn't go anywhere- he created - back then they called it the pinless diaper. And he had the diaper and it had ties as I recall it, where you would be able to tie it onto the child as snugly as possible. I still have a diaper downstairs somewhere. And he patented it, but it went nowhere.
 ; 
 ; GE: Right. If only he'd tweaked it a little bit to become the disposable diaper or...
 ; 
 ; SC: Yeah, or tabs or snaps.
 ; 
 ; SM: Well, or Velcro.
 ; 
 ; SC: Or Velcro, yeah, oh my gosh. 0 2010 Manufacturers versus Contractors SM: So are we talking about the um?
 ; 
 ; GE: So my recollection is, we were talking about the business, and if you wanted to maybe start by saying a little bit how you see your manufacturers, compared to maybe, the other businesses or contractors. 
 ; 
 ; SM: We manufactured as opposed to most of the people in the needle trades here in town. As big as they were, they were contractors. There's nothing wrong with that, their product strictly was labor. They supplied the labor and the thread, and paid the rent, and all they did was take in the fabric. Sometimes they cut it, sometimes it came in already cut. They sewed it up, according to specifications, finished it, packaged it, whatever and sent it back to whoever was handling it. And that's all they had to do, so their job basically was pay the labor and they took care of um, - they had unions, paid the rent, and so on. And that's it. As opposed to our operation which I guess you could call to some extent, vertical. We didn't make the fabric but we had to design the garments, fit them into certain price ranges and then purchase the fabric with contracts and what not. 0 2777 Discussion on Vertical Integration SC: I was just thinking, with the vertical integration you always think of vertical integration as highly capitalized industries, but it was possible in the garment industry, not to be like the old Lowell [mills] factories that were totally vertically integrated- you could get in and out fairly quickly, even though you had to have more capital and contractors.
 ; 
 ; SM: Yeah, well we were I guess the true vertical integration is starting from...
 ; 
 ; SC: Raw material.
 ; 
 ; SM: Raw materials to sales. We skipped the raw materials. We did not make the fabric, we didn't knit it, we purchased the fabric. From then on,
 ; 
 ; GE: You were vertically integrated.
 ; 
 ; SM: It was a vertical operation because we did the styling, and the creating the samples, the pricing the whole business, the stocking, the billing, getting printed, the whole thing and
 ; as you said, you needed capital for that, so you needed good relations with the bank, or with whatever bank you're going to deal with. 0 3099 Manufacturing in the '70s: Expansion, Lawsuits, and Downsizing SM: I have to tell you one story.
 ; 
 ; GE: Sure.
 ; 
 ; SM: When we bought our new building,
 ; 
 ; GE: And this was about when?
 ; 
 ; SM: This was in the 70's, and at the time, the building was certainly worth the price. It was a great deal for a bank for a mortgage. For whatever reason, I don't remember, there was no mortgage money around. I guess banks have certain amounts in their portfolios that they could put into mortgages and whatnot there was none, and we were just dying. We were trying every bank in town, they would say, normally we would take a baseball bat and keep you here to make the deal, but they had no money. And we had a French poodle at the time, and the French poodle had an accident in the bedroom. And I got up at night, not knowing, go to the bathroom, and I stepped in it. Which is sort of, you know, well, funny experience, I told my mother, the next day I told my mother this, and she said, you're going to get your mortgage, and I said why, and she says, it's an old tale, that if you step in shit, something good is going to happen to you. Don't you think, the next day--
 ; 
 ; GE: Your mother was right!
 ; 
 ; SM: We got a call that they- I think it was union bank at the time -was going to take the mortgage. 0 3674 Max Charcov's Used Machines SM: Fellow named Max Charcov. Max Charcov's daughter married Roland Sigal. Sigal had a building by Sacred Heart Hospital where he had dress shops. I don't remember the names of the dress shops but he was very successful. And he was very philanthropic. And Max, Max was a real old slovenly Jewish fella, and he would pedal machines.
 ; 
 ; He would buy anybody's machine, sewing machine, for 50 bucks and would um,- he would fix them up, like a used car's fixed up. How would he fix them up, he'd take a rag, he dusted it off, had no idea whether the machine worked. But it's like new, he said. And he would then sell the machine for $100 or whatever. If you needed a used machine, Max had it. He never had a building, he had various garages around town where he would store the machines. He had a driver, because he couldn't drive anymore. He would run, he had the machines, and he had nothing on paper. He knew every machine that he had ; he had hundreds of machines. And they were all used and when it was time, you needed a machine, you call Charcov if you want to get a used machine. And sometimes he would buy our machines, and I remember he would come in and we would sell him 2 or 3 machines, and he would owe us three or four hundred dollars, and he would take his checkbook and he would give it to me. He says write out a check. He has no remittance- no um, check stubs, no check register, so I write out a check to August Nielsen for three hundred dollars. I give it to Max to sign, and I take the check and that's good. I don't know who kept his books. I don't know if he ever paid income tax but he was a guy that- he was a fixture in the business. 0 3822 Naming the Business SC: [H]ow did you choose the name of Nielsen?
 ; 
 ; SM: We didn't.
 ; 
 ; SC: Oh it was.
 ; 
 ; SM: That was the gentleman that my father went to work for in the early 1890s or early 1900s. His name was August F Nielsen. And they ultimately made the company incorporated, and I don't remember the terms. But I know that my father took over the business either because his wife was sick, and he was going to die, and they would support the wife until she died, or some kind of arrangement like that. They would pay him off or pay him in some way. I don't remember [details] but it was an interesting setup. But that name was there and no point in changing it ; it was unique. 0 3903 The End of the Business GE: Can you share with us a little bit, let's say the last ten years as it was beginning to a little ·bit unwind and slowdown for you
 ; 
 ; SM: Well during that time we knew the handwriting was on the wall because we were having trouble competing with folks, the other big manufacturers who then they ended up switching and manufacturing their stuff not in their plants down south, but in the Caribbean. There was this plan 807-- it was some kind of bill or something where goods can be made in the Caribbean, that made Guatemala and Haiti and Dominican Republic come into the United States with no duty as long as a certain percentage of the cost of the garment was done in the United States. I don't know what the percentage was, but it was pretty small. So, goods were sent uncut down to the Caribbean, it was cut, it was sewn, everything was done to it and it was sent back to the United States, and maybe we put a plastic bag over the garment and put a hang tag on which amounted to the proper percentage of labor. Something ridiculous and their costs were -- I may have said this before--their costs were five dollars a day. They were paying five dollars a day and this was in the 90's and the late 80's where we were paying five dollars an hour. And that was good, plus vacations and blue cross and blue shield, and holidays and all this other garbage and taxes and unemployment. They were paying just five dollars a day and there's no way you can compete with that. Plus these-- our competitors-- had the better licenses, so we were making an inferior garment for lack of a better term, or a less desirable garment. 0 4713 Stan Miller's Values SC: Okay, so my other question is what do you value most in life?
 ; 
 ; SM: What do I value most in life? I suppose good health and the health of my family. I can't think of much else that's important and ultimately you die with a good name. Because they never caught me.
 ; 
 ; GE: Right and as you say you checked it out on the internet.
 ; 
 ; SM: Yeah there was nothing bad, although the NSA has been checking my computers. I never...
 ; 
 ; GE: They're checking everybody's
 ; 
 ; SC: That's the new democracy, we all get checked.
 ; 
 ; SM: Well, you've got these crazies in the world.
 ; 
 ; SC: Yeah I know,
 ; 
 ; SM: You wonder, right now everybody says oh don't check me you're invading my privacy. As soon as we have another 9/11- why didn't you know about these people!? So there's no happy medium there. 0 4774 Stan Miller: Performer SC: And what makes you feel the most creative, artistic, I mean in the broadest sense of creative or maybe a sense of completion in your life?
 ; 
 ; SM: In my life, other than being very proud of your three kids, me, I like to sing. So I was in the Temple choir for about forty years. We ended up, my family ended up somehow getting involved in theater, so besides my daughter, my wife became a manager and I was a theater um. I did shows at Cedar Crest, Muhlenberg, at Civic, and Pennsylvania Playhouse ; I did them all over in the [area].
 ; 
 ; SC: You acted?
 ; 
 ; SM: Yeah, so I did that. I found we all agreed, this group that we-- this last group that we were with-- that one of the greatest joys in life, the biggest kick that we would get is to be in a room full of people and make them laugh. And that's what we were doing, we were doing murder mysteries. Believe me they were funny, and we were good, because we handled- it's a different procedure than being on a proscenium stage because on a proscenium stage there's an invisible wall between the actors and the audience. There's no ad-libbing to speak of, you do your thing, when you do dinner theater or murder mysteries. You are this close to them, and some of the people shoot off their mouths. 0 MovingImage Stan Miller talks about how his father, a young immigrant, got started in manufacturing children’s pajamas in New York City, and later moved the production to Allentown. The sales office of the company remained in New York and was run by Stan’s father’s partner. When Stan and his family moved to Allentown, Stan was 17 years old and would soon start college. Stan attended Muhlenberg College, majoring in Accounting and Economics. After college and the service, Stan and his brother-in-law entered the family business. As did the son of Stan’s father’s partner. Stan is very proud that the business operated harmoniously among the partners during its more than seventy-five years in business. The firm closed in 1994, due to stiff competition from globalization. Interview with Stan Miller, May 22, 2014 GAIL EISENBERG: Today is May 22nd. STAN MILLER: May 22nd? SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Yes SM: Then I put the wrong date down.. SC: OK. Today is May 22nd. This is an interview with Stan Miller. And what I'd like to do first is just put you into place very briefly and then we'll go back to your family. So just if you could give me your full name when you were born, where you were born, where and where you grew up? SM: Stanley Zane Miller, or May 24th, 1932. I was born in Brooklyn. What else do you want? SC: And where did you grow up? SM: I grew up in Brooklyn til I went through high school in Brooklyn. SC: Do you remember that address . . . SM: Of the high school? SC: Of where you were born and where you grew up. SM: Yeah, 2047 East 37th Street. I don't know the zip. SC: Did they have one? Didn't have one when I was a kid. SM: Oh, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't remember my phone number. Actually, I remember my father's phone number where he used to work. I was always calling my father. SC: Yeah. Oh, course. So you lived there until you were an adult and you went to high school there. SM: Until I was 17, then finished high school. And at that time my family moved to Allentown. SC: Where did you go to high school? SM: James Madison High School in Brooklyn. SC: And so let's talk a little bit about your family as far back as you remember, your parents, your grandparents, great grandparents. SM: Never. I never knew my grandparents. I, I never had them. They were around, I suppose. My mother's parents, well, her mother died when she was a teenager. And I think her father ran off and left she and her two sisters. So I know nothing about her parents. GE: Can you tell us their names? SM: My mother's maiden . . . my mother was Ruth Vernick was her maiden name. That is V-E-R-N-I-C-K. She had a sister Lena and another sister Ida. SC: And and you mentioned her parents, what were their names? SM: Don't know. OK. I don't know. GE: So the mother died young? SM: Well, I think when my my mother was a teenager -- 14, 15, or 16. SC: What did they live? In the United States? SM: I think in New Jersey. My mother was born in the United States. Where her parents are from, whether they were born here or not, I don't know. I think there's some Russian in my mother's family. As far as my father, again, his parents were left in Poland. He's one of seven children. GE: And what was your father's name? SM: Louis -- L-O-U-I-S Miller. Of the seven, one brother left and went to Sweden, and he settled there and had raised a big family. My father and three other brothers and a sister came to the United States, and one sister stayed there and the Germans got her. SC: Was this in the 1920s that they came? SM: My father came here something like 1910 or 1911. SC: OK, so it was older. SM: He was maybe 15, 16, 17 years old. SC: Yeah. And your mother's family, do you know when they came? SM: I have no idea just because I think they may even have been born here, I don't know. SC: And if we know their names, we could actually look them up on the ancestry. We find anything, we'll let you know. Oh, yeah, I have everything ancestry. So can you talk a little bit about you mentioned the business and any of the businesses that they were involved with? SM: Well, let's see. My father, when he came here, I think it was his first job. He started working for a gentleman named August Neilsen. Mr. Nielsen had an embroidery business and made some infant sleepwear. And, well, I'm sure you haven't used these, but remember when years ago when babies were born, they used belly bands? SC: Yes, I read about that.. SM: And these belly bands really were just strips of cloth, strips of flannel so long and the edges weren't finished, the edges were pink. You know that this so that it doesn't ravel. I still have this pinking machine downstairs. And they made belly bands, so he started working for Mr. Nielsen. GE: And and this is in Brooklyn? SM: This was in New York City on Wooster Street, not far from where NYU is, OK. And he started working for Mr. Nielsen and became his right hand man. And then for sales, they hired another fellow named Irving Wollims. And as time went on, I think Mr. Nielsen . . .I think his wife became ill, and he made some arrangements with my father and Irving Wollims to take the business and they paid him, or either paid off his wife's bills, or took care of him . . . I don't remember what the deal was, but they paid him out. They kept the name. GE: The name was? SM: August Nielsen Company. Okay. GE: And August Nielsen, was he Jewish? SM: No, he was German. SC: That was my question. I wondered if he was German or if he was Scandinavian because of a family member going to Sweden. SM: No, no, nothing to do with the other. Oh, that was my father's brother. SC: OK . . . Right. I realize that. But I wondered if there was any connection there. SM: They took over and they they ran the business. They started making more children's sleepwear, baby's gowns and kimonos and sleeping bags, things like that for them. GE: Just so that I know . . . Louis and what was the other man's name? SM: Irving Wollims. W o l l i m s -- was he Jewish? SM: Yeah. GE: OK, and so Irving Wollims was more sales and your dad is more the production or the operations. The two of them then bought out ultimately the . . .. SM: In some arrangement, I don't remember what it was, and they became partners, and they stayed partners until they died. It was a really a very interesting and pleasant relationship. And it went on because Irving Wollim's son went into the sales and took over the sales, and my father's son, which is me, and one son-in-law, ended up in the production. I would have to say that I think it's it's more the exception than the rule that family members get along, and we got along. I mean, I know of so many. . . GE: Can you tell me, I'm sorry, your brother in law's name? SM: Walter Ostrow -- O-S-T-R-O-W. GE: So you and Walter really did the production. SM: Yeah, yeah, down the line. SC: So, do you have any other stories about when your family entered business any of the connections with business? Was this pretty much a straight line? SM: And so it just happened that my father got this job. He . . . I don't think he knew anything about the garment business. Well, you know, as far as I know. I don't know what his father was. I don't know that. I do know that when he was younger, he was an itinerant cantor in Poland, and he used to go around and sing and do whatever services until, I think one time he told a story that he used to sleep in somebody's barn. One time at one place, and it was dark, and he lit a match, and he dropped it. The place burned. He ran like hell. It was another village and they never found him. GE: Right. When your father came to this country, how old was he about? SM: I'm guessing around 17ish. And oddly enough, as time went on, my father and his partner were running the business, and he ended up marrying my mother who was working for him. SC: Do you know what she did? SM: No, I don't know. I don't know. Thinking back, I can't remember her ever sewing much. I mean, she with a needle and thread, but we never had a machine at home. And I don't know what she did there, but he met her there and he married her. SC: So now we can get back to you a little bit more about you, unless you have any more questions. GE: No, no, that's good. SC: So how did you know . . .Can you talk a little bit more about where you went from that moment when you started the business, more of your personal life, what you did? Were you involved at all in the greater community or the Jewish community? GE: Or do we want to start . . .with what came after high school. He only told us up to high school for yourself. SC: Yeah. OK, so I should start there. Yes. Just go on with your life. SM: I graduated high school and my parents, the business, is moving out here. I had to go to college, so I applied to Lehigh and Muhlenberg, and I went to Muhlenberg. The first year I lived in the dorm because they hadn't moved out here physically, the home. My father came out with my brother-in-law and set up the business out here in the summer of 1949 or maybe in the spring. And then we didn't move out here until the fall of 1949. So he was a weekend husband for that period of time. I don't . . and he did go into business with Mort Miller's father. Mort Miller's father, Harry, owned the building out here. SC: Where was the building? SM: In Fountain Hill on Seneca Street. And I think it's now a home for elderly people, I think. Anyway, Harry had the building, and I think he had lots of machines, and he was making similar garments so they went into business. Ultimately, Harry had to get out because he had some kind of skin disease, and he ended up in El Paso 11 months out of the year. So so it ended up that the business was running in Fountain Hill. As for me, I know on your sheet you had something about what kind of work I did. I guess my first job must have been as every young boy, a waiter in the Catskills. I was a counselor at summer camp. I was a lifeguard when I was at Muhlenberg at the old Jewish Community Center, when it was on 6th Street. And then in my spare time or sometimes summers or what have you, I worked at the factory. And, of course, as a young guy who was young and strong, I did all the scutwork, you know, took out the garbage . . .And I think my most interesting job was I was working in the shipping room, and my first duty to the guy who ran the shipping was at two o'clock every day. I had to stop whatever I was doing, and listen to the radio, and get the results of the horse races that he was betting on, and then somehow getting the daily number. He was a gambler and that . . . I had to do that. I was . . . I took out the garbage. I loaded the trucks. And I did find out that for years I was unloading trucks. And I discovered now that I've done it all wrong because now they offload trucks. And all these years I was screwing up. Oh, am I suppposed to look . . . SC: That's why I moved over to try to get you to look over here. SM: OK. SC: Just because if we would use this, it's better to have . . . SM: You should have one of those red lights. SC: So that's fascinating. SM: So I went to Muhlenberg and worked in summers either as a counselor or at the factory. And then I was drafted. SC: What did you major in at Muhlenberg? SM: In economics . . . economics and accounting. And it really wasn't much of a course somehow or other. I found that it really didn't, in retrospect, it didn't do much good except for the accounting. The Money and Banking and Corporation Finance. And I think I did very poorly in one of them because I discovered the Municipal Opera Company here in town. Did you ever see any of their shows? I guess I was a junior at Muhlenberg, and I discovered the opera company. I tried out and I ended up in some of their shows, and I loved it so much I didn't do anything except for the rehearsal. It was it was really a treat. Anyway, I was in the Army, they sent me to Korea. GE: That's about what year . . . 1952? SM: 1953 -- 22 months and 27 days later, I got out. I was in Korea and then I was in Hawaii. SC: What was your position in the services? SM: Finance, fortunately. I was told by a friend of a friend who was working in personnel at the time that if you want to get into Army finance, which is the cushiest job you can find, don't tell them that you were an accounting major. I said why not? He says, because then the army feels that they have to unteach you regular accounting and teach you the army way. There is the right way, the wrong way, and the army way. And they feel that if you had accounting knowledge before, it's really going to be a mess. So he says, tell them you were an economics major, which I told them, and I got into finance, which was lucky. I stayed out of trouble. So I was in Korea for about nine months. And then they sent the entire division to Hawaii to go back to Schofield Barracks. And I was there for about nine months. And I got out. When I got out, I started working and started learning. I think one of the . . . as I mentioned before, how well we got along. It wasn't a problem where you might hear that if you want to put in a new machine, the older gentleman like the father, oh, no, no, we can't do that or not. Not with my father took just a little explaining. The first thing we put in, I think, was a conveyor belt because we had a machine that would put the garments in plastic bags that we used to put them in boxes and have to pick the boxes up. Conveyor belt . . so at first he said, no, no, we don't need a conveyor belt. We can use boxes. But once we put it in, I remember he used to stand there and smoke a cigar and watch the conveyor belt and the garments go up. It was wonderful. We got along extremely well, extremely. SC: And this was you and your father . . . SM: and my brother-in-law, and we all got along extremely well. Ultimately, when my father died, it was my brother in law and I and my father's partner who was still alive, and his son. Ultimately, my father's partner died. So it was the one, the son in New York, and Walter and I in Pennsylvania. And and we we ran, we were, I think, in business for maybe seventy seven years. GE: Yeah. Wow. SM: Long time. GE: Yeah. Wow. Seventy seven years. SM: I think it was seventy seven years. SC: How did you meet your wife? SM: Blind date -- Cedar Crest. She was . . . strange. She had gone to some party in Philadelphia with some guy from Lehigh and one of my friends from Muhlenberg. Well, his sister was at this party. You probably know her-- Sheva Rapaport. Remember Sheva Rapoport? She was a periodontist. You know, the judge Arnold Rappoport, he is a federal judge. Well, anyway, anyway, Sheva was at this party, and she told her brother, my friend, there's this nice girl for you. He called her, didn't work out. Picked up the phone, he called me, and he says, there's this girl she's just right for you. So I went over to Cedar Crest, and I met her, and I asked her out. And she told me the first thing she said to her roommate after our little parlor date, she says, if I ever go out with him again, I'm going to have to change the way he dresses. So we met in October. We were married in June. SC: What year was that? SM: Nineteen . . . met in fifty seven. And we were married in June, fifty eight. So this June will be fifty six years. At this point, she doesn't speak, she doesn't understand, she doesn't walk, she doesn't do anything but she still smiles. I can get her to smile. She still knows who I am. I go up there and feed her every day and get her to laugh. She doesn't laugh-- you know the voice doesn't work, but still . . .but she still smiles, laughs. And I think she still recognizes my children. The miracle of cell phones. This has the Facetime on it, and I hold it up for her and she sees any one of the kids and they sing to her or they talk to her and . . . it works out. It works out. I sing to her and that's. SC: Can you tell us about your children? SM: My children. I have my oldest daughter, who was born in nineteen sixty, who is currently not married. She's living in Florida with a wonderful, wonderful guy and she's a travel agent. His occupation, which is sort of unusual. You've heard of concierge medicine. GE: Yes. SM: But he's selling it, he's getting doctors to go into concierge medicine. He's establishing their practices as concierge doctors. It's really interesting. My number two daughter was born in [19]62 and she is now director of marketing for the United States and Canada for a software company that specializes in software design for anybody fooling around with real estate. For example, Hanes underwear ; they've got facilities all over the place. That was one of them. Not Seventh Day Adventists. What's the other one? Ones with Kingdom Halls? SC: Jehovah Witnesses. SM: That's it, they just signed Jehovah's Witnesses. They must have thousands of establishments, and you need this software so that you can know when to pay the taxes. If you own apartments, it's perfect. Your percentage of rentals of occupancy will. So it's all to do with with real estate as opposed to some who will have for medical or dental or something. And so my third daughter is she's a lawyer, but she isn't practicing. She's currently doing voices for Doc McStuffins and on television and Henry Hugglemonster and Clifford and what else. Wow! Wow! Wubbzy and she did all that. She was on on NBC for six years with Nell Carter back in the 80s. So she had, she had a nice a nice career, and then she went to law school, and she didn't like practicing law. Just just didn't like it. She went back back to California and having her her fun. SC: Did any of them have any interest in the business? SM: No, no. My oldest daughter, she went down to Florida with her boyfriend, which didn't last, and then she ended up staying there because she started working and going to school, and her grandparents lived there. So she, she had no interest. My second daughter and she had none . . . none of them had any interest. Of course, they all ended up working there during summers. And I must have employed half of the young people in Allentown beside my kids. We always need people in the summer. Alan Silverman, his son. Max Davison's boy . . . any of the friends of my daughters, you know, worked in the shipping room or in our testing lab. And so we employed a lot of the young boys around here. And we also clothed most of the babies in Allentown, our contemporaries. Somebody had a baby, they need a layette. SC: Were you and your wife active in the greater community and the Jewish community? SM: My wife was active in ORT. GE: What's your wife's name? SM: Lois. She was active in ORT, especially when it first came to town. Is it still active? Is it still around? GE: Not really. SM: OK, well, it used to be. And she was president at one time. And this was all her contemporaries at that time, all the young women of the time. Other than that, she didn't get involved in the Jewish community at all. She ended up spending about six years with my youngest daughter when she was doing television. They were spending time in Hollywood, in Los Angeles --for seven, eight, nine months. I was home. Sometimes with no daughters, sometimes with one daughter who was going to Rider for a while. And so all I had was a cat and a dog. So she didn't do much with the Jewish community. Quite honestly. I guess I really, I think, wasn't active in the community center and I wasn't active at Temple Bethel. I did sing in their choir for about forty some odd years. So I guess that was my contribution. Other than that, that wasn't my thing. SC: Were you active in the business community, in the garment industry's trades? SM: Well, we did belong to the . . there was an organization that was founded for needle trades with the Atlantic, something or other . . . I don't remember what it was. We used to go to the meetings and have the discussions and so on. But no, I wasn't that guy. I didn't do that. SC: Was that Arnold Delin's? SM: Yes, there you go, there you go. I found that I had certain problems. I think when I first came to town, when I was married, they started with a be in the Jewish Federation or something and here is some people to call for contributions. I could not, I could not do it. It wasn't me. And I kept putting it off. But gradually I'm not going to do this. And I just didn't get involved in the building fund for the synagogue or the community center. It just wasn't my cup of tea. SC: You have to be true to yourself. SM: So my recreation was singing in the choir, and I did a lot of theater in town. And that was my thing. SC: Where did you live in Allentown after you came with your parents and all the way through? SM: You know where Alton Park is? You go down 24th Street, you remember there was a covered bridge, SC: Yes. SM: All right, and go up further. And before you get to Lehigh Street, it's off to the right a little bit.The block we lived on was a block that was two blocks long. I had a real nice house. After you you come from New York where you live in a semi-detached house with grass about the size of that hassock and no property. We had this house with an adjacent lot and a big, big house, I mean, big compared to what we lived in. And it was planted trees, I planted all the shrubs, it was wonderful. I never had such a good time. I love mowing the lawn. We had a power mower then. Power mowers were sort of new at that time. And and my father loved to love to put a cigar in his mouth.And he cut the property, and he loved it. And we could look out the front door, from before there were a lot of buildings, and you could see, well, they were not mountains, you know hills in Emaus. But you could you could see green green hills. For him after living in New York and for me, it was a treat. Then they continued to live there, and after Lois and I got married, we lived one block away at Tremont Apartments. And from there we moved, we built a house on South Glenwood Street, within spitting distance of the Swain school. And my kids went to Swain school while we were there. And then when we had our third child, we needed more room. So we built here and we've been here for forty six years. I was the first one on the block. So we've been here, raised our kids here. SC: Okay, It's going to stop now. SM: I also have -it's a toy- not a toy - this is my father's original cutting machine, you've seen factories with the cutting machines that are electric. SC: Yes. GE: Yes. SM: Ibis is his cutting machine, it's still as sharp as can be, and the way it worked is, they had a table with a slot cut in it and the slot was shielded by metal so you couldn't cut the wood and you ran this up and down up and down in the slot and you moved the fabric around. To cut out an arm hole you'd just keep going and you'd move this around. And his handwriting says 1918, on here. SC: I think cutting with a really good pair of scissors was much easier for me when I used to sew. I would have killed myself on something like that. SM: I have one other piece of equipment downstairs, I'm not going to get it ; it's too heavy. It's a pinking machine. GE: And what is a Pinking machine? SM: You know what pinking is, when you edge the cloth with little jagged edges so it doesn't fray as easily. GE: Oh, okay. SM: Back then they used belly bands for newborns to hold in the umbilical cord, and my father manufactured belly bauds big strips of cloth and they ran it through the pinking machine so that it had an edge and would sell belly bands. You put it around the child with a safety pin, and stick the child and the child gets an infection- you know, that was part of the problem back then. SC: Although they are going back evidently- one of my friend's daughters just had a baby and they are going back to bands and contraptions to hold the belly in and push the uterus in so it goes back. GE: For the woman... SC: Right, not for the baby. GE: Interesting, I never heard of that. SM: Matter of fact, my oldest sister, when she was an infant, I don't know how it happened but she was stuck with a pin, and she ended up with this serious infection, which she ultimately got over. And my father was so angry about using pins that he created,- it didn't go anywhere- he created - back then they called it the pinless diaper. And he had the diaper and it had ties as I recall it, where you would be able to tie it onto the child as snugly as possible. I still have a diaper downstairs somewhere. And he patented it, but it went nowhere GE: Right. If only he'd tweaked it a little bit to become the disposable diaper or... SC: Yeah, or tabs or snaps. SM: Well, or Velcro. SC: Or Velcro, yeah, oh my gosh. SC: Today is June 17 2014. Interview with Stan Miller. SM: So are we talking about the um? GE: So my recollection is, we were talking about the business, and if you wanted to maybe start by saying a little bit how you see your manufacturers, compared to maybe, the other businesses or contractors. · SM: We manufactured as opposed to most of the people in the needle trades here in town. As big as they were, they were contractors. There's nothing wrong with that, their product strictly was labor. They supplied the labor and the thread, and paid the rent, and all they did was take in the fabric. Sometimes they cut it, sometimes it came in already cut. They sewed it up, according to specifications, finished it, packaged it, whatever and sent it back to whoever was handling it. And that's all they had to do, so their job basically was pay the labor and they took care of um, - they had unions, paid the rent, and so on. And that's it. As opposed to our operation which I guess you could call to some extent, vertical. We didn't make the fabric but we had to design the garments, fit them into certain price ranges and then purchase the fabric with contracts and what not. And have the fabric, cut it, sometimes you'd cut it to order. Sometimes you'd cut if for spec. or you'd cut five hundred dozen to order and you'd cut another two hundred dozen for spec. and we then had to pay for the fabric, pay for the labor and the overhead, pay for the buttons and the bows, and the zippers and whatever else goes on it, and then sell it. And that sometimes is harder or easier depending- you may sell it easier if you have the order and you cut it to order. Otherwise you have stock, and you have to carry the stock then once you sell it you wait for your money, not like a contractor who invariably gets their money within a very short time. Labor is the first thing you pay, so that meant we had to have working capital. A lot of working capital. More than the regular contractor, because he could turn his money over in a couple of weeks, whereas we- quite a few months. And then of course you would sell it to a K-mart or a Sears. Or a Hess, and now you have to wait for your money. GE: Right, and you typically were paid from then, after it was sold, or after the season. SM: Oh yeah, after they received it, after they received it, they paid whatever the terms were. At thirty, or discount, whatever terms were agreed upon. And prior to getting the money we had to have enough cash to pay for the fabric, pay for the labor, pay for the trimmings, pay for overhead, and wait. GE: Right. GE: What do you see as being the advantages of your operation? You already told us a little bit about the advantages of theirs, but especially of yours, - in other words, what do you see as being the strengths or advantages of your operation, being vertically integrated? SM: Well, I suppose there are more opportunities, maybe to make more money because you're marking up everything but on the other hand you've got interest, and... GE: More risks. SM: Risk, and worry, ah, that was the business that we had. GE: And, if I'm understanding correctly somewhat, that's just the way your father had started it, and therefore you continued. SM: Yeah. GE: Okay, as opposed to a strategic decision saying this would be the best way. SM: We could have, toward the end we stopped manufacturing, the last year or so, and we were contractors. Because we weren't selling our goods anymore. And then of course, to sell the goods, you had competition. You had competition from some of the bigger manufacturers down south who had bigger names, bigger plants, they were able to get desirable licenses, Superman licenses, as opposed to some cartoon character that wasn't very popular. We had major league baseball, we did very well with that. We had striped fabric and we would put on a screen- a decal- made that to order.- but others had more desirable -whatever was popular at the time- I think it was Mickey Mouse, and we couldn't compete with these people. And these people were making it in the Caribbean, where it was so much cheaper so that's why we went out of business, we just couldn't compete. Have desirable licenses, the garment that we would sell for fifty dollars a dozen, they'd be selling it for forty because it cost them less. GE: Right. SM: And it was nicer than ours because they had the nicer cartoon character on it. There was no competing with them. GE: After a while they just- right. SM: We lost out in the early nineties, because we just couldn't compete with the Caribbean. GE: And so you were in business until around-? SM: 1994. GE: Okay, so prior to that, through the eighties you were still- SM: We were perking along, we did very well, and were very happy. I raised three children, my brother in law raised two, my partners raised three. I mean -we did very well and were very comfortable. Compared to some of the other people in town we weren't as successful. Some of the people in town they made a lot of money whether they were contractors, or manufacturers, there were a few manufacturers and it was a good business back then, and we all did reasonably well. We worked hard, I was there six days a week, and we ran a night shift, and that was me. -Just, never got home- that was... I was young, so I could do it. GE: Right, great, can you tell me a little bit about, the sales and marketing end that was done, in other words, one thing I'm curious- is, was it your own sales force or did you have sales reps, and then also about the brand, did you - you told us about licensing, but was there anything where you- where you had- your brand became known to the public? SM: We had our own sales force. It was headed by my partner who was the son of my father's partner. And he had helped in the office- we had an office in New York. On 34th Street, we were right in the district. And we had some salesmen on the road. Some reps for us, they may have been carrying other things, I don't know, but, um we had a guy in Pittsburgh, another guy down South and so on. We had our brand, it was Style by Nielsen, it was the brand. I can't remember some of the other competing brands but that was our name, but what was required quite often was to put the big retailers tag in there. So garments that were made for JC Penney didn't have anything about Nielsen. We had JC Penny's label in there ; we put in labels from Montgomery Ward, um, who else did we put labels for? I don't recall. GE: Sears, probably SM: Well yeah, and we put the hang tags on, and um, what was I thinking of? Well, that thought just went by me - so we did for them, - and we also ended up pre pricing them, that was the beginning of the UPC whatever you call those. GE: Yes, UPC codes. SM: Well we had to get pinning machines. We used to pin it on the garment and pre-priced everything, or else pre price them with stickers. If the garment was in a plastic bag, sometimes put the sticker on the front of them. See, you did almost everything. GE: Right. SM: So our brand, it was just a brand, it was known, matter of fact, many years ago I ran into someone that I knew in the army, when I was in Hawaii and hadn't seen this person for many many years since then. And we're talking about our lives and she told me that when her kids were little she remembers going into the store and buying garments made by Nielsen. Little did she know that-- GE: So therefore it was even known by the public, in other words people at smaller stores - SM: Yeah, oh yeah, we sold to Hess and we sold to the big chains, Walmart, and over the years, it was some of the smaller department store chains, there was- I can't even remember the names any more, in fact, they probably don't exist! And to specialty shops, and we did, I don't remember the numbers anymore, did we do one or two million dollars a year back then in volume, I don't remember. But we did very well over the years and were very happy. GE: Right, besides obviously the main way that you sold and communicated was that you had this sales force, besides that, was there any kind of advertising that was involved? SM: No. We didn't really advertise, it was to sell the stuff was really the contact between our salesmen with the samples, the sample lines. GE: Okay and the buyers in the stores. SM: And their contacts, the buyers, or if they went on the road and stopped in different places or the buyers came into the showroom. Usually the big companies would come to New York, but some of the others, for example K-mart I think was in Royal Oak, Michigan, their headquarters, we used to send people out there. And Montgomery Ward they either came to New York, might have been in Chicago. SC: Might have been SM: So it was -you- went where- advertising was absolutely nothing - GE: Was absolutely- SM: We didn't do a thing with it, it wasn't necessary, the people that we were working with were buying the garment. They knew us, or they got to know us, and advertising just wasn't in the cards. It's a good thing, it would have been more aggravating. GE: Was there any other- can you think of any other questions in regards to the... SC: The business. GE: And then I will have you share with us, a little bit about the demise, a little bit about the last few years. SC: I was just thinking, with the vertical integration you always think of vertical integration as highly capitalized industries, but it was possible in the garment industry, not to be like the old Lowell [mills] factories that were totally vertically integrated- you could get in and out fairly quickly, even though you had to have more capital and contractors. SM: Yeah, well we were I guess the true vertical integration is starting from... SC: Raw material. SM: Raw materials to sales. We skipped the raw materials. We did not make the fabric, we didn't knit it, we purchased the fabric. From then on, GE: You were vertically integrated. SM: It was a vertical operation because we did the styling, and the creating the samples, the pricing the whole business, the stocking, the billing, getting printed, the whole thing and as you said, you needed capital for that, so you needed good relations with the bank, or with whatever bank you're going to deal with. SC: I've heard that Philadelphia was, had many places that were vertically integrated but out here, where there are a lot of, in the Allentown, Lehigh Valley area-- SM: I'll tell you, one that I know of was Sondra Manufacturing, the Kaplans. Do you know them? GE: Tell me- say their names. SM: Stanley Kaplan, Morris Kaplan was the father. GE: Are any of them still here? SM: Yeah. GE: Is that the name? SC: We should talk to them SM: Stanley well, the Kaplan's had- GE: That name is familiar, Stan Kaplan, but I don't think we've... SM: Stan and Elaine Kaplan, they were doing real estate after a while. GE: And they still live here? SM: Yeah, but I think they are going to be staying in Florida but I think they are in town this summer. They live down toward Emmaus somewhere. GE: And they were all- what was the name, Sondra? SM: Sondra, S-0-N-D-R-A. It was a family. They were very similar to ours really, their father had a partner in New York, they had two daughters and a son, both sons in law were in the business, the son was in the business, they I think were more vertical. I think they knitted the fabric. SC: Okay. SM: And then they manufactured it, I do believe. I'm not sure, I'm trying to think, was there anybody else in town. GE: The other manufacturers, am I correct that the main place where they deviated from you was that many of them outsourced the sewing? You know, that was what the contractors did. But otherwise the other pieces that you're talking about they did as well, is that correct? SM: I don't follow you GE: I guess in other words, I guess all I'm saying is most of the clothes manufacturers. SM: Here in town? GE: Or in New York, they in a sense, did just as you did, where from fabric to the sales, the only thing that many of them did is many of them outsourced the sewing. SM: Yeah, so the companies-there were companies that owned nothing, they.would sell - some enterprising people-they would manage to sell a big batch of stuff, and they would buy the fabric, and they'd ship it to a contractor and the contractor would sew it up, and would ship it out to the customer for them. GE: Ok, so in other words, all they did was take care of the sale in a sense? SM: The sales, and getting hold of the fabric. And they didn't actually make the fabric, they bought the fabric, but there were other places that bought or made the fabric and- GE: Right, so you're saying it varied a lot. SM: Oh yeah, and there were- in order to capitalize, if you couldn't get your credit from the bank, they had what they call factors, you know about them? GE: You know what? Why don't you tell us, I've heard the term, and I know a little bit about them. SM: We never used the factor but he would sell your goods, and send the bill to him. He would pay it, less a percentage, and he would handle the accounts receivable. And he'd collect it, it's his problem. Of course, he would have to approve of the people you sell it to. GE: Right. So he took care of that part. SM: Right there you have another partner but that could work, because he's the one who's getting you the capital. GE: Right. SM: To buy the fabric, and do everything else. GE: And take care of the headache with the accounts receivable. SM: Oh yeah, that's a big headache, I have to tell you one story. GE: Sure. SM: When we bought our new building, GE: And this was about when? SM: This was in the 70's, and at the time, the building was certainly worth the price. It was a great deal for a bank for a mortgage. For whatever reason, I don't remember, there was no mortgage money around. I guess banks have certain amounts in their portfolios that they could put into mortgages and whatnot there was none, and we were just dying. We were trying every bank in town, they would say, normally we would take a baseball bat and keep you here to make the deal, but they had no money. And we had a French poodle at the time, and the French poodle had an accident in the bedroom. And I got up at night, not knowing, go to the bathroom, and I stepped in it. Which is sort of, you know, well, funny experience, I told my mother, the next day I told my mother this, and she said, you're going to get your mortgage, and I said why, and she says, it's an old tale, that if you step in shit, something good is going to happen to you. Don't you think, the next day-- GE: Your mother was right! SM: We got a call that they- I think it was union bank at the time -was going to take the mortgage. SC: That's funny. SM: It was just amazing. GE: Was that the time that you told us that you bought the building, I think from Finkelstein? SM: Yes. GE: Okay. SM: Yeah, that was in the earlier seventies. And then shortly after that, in '76, '77 we had this Tris fiasco and you'll read it in there. One of the unique things about it, is the consumer products safety commission was comparatively new, and well, they had an axe to grind. Well they went ahead and issued this ban, but the ban was illegal. The ban was illegal because they were supposed to give the people involved their day in court. To say, hey wait a minute, you can't ban this because.... or the tests were wrong... they just-- it was a unilateral thing. Ultimately, it went to the Supreme Court, and the ban was declared illegal, but the damage was done. Once they declared the ban, all the stores -- sell all the stuff back! And if they had paid for the merchandise, we had to repay them. If they hadn't paid for the merchandise, the account receivable was no good. So- but the ban was illegal. GE: How was that fought? Is there an association, or lobby? SM: We had no lobby, what we did, we had a very very strong advocate, I don't think you'll know the name, Louis Nizer was a very prominent lawyer in New York, who happened to be a relation to my partner, and Louis Nizer sent one of these amicus something, friend to the court. GE: Amicus brief or something, SM: And there were some other prominent attorneys that were hired and that was. GE: Was that fought by your firm, or by a consortium? SM: Well sort of a consortium. GE: Of all the ones affected... SM: Mostly the bigger ones but, we were all involved, we went to Washington D.C. and, I was really pleasantly surprised how accessible, I don't mean by graft, but how accessible a lot of the representatives and congressmen were in dealing with this thing, because they knew it was a fiasco, and they all wanted to, and tried to do something. And ultimately a bill was passed in Congress so that those affected could get a loan to help get back on your feet. And-in that little article I gave you- once you made a claim of X number of dollars they had to come and audit your books, to make sure that the claim was kosher. And we had the FBI -the FBI came in! With their guns, they had to go through all the records to see whether we qualified. And then the tough part was- of course, we had no money, but if they would grant you a loan, you had to pay income tax on it. Hah, and we had no money to pay income tax for it, it was a horrible situation, we couldn't take the money, because we'd have to pay back too much money, which we didn't have. We'd have to borrow money to pay back-to pay the income tax. It was -there would be nothing left. It was really freaky, the loan that we did end up getting was from the SBA, where you really had to dance and sing and do everything else for them before you would get the loan they say this. SC: I'm sorry, what year was this about? SM: That was about, in the later seventies. GE: And about how many years did it take your company to recoup from all of this? SM: I would say about 3 or 4 or 5 years. But we never really got out of the mess because we were always, we never had enough working capital- it was always difficult, so that if we wanted to expand again, we couldn't we just had enough working capital to operate, we wanted to buy new machines, something fancy with computers and what not back then, oh that was a big thing, we couldn't do it. So we were at a certain level that we just couldn't get out of. SC: And may I- I just wanted to comment that in the early 70's when you first started, when it was hard to get money, of course that was moving into the time of stack inflation when prices were high and - GE: And growth was low. SC: Yeah, and then interest rates were high and then in the late 70's and you would be moving into the recession of the early 81' recession. SM: Yeah we ended up going through all the cycles. GE: Right. SC: It makes so much sense, history works. GE: Right, although the cycles I would think because it pajamas, you probably don't feel the cycles as much as, you just have to do a little bit cheaper maybe, items: SM: Yes, there were ways to make things fit into a price range. GE: Right, but I think in general. SM: You make the garment a little smaller. There were really no standards. SC: Yes, I always thought that. SM: You thought there were standards? SC: Those garments were getting a little smaller. At times and they were-- SM: You thought you were gaining weight, or you were getting tall right? SC: No, I never thought I was getting tall SM: There were really no standards, some of the buyers, some of the bigger companies would say that this is -make the garment according to this, that the inseam has to be this long, and the out seam has to be this long and you had to make it to their specs, well that's fine but otherwise you could make the bathrobe an inch shorter and when you start adding up all these inches, all of a sudden the piece doesn't cost ten dollars a dozen it only cost nine dollars a dozen. Or make it a little bit- the pants leg, not quite as full, make it a little bit narrower, make the pants a little bit shorter, the sleeves a little bit shorter. The chest measurement is a little bit less- and nobody knows the difference. They'll put it on and oh, this is a size 4 it doesn't fit my child, well oh, I've got a big child. They don't blame it on the garment, they don't. Whoa, my child is growing so big, so tall, that was done all the time. There was nothing that was really standard unless a customer insisted. But to a place like Hess's or any other department store chains they bought what you gave them, not so with Montgomery Ward, I remember they had very stringent standards. GE: Right, interesting. SC: Yeah. SM: Fellow named Max Charcov. Max Charcov's daughter married Roland Sigal. Sigal had a building by Sacred Heart Hospital where he had dress shops. I don't remember the names of the dress shops but he was very successful. And he was very philanthropic. And Max, Max was a real old slovenly Jewish fella, and he would pedal machines. He would buy anybody's machine, sewing machine, for 50 bucks and would um,- he would fix them up, like a used car's fixed up. How would he fix them up, he'd take a rag, he dusted it off, had no idea whether the machine worked. But it's like new, he said. And he would then sell the machine for $100 or whatever. If you needed a used machine, Max had it. He never had a building, he had various garages around town where he would store the machines. He had a driver, because he couldn't drive anymore. He would run, he had the machines, and he had nothing on paper. He knew every machine that he had ; he had hundreds of machines. And they were all used and when it was time, you needed a machine, you call Charcov if you want to get a used machine. And sometimes he would buy our machines, and I remember he would come in and we would sell him 2 or 3 machines, and he would owe us three or four hundred dollars, and he would take his checkbook and he would give it to me. He says write out a check. He has no remittance- no um, check stubs, no check register, so I write out a check to August Nielsen for three hundred dollars. I give it to Max to sign, and I take the check and that's good. I don't know who kept his books. I don't know if he ever paid income tax but he was a guy that- he was a fixture in the business. SC: Ha-ha oh, I have a-this is tape number 2- on June 17 2014 and we're interviewing Stan Miller, but I have a question- there was another question I had, how did you choose the name of Nielsen? SM: We didn't. SC: Oh it was. SM: That was the gentleman that my father went to work for in the early 1890s or early 1900s. His name was August F Nielsen. And they ultimately made the company incorporated, and I don't remember the terms. But I know that my father took over the business either because his wife was sick, and he was going to die, and they would support the wife until she died, or some kind of arrangement like that. They would pay him off or pay him in some way. I don't remember [details] but it was an interesting setup. But that name was there and no point in changing it ; it was unique. SC: And I remember Louie Nizer's name and I don't know why. SM: You do? SC: Yes I do. I don't know why, whether I read it in the history book. SM: My Life in Court--he wrote some books. SC: Yeah, he wrote some books, that's what It was. SM: He wrote some books. He was very big, really a big-shot in law in New York. GE: Can you share with us a little bit, let's say the last ten years as it was beginning to a little ·bit unwind and slowdown for you SM: Well during that time we knew the handwriting was on the wall because we were having trouble competing with folks, the other big manufacturers who then they ended up switching and manufacturing their stuff not in their plants down south, but in the Caribbean. There was this plan 807-- it was some kind of bill or something where goods can be made in the Caribbean, that made Guatemala and Haiti and Dominican Republic come into the United States with no duty as long as a certain percentage of the cost of the garment was done in the United States. I don't know what the percentage was, but it was pretty small. So, goods were sent uncut down to the Caribbean, it was cut, it was sewn, everything was done to it and it was sent back to the United States, and maybe we put a plastic bag over the garment and put a hang tag on which amounted to the proper percentage of labor. Something ridiculous and their costs were -- I may have said this before--their costs were five dollars a day. They were paying five dollars a day and this was in the 90's and the late 80's where we were paying five dollars an hour. And that was good, plus vacations and blue cross and blue shield, and holidays and all this other garbage and taxes and unemployment. They were paying just five dollars a day and there's no way you can compete with that. Plus these-- our competitors-- had the better licenses, so we were making an inferior garment for lack of a better term, or a less desirable garment. GE: Right, less desired. SM: At a higher price! Doesn't work. So gradually, our sales decreased, and we were shopping around trying to sell, and then we were still manufacturing a little bit, and we were trying to do some contracting work. We did some contracting work, um, and it gradually wound down to the point where as years went on, and we kept paying our people, I remember Walter and I, we kept taking our salary was maybe about 15,000 a year or something. And it was ridiculous, we just kept cutting our salaries. Well you had to pay your secretaries and we would give up my secretary because-um, it gradually wound down and we knew it was happening. We just held on as long as we could and tried to at the end pay off everybody, as many people as we could. We still had the building that we ultimately sold to well, it was some person who made candles, and we went through the building one time after that, and I saw a lot of my people there and they were making candles in the building. GE: Well, that's good at least SM: Yeah. GE: Where was your building? SM: South Allentown on South Albert Street. We had the, there was a fire company there, Fairview Fire Company I think, it's about a block or so away and it was a lovely building. It was great for us, it was about 40,000 square feet or 50,000 something like that. GE: At its peak, how many employees did you have there? SM: At its peak we had maybe about 120 there. We had another factory in Allentown with another 40 or 50. So we had two. GE: Two hundred. Okay, and how about the other employees, like in the New York area I realize that's small. SM: Well we had my partner and a sales manager so to speak, they had no need for office help and they took care of the sales and managed the salesmen on the road, we had no real employees. GE: Other than that. SM: Of note, in New York, except the sales. force. You know, one guy can sell enough to keep 200 people working in someplace else. GE: Right. SM: Sales it's just a different ballgame. They can make a sale and they can provide us with enough work for three months. GE: When, as you said, you saw the handwriting on the wall. Is there any consideration to either also trying to use labor in the Caribbean or to make that move, or- SM: Oh yeah, we were approached quite often, I remember one was in Guatemala. They would provide the land, they'd build the building, they'd help finance the machines, the labor was cheap, there would be no taxes for I don't know, and I just, as for me, I just couldn't see myself leaving my wife and three kids and going there or taking them there, or being there for three months out of the year. It wasn't for me. In retrospect, I suppose there could have been a way to do that and then you could compete, and we might still be in business for all I know but doing that wasn't for me. GE: Right. SM: It scared me, I just couldn't do it. And my brother-in-law felt the same way. So, whereas a lot of the people from down in the south it was a little closer for them, they went for it. We couldn't do that. So we ended up, for a while, we did some contracting and just, that was an unhappy situation, when we were manufacturing, we were our own bosses, when you're contacting, somebody else is telling you what to do. And we were very unhappy about that. But it happened, it evolved, as many things do ; businesses don't stay in business forever. And we had a good run. It was 70 some odd years that we were. GE: Continuous in two generations? SM: Yeah, yeah. GE: Right, and so you closed the doors in around 1994, like you said. SM: Yeah and we started renting the building and um, but we couldn't keep the building. We had to unload it so we had it up for sale. I don't remember when it was sold, maybe a year or two later. And as for me, I filed for social security. I think I was 62, and I started working for the bank. And I knew a lot of the people there, and I knew some of the people who were hiring, and I started working for them. And I became, I guess, the oldest male bearded Jewish bank teller east of the Mississippi River. They had none like that. They had no men. SC: Ha-ha. SM: Think back! Who were the bank tellers? The girls who then became pregnant. They were all women, they never had a man, never had anybody my age, with a beard, so - and I worked part time, and it was good because it kept me a little busy, GE: Sure. SM: It gave me some pocket money, I was having fun with the people. I wasn't a normal bank teller. I would kid with them and ask them about their children. You joke with them about giving them change in 17 and 23 dollar bills, and I enjoyed it. GE: Good. SM: I really had fun. GE: Right. That's great. And how long did you do that? SM: And I spent 7 years there. GE: Right. SM: I had time to play golf and play tennis and so it was wonderful for me. I was there from seven years 94' to 2001. GE: And then you retired? SM: Then I retired, and I became a professional tennis player and golf player, and I was an actor. I did that and I had a good life ; it was the best job I had. Retirement, it was wonderful. GE: Right, you speak very highly of it. SM: Oh yeah, it was really, really, really, good. GE: Good. SC: Well I have a couple of other questions, and, first of all there was a question I had about where was your other factory, SM: Originally it was on Hamilton Street, 930 Hamilton Street. Do you remember Miller Furniture? SC: Ah you know what, the name is familiar. SM: It was on the south side, not Hess's side. It was a half a block away from Hess's. And Krupers Appliances was there. It was between 9th and l0th Streets, and we had an upstairs there, and we were operating that plant for a while, and then we lost the lease and then we found a place. You would know this building, it's on 7th and Tilghman Street. It was a bank on the comer, there was a bank there and then one place up was another building. I don't know what was there, um, it was an automobile showroom or whatever. Anyway we took the second floor and had to put in a fireproof stairway, and they had a ramp that we used when we moved in. I rented a golf cart because we had so much stuff to bring up and there was no elevator to get to the second floor but there was a ramp because it used to be a car dealer. And they would have the cars up on the second floor, and go down the ramp. In fact that was the place where many years ago I went to see my very first Edsel. It was a dealer that had the Edsels and I went with my cousins to look at it. I remember seeing the Edsel there so we had that place for a while and then as time went on we had to condense our operation. We had to close that, I don't remember when we closed it, it was sometime in the nineties where it just wasn't feasible anymore. So we were running two, and running night shifts sometimes. When the situation demanded it. That was our- SC: By the time you closed, how many workers, how many employees did you have at the end? SM: Oh well it started going down. GE: Right. SM: We must have had about 40 or 50 or 60 when we used to have over 100 because certain operations we didn't need. After a while we didn't need the cutting room, we were just getting the stuff in cut, and we just had to sew it. We gradually knocked it down. Even to the point when we were contracting we really didn't need our girl in the office to do the payroll anymore. We found it cheaper that we would send it out to I don't know... GE: ADP? SM: Yeah, one of those places. And they'd send the check. It would cost us less than paying the girl her salary and her Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and holidays. I mean we gave the girls, they had a salary and her Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and holidays. I mean we gave the girls, they had up to 14 holidays we were giving them ; they even got Yom Kippur off. Then they got their Easter, and their Good Friday and um, they had plenty of holidays, um what else could I tell you, not much else. SC: Okay, so my other question is what do you value most in life? SM: What do I value most in life? I suppose good health and the health of my family. I can't think of much else that's important and ultimately you die with a good name. Because they never caught me. GE: Right and as you say you checked it out on the internet. SM: Yeah there was nothing bad, although the NSA has been checking my computers. I never... GE: They're checking everybody's SC: That's the new democracy, we all get checked. SM: Well, you've got these crazies in the world. SC: Yeah I know, SM: You wonder, right now everybody says oh don't check me you're invading my privacy. As soon as we have another 9/11- why didn't you know about these people!? So there's no happy medium there. SC: And what makes you feel the most creative, artistic, I mean in the broadest sense of creative or maybe a sense of completion in your life? SM: In my life, other than being very proud of your three kids, me, I like to sing. So I was in the Temple choir for about forty years. We ended up, my family ended up somehow getting involved in theater, so besides my daughter, my wife became a manager and I was a theater um. I did shows at Cedar Crest, Muhlenberg, at Civic, and Pennsylvania Playhouse ; I did them all over in the [area]. SC: You acted? SM: Yeah, so I did that. I found we all agreed, this group that we-- this last group that we were with-- that one of the greatest joys in life, the biggest kick that we would get is to be in a room full of people and make them laugh. And that's what we were doing, we were doing murder mysteries. Believe me they were funny, and we were good, because we handled- it's a different procedure than being on a proscenium stage because on a proscenium stage there's an invisible wall between the actors and the audience. There's no ad-libbing to speak of, you do your thing, when you do dinner theater or murder mysteries. You are this close to them, and some of the people shoot off their mouths. You know they interrupt, and you have to know what to do, you can end up forgetting your lines, and you answer them back, sometimes you have to shut up, shut them up. One time we had somebody who wouldn't shut up, and one of the people in the show yelled over to a waiter do you have any tape? And he says, yeah, and she says give me the tape. And she went over and put duct tape on the guy's mouth. Of course he took it off, but he got the hint. Another time, when we were starting act 3, I was out there with one guy, and we had a little dialogue and he was supposed to answer but before he could somebody in the audience shouted something out. It was funny. It was really funny, everybody laughed. Well, you can't let him get away with it, so you hit him with something, and then he comes back with something, and before you know it well, everything's stopped, and I said to the guy with me, where did we stop? But, you can do these things in the dinner theater. He says I don't know, well let's start all over again. Excuse me. And my wife was involved, my daughter was involved, my other two daughters were involved. We all played the piano, they sang, they played the violin, this is what we did. That was our life. As a matter of fact, when we had this Tris fiasco where we really had no income at all, we couldn't take any income, we dropped out of Locust Valley and stopped doing things, going out for dinners. We ended up doing theater, that was our entertainment--theater. When we started Percy Brown's dinner theater in the 70's, we would have a show Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday we'd be rehearsing for the next show. GE: Wow. SM: And this was the whole family doing it. One daughter was dancing, another one was doing this, another one was playing the drums. Lois was assistant director, and doing the props and the makeup, and I was in the show. I think the first show I did myself and three other guys who were the male chorus and the reviewer called us led-footed hoofers with terminal melancholy. And he was right by the way, we were really bad. But I got to like it, I did pretty good, and that was my fun. Plus I did photography ; I've taken a lot of photographs, and that was my thing, that made me happy. SC: Thank you. 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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01:24:44
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Stan Miller, May 22, 2014
Description
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Stan Miller talks about how his father, a young immigrant, got started in manufacturing children’s pajamas in New York City, and later moved the production to Allentown. The sales office of the company remained in New York and was run by Stan’s father’s partner. When Stan and his family moved to Allentown, Stan was 17 years old and would soon start college. Stan attended Muhlenberg College, majoring in Accounting and Economics. After college and the service, Stan and his brother-in-law entered the family business. As did the son of Stan’s father’s partner. Stan is very proud that the business operated harmoniously among the partners during its more than seventy-five years in business. The firm closed in 1994, due to stiff competition from globalization.
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LVTNT-07
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2014-05-22
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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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890f66a5524cd0a1a8b1085df51554b5
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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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Marc Malkovsky
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-20.xml
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5.4 June 1, 2017 Marc Malkovsky, June 1, 2017 LVTNT-20 1:09:23 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Marc Malkovsky Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 MalkovskyMarc_20170601 1.0:|21(14)|46(14)|67(17)|94(12)|123(8)|148(9)|175(3)|196(13)|221(14)|248(5)|273(10)|300(11)|329(7)|350(15)|381(2)|406(8)|435(4)|464(10)|489(10)|514(6)|547(14)|574(15)|601(15)|626(13)|657(9)|682(15)|709(3)|738(8)|767(16)|796(2)|825(8)|852(6)|879(7)|904(3)|931(12)|958(2)|983(3)|1010(6)|1035(6)|1060(7)|1085(14)|1112(3)|1135(9)|1162(6)|1185(18)|1210(11)|1237(9)|1262(19)|1293(5)|1322(8)|1351(9)|1380(17)|1405(9)|1434(7)|1463(4)|1492(4)|1519(7)|1544(7)|1573(10)|1602(14)|1633(11)|1654(12)|1681(13)|1712(3)|1735(7)|1762(15)|1783(14)|1808(9)|1833(5)|1934(15) 0 https://youtu.be/3hzoMqWzkkQ YouTube video 31 Introduction—Marc Malkovsky SC: So first of all what is your full name? Where were you born? Where do you live and also what is your educational history?
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 ; MM: Okay, Marc Alan Malkovsky. I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Still live in Macungie right now, right outside Allentown. Born and raised, only left for college. I went to IUP for one year for business, and then I wanted to go into the culinary field, so I went up to Johnson and Wales in Providence. I was up there for four years doing restaurant and hospitality management. Left there to get a job in the Outback Corporation, worked there for about a year and a half, started through the process of becoming a proprietor and running a kitchen. And then one day I just decided, you know, that's not what I want to do. Maybe not just that type of restaurant work, still maybe in the industry but possibly something else, maybe business. And while I was looking for job, you know, my dad was like, I'm still living at home, said, you know, I’m going to work four hours a day for me on the phones, the other four hours a day you try to find a job, go out there, look to see what is available. And it was a hundred percent commission, and I just said well, if I do four hours times two a day, eight to nine hours a day, hopefully that means double the money that I'm making. It wasn’t anything crazy at the time, but you know for somebody who is unemployed, you know, anything is good. And living at home, expenses were low and you know it worked out. And I just stayed there, and that’s kind of where my career took me. 0 208 The Family Business in the 21st Century MM: [S]o when I went in to work with my father - and that was about 11 years ago now ; so it was about when I was 24 - it was just me, him, and the warehouse gentleman, George, that worked with him since he started the business basically after he moved out of the garage that he was using. So since then, I mean you know, it's changed tremendously. Our Internet presence has changed tremendously. You know, we kind of had to evolve with the times as you know through the late 90s and 2000, you know, the Internet and online shopping and marketing, you know, became a big time change. And our industry as a whole is really old school so a lot of people don't have that. They don't do the online so that was a huge change for us, and it was evolving every year, you know, little by little. 0 409 Family History in Philadelphia SC: So let’s go back into your family, what you know as far back from your father's side of the family, your mother's side of the family, and where they came from, how they got to Allentown, and anything you know about them.
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 ; MM: So, my mom's side: they were from South Philly, so she grew up, she had two sisters, and one of them actually isn’t, well is a cousin, but her parents actually died at a very young age, so my grandmother took her in. So basically from day one, I mean it just basically was her sister, and I assumed that was her sister for many many many many years, you know, didn’t even think about it. You know, similarities in looks and everything, so I didn't get to meet, I met my grandfather, her father, but he died when I was two, maybe, something of that age. So she grew up in a pretty nice household, obviously, you know, nice family with them in South Philly.
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 ; My dad grew up in North Philly. He and his brother and his mom and dad. They, I kind of knew a little bit more about that history for some reason maybe because my grandparents on that side owned a business and they sold, they had a wholesale lingerie shop underneath the blue rail in Kensington on Allegheny. And so I was there when I was little, you know, while they were selling the stuff or you know I remember the area. So I guess you could say even with that that has to do with the fabric business, you know, garment and stuff. 0 770 Father's Textile Business MM: [Y]ou know, you obviously mix in - home life was the business at a certain extent just because, you know, my dad worked in the fabric industry ; he went to Philadelphia Textiles. And my mom was, she did two different things, she was in the orthodontist field and she also, or the dental field, I guess I would say, and then she also was a nail technician that she did. So around, all these different companies my dad worked for, some big textile people in Allentown because you know, we talked about how Allentown was a big hub-mecca of whether it was for milling or selling or manufacturing just because of our location and what real estate cost compared to New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, DC, it was just so inexpensive, but yet so easy to get to. 
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 ; So he worked for all these different companies and eventually he just said ‘you know what, I can't work for people anymore, I just, I just can't do it, I need to go out on my own.’ And that happened in ‘95, yeah ‘95. So, big risk. My sister graduated in ‘97, so two 2 years before she’s about to go to college. And, like I said before, my dad always wanted to do everything he could for us. So my sister did get a job when she went to school. I think she had a partial soccer scholarship, but you know it wasn’t a question, he wanted to make sure he took care of us and try to help out in any way. 0 900 Mother's "Tips to Toes Nail Salon" MM: And not long after that, my mom decided she was doing nails and everything in our basement and they had different clothes that they were selling while they were down there. They decided well, let's open up a shop for her too. So my mom is running a business at the time, and my dad was also helping and that was on Tilghman Street, it was called Tips to Toes Nail Salon. And she was running that, my dad was helping, so I was there, you know, sometimes when she had to watch me, sometimes, you know, I was with my dad. 
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 ; So I had two parents that were kind of running their own business, which was a great experience to see and I think, you know, it was definitely valuable in not even realizing it subconsciously of probably having how I grew up as a child, and things that I've learned without even knowing I was learning them and experiences, which definitely helped me to where I am today, for sure. 0 1058 Sister's Education and Career SC: May I ask where your sister went to college and what she does and you have another brother?
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 ; MM: Nope, just a sister.
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 ; SC: Oh, just a sister, I don’t know why I imagined that.
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 ; MM: No, it’s alright. She went to Ohio University. She went to play soccer and she then decided two years afterwards, I think she’s stopped playing soccer her senior year, she went into Family Education, I guess I'm trying to think of whether the exact title was back then. And then she came home and she didn't know what she wanted to do. She went and worked in Hoboken and actually that was kinda, that was, she lived with, you know, her roommate from Ohio who was from Ohio and she moved out to Hoboken, so they actually stayed together, and they lived out there, which was nice. 0 1243 Reflecting on Change—Technology & ; Childhood MM: [L]ife is, life evolves, life’s different. You know, we were talking earlier about just, you know, even this computer, you know like everyone talks about how different things were back in like the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and to us, I was born in ‘82. You know, when we say ‘well you know I was in the 90s’ and to us it doesn't seem that long ago. You know, but 20 years, if you go look back you’re like, when you talk about the Internet, you click on your phone, you're up on that just like that 30 seconds. We used to have to sign on and you’d hear these weird noises and you know seeing you can’t connect, you can't do this, and that's basically, you know, where my business went and that's how our business flourished, which was great and that's, that was a huge change, like everything. I used to remember sitting in front of the typewriter, had to type papers, and every time you know I made a mistake, I have to white it out with the brush and kind of set it back up perfectly if I could, you know, just to type something up. And now I mean, it would be odd to see a letter come that's typed on the typewriter. It would be very weird. 0 1483 Father's Experience as an Employee in the Textile Industry—Burlington, Levine's, and Fisher Textiles MM: So he actually wasn't in wholesaling when he first started, he was in the manufacturing end of it, so he worked for large companies. He worked for Burlington out of New York. So he basically, his one of his, in the early years of his career, after he graduated from Philadelphia Textile, which is Philadelphia University now, he was in charge of the manufacturing, so he got to see that end of the business as well. You know, up to the garment making, the pattern making, you know all the costs that are involved in that, all the different levels. And as he progressed then he, you know, decided to change, you know, fields in the industry. And when he came into Allentown, he worked for Levine's, and they had a large warehouse, and he was in the upper management there, the selling of the fabrics. So they also had retail stores in Allentown, downtown Allentown they had one, they had one in Tilghman Square. And, so he was involved in that a little bit but not so much because he was involved more in bulk purchasing and selling. At that point I really didn't know much anything about the business. I knew where his office was, I knew where he worked, I used to go visit him mainly because the Levines, for their sons, they had go-cart so I was able to drive those around the parking lot, which is pretty cool as a little kid. So obviously I always liked visiting my dad at work. But he then he worked for Levine's, he worked for another company called Fisher Textiles, which was in Allentown. And I'm pretty sure there's one other one but Fisher was the last one and that was basically when he said you know ‘I can't work for anybody anymore and I just decided to get out.’ 0 1588 1995: Creating "Nick of Time Textiles" MM: And through, let’s see, that must've been, see ‘46, and he graduated at 20, so ‘66, ‘67, so probably about 30 years. And, you know, over 30 years in the fabric industry, you tend to meet a lot of people. He is definitely a jokester, you know, he's pretty lighthearted, you know, likes to have a good time, so he was able to meet a lot of contacts, meet a lot of people that liked him, I’m sure there were some people might not have, but that’s everybody. 
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 ; And fortunately he decided to leave, he talked to some people down in the Carolinas, and his one friend said ‘you know, I'm going to ship you some fabric, let’s get you started and you pay me when you pay me, no big deal.’ And luckily, only friends are to do that for you, you know, help you get started. And everybody needs that when you're starting your business. It’s hard to do it just solely on your own. You always need a connection. You always need someone to kind of help you, push you. 
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 ; So, you know, he did that. He formed a website, which was in ‘95/’96, right when, you know, the Internet started coming along. It really was just kind of an informative website, really didn’t have much to it, no relativity to search engines back then, you know, whatever search engines might have been at that time, and, you know, just making calls. Calling people all the time, talking to people, traveling. 0 1755 Purchasers & ; Products GE: And the people who were buying, tell us again, they were other, who were they? What businesses were they in?
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 ; MM: I’m pretty sure, I mean, back then it was, you know, there's a lot of larger manufacturers. I mean everything was in the US, you know back then. Everybody was making everything here, so there could have been small, you know, now we would called them boutique people, you know, small companies, people, you know, just got out of sewing school, you know, they’re starting their own apparel company, and you know they are trying to make it, so they’re buying fabric. There could be large stores, you know, like any of the malls, you know, whether it was Hess’s or Macy's or something like that, you know, they were buying from different people in the US, like my father was building to be a company like that that could supply them. So large and small, back then it was all basically apparel manufacturing is what the fabric industry was and what people were selling to, the people that were buying, and that still is a big part today but it's changed tremendously. 0 1919 Marc Malkovsky's Role in the Family Business—Partnership with Harris Malkovsky MM: So I got into the business, that was the mid-90s, you know, and I was always working with him, not for him, I was, like I mentioned earlier, I was cutting samples, I was, you know, moving the fabric, you know, helping him cut stuff, you know, after school. So kind of integrating myself into the business even though that definitely was not where I said I wanted to go nor did he say he wanted to direct me there. So I was involved at that point and then after college when I wasn't involved and then I, you know, went my own route and then decided, you know, that wasn't the way I wanted to go and he asked me to start working for him, as I mentioned, so it's, you know, I started doing phone sales. It was very small. I mean we had a decent sized warehouse at that point. We had a lot of fabric, and, you know, I just started working for him. And, you know, it was nice. 
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 ; Luckily I think getting into it at that point and not being my primary thinking of that's my job, it was kind of maybe an easy way of getting us to work together. Cause working with family for most people is impossible. Some people it’s very hard. Some people find it very easy. I’d put us probably right in the middle of easy and hard. It's not hard by any means. It's pretty easy. Luckily because he, from day one when I started working with him, he was kind of open. 0 2160 Becoming an E-Commerce Business MM: The Internet, as that evolved, you know, that kept helping us go. I was Internet, not Internet savvy, but I knew more about the Internet, you know, and that was a good push for us to be able to do that but that took, to get to that point I mean, that probably took another five, six . . . 5 years, I would say, until like we really pushed it because Internet is very expensive in order to create a legit website. Not these websites that say go on GoDaddy.com and get a website for $10. It doesn't really give you the presence out there if you're trying to sell to America, you know, and Canada and possibly Mexico and everything else. So that kind of propelled us to the next level. And we’ve kind of, you know, you never want to get stagnant just like kind of stay. You need to keep evolving, you need to keep changing. We’ve changed our website, you know, maybe four or five times and that's helped us grow and he still has a ton of input and I learn something from him probably every single day. And, you know, things that I might not think are good idea, he does, and, you know, we do them. And things that he doesn’t think are a good idea, he lets me know them. You know, and that's kinda the great relationship that we formed, and like how we helped the business grow to where it is.
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 ; GE: So at this point you were really truly an e-commerce business. 0 2308 Internet Versus Warehouse Sales GE: So of your total sales, about what percentage at this point are come from the website, you know, that are e-commerce versus coming to your warehouse?
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 ; MM: Um, of it's kind of tough to put an exact number on it only because the people coming to the warehouse could have found us through the site so I would, I mean if you had to put a number I would probably definitely say it's minuscule of people that are just local people that just saw the sign. You know you might say that's 5%, you know, and everything is 95% otherwise. If you did just total in-house sales, you know, that number might go up to 10 or to 15%, but those people probably found us through the website, one way or another.
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 ; GE: So at this point your customer base, who you’re selling your fabric to, really the Internet is essential.
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 ; MM: Oh, yeah. The Internet goes down, our website goes down, it's, you know, there was a time, it was a couple months ago, and our website was down for say two days. While in that two days I can lose, you know, maybe $10,000 in sales. 0 2432 Advantages of Nick of Time Textiles—Youth, Diversity, Networking, & ; Technology MM: There’s, in my opinion, there's a lot of wholesalers of fabric out there, that's for sure. In my opinion, like us--probably a handful. You know, the one thing is, you know, you have a group of friends wherever or people that you talk to, and this person might be in this industry in somebody else's ; I don't have anybody that is in my industry. Not one friend that's in fabric, never was, never thought about it. You know, back when I started, you know, we were talking off camera, I think I started at 24 and I was probably the youngest person in America selling fabric unless some child, you know, came right out of high school work for the father that I didn't know about. But when I would go out to LA in my early years to meet people and gain more contacts, when I would walk in the door and I told them who I was, they were like ‘you’re Marc?’ You know, they thought I was 45, you know, and they see this kid walking in at 24, and they were just all shocked and they were like ‘dude, you’re young for this industry.’ You know, it was a great thing because eventually, people, you know, you get older. They’re gonna get out of it, and I'm still going to be present, and I’m gonna, you know, keep growing. 
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 ; We do a lot of different things than other wholesalers do. Our website is more prominent than most wholesale companies out there. There are other fabric websites but there's a lot of retail, there’s not so much wholesale, which helps. You know, the random person will go online and find us. 0 3175 Benefits of the Internet in Relationship to Suppliers MM: So the suppliers: two things the website can help in ways because suppliers are also, they’re obviously looking to sell. They don’t want to sell to the people I want to sell to. They want to sell to people like me. So sometimes they’ll go online and they’ll find people. And they’ll contact me and say ‘hey,’ you know, they’ll call me up and say ‘what do you, I see you sell this, this, and this, you know, we offer this. Let me send you some samples, let's talk about, you know.’ And then we can start doing business that way.
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 ; Another way that I guess would be a supplier of ours is actually our customers are also suppliers. In ways to where they do manufacturing, and we sell them a bunch fabric or maybe somebody sold them a bunch of fabric, and they have all this excess fabric and their lines over, they don’t know what to do with it, and they go online say, ‘I got to find somebody to sell this to.’ So they go online and they find us, and I get emails all the time saying, ‘hey, I am just curious, I found you online, do you guys buy fabric?’ And obviously we buy fabric. We have to buy fabric to sell fabric. So we’ll buy their leftover fabric. 0 3295 Fabric Brokers So people call me and say, you know, ‘I wanted to…’ We probably have over million yards of fabric right now. We have on the West Coast probably you know 40 different companies we can use that probably have millions and millions yards of fabric that we can sell off anytime we want and ship directly from them as if it's coming from us, so we're repping their line in a way but nobody knows about them.
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 ; GE: So you’re, in that case, you’re not, you don’t own it, you’re a broker of it.
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 ; MM: Yup, I’m a broker of it. 0 3393 Financial Growth of the Business—Sales GE: So, um, so it sounds like, if I understand, over the past ten years that you’ve been actively in the business, from the beginning until now, it sounds like it has grown a lot.
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 ; MM: Yeah, for sure.
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 ; GE: And was that growing five times? Two times? 
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 ; MM: Probably, if sales wise, in sales it’s gone, you know, if sales go up and down, it stays pretty consistent. Since I started, you know, at our highest point it grew 10 times and probably, you know, on an average, it's probably about seven times. So I mean it's tremendously, tremendous to where it was for sure. 0 3624 Profits GE: So Marc, where sales have gone up about seven times over the last ten years, how about, what about the profit, bottomline? Cause I realize you also hold a lot of more expenses and things and whatever.
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 ; MM: Yeah I mean the expenses are a lot more compared to what they are but I mean...
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 ; GE: Right, but that’s commensurate with the sales.
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 ; MM: Yeah, I mean, most businesses are going to be like that. I mean I would love to have a business model that my business sales grew seven times and my expenses stayed the same. I mean that would be fantastic. You know, for our business that's not the case and, you know, I would say well when I was younger I would say I wouldn’t need as much money, you know, to live. And having a family now, fortunately, you know, my wife doesn’t have to work. You know, she's at home. She does work part time, you know, once she is back from having the baby, and that's kinda just for her presence of mind. 0 3797 Jewish Involvement in the Textile and Needle-Trade Industry—Past & ; Present GE: So I’m curious, years ago for most of the older people that we have interviewed, there was a dominance, there was a pretty large presence of Jewish people in the business. A lot of Italians, a lot of other people, but certainly, given how small the population is, there had to be a large percentage of Jewish people. Is that because, I don’t know, we have not interviewed a lot of people who currently have a business, is that still the case?
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 ; MM: Yeah, uh, 99%.
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 ; GE: Ok, wow.
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 ; MM: You know, where did that come from…
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 ; GE: I was going to ask you, what do you think might be any reasons for that?
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 ; MM: Uh, I don't know, I think, you know, I just I think it was something from back in the day, you know, over whether it was in Israel or Iran, you know cause there are a lot of Iranian Jews, you know, that have come over that were in the fabric industry. I think there was a big fabric hub, you know, back in the day like over there and when everyone came, everybody, you know, migrated over here it kind of followed them and that was what they knew, you know, so you tend to have into whether it was the Jewish over here or Irish over here or you know Italians over here. Everybody for certain, it might have started in other industries, starting to diverse itself, for some reason in this industry it's not and I don't know why. Everybody I deal with is Jewish basically. I don't think there's one, there might be maybe one or two people, you know, that I buy fabric from that are not Jewish by any means. 0 3962 Marc Malkovsky's Inspiration and Values SC: What has made you feel the most creative in your life?
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 ; MM: Um, the most creative, um, hm, I mean I, you know, probably my parents. You know just, you know, the openness of letting me do things, you know, and then in business with my father, you know, letting me take control as a young person. Being, you know, getting ideas and seeing them and then learning and being able to open up and kind of venture into my own things, you know, they never, they never pushed me and said ‘you need to go to this.’ You know, I got tons of friends and families say, ‘well you need to go to nursing school, or you need to do this.’ You know, I was never pushed in any direction, but I was backed a hundred percent no matter where I went, so that’s what I would say.
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 ; SC: And what do you value most in life?
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 ; MM: Um, it would, I mean, there's a, you know, family obviously is very important, you know, and I think a lot of people would say that off the bat. 0 MovingImage Marc Malkovsky talks about helping his dad cut samples in the basement for the business while Marc was still in high school. A few years after college, Marc joined his father in the business. Together, they embraced the Internet and incrementally built an e-commerce site for the business. Nick of Time is a current, thriving Allentown business. Interview with Marc Malkovsky, June 1, 2017 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: So today is June 1, 2017 and we're going to be starting with some just general background questions and then move into a little bit more of your family connections and then go from there and then go into the business and then and end of my two questions sort of go deeper into you. MARC MALKOVSKY: Okay. SC: So first of all what is your full name? Where were you born? Where do you live and also what is your educational history? MM: Okay, Marc Alan Malkovsky. I was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Still live in Macungie right now, right outside Allentown. Born and raised, only left for college. I went to IUP for one year for business, and then I wanted to go into the culinary field, so I went up to Johnson and Wales in Providence. I was up there for four years doing restaurant and hospitality management. Left there to get a job in the Outback Corporation, worked there for about a year and a half, started through the process of becoming a proprietor and running a kitchen. And then one day I just decided, you know, that's not what I want to do. Maybe not just that type of restaurant work, still maybe in the industry but possibly something else, maybe business. And while I was looking for job, you know, my dad was like, I'm still living at home, said, you know, I'm going to work four hours a day for me on the phones, the other four hours a day you try to find a job, go out there, look to see what is available. And it was a hundred percent commission, and I just said well, if I do four hours times two a day, eight to nine hours a day, hopefully that means double the money that I'm making. It wasn't anything crazy at the time, but you know for somebody who is unemployed, you know, anything is good. And living at home, expenses were low and you know it worked out. And I just stayed there, and that's kind of where my career took me. SC: So next let's just go where do you live, more specifically and where talk a little bit more about are you still with the business and have you changed with the business of your job, with the business? We'll talk more about that later. MM: Sure, yeah, the location I live is still over by, it's called Brookside Country Club. It's over off of Sauerkraut. Moved there about three years ago. I used to live over in an area called Greenhills in a condo that I owned before I got married. So we lived there for about a year or so. And in that time before marriage, six months before, we were looking for a house. Just said, you know, let's not wait to the very end, let's kind of start looking now, and if we happen to find something, you know, that's great. And I think we looked for about a year and a half until we found what we really wanted because we were pretty picky in what we were looking for. And then we bought the house, and we moved over there, so that's where we reside. And you said, you know, about the company, so when I went in to work with my father - and that was about 11 years ago now ; so it was about when I was 24 - it was just me, him, and the warehouse gentleman, George, that worked with him since he started the business basically after he moved out of the garage that he was using. So since then, I mean you know, it's changed tremendously. Our Internet presence has changed tremendously. You know, we kind of had to evolve with the times as you know through the late 90s and 2000, you know, the Internet and online shopping and marketing, you know, became a big time change. And our industry as a whole is really old school so a lot of people don't have that. They don't do the online so that was a huge change for us, and it was evolving every year, you know, little by little. We eventually had to move out of where we were because of building inspections in Allentown about nine years, eight years ago there was a huge overhaul because building were not up to code, people were using them as apartments, they weren't supposed to, there were electrical heating fires, people's plug in heaters were going all over the place. So landlords that owned all of these building started telling on each other, and they started coming in, the marshal started coming in, and they wanted to shut our building down day one and we convinced them because it was a family business, they were basically going to put us, we were not going to make any money, put us out and they left it open for seven days, the landlord came in and was like I'm not fixing any of the stuff, you know, I'm not paying for this, it's too much money. So we had to move an entire warehouse just my dad, I and the gentleman, George, in seven days while we still ran the business. So we would work from 8 AM to 3 PM, and then we take a break and work from 4 PM until 10 PM for a week to try to move everything out as fast as we could. Ended up being a blessing because where we moved we have a lot more presence on the street. We're on Union Boulevard in Allentown-- big, the tall building. We had the third floor. It's a retail space but we're not retail and there's no elevator that gets you all the way up there, really, so it's not, it doesn't cost us that much per se because there's no other retail stores that would really go in there so we take space for the landlord that really would be unsellable, and we just grew from there. Now we have that floor, we have another floor. The company now instead of my dad, I, and a gentleman in the warehouse, we went and we had one employee, and then we got another person in the warehouse, so we had two extra employees. Then another lady in the office. Now we've grown to, on-and-off it really depends on right now with three ladies in the office, we did have four at one time, but learning new ways of how to do everyone's job more efficient, we only three right now. And we have five gentleman in the warehouse. So yes, so basically with my dad and I, I think we're, you know, anywhere from 9 to 10 employees at this point. SC: It's so interesting hearing this from your dad's perspective and from your perspective-- MM: ...it intertwines different, different points of view for sure, I would assume that. SC: It does, yes. So let's go back into your family, what you know as far back from your father's side of the family, your mother's side of the family, and where they came from, how they got to Allentown, and anything you know about them. MM: So, my mom's side: they were from South Philly, so she grew up, she had two sisters, and one of them actually isn't, well is a cousin, but her parents actually died at a very young age, so my grandmother took her in. So basically from day one, I mean it just basically was her sister, and I assumed that was her sister for many many many many years, you know, didn't even think about it. You know, similarities in looks and everything, so I didn't get to meet, I met my grandfather, her father, but he died when I was two, maybe, something of that age. So she grew up in a pretty nice household, obviously, you know, nice family with them in South Philly. My dad grew up in North Philly. He and his brother and his mom and dad. They, I kind of knew a little bit more about that history for some reason maybe because my grandparents on that side owned a business and they sold, they had a wholesale lingerie shop underneath the blue rail in Kensington on Allegheny. And so I was there when I was little, you know, while they were selling the stuff or you know I remember the area. So I guess you could say even with that that has to do with the fabric business, you know, garment and stuff. My dad was always around that type of business in that area. You know, the families, I think on his side for sure, I was always told my grandparents, my dad said his parents never did anything wrong, you know. And I think, it's probably a little different, you know, working with him, where obviously we're partners so I have a sometimes critical things, and it's tough for him on that side because you know, in his eyes his parents never did anything wrong. But in a business you know he accepts that because we're all going to make mistakes and as long as you can work together, it's better that way. So, you know, his dad was always there for him, did everything he could, and I think, you know, that passed onto my father to, you know, how he treated his kids and raised us. You know, my grandmother, I think she got a sense of humor from her. She was a riot, and she still was until the day that she passed. And, you know, I think it's just a lot of the values of the family. Luckily they were both very different, like how, you know, my mom's side was definitely more religious, my dad's side, you know, still had the Judaism in them and were religious to a certain extent. But that whole living situation, you know, my dad wanted to move in with my mom before marriage, her parents weren't happy about that by any means, so they would come over, my dad would leave, so he wasn't there, so they really didn't see anything or, you know, out of sight, out of mind type of deal. So two different families definitely, just, you know, also where they grew up, my mom you know in the South was more type of suburb-ish compared to being under the Blue Rail, you know, with in an alley, in a row home. Kind of, I guess, in a row home in a way, you know, just like in the city blocks, you know, and that's kind of like where they came from. And then did you say move into my family, I guess or? SC: Well, do you know where those families came from? Did your family, your parents, your grandparents, ever talk about how they got to America? MM: Not too much, no, to be honest. That never, wasn't really big conversation, that, you know, that came up. My grandparents, you know, passed in history. I mean, you know, I know, you know, both sides were Polish. I know there was a lot of different history, and I know my dad has talked a little bit about different family members, you know, throughout Europe and where they might've been and where they might've traveled, but not anything in great detail, I guess you would say. SC: So, it gets lost sometimes, over the generations. MM: Yeah, yeah, I guess it depends on how interested maybe some people are, you know, there's always ways of finding out now, I know everybody's doing the DNA testing and stuff to see where they came from and what their makeup is. And I know that my wife wanted to do that on her side and then my side too to try to kind of see, you know, where we might have kind of originated from. But most likely, you know, based on the background, my last, my mom's last name was Press. My dad's Malkovsky. It was definitely, you know, from Poland, most likely. SC: And do you know any other names back further, did anyone ever talk about that? MM: No, it really didn't. I don't know if it was just something that just didn't come down from my grandparents, but again, you know, I was young, my, other grandfather died when I was three, so I really had no, I have memories but I don't know if those memories are just from pictures of me seeing, cause it's tough when you're three, if you are going to remember anything like that. So everything else was just kind of based around my grandmothers, and it's not so much that they didn't want to talk about it or maybe concentrate on anything in the past, but they did a really good job of concentrating on us, you know, in making us the important thing, you know, and doing whatever they could for us I would say. SC: So any memories that really stand out about your own parents with either, with the business or just home life or-- MM: Um, yeah, I mean, you know, you obviously mix in - home life was the business at a certain extent just because, you know, my dad worked in the fabric industry ; he went to Philadelphia Textiles. And my mom was, she did two different things, she was in the orthodontist field and she also, or the dental field, I guess I would say, and then she also was a nail technician that she did. So around, all these different companies my dad worked for, some big textile people in Allentown because you know, we talked about how Allentown was a big hub-mecca of whether it was for milling or selling or manufacturing just because of our location and what real estate cost compared to New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, DC, it was just so inexpensive, but yet so easy to get to. So he worked for all these different companies and eventually he just said 'you know what, I can't work for people anymore, I just, I just can't do it, I need to go out on my own.' And that happened in '95, yeah '95. So, big risk. My sister graduated in '97, so two 2 years before she's about to go to college. And, like I said before, my dad always wanted to do everything he could for us. So my sister did get a job when she went to school. I think she had a partial soccer scholarship, but you know it wasn't a question, he wanted to make sure he took care of us and try to help out in any way. So to know that he has a college expense coming on, another kid immediately graduating three years later after my sister, going out starting his own business, you know, we had, he basically had a connection that he grew friendly with in the Carolinas, which is a big mecca for fabric as well. And he shipped them up a bunch of fabric, had it in the garage and basically said, you know, pay me when you can pay me. So, you know, looking at a two-car garage filled with fabric and basically he was just selling to hopefully, you know, small designers that he knew, that he gained relationships with when he worked at other companies. And that's how he got the ball rolling. And not long after that, my mom decided she was doing nails and everything in our basement and they had different clothes that they were selling while they were down there. They decided well, let's open up a shop for her too. So my mom is running a business at the time, and my dad was also helping and that was on Tilghman Street, it was called Tips to Toes Nail Salon. And she was running that, my dad was helping, so I was there, you know, sometimes when she had to watch me, sometimes, you know, I was with my dad. So I had two parents that were kind of running their own business, which was a great experience to see and I think, you know, it was definitely valuable in not even realizing it subconsciously of probably having how I grew up as a child, and things that I've learned without even knowing I was learning them and experiences, which definitely helped me to where I am today, for sure. You know, in just when you have two family members running businesses, it's, you know, a lot different than just having, you know, a job somewhere because the financials. So all of a sudden, things aren't going as well in this business, maybe they are not going as well as this business. You know, money starts to get a little tight. You know I think there's no there's definitely some tough times in, you know, tough times for, you know, give more stress ; stress has arguments and things happen. And you never should say money is important because it is not the end-all factor. Unfortunately, it does make the world go round, and it does make things easier in life, and less stressful. So there were some rough times definitely, you know, in the house, but they prevailed, you know, they kept moving forward. You know, my dad was very determined, you know, in what his vision was, in his goal was, and where he wanted to get to. Eventually they just decide to sell the nail salon because it just became too much. Then my mom just went back to the dental field to work. And, you know, my dad continued to grow the business as much as he could. I mean, after school, I would cut samples in the basement, you know, I would help him, you know, doing that instead of some kids were cleaning up the room and doing chores, these were like my chores, you know, like I was helping out. And in that essence, I was learning part of the fabrics, you know, I was learning how to cut them, I was learning what types they were. So even at 14, 13 years old, you know, I was still starting to learn stuff at that point, not realizing how I was going to need it later in life. So, you know, it was interesting childhood, I guess you would say, to say the least. SC: May I ask where your sister went to college and what she does and you have another brother? MM: Nope, just a sister. SC: Oh, just a sister, I don't know why I imagined that. MM: No, it's alright. She went to Ohio University. She went to play soccer and she then decided two years afterwards, I think she's stopped playing soccer her senior year, she went into Family Education, I guess I'm trying to think of whether the exact title was back then. And then she came home and she didn't know what she wanted to do. She went and worked in Hoboken and actually that was kinda, that was, she lived with, you know, her roommate from Ohio who was from Ohio and she moved out to Hoboken, so they actually stayed together, and they lived out there, which was nice. And then that whole, that 9/11 happened, and my sister lived in Hoboken, and she worked in Manhattan, so she actually took the train in there, and she basically was, I forget how many blocks away but I think she was eight blocks away because she basically got off the train and 30 minutes later is when everything happened. So, you know, that was kind of rattling in our family a little bit because she had to get stuffed onto a ferry and gets sent over and luckily, you know, at that time everybody came together and somebody housed her for like a week, fed her, clothed her, which was nice, you know. And then eventually she decided to leave Hoboken and try to figure something else out. Her roommate got engaged, got married, moved out. And then she went to Kutztown University for her graduate degree in counseling. While she was living at home, she was doing that and so she went through that progress, she got a job right out of school at Allen, Allentown School District. So she's the, she's been there for probably 11 years now. You know, she started probably when she was 27 so she's been the guidance counselor at Allentown. So, she's married, two kids, niece and nephew. So she's local, which is good, local and safe. SC: Do you remember where she was working when she was living in Hoboken? MM: No, it was just, you know, as you can imagine how big Manhattan is. It was just a big firm. She wasn't doing anything that really was relative to her college degree as probably 99% of people that come out of college don't, you know, they don't know where they're going or they just need to get a job, so they get a job wherever they can to get started at least at that time. And so it was just a big firm whether it was moving papers, or you know whatever it might've been, that's kinda where she was. SC: Do you have any random memories from other... you did talk about early memories from your childhood, anything else that you'd like to share or about the future? MM: In regards to-- SC: Just life. MM: ...Just life? SC: Yeah. MM: I don't know, I mean, you know, life is, life evolves, life's different. You know, we were talking earlier about just, you know, even this computer, you know like everyone talks about how different things were back in like the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and to us, I was born in '82. You know, when we say 'well you know I was in the 90s' and to us it doesn't seem that long ago. You know, but 20 years, if you go look back you're like, when you talk about the Internet, you click on your phone, you're up on that just like that 30 seconds. We used to have to sign on and you'd hear these weird noises and you know seeing you can't connect, you can't do this, and that's basically, you know, where my business went and that's how our business flourished, which was great and that's, that was a huge change, like everything. I used to remember sitting in front of the typewriter, had to type papers, and every time you know I made a mistake, I have to white it out with the brush and kind of set it back up perfectly if I could, you know, just to type something up. And now I mean, it would be odd to see a letter come that's typed on the typewriter. It would be very weird. So I think just changing, we talked about the different generations, you know, I push my kid to, I have two kids now, but one of them can't move really, only two months old. My daughter's two and a half, we pushed her, we want her to play outside as much as possible. We did that growing up, and I don't think kids do that. I mean I see certain kids that never go outside, you know, they prefer to sit in front of a computer where they're probably learning, you know, and maybe in 10 years, maybe that was the right thing, you know, based on how the world goes but, you know, you need that outdoor activity and live as a child and kind of enjoy that stuff. I mean we played games around the yard. But the different thing is now, you know, just like I see with, you want your kids outside, but then you have to be watching your kids. When I was little, not saying that my parents didn't watch us, 'oh, you're going two doors down, yeah, go ahead.' No big deal. You run around, you bike somewhere, now you see people posting watch out for this car, approaching kids, you know, people that are trying to take kids, stuff like that, you know. So, not that maybe that wasn't happening back then, but I think everything is now under a microscope and everybody is so sensitive nowadays compared to what they used to be and in some situations, that's a good thing and I think some situations, it's horrible because you look too deep into situations and when things used to be, you know, so easy and so fine and not a big deal, now everything is a big deal. I think that's an unfortunate part, but there's no way to change that. That's kinda, that's why I will be curious to see where it is 20 years from now. Everybody says, oh just wait, you know, all the time you know, like just wait 'til you're married, just wait 'til you have a kid, just wait 'til your kid's ten, just wait 'til your kid, you know, does this or wants to go out here, you know, where you can say 'oh, I'll be fine,' you know, then all of a sudden it happens and you're like wait a second, no you're not going or you can't do this. So it's fun to see evolve as long as your mind is open to change, you know, I think it's nice. SC: Thank you. MM: You're welcome. GAIL EISENBERG: So now we're going to start talking a little more about the business and if you want to give us a sense of the origins, how, you did quickly, how your dad got started, what role was he? Cause as I understand correctly, he was wholesaler, right? MM: Yup. GE: And so what role that was, how that business model works, how do you get your supplies, how do you, who were the customers? So if you want to give us a little bit of background telling us about how it started, how it grew, you know, when you got into it, and that way we can start a progression. MM: Yeah, sure. So he actually wasn't in wholesaling when he first started, he was in the manufacturing end of it, so he worked for large companies. He worked for Burlington out of New York. So he basically, his one of his, in the early years of his career, after he graduated from Philadelphia Textile, which is Philadelphia University now, he was in charge of the manufacturing, so he got to see that end of the business as well. You know, up to the garment making, the pattern making, you know all the costs that are involved in that, all the different levels. And as he progressed then he, you know, decided to change, you know, fields in the industry. And when he came into Allentown, he worked for Levine's, and they had a large warehouse, and he was in the upper management there, the selling of the fabrics. So they also had retail stores in Allentown, downtown Allentown they had one, they had one in Tilghman Square. And, so he was involved in that a little bit but not so much because he was involved more in bulk purchasing and selling. At that point I really didn't know much anything about the business. I knew where his office was, I knew where he worked, I used to go visit him mainly because the Levines, for their sons, they had go-cart so I was able to drive those around the parking lot, which is pretty cool as a little kid. So obviously I always liked visiting my dad at work. But he then he worked for Levine's, he worked for another company called Fisher Textiles, which was in Allentown. And I'm pretty sure there's one other one but Fisher was the last one and that was basically when he said you know 'I can't work for anybody anymore and I just decided to get out.' And through, let's see, that must've been, see '46, and he graduated at 20, so '66, '67, so probably about 30 years. And, you know, over 30 years in the fabric industry, you tend to meet a lot of people. He is definitely a jokester, you know, he's pretty lighthearted, you know, likes to have a good time, so he was able to meet a lot of contacts, meet a lot of people that liked him, I'm sure there were some people might not have, but that's everybody. And fortunately he decided to leave, he talked to some people down in the Carolinas, and his one friend said 'you know, I'm going to ship you some fabric, let's get you started and you pay me when you pay me, no big deal.' And luckily, only friends are to do that for you, you know, help you get started. And everybody needs that when you're starting your business. It's hard to do it just solely on your own. You always need a connection. You always need someone to kind of help you, push you. So, you know, he did that. He formed a website, which was in '95/'96, right when, you know, the Internet started coming along. It really was just kind of an informative website, really didn't have much to it, no relativity to search engines back then, you know, whatever search engines might have been at that time, and, you know, just making calls. Calling people all the time, talking to people, traveling. He would go down the Carolinas probably twice a month, you know, and he would do, because family was very important, he would drive down and drive back up, you know, basically in a 24-hour period. So he was always traveling, always, and that's how the business was. You know, you would take your samples, you cut your samples off your rolls, you pack them up in a suitcase, you would travel to different people that you can sell fabric to, whether it was large manufacturers, small apparel manufacturers, anybody else who sold fabric as well that you could job fabric to. And that's, you know, what the business was. GE: So when you say that he went down to the Carolinas with, that was selling fabric-- MM: It was selling and buying, you know, it was meeting a lot of people, you know, that he could either to do business with, also, you know, to sell to or that he could get, you know information on what goods can he buy, you know, what other goods are out there. So he knew based on what customers might be looking for, where he could turn to go and get those goods in order to sell them to them. You know, you can always work off of your own inventory which is a great thing because that's money that you can just bring in, but to always have an awareness of what else is out there when somebody's asking you. That's the type of people that kinda ended up making it because they kept going, they kept searching for new stuff, so that's why he made a lot of trips down to the Carolinas. GE: And the people who were buying, tell us again, they were other, who were they? What businesses were they in? MM: I'm pretty sure, I mean, back then it was, you know, there's a lot of larger manufacturers. I mean everything was in the US, you know back then. Everybody was making everything here, so there could have been small, you know, now we would called them boutique people, you know, small companies, people, you know, just got out of sewing school, you know, they're starting their own apparel company, and you know they are trying to make it, so they're buying fabric. There could be large stores, you know, like any of the malls, you know, whether it was Hess's or Macy's or something like that, you know, they were buying from different people in the US, like my father was building to be a company like that that could supply them. So large and small, back then it was all basically apparel manufacturing is what the fabric industry was and what people were selling to, the people that were buying, and that still is a big part today but it's changed tremendously. GE: Now your dad is not selling made apparel, correct? MM: No, they are so, it's not, he didn't make the garments. Basically what it is, it's the raw material. GE: So he's selling the fabrics. MM: Yup. So the raw materials is really, I mean you could look at it two ways. It's finished material after it's made, it's rolls of fabric and basically you would sell them and they go to a pattern maker and a manufacturer and then they cut the garments and sew the garments up for the customers. And then they sell them as their own product line. GE: So when a Hess's or Macy's bought from him, were they just buying from him for the fabric department, not for their clothing. MM: No, it was all for clothing. So they, since they were probably doing their manufacturing in the US, they would say 'okay we need the designers for that worked for them at the time, we need 10,000 yards of black X type of fabric.' So they would buy that, send it off to the mill, they would have it manufactured, they would have to make the garments, then they would dispersed it to the stores. So they all had different buying departments and that's how that would work, and then that's what you would see if the final product on the shelves when they have their own brand in there compared to all these other brands nowadays in small boutiques and everything else that's going on. The big department stores don't really buy like that in the US anymore. GE: So this is the mid-90s, and tell us now when you got into the business, and then together, how you and your father have continued to grow the business? MM: So I got into the business, that was the mid-90s, you know, and I was always working with him, not for him, I was, like I mentioned earlier, I was cutting samples, I was, you know, moving the fabric, you know, helping him cut stuff, you know, after school. So kind of integrating myself into the business even though that definitely was not where I said I wanted to go nor did he say he wanted to direct me there. So I was involved at that point and then after college when I wasn't involved and then I, you know, went my own route and then decided, you know, that wasn't the way I wanted to go and he asked me to start working for him, as I mentioned, so it's, you know, I started doing phone sales. It was very small. I mean we had a decent sized warehouse at that point. We had a lot of fabric, and, you know, I just started working for him. And, you know, it was nice. Luckily I think getting into it at that point and not being my primary thinking of that's my job, it was kind of maybe an easy way of getting us to work together. Cause working with family for most people is impossible. Some people it's very hard. Some people find it very easy. I'd put us probably right in the middle of easy and hard. It's not hard by any means. It's pretty easy. Luckily because he, from day one when I started working with him, he was kind of open. A lot of old-timers that open their own business are closed ; this is the way we do it, this is how it is, don't tell me anything new or anything of that sort. So working with him, he got to see maybe younger mind working and try to evolve and see what other avenues of business we could do. So back then, in mid-2000's, one of the things was he would always go to New York, New York, New York, that's where the fabric is imported, that's where everything came in. Well everything in real estate New York got super expensive. Everything start pushing out to Los Angeles. It was cheaper to import to Los Angeles. It was closer to the Orient, and that's where most of the fabric was milled and came from. So it only made sense: land's less expensive, the shipping is less expensive, the fabric the same cost, let's move out there and see what we can, what they can do. So a lot of people did that and somehow, I'm not exactly sure, but whether it was through somebody he knew and said 'hey, why don't you call so-so,' you know, and I formed a pretty good relationship with a gentleman out there. Their company is called Ben Textiles. And, you know, I was like, you know, well, why don't we see their fabric? You know, say we have our fabric but they have a lot of stuff that we don't have and people are calling us and I had to keep saying 'no, I don't have this,' 'no, I don't have this,' so I was like let's find it, let's serve these customers and see what we can do. So, you know, I started working with them. They would send us samples and, you know, we kind of formed that relationship and that kind of put our business to the next level a little bit. It was giving us a broader spectrum of different items that we were able to sell. And basically the more you can sell, the more you have access to in any business kinda helps you with the type of customer basis that you'll have and you're able to get out there. So that kind of pushed us to the next level of having more sources, you know, you always want sources, that's for sure, to be able to get more fabric. And so, you know, we started doing that, we still did our own inventory and on level to help our business grow with the sources, it's always about getting great quality fabric at low prices. You know, and that's kinda what I helped him to do too. He was always doing that, but we had to find better sources, we had to find better fabric, we had to find more of it, diverse to bring it in and that. So that's kinda started to push us into the next level. The Internet, as that evolved, you know, that kept helping us go. I was Internet, not Internet savvy, but I knew more about the Internet, you know, and that was a good push for us to be able to do that but that took, to get to that point I mean, that probably took another five, six . . . 5 years, I would say, until like we really pushed it because Internet is very expensive in order to create a legit website. Not these websites that say go on GoDaddy.com and get a website for $10. It doesn't really give you the presence out there if you're trying to sell to America, you know, and Canada and possibly Mexico and everything else. So that kind of propelled us to the next level. And we've kind of, you know, you never want to get stagnant just like kind of stay. You need to keep evolving, you need to keep changing. We've changed our website, you know, maybe four or five times and that's helped us grow and he still has a ton of input and I learn something from him probably every single day. And, you know, things that I might not think are good idea, he does, and, you know, we do them. And things that he doesn't think are a good idea, he lets me know them. You know, and that's kinda the great relationship that we formed, and like how we helped the business grow to where it is. GE: So at this point you were really truly an e-commerce business. MM: Yeah, I guess you would say in a way. Most likely I would say, you know, we worked out percentages, you know, when we first started the website we added a shopping cart then and that shopping cart, the sales we do on the shopping cart from day one which is seven years ago, you know, whatever that total probably, you know, now annually is probably a 10,000% more, you know, than we first started 10 years or seven years ago doing just the shopping cart. So that's how people find us all the time. Word-of-mouth people find us as well in the business for sure. So even if they're not online sales, people are calling us based on it, so yes that is a big portion. We do have our warehouse where it's open to the public and anybody can come in. So we get a lot of local people, we get customers that are traveling from out of state that want to come see us because we do send samples to everybody. Whoever wants to see a sample, we send them a sample for free, you know, we take care of that. But there's nothing like coming into a warehouse and seeing everything they have to offer. GE: So of your total sales, about what percentage at this point are come from the website, you know, that are e-commerce versus coming to your warehouse? MM: Um, of it's kind of tough to put an exact number on it only because the people coming to the warehouse could have found us through the site so I would, I mean if you had to put a number I would probably definitely say it's minuscule of people that are just local people that just saw the sign. You know you might say that's 5%, you know, and everything is 95% otherwise. If you did just total in-house sales, you know, that number might go up to 10 or to 15%, but those people probably found us through the website, one way or another. GE: So at this point your customer base, who you're selling your fabric to, really the Internet is essential. MM: Oh, yeah. The Internet goes down, our website goes down, it's, you know, there was a time, it was a couple months ago, and our website was down for say two days. While in that two days I can lose, you know, maybe $10,000 in sales. You know, I might, those might be customers that know there might be an issue and they might just wait, they might email me and order anyway, and there might be sales in there that somebody went to the website and it's not working and they just move on, and they'll never come back. So not only could that sale have been $500 but that $500 could have been another $500 next week, down the road, another month, could have been more, that company could have grown and could have helped us tremendously. So if you're not up, you're not present. You don't know what you're missing. GE: So now tell me a little bit about the industry. In other words, what competitors are there in this industry? Are there many people? Are there many wholesalers like you? MM: There's, in my opinion, there's a lot of wholesalers of fabric out there, that's for sure. In my opinion, like us--probably a handful. You know, the one thing is, you know, you have a group of friends wherever or people that you talk to, and this person might be in this industry in somebody else's ; I don't have anybody that is in my industry. Not one friend that's in fabric, never was, never thought about it. You know, back when I started, you know, we were talking off camera, I think I started at 24 and I was probably the youngest person in America selling fabric unless some child, you know, came right out of high school work for the father that I didn't know about. But when I would go out to LA in my early years to meet people and gain more contacts, when I would walk in the door and I told them who I was, they were like 'you're Marc?' You know, they thought I was 45, you know, and they see this kid walking in at 24, and they were just all shocked and they were like 'dude, you're young for this industry.' You know, it was a great thing because eventually, people, you know, you get older. They're gonna get out of it, and I'm still going to be present, and I'm gonna, you know, keep growing. We do a lot of different things than other wholesalers do. Our website is more prominent than most wholesale companies out there. There are other fabric websites but there's a lot of retail, there's not so much wholesale, which helps. You know, the random person will go online and find us. You know, there might be another fabric place if they really dug or made some phone calls, but nowadays it's how quick can I get it, how, and that's kinda where my dad came up with the name of Nick of Time Textiles, so that kind of worked in our favor. We do, I sell customers one yard of fabric, I sell customers 5000 yards of fabric, you know, we don't care. I'll sell, you want fabric, I'll sell it to you. Other people are like minimum 500 yards, you know, they don't want to deal with the small orders. Realistically, I could sell say five different fabrics 5 yards each and that order could take just as long as one of my guys doing 500 yards. And 500 yards could be a couple thousand dollar order. The 25 yard order could be $100. So it's not that the value is not there, but maybe this 5 yard customer turns into a 5000 yard customer. You know, we just always kinda, when the big customers aren't there, you know, all the little customers kinda make up into a big customer. We do bridal decorative goods, and we do apparel goods, and you know we sell to churches, and we sell to schools and, you know, like home sellers so when this industry isn't really doing much, and maybe that industry's down, then this industry is picking up so we like to do a little bit of everything. And other people are concentrated on their specialty item, but if that specialty item goes down the tube, your company is, you got to reinvent yourself, and fortunately, you know, we don't have to do that. We've gained a presence to where, you know, we don't, I came in and I was making calls, cold calling, calling people that my dad dealt with. I don't call anybody. Everybody calls us, which is fantastic, you know, so that helps us too. The other people in my industry they're, you know, if they're a wholesaler, they could be a broker, they don't own a lick of fabric. They sell everybody else's fabric, so sometimes I'll get from other wholesalers, I'll get five samples in and they're exactly the same. Everybody's the same ; they are selling off of one person's inventory and they're all just brokering the fabric and making you know five cents, ten cents, fifteen cents a yard. Our margins are greater, but we also have rent, we pay for the fabric, we have trucking, we have employees, we have insurance, you know, all the overhead that they don't have, so that's why our margins are larger but we still keep our prices extremely low compared to the market, for sure. SC: So, may I ask you, they used to talk about the benefits when we were in the industrial economy, you know the benefit of coming in... do you think this is the new world where you can sell on the Internet and that it is no longer beneficial as all your diverse patience and friendliness to make a smaller profit? MM: Um, you mean like-- GE: I think she means it gets the economy and scale through the Internet, that's how he gets much larger sales. MM: Yeah, so, yeah those people, the Internet brings all sizes, you know, but yeah it does help, you know, with the larger scales. You know it's just the e-commerce is has created such an opportunity just to touch everybody, you know, you really in this business you can only sell to who you can get to and who you can sit in front of and, you know, what you had to show them, which was a that was the way, that was a great way to do it, I guess, you know, everybody did then. And that's how a lot of, that's how some people still do it. I have people that joke in my warehouse who say 'hey I want to come in.' You know, they come in, they bring up suitcases, like four suitcases of all these different fabrics and start showing them to me: 'do you like this, you like this?' Personally I don't even like that. I don't even like when somebody's in front of me showing me 100 or 200 different fabrics that's just not, you know. One is typically, I don't buy a lot of stuff that way. Their prices are higher, depending on what they're repping. It works mostly upholstery people that are doing that type of traveling. I prefer just to kind of 'hey I need this, people, send me samples.' You know, it's just a lot easier that way. The website, you know, has brought us people that buy thousands of yards that helps. But we had one of our biggest customers and they slowed down this year to reconfigure some things, you know, it was Urban Outfitters, which is a big, you know, retailer. And my dad, you know, the only way to get into those companies is really somehow you just run into somebody. You meet somebody somehow and you get in and they want to use you, and as long as you make their life easy, you know, even if they could probably find the fabric a little bit cheaper, they'll use you. So they used us for many years, and they were a great customer for sure. And that was just kind of by association, that wasn't through the Internet and that can still happen, you know, you still can get those big sales without it, I just don't think it's as common or as easy. But to get those big ones, like an Urban or if you're going to do anybody else who, you know, say Levi's or anything like that, it would probably be a verbal 'I know this person, somebody.' Most likely people aren't going online trying to find fabric sources, so I would say. SC: So I guess what I was getting at: you could get in and out of the business much easier than well half the people. You have real estate and all that, and maybe I'm putting word in your mouth, do you think you could get in and out of the business, which is so much better in history, to be able to get in and out quickly and not to have-- MM: In and out to deal with the customer? SC: With everything. MM: Um-- GE: I think she's saying, moving because the way the business now has so much with the e-commerce, you're able to be much more nimble. SC: That's a great word nimble. GE: On both sides.. MM: Yeah, um, yeah I mean you definitely can be quick because, you know, a lot of the information is already out there so you can get to people quick, you can get to, you know, describe things quicker, you can show them things faster, yeah I mean it's... GE: And am I correct that one of your major competitive advantages is that you have a terrific site. It sounds like your competitors typically they don't have that. MM: Yeah so our site, I would say the advantage is the site. GE: Right. MM: There are things about the site, you know, there's all these different companies and I don't know anything from marketing on a website or the backend or how to create a website or anything like that. So you put all your eggs in a basket, and you hope that company does well for you. The company we use is very good at the behind the scenes, you know, where meaning for Internet savvy, it's organically searching, you know, it's people making us relative on the Internet world, you know, getting us out there so people see us in different spots. And they are very good at that. Designing a website you know maybe isn't their forte by any means, so that's the part that they're lacking, so we have to help but at the same time, you know, as my dad said, I get people that call me for recommendation for that company, and I say 'listen, they do things great, but it's still your company, so if you want to put everything in their hands and just say go do it, well they're only going to do so much. It's your company, you need to still work on it, you still need to give input, you need to come up with ideas, you need to stay on top of it if you want it to grow.' So we have to give them still ideas, but on the back end getting us out there, I mean they've done a fantastic job. There's something just recently that we started doing, well they started doing it for us, but we always talk and throw out ideas, is typically when you go on the Internet now and you search something, you know, whether you went to store to go buy something, you know, all of a sudden you're on your Facebook page and you see the ads come up. Well most likely that ad all the sudden you're like 'how is that ad there? I was on it on a different computer and now it somehow linked to my screen and now it's there.' Well I find that I go to Yahoo just as my open browser and the banner up top says Nick of Time Textiles you know on a Yahoo page. However, integrated that in to link to what your history is, is a great thing because I even talk to some customers who say 'whoever does this back end is great for you guys.' My wife was searching for this and she was on your fabric and then all of a sudden I was on my computer and it shows Nick of Time Textiles banner running up the side and you know the good thing is you just like to see people and trucks driving around with your name, you might not be looking for fabric at that point but all of a sudden you might be looking for it, six months later you might say 'wait, yeah is that Nick of Time,' or something like that. Type it in and it's easy to find. GE: So that does all of the search engine optimization. MM: Yeah, all of the optimization they do. They do a lot of our social media, they send out our different email programs where we can send email blasts about different specials were running, you know, we're are doing 20% off this weekend or we're giving $50 off the free shipping and we send it out to everybody, so all our customers, you know, every single day we have new customers, new people that call in, we get their contact information or email addresses, we add them to a list and we just send a mass list out. You know, it's just kind of an email blast, just like everyone gets some, like if you buy something at Nike, 'oh, we're having a sale this--' So basically we're kind of mirroring the same thing that bigger companies to do to kind of just keep our name out there. You know, some customers say 'take me off this list, if I need fabric, I will call you.' Other ones say, 'you know what? I hate when people send emails but I love getting your emails because it keeps me informed.' We send out emails when we get new fabrics and so people are aware of what's coming in, so you know it's helpful. Without them we would still be on ground zero, you know I would say. GE: So this is in regards to your customers. How about in regards to your suppliers? MM: So the suppliers: two things the website can help in ways because suppliers are also, they're obviously looking to sell. They don't want to sell to the people I want to sell to. They want to sell to people like me. So sometimes they'll go online and they'll find people. And they'll contact me and say 'hey,' you know, they'll call me up and say 'what do you, I see you sell this, this, and this, you know, we offer this. Let me send you some samples, let's talk about, you know.' And then we can start doing business that way. Another way that I guess would be a supplier of ours is actually our customers are also suppliers. In ways to where they do manufacturing, and we sell them a bunch fabric or maybe somebody sold them a bunch of fabric, and they have all this excess fabric and their lines over, they don't know what to do with it, and they go online say, 'I got to find somebody to sell this to.' So they go online and they find us, and I get emails all the time saying, 'hey, I am just curious, I found you online, do you guys buy fabric?' And obviously we buy fabric. We have to buy fabric to sell fabric. So we'll buy their leftover fabric. And that's how we're able to get, you know, they might've paid 5, 6, 7 dollars for it. They are creating their product, they have, you know, their margins set and all of their costs, but when they're done with it, that fabric is not worth 5, 6, 7 dollars, so they might sell it to us a dollar, fifty cents a yard and then we're just turning and selling it whether it's two dollars, three dollars, four dollars, depending on what type of fabric it is. And some people come to us and say, 'how are you selling this at this price?' Because they know what it costs to make. Well we're secondhand but then, you know, we're able to give it to, get it to people that can make the same type of products and have a better margin because they're getting in on the secondary market. So with the suppliers, you know, that's how they can use our website. But then we just have a separate list of all our suppliers and their emails. So people call me and say, you know, 'I wanted to--' We probably have over million yards of fabric right now. We have on the West Coast probably you know 40 different companies we can use that probably have millions and millions yards of fabric that we can sell off anytime we want and ship directly from them as if it's coming from us, so we're repping their line in a way but nobody knows about them. GE: So you're, in that case, you're not, you don't own it, you're a broker of it. MM: Yup, I'm a broker of it. But my, the way I detail it out is...cause there are some people that would just try to go around you as much as possible. And, you know, I've built those relationships so they cost me money in order to get to them. So basically I just stayed, you know, I have a storage facility in Los Angeles and, you know, we store some of our fabric that we import and I can ship it directly to you from there. And nobody questions. Typically nobody digs or anything like that. So with the suppliers we send..somebody calls me and says 'I need 500 yards of this.' I don't have it. The people I know out there don't have it. Maybe I deal with people in North Jersey too, they don't have it. We send it out to 4000 people on this email broadcast saying 'hey we're looking for 500 yards of white cotton, you know, twill, does anybody have it?' We get replies. People send us samples, I send it to the customer, they approve it and we broker it that way then. So that was a way that we grew our business because it gave us the ability to just supply people with larger amounts without having to spend the money on inventory of something that we didn't know was going to sell or not, which was nice. GE: So, um, so it sounds like, if I understand, over the past ten years that you've been actively in the business, from the beginning until now, it sounds like it has grown a lot. MM: Yeah, for sure. GE: And was that growing five times? Two times? MM: Probably, if sales wise, in sales it's gone, you know, if sales go up and down, it stays pretty consistent. Since I started, you know, at our highest point it grew 10 times and probably, you know, on an average, it's probably about seven times. So I mean it's tremendously, tremendous to where it was for sure. You know the great thing for that is definitely in the business we weren't, you know, fortunately for us were not like 'we got to pay x, we got to pay y.' You know, we're at a more financially stable place. That's not an issue, you know, at this point luckily for us, so, you know, we can buy fabric. We know, you know, 'hey, we don't know where these sales are coming from but, you know, on an average we're doing X amount, you know, every single week.' So as long as that's coming in and, you know, we're probably buying more fabric sometimes that we should but at the same time without new fabrics we can't keep new sales going selling old fabric you know we will sell it off at a lower price to gain, you know, more income bringing it in, more cash flow. But yeah, with the employees, and I have to hire somebody else in the warehouse now to help out, so yeah I mean it's gotten to a point, you know, my father always says, 'well you know this is your business, this is your business.' And he was always like that and, you know, a couple years ago we were like we're going to do 50%, and just gave me 50%. You know, it's not that maybe I didn't earn it, which I probably did, but at the same time it's his business. He doesn't owe me, you know, anything from it. So he gave me 50% of the company, but always in his mind he said 'I'll give you 100% if it made sense' but financially it made sense for him to be a 50 partner and for me to be 50. And, you know, it's just, he was always it's your business, it's your business, I just work for you. And he just wants it to grow and for me to be able to provide for me and my family to what it can be. You know, this business can be 10 times what we are now if we could do this and do this. And I say, 'yeah you know I understand that, you know, and that's nice and some people have this strived to you know have the biggest business they can possibly have, which I want to have a profitable business.' I want to have a good business, but I also want to have my family, my life. And I talked to older people in our business and all you know says, 'oh, you know, you're this or whatever.' Sometimes they're like, 'I couldn't get a hold of you last night.' And I was like 'yeah, you know, it was last night, call me during the day.' You know, my friends are like 'you're the only business owner that doesn't answer his phone after 6 o'clock.' I'm like what do you want, you know, I'm at home, I need to enjoy myself. I take vacation, and my dad thinks I take too much vacation. I tell him, you're living in the old times, you don't even realize how much vacation days people get nowadays out in the workforce. I don't even get that much and I'm a business owner. And he says you are a business owner so that's why you don't get that much because it's your business. But when I go away, I go away as much as possible. I try not to stay in contact with the business cause you need that time away, but what that helps, and it helps him, and I have seen him do this, is when you step away, you're not thinking about it. You're thinking about it a little in the back of your head, and you're kind of innovating a little bit, thinking of new ways to do things because you got to step away and you started thinking about it. GE: So Marc, where sales have gone up about seven times over the last ten years, how about, what about the profit, bottomline? Cause I realize you also hold a lot of more expenses and things and whatever. MM: Yeah I mean the expenses are a lot more compared to what they are but I mean... GE: Right, but that's commensurate with the sales. MM: Yeah, I mean, most businesses are going to be like that. I mean I would love to have a business model that my business sales grew seven times and my expenses stayed the same. I mean that would be fantastic. You know, for our business that's not the case and, you know, I would say well when I was younger I would say I wouldn't need as much money, you know, to live. And having a family now, fortunately, you know, my wife doesn't have to work. You know, she's at home. She does work part time, you know, once she is back from having the baby, and that's kinda just for her presence of mind. So, you know, financially bottom line, you know, it could be, it could be three times, you know, maybe. Maybe up to four, I don't know hundred percent on the mark but just because of the added expenses of everything else that goes up, it does mean more profit, but we sink a lot of our profit back into the business because, you know, I do do investments in retirement stuff but my dollar, you know, in my business can make me, you know, say that dollar can make me 400%. Well go show me something in the market that's going to make me 400%. It doesn't exist. So, you know, if I took into account everything that we made, yes, you know, it would probably be a lot more than that but everything we have to put back into the business on a daily, you know, business day takes away from that. But at the end, you know, we had at one time we might have had you know 150,000 yards of fabric, and then we might have had 300,000 yards. And we had one of the ladies just doing inventory just real quick nothing exact just goes through all of our headers and I told my dad what I thought we had and he came back and he's like 'we have over 1 million yards' and I said 'yeah, I know.' You know, so that helps our business value and gives us, you know, everything's paid for. We buy stuff, we paid it off within 30 to 60 days, so basically everything that's in there, we own, which is a great thing because if say we hit a hard time and we're like 'okay we can't buy any more fabric.' Well I have 1 million yards of fabric to sell so if I can just bite the bullet for three months and I wouldn't have $80,000 in bills, well, after three months I would have a nice you know bank account to go start buying again and start the business up and it wouldn't take that long, which is good. GE: So I'm curious, years ago for most of the older people that we have interviewed, there was a dominance, there was a pretty large presence of Jewish people in the business. A lot of Italians, a lot of other people, but certainly, given how small the population is, there had to be a large percentage of Jewish people. Is that because, I don't know, we have not interviewed a lot of people who currently have a business, is that still the case? MM: Yeah, uh, 99%. GE: Ok, wow. MM: You know, where did that come from-- GE: I was going to ask you, what do you think might be any reasons for that? MM: Uh, I don't know, I think, you know, I just I think it was something from back in the day, you know, over whether it was in Israel or Iran, you know cause there are a lot of Iranian Jews, you know, that have come over that were in the fabric industry. I think there was a big fabric hub, you know, back in the day like over there and when everyone came, everybody, you know, migrated over here it kind of followed them and that was what they knew, you know, so you tend to have into whether it was the Jewish over here or Irish over here or you know Italians over here. Everybody for certain, it might have started in other industries, starting to diverse itself, for some reason in this industry it's not and I don't know why. Everybody I deal with is Jewish basically. I don't think there's one, there might be maybe one or two people, you know, that I buy fabric from that are not Jewish by any means. GE: Interesting. MM: Yeah I think it's just it just was part of the culture. And I think people stuck to it. It's what, you know, what they knew and that's what they did. So it is interesting when you hear that, but it's definitely an industry that there's, the only way you're getting in this industry most likely is through your family. Nobody I don't even know if there's a course for college, you know, that's called fabric wholesaler, you know, where you can learn to sell fabric. There is manufacturing, you know, sewing, you know, getting into that, running your business, being a designer. There's a lot of that, fashion institutions, stuff of that sort. But everybody I know that's in it and that's younger that it's just through family, and I like just, it keeps, it's like a revolving door. I think that's why. SC: So I have two just sort of thought questions that I'd like to ask you. What has made you feel the most creative in your life? MM: Um, the most creative, um, hm, I mean I, you know, probably my parents. You know just, you know, the openness of letting me do things, you know, and then in business with my father, you know, letting me take control as a young person. Being, you know, getting ideas and seeing them and then learning and being able to open up and kind of venture into my own things, you know, they never, they never pushed me and said 'you need to go to this.' You know, I got tons of friends and families say, 'well you need to go to nursing school, or you need to do this.' You know, I was never pushed in any direction, but I was backed a hundred percent no matter where I went, so that's what I would say. SC: And what do you value most in life? MM: Um, it would, I mean, there's a, you know, family obviously is very important, you know, and I think a lot of people would say that off the bat. You know, I definitely value that, you know, especially now that I'm having two kids. You know, it's I think I also whether it's not just, you know, the family, it's your surroundings and everybody. Doing the right thing, you know, being good to people that you don't even know. You know, I find it comforting, you know, something simple as, you know, I'm walking into Wegmans and, you know, somebody that, say somebody is in the handicap spot, they just unloaded their carts and they are looking around, it's like just say, 'hey, I'll take your cart for you, I'll put it up.' I value that type of stuff. Those type of people that their faces isn't just forward, you know, looking at their day, they're looking at their surroundings, you know, looking to help others, you know, if they can, you know, as much as possible, you know, I value, you know, so it's that. It's family, it's that, and, you know, I value experiences, you know, in life whether it's traveling to different areas or meeting new people, you know, listening you know to other people, to hear about how things were and then, you know, being able to relate that to my life and move forward. So, you know, I would say those things are pretty important, yeah. And then, you know, obviously like I said, family is, I was raised that family is number one, you know, sometimes too much, you know, sometimes it's too much push, but, you know, as I said, you know, before it's like you don't know until, you know, you're in your 20s. You don't know until you get married, you don't know until you have kids. And now, it's the same thing when my parents say well you don't know until you have grandkids, you know, because I'm like well you don't, we need to do this with them, and they're like when you have a grandkid you'll see. You don't care what parents say, you do what you want to do and that's that. You know so it's that's why it always comes back to family and, you know, value and learning, and, you know, being able to experience things together, I would say. VIDEO ENDS HERE GE: So Marc is going to give us a little guided tour of the Nick of Time Textiles website. MM: Yeah, so we just actually, this is a new format that we have that basically we just changed probably a month ago. It's probably like our fourth or fifth change. Basically what we implemented two changes ago was something called a heat map, so when somebody comes to the website, they are able to track each user every time somebody signs on and they can track where their mouse goes, where they scroll to, what they look at. And what that enables us to do is to see what's commonly clicked on, where do people go, so then we can bring that stuff up to the top so they can see it right away once they sign on. Move some stuff down below, change wordings. You know, put different, maybe they're looking for our contact information, we always had it up here, but we also had a lot of other stuff up here. It could have been too much, maybe they were missing it, maybe they were looking for it somewhere else. So basically, you know, we change where, you know, the coupon is, you know, we wanted to put it up top easily visible. When we run more than one coupon, this just slides over. We have a couple different ones, so people can always see what they're doing. You know, dealing with now, you know, with the Internet and social media, you know, we have, you know, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Twitter, Pinterest, and then you know the Google Plus for keywords and ad-words. So basically it kind of just gives you the availability to browse our website pretty easily. As you go down, it tells you, you know, the stuff that's maybe the most popular, stuff whether that we sell a lot of or we have a lot to offer to customers. So we always have the main categories, two fabric categories that are split up between the knitted and the woven, those are the main categories in the industry and everything kind of falls under one or another and then we just pick out the ones that we sell the most of that people come to our website for the most common things, I would say. So we also, up here, we have a search engine. It's tough to get a really good search engine, but mainly we use this whether for style numbers that we have our fabrics and go right to them or, you know, if I just type in, you know, you type in the style number and then you want to find it real quick, you know, you just hit go and it just pops up everything that comes under that style number. And then, you know, this is kind of the generic way to look at it, doesn't give you all the information until you click on one of those, but if you go under knitted, this is like all the different categories that we'll have that's all broken down, shows you some fabric that might be included in there that you can, you know, look at and sell. It gives you a preview. And then once you click, it could be subcategories as well, so you don't lose, if you are looking for solids you don't have to go through all of the stripes to get the solids. And then once you get to it, it will kind of give you the prices, breakdowns, style numbers. You can order free samples on the website. You can just add it right to your cart, and you can just continue shopping to add more. If you go into it specifically, it will give you descriptions, it will tell you if it's in stock, if there are any customer reviews on a product that will tell you 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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Marc Malkovsky, June 1, 2017
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Marc Malkovsky talks about helping his dad cut samples in the basement for the business while Marc was still in high school. A few years after college, Marc joined his father in the business. Together, they embraced the Internet and incrementally built an e-commerce site for the business. Nick of Time is a current, thriving Allentown business.
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LVTNT-20
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2017-06-01
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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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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Robert Levine
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-28.xml
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5.4 June 1, 2017 Robert Levine, June 1, 2017 LVTNT-28 52:00 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Robert Levine Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 LevineRobert_20170601 1.0:|23(4)|42(14)|67(7)|86(9)|109(11)|136(8)|161(13)|192(2)|219(6)|238(15)|263(4)|286(15)|313(11)|340(4)|365(8)|390(5)|409(4)|436(3)|455(15)|474(16)|495(16)|516(2)|539(9)|560(10)|587(7)|616(11)|643(5)|662(5)|679(12)|700(16)|725(15)|750(12)|771(11)|796(9)|821(6)|846(12)|873(12)|898(13)|929(14)|958(7)|991(13)|1020(7)|1043(14)|1068(12)|1087(13)|1112(10)|1137(2)|1158(8)|1185(9)|1220(9)|1241(13)|1270(6) 0 https://youtu.be/H-BXrwfr-xg YouTube video 0 Introduction—Robert Levine's Education SC: Today is June 1, 2017, interview with Robert Levine, and am I pronouncing that correctly? So I'd like to go first to have you put yourself into place, and say your full name, where you were born, when you were born, and also some things about where you’ve lived in your life, you know, if you’ve lived at different places.
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 ; RL: Full name is Robert Kerry Levine. Born and raised in Allentown. Attended the Jewish day school in Allentown. I believe one of the first graduating classes from there. From there, I guess I went to Raub Junior High School, went to Allen High School for a year. Then my parents sent me off to Perkiomen Prep which I did three years there. And then down to Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, to get my degree-- four year degree. 0 69 Levine's Father & ; the Textile Waste Business SC: And also, can you talk a little bit more about any memories you have as a child growing up and what got you into the business? 
 ; 
 ; RL: Memories were that my father always worked, and I think from the time I could walk, I probably went to the - as we called it the shop or the warehouse - to help, to get in somebody's way when we were younger. And eventually, every summer, every vacation I did work for my father.
 ; 
 ; SC: And was he in exactly the same businesses as what you then were in?
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 ; RL: Well, they actually had an unusual business, or unique business, that their father who was born in and married in Russia came over here and had six children. The oldest being Verna, then four brothers, and then the youngest being Rose, who was actually still alive today ; she's 97. Their father went around town with a cart - I guess in that time that’s what they had - to collect used metal. 0 389 Family History SC: [C]an you talk a little bit more about your parents’ background, a little bit more context of your mother's family and father’s family.
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 ; RL: And I think a unique part about my father’s and mother's family is my father, like I said, had three other sibling boys who were all in the business. Each one of them had a different part of the business: one was in the office, two were in the textile waste, one was in the fabric part of it. Two of the brothers, the oldest two married a set of sisters. My father and his brother, who was just as old, a little older than him, married a different set of sisters. So again, it’s sort of unique that growing up we were very very close. My father's background, and I think the brother’s background, they just worked hard and learned from doing whatever they did because they had no college education. High school education was the most they had.
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 ; SC: That was good though.
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 ; RL: I think that you know from work, hard work, working hard. Just being there and doing it. 0 755 Schmattas—Yiddish for "Rag Business" SC: And it’s interesting that your family went from metal, metal scraps to fabric scraps. Would that all be considered schmatta?
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 ; RL: Schmattas? 
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 ; SC: Yeah. I have a terrible Trenton accent, I’m sorry.
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 ; RL: I don’t know if the metals would be called schmattas, but the rags are schmattas.
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 ; SC: Yes, okay, I didn’t know. So it would've been scraps but it's still some of the same skills, maybe? Or…
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 ; RL: It’s picking up stuff that nobody can use or wants.
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 ; SC: You can see value. 0 800 Competition Within the Textile Waste Businesses SC: So do you, do you think that the Jewish community was cohesive when you were young and when your parents were young?
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 ; RL: I think they were, yes. I mean in the textile waste part there were three families involved in the business. Each one of them worked very hard to get their accounts, and it was almost like cut-throat. That if one would pay a nickel a pound, the other one would come in and say seven cents a pound. And really the only one that was benefiting from it was the customer that they were buying it from. And that really went on for as long as I can remember. Once the children got involved, my generation, I know of a family is probably little younger than I am, he would call me and say ‘listen why don’t one week you guys pick the scrap up, the next week we pick the scraps, and let’s buy it cheap.’ Our fathers didn’t, both sides of the fathers didn’t want to have anything to do with it. 0 883 Relationship to Non-Jewish Communities SC: And how about the relationship between the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community. A lot of people we actually interviewed a couple generations, and you would hear, you’re young and…
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 ; RL: It doesn't matter who you are, or what you believe in. I wouldn’t say that about my father or my father-in-law, you know, that’s something different. I think my father-in-law has changed, that he realizes that this is what it is. 0 931 Personal Connections to the Jewish Community GE: [D]o you want to share with us any memories you have of the local Jewish community growing up? Or, what were the prominent institutions? Was your family active in any thing?
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 ; RL: Well, like I said, I went to a Jewish Day School, and I was in one of the first graduating classes. My parents belonged to Congregation Sons of Israel which is the Orthodox synagogue in the town. I was bar mitzvahed at 6th Street which was the old Congregation Sons of Israel. By the time I got married we still belonged to Congregation Sons of Israel. The sad part is they told me my dues were based on who my father was. I said ‘my father doesn't pay my dues.’ And, again, I don’t know if this should be talked about, but. And I said ‘no, I pay my own dues. It's my value.’ And growing up with, and then having some young kids, we weren't sending them to a Jewish day school. So we needed somewhere for them to go to Hebrew school. And at that point, we joined Temple Beth El. 0 1041 History of the Family Businesses GE: [T]ell us a little bit about the businesses. How your . . . .sounds like your grandfather, but especially your father and his brothers really, what was, how did it start? How did it grow? It sounds like it eventually became these four businesses they operated. Which parts of the business, what happened for the next generation?
 ; 
 ; RL: My grandfather had the pushcart and for some reason, he got some fabrics. And at that point, I don't know how much fabric it was but I guess my father and his brothers thought that this would be a good thing, rather than the fruit stand and the fresh fish. So they all worked together on Second Street. Mostly with the textile waste part, and then they grew into full rolls of fabric. Either they were extra from the manufacturers that they weren’t using to make their garments, or from the contractors there was often extra. I think at one point, the manufacturers who had contractors making their fabric would send in thousands of yards, maybe they only needed 500 yards. And it would get lost in the shuffle. And at that point, my father’s business, they bought the fabric. So they started with the textile waste part and the full rolls of fabric, excess fabric, over cuts, or whatever you want to call it. 0 1253 1986: Consolidating the Businesses RL: And then at one point, and it may have been 1986, we put all the businesses in one building. My father and his brother Ben ran the textile waste part of it. His brother Irving ran the fabric part of it. All the fabric whether it was for the retail stores or for the manufacturers. And his oldest brother, Morris, was more the financial guy, but also in the ‘craft and notions’ part of the business. Each one of the brothers had one son. Morris’ son, who was an excellent carpenter, came into the business, and none of us worked under our fathers. We all worked under uncles. That’s what, that’s what they wanted.
 ; 
 ; Arthur was involved in the wiper part of the business in the textile waste part. My cousin Jeffrey, who was Irving’s son, I have to rephrase, he was the only one who worked under his father. He didn't really want to work, he didn’t really like the work. He did not last long. He moved out to California or Arizona somewhere. Ira worked under Irving, which is the second oldest brother in the textile part of it, and I worked under Morris, who was in the financial part and the ‘crafts and notions’ part. And everything was great, and then you bring everybody... and everybody did their own little thing. 0 1452 1996: Closing the Family Business GE: [H]ow were the four businesses doing? Were they all still…
 ; 
 ; RL: Successful.
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay.
 ; 
 ; RL: And then we also had all of the retail stores, which my mother's brother ran all the retail stores. At one point his office was in one store, and then he moved into the warehouse with us. So that's how the business was running. And then at one point, we decided that we didn’t want it, it wasn’t right for us, the times weren’t right, and we literally closed everything down. We sold out of the retail stores, and just closed them. And we closed the wholesale operation. 
 ; 
 ; GE: And that was about when?
 ; 
 ; RL: I want to say 1996.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, so by 1996, the retail was closed and the wholesale was closed?
 ; 
 ; RL: Everything was closed. 0 1631 Life After the Business—Husband & ; Wife Businesses GE: [W]ant to share with us a little bit what you have done since?
 ; 
 ; RL: Since then, we have the building, which we rent out. It’s about a 130,000 square-foot warehouse. I happen to own 60% of it because I had 20%, I got my father's 20%, and I got my one cousin’s, who lives in Florida.I bought his 20%. Ira in a sense had 20%, and his parents may have still been living, they had 20%. They both passed. They gave 10% of their share to their daughter, who had passed to her kids, and they gave 10% to Ira. So in a sense, Ira’s sister’s children, the three of them own 10%, Ira owns 30% of the building, and I own 60%.
 ; 
 ; And, I guess I got married in ‘75, so we started making clothing, my wife and I. We had our own contracting facility that we actually made our own. First we had other people making it, then we started making it ourselves, and then we made garments for other people. Most of it was garment dyed. We had someone making sweaters for us, and everything would get dyed together. And we were selling to J Jill, Black-and-White, and a lot of boutique-type stores. 0 2016 Memories of the Business GE: Do you have any fond memories about the business that you want to share with us, any kind of anecdotes working, either working with your dad and uncles, or the time it was the cousins. Any particular stories that you want to share?
 ; 
 ; RL: Well, it was unique that my father and his brothers could scream . . . if they had a huge argument, two seconds later, it was forgotten. When you get cousins involved and uncles involved, it doesn't happen like that. So I think that was, you know, you sort of get used to that. Memories I had was that every time I had a vacation, if it was from high school, if it was from college, I’d come and work in the business. And I tried to learn every part of the business, and I expected if I wanted, I would sweep floors. If I wanted my employees to sweep floors, they can’t say well you never did it. 0 2110 Profits and Products GE: [I]t may be interesting to hear of total sales and perhaps separately total profits. What percent was the retail, was the waste, was the fabric? Any, any…
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 ; RL: That’s a business question, I could tell.
 ; 
 ; GE: Yeah, but any feel for that? Which one was particularly small, large? In terms of sales and in terms of profits.
 ; 
 ; RL: I don’t know what percentages, but I would think the fabric to the manufacturers was probably the largest percentage. Under that was the sales to retail stores, and then our stores, our retail stores, and the textile waste. And probably the reason for that is because when you're selling a tractor trailer load of fabric, the dollar amount was a lot more than when we are selling a tractor trailer load of scrap. 0 2309 Impact of the Textile and Needle-Trade Industries on the Lehigh Valley GE: Right, what impact do you think it's had on the Lehigh Valley on the general community and what impact do you think it had on the Jewish community? If anything.
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 ; RL: I don’t know, well I think...I don’t know if it’s really had an impact except maybe for prosperity or you know that's what I was doing. Now even when we closed our business, I was devastated so what am I going to give my kids, I have nothing to give my kids. And again that’s probably a Jewish thing. Maybe not, but what do I give my kids, I have nothing to give them. So I was very upset about that part. And I remember talking to the cantor and he said, no-- it was actually the rabbi, and he said, ‘don’t worry about it ; they’ll find their own.’ 0 2359 Rosey's Creations RL: I was a contractor making flags also for a company that now had moved to Florida, excuse me to South Carolina. And they would give me the rolls of fabric, which were flags, I would take them to a contractor, and they would cut the flag out and sew it. We also did tablecloths for department stores if it was for a certain cosmetic company. We did NASCAR flags, we did the US flag, all kinds of different things. 
 ; 
 ; GE: At that point was that part of the Levine business or was that was part of yours and your wife’s..
 ; 
 ; RL: No, that was a part of my own.
 ; 
 ; GE: Right, okay, your own business. What was that business called? 
 ; 
 ; RL: Well I kept it under Rosey’s Creations, which was my, our fabric part of the business. 0 2410 My Boy's Baking RL: Just, you didn’t ask about My Boy’s Baking. My wife and I have three children, grown, and actually three grandchildren, which is better than having the children, but don’t record that. Your thoughts also?
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 ; GE: No, I don’t have them yet.
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 ; RL: Oh, it’s the best,
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 ; GE: I look forward to it.
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 ; RL: But, when my daughter was young, she used to say, ‘where are my boys?’ So we really didn’t want to call it biscotti, we didn’t want to give it . . . because what do we do if we start making cookies? So that's how we got the name My Boy’s Baking from. Actually, my daughter . . . because people would go to her and say aren’t you upset that it’s called “My Boy’s..” and she would say no because that’s what I called them. 0 2464 Reflecting on Jewish and Italian Involvement in the Textile and Needle-Trade Industries GE: Why do you think the Jewish community was dominant in that industry?
 ; 
 ; RL: Probably because once someone was doing it and another Jewish person said, ‘oh, maybe I should do it.’ No, I really don’t know because there are a lot of Italians in it too. 
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 ; GE: Right.
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 ; RL: But Italians and the Jewish people are sort of similar.
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 ; GE: Right, right.
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 ; RL: And they all got, we all got along.
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 ; GE: Right, right, any thoughts as to why those two groups?
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 ; RL: Get along?
 ; 
 ; GE: Or were in that industry? What about that industry made it attractive?
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 ; RL: I really don’t know. I mean just maybe for the enjoyment of it. It could be enjoyment. 0 2588 Levine's Children and Grandchildren RL: My oldest son, Joshua, is married and has two sons. He works for Stephen Starr Restaurants. They have about 47 restaurants, each one of them . . . mainly out of Philadelphia. Each one pretty much has a different theme. They've opened in Florida, they’ve opened in Washington DC, and they’ve opened in New York. Actually Stephen Starr just won the James Beard Award, which is like a nationwide or worldwide top honor. One of his restaurants in New York, Le Coucou, a French restaurant, just also won the James Beard for the best restaurant. Le Coucou was voted the best restaurant in New York. My son Joshua runs all forty-seven restaurants ; from opening them, helping to open, to buying the supplies for the restaurants. And actually he started out, our family was very ice hockey oriented, so he went to school in Colorado, University of Colorado, and he was a ref for the semi-pros out on the West Coast. 0 2884 South Clemson Versus Philadelphia Textile SC: Is there a reason why you went down South to Clemson, only because there were…
 ; 
 ; RL: Philadelphia Textile was the number one school. I did not get in on my own. I was probably not a very good student, and my father said, ‘we must know somebody.’ And I said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to do that.’ Clemson was the second best for textiles, so that’s why I went down to Clemson, it was farther away from Allentown.
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 ; SC: And were there any, when you were there, was that still an emerging textile area?
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 ; RL: Clemson?
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 ; SC: Out in the…
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 ; RL: Clemson area? Yes.
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 ; SC: That’s what I was wondering, method to madness.
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 ; RL: I mean talk about 1972, yeah it was still big. 0 2994 Levine's Values SC: So what do you value most in life?
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 ; RL: My family. And you know, kids, my wife. Well let’s do my grandchildren, my kids, and my wife...don’t quote me. Family is very important to us. Even today, my daughter must call my wife 10, 15, 20 times a day. And it’s just to talk. My wife lost her sister from cancer probably 20 years ago, so it's, and this is good for her to have my daughter very close. Every morning, I text her and say good morning. So family is very important and that’s why both my boys moved back from Florida and California because you know it’s family, it's all about family. 0 3082 Levine's Inspiration SC: And what has made you feel the most creative in your life? 
 ; 
 ; RL: My wife. I mean you know it’s, how creative am I? I don't really know, you know, it's my wife who is really doing the creative part. And I’ve just followed that in the financial part and worked it. Is that a good answer?
 ; 
 ; SC: Yeah, it's a good meeting… 
 ; 
 ; RL: Really?
 ; 
 ; SC: It’s a good match. 0 MovingImage Robert Levine (three generations in Allentown) talks about how S. Levine & ; Sons business was started by his grandfather, a peddler in scrap metal originally and later in textile scrap. Robert’s father and his father’s three brothers entered the business in the mid 1940s and grew it substantially. During its heyday, the Levine business included textile waste, fabric wholesaling, fabric retailing, and purveyor of crafts and notions to fabric and retail stores. By the 1980s, the older generation had either passed away or retired and the Levine business was now run by the next generation, Robert and his cousin Ira. By 1996, between industry decline due to globalization and free-trade and conflicting ideas of how to run the business, the cousins sold off part of the business and closed the other parts of the business. Interview with Robert Levine, June 1, 2017 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 1, 2017, interview with Robert Levine, and am I pronouncing that correctly? So I'd like to go first to have you put yourself into place, and say your full name, where you were born, when you were born, and also some things about where you've lived in your life, you know, if you've lived at different places. ROBERT LEVINE: Full name is Robert Kerry Levine. Born and raised in Allentown. Attended the Jewish day school in Allentown. I believe one of the first graduating classes from there. From there, I guess I went to Raub Junior High School, went to Allen High School for a year. Then my parents sent me off to Perkiomen Prep which I did three years there. And then down to Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, to get my degree-- four year degree. SC: And also, can you talk a little bit more about any memories you have as a child growing up and what got you into the business? RL: Memories were that my father always worked, and I think from the time I could walk, I probably went to the - as we called it the shop or the warehouse - to help, to get in somebody's way when we were younger. And eventually, every summer, every vacation I did work for my father. SC: And was he in exactly the same businesses as what you then were in? RL: Well, they actually had an unusual business, or unique business, that their father who was born in and married in Russia came over here and had six children. The oldest being Verna, then four brothers, and then the youngest being Rose, who was actually still alive today ; she's 97. Their father went around town with a cart - I guess in that time that's what they had - to collect used metal. The brothers, I believe, were in the fruit business, and they also grew into [selling] fresh fish. Something like they went to the Army, came back, and I think they still. . . I don't know if it was before the Army or after the Army, they still had that business. And then their father somehow started collecting pieces of fabric. So from there they got into the fabric business. They had a warehouse, the first one was actually on Second Street, near Second and Tilghman. And the story I've been told is that they put their father in the corner, let him play with some fabrics and sort them and from that they got involved in the textile waste part of the business. From the textile waste part of the business, they had from some of the manufacturers . . . . Textile waste, for those that don't know, it's when you make out a pattern, the part you scrap that's what they collected. From there they got rolls of fabric that were extra or the manufacturer's contractor sold it. They grew that into selling rolls of fabric to different retail stores, I believe, and to manufacturers who needed the fabric. From there they grew into the textile waste part and the full rolls of fabric. From there they grew into retail stores. With the retail stores, at one point we probably had over 20 retail stores. Some being, one being in the Hess department store downtown. Some being in Fox Food Basket, which was a grocery chain at that time, and freestanding ones. And then you had warehouses throughout the metro, throughout the Allentown area. That one was for the textile waste, one was for the fabrics, from which they sold to the manufacturers at that point. They also got involved with converting your own fabric, meaning when velour was big, they would go to a firm called Fair-Tex, which is a local firm. They would make the fabric for them, and then my father and his brothers, me and my cousins would sell it. In another warehouse, they had fabrics that were sold to retail stores, and also crafts and notions that were sold to retail stores. So in essence it was really four different parts of the business. One being the textile waste, one selling the full rolls of fabric to manufacturers-- for some of them the fabric was newly made, some was overrun, some was excess fabric. Another part [of the business] was the crafts and notions in fabric and retail stores, then the retail stores and the fabric. SC: May I just ask where the different fabric stores were. I remember Levine's in between Ewing and Princeton when I was a kid. Was that your family? RL: Ewing, Princeton, New Jersey? We actually had one in Woodbury, New Jersey and one in Williamstown, New Jersey, so I don't know if that's where you're talking about? SC: No, but I know that I've been to Levine's. RL: Their first one was actually on Ridge Avenue. Actually, no, the first one was on Tilghman Street, in a little, now I think it's a house or something, they converted it to. Then they went to Ridge Avenue. From there they went to Seventh Street. We had them in Colmar, Pennsylvania and probably could remember some of the others. SC: Landsdale, maybe? RL: Well Landsdale and Colmar are the same thing. SC: Yes, yes. So as far as your background, can you talk a little bit more about your parents' background, a little bit more context of your mother's family and father's family. RL: And I think a unique part about my father's and mother's family is my father, like I said, had three other sibling boys who were all in the business. Each one of them had a different part of the business: one was in the office, two were in the textile waste, one was in the fabric part of it. Two of the brothers, the oldest two married a set of sisters. My father and his brother, who was just as old, a little older than him, married a different set of sisters. So again, it's sort of unique that growing up we were very very close. My father's background, and I think the brother's background, they just worked hard and learned from doing whatever they did because they had no college education. High school education was the most they had. SC: That was good though. RL: I think that you know from work, hard work, working hard. Just being there and doing it. SC: Where . . . was everyone from this area, did they all finally settle in this area? Once they . . . before they were married? RL: The four brothers were, yes. SC: And the women? RL: I know about my mother and her sister. They're from here. I'm pretty sure the other two sisters were also from Fountain Hill, Bethlehem, somewhere in this area. Because my father's oldest brother, Morris, I believe he worked at a factory in Northampton. I don't remember the name of it. I don't know if you guys interviewed-- SC: ...different people, we did. RL: Not Kivert, who's-- GAIL EISENBERG: That's who we did. RL: I think that's where he may have ended up. That's...I think so, I'm not 100% sure, though. SC: So do you know anything about the rest of your family, where they came from, did they all come originally from Russia? Or-- RL: My...and my grandfather Sam, whom the company is named after: S. Levine and Sons, with the Sons being his sons. He was from Russia ; his wife was from Russia or my grandma was from Russia. They were married there and then they came here to the states. My mother's side of the family, I really don't know. And the only reason that I know my father's side is because after I spoke to Gail, I figured, I better find out where my father's family is from. So I made a phone call to my father's only living sibling, Rose, who is 97. And we FaceTimed, and she looks exactly like I saw her and remember her. SC: Do you know anything more about, like the maiden names of your family going back-- of the women? RL: Baringoldz is my mother's maiden name. And actually, B-A-R-I-N-G-O-L-D-Z. Actually, she, her brother, there were three sisters and a boy in that family. One of them was actually a Fock, who married a Fock. And then my aunt and my mother married my father and his brother. And Leon Baringoldz, he actually, had a fabric store of his own on Seventh Street. Then he closed that and came to run all of our fabric stores. He was from Allentown. I don't know my grandma's maiden name. SC: Cause sometimes people coming are looking for family members, or distant family members, so it's nice if they can connect with the other people. RL: Yeah, that's what I know. SC: And, so also was the entire family Jewish? RL: Yes. SC: And then other ones, we haven't done this for a little while-- RL: That's ok. GE: Quick question, when were you born? RL: 1950. GE: And then, what brought your grandfather to Allentown? How did he come to Allentown? RL: I have no idea. You know, I could ask my, if I could call you back, I could ask my aunt who's-- GE: Right, right, I'm just curious, it's not public. RL: I know, I don't know, were there a bunch of families that came, fabric families that came to Allentown? SC: Yeah, going through often, through Brooklyn. GE: Someone either brought them or they started out in Brooklyn. RL: So just a note of, personally, my father was in what they called new rags. It was never used, it was new fabrics or new scraps. Whereas my father-in-law was in used clothing in Scranton. My wife and I met at the textile, a rag convention, a wiper convention in Paradise Island. So that's how, that's what brought us together. SC: And the connections, too. RL: Well they sort of knew each other but they really didn't, and they may have said hello or whatever. But then after my wife and I got engaged, all the other families wanted to bring their kids in too, and said 'hey, maybe I can get my kid involved in the textile business.' SC: And it's interesting that your family went from metal, metal scraps to fabric scraps. Would that all be considered schmatta? RL: Schmattas? SC: Yeah. I have a terrible Trenton accent, I'm sorry. RL: I don't know if the metals would be called schmattas, but the rags are schmattas. SC: Yes, okay, I didn't know. So it would've been scraps but it's still some of the same skills, maybe? Or-- RL: It's picking up stuff that nobody can use or wants. SC: You can see value. RL: Well, everything had a value. Someone's scrap was someone else's value. SC: So do you, do you think that the Jewish community was cohesive when you were young and when your parents were young? RL: I think they were, yes. I mean in the textile waste part there were three families involved in the business. Each one of them worked very hard to get their accounts, and it was almost like cut-throat. That if one would pay a nickel a pound, the other one would come in and say seven cents a pound. And really the only one that was benefiting from it was the customer that they were buying it from. And that really went on for as long as I can remember. Once the children got involved, my generation, I know of a family is probably little younger than I am, he would call me and say 'listen why don't one week you guys pick the scrap up, the next week we pick the scraps, and let's buy it cheap.' Our fathers didn't, both sides of the fathers didn't want to have anything to do with it. And I guess it was, you know, their ego. You know, they started from nothing, and it was their account, and it was the way that that generation worked because they worked hard at it, and sweated it, and worked seven days a week to get their accounts. SC: And how about the relationship between the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community. A lot of people we actually interviewed a couple generations, and you would hear, you're young and-- RL: It doesn't matter who you are, or what you believe in. I wouldn't say that about my father or my father-in-law, you know, that's something different. I think my father-in-law has changed, that he realizes that this is what it is. SC: So I think that's it unless you have any more questions about getting into the business? GE: Right, right, well I'll ask you something, but in regards to this, do you want to share with us any memories you have of the local Jewish community growing up? Or, what were the prominent institutions? Was your family active in any thing? RL: Well, like I said, I went to a Jewish Day School, and I was in one of the first graduating classes. My parents belonged to Congregation Sons of Israel which is the Orthodox synagogue in the town. I was bar mitzvahed at 6th Street which was the old Congregation Sons of Israel. By the time I got married we still belonged to Congregation Sons of Israel. The sad part is they told me my dues were based on who my father was. I said 'my father doesn't pay my dues.' And, again, I don't know if this should be talked about, but. And I said 'no, I pay my own dues. It's my value.' And growing up with, and then having some young kids, we weren't sending them to a Jewish day school. So we needed somewhere for them to go to Hebrew school. And at that point, we joined Temple Beth El. GE: And were you or was your family particularly active members? RL: I don't think that they were very active, no, in neither the Sons of Israel or anything else. GE: So I'm going to take this, and I'm going to ask you, you already did. . . you already went into it, but I think I'm going to ask you again, maybe take a step back-- RL: Did I speak too early? Did I say too much? GE: No, not at all, this is your story. But, for you to maybe take a step back and and just maybe a little more slowly, right, tell us a little bit about the businesses. How your . . . .sounds like your grandfather, but especially your father and his brothers really, what was, how did it start? How did it grow? It sounds like it eventually became these four businesses they operated. Which parts of the business, what happened for the next generation? RL: My grandfather had the pushcart and for some reason, he got some fabrics. And at that point, I don't know how much fabric it was but I guess my father and his brothers thought that this would be a good thing, rather than the fruit stand and the fresh fish. So they all worked together on Second Street. Mostly with the textile waste part, and then they grew into full rolls of fabric. Either they were extra from the manufacturers that they weren't using to make their garments, or from the contractors there was often extra. I think at one point, the manufacturers who had contractors making their fabric would send in thousands of yards, maybe they only needed 500 yards. And it would get lost in the shuffle. And at that point, my father's business, they bought the fabric. So they started with the textile waste part and the full rolls of fabric, excess fabric, over cuts, or whatever you want to call it. Then from Second Street, they moved to a couple other warehouses, one being in Catasauqua, which was just wipers. What wipers are, it's a bigger piece of fabric, bigger than your hand that someone can use for cleaning, the government used it, and for whatever else they could use it. The textile waste part was in Catasauqua, and there they sorted the different types of fabric out. They would try to teach the contractors and manufacturers when they were cutting something, their patterns, if they were cutting cotton, only put cotton in the burlap bag that our business would pick up. If there were cutting polyester, only polyester [in a bag]. If they were cutting only burgundy polyester, keep that in one bag. And it was more valuable at that point, whites were more valuable. The polyester scraps, a lot of that got sent to, I guess converters or someone who would break apart the fabric, and now they would already have a yarn dyed thread. So it was one less step that they would have to do. Some of it was made into the roofs of cars. A lot of it was made into paper and sometimes, I don't know if they still do it, sometimes you see recycled paper, or recycled fabrics, which was from the type of fabrics. Then from, that was in Allentown, they had a warehouse that would be just for the full rolls of fabric, and an upstairs was the 'craft and notions' and the downstairs for the full rolls of fabric but also the, what they called double fold fabric, which would go into the retail stores. And then at one point, and it may have been 1986, we put all the businesses in one building. My father and his brother Ben ran the textile waste part of it. His brother Irving ran the fabric part of it. All the fabric whether it was for the retail stores or for the manufacturers. And his oldest brother, Morris, was more the financial guy, but also in the 'craft and notions' part of the business. Each one of the brothers had one son. Morris' son, who was an excellent carpenter, came into the business, and none of us worked under our fathers. We all worked under uncles. That's what, that's what they wanted. Arthur was involved in the wiper part of the business in the textile waste part. My cousin Jeffrey, who was Irving's son, I have to rephrase, he was the only one who worked under his father. He didn't really want to work, he didn't really like the work. He did not last long. He moved out to California or Arizona somewhere. Ira worked under Irving, which is the second oldest brother in the textile part of it, and I worked under Morris, who was in the financial part and the 'crafts and notions' part. And everything was great, and then you bring everybody... and everybody did their own little thing. It was all dollars came into one pot. Then we moved out to, we built a building out towards Iron Run where everything was together: the textile waste part was one part, the fabrics to the manufacturers were in part of the building, the retail fabrics, crafts and notions were in the other part of the building, and we all had our offices there. GE: I'm sorry, that was 1990, or something? RL: I think around 1986. At that point, my uncle Morris, who was the oldest brother, had passed. He actually passed on Front Street where he was involved in the financial part, at the switchboard. And that's probably where he wanted to pass. His next brother, Irving, passed, so it was really only my father and his brother, who was a bit older than him, left in the business when we moved out to the Iron Run industrial park outside of that. By then, Arthur had already moved to Florida and so it was just Ira, who was Ben's son, and myself that were working in business, so it was really only four of us. Then at one point, my father took, went to Florida, and stayed there. Ben also, if I remember correctly, went to Florida -- much later than my father. And then it was Ira and I running the whole company. GE: And this was what time period? RL: I would say almost the late 1980s. GE: Okay, and how are the different, how were the four businesses doing? Were they all still-- RL: Successful. GE: Okay. RL: And then we also had all of the retail stores, which my mother's brother ran all the retail stores. At one point his office was in one store, and then he moved into the warehouse with us. So that's how the business was running. And then at one point, we decided that we didn't want it, it wasn't right for us, the times weren't right, and we literally closed everything down. We sold out of the retail stores, and just closed them. And we closed the wholesale operation. GE: And that was about when? RL: I want to say 1996. GE: Oh, so by 1996, the retail was closed and the wholesale was closed? RL: Everything was closed. GE: Okay, okay. RL: We still own the building so we rented that out. GE: Right, okay. RL: And at that point when we closed, it was only Ira and myself left. GE: Okay, um, so those last five years, I'm assuming part of it was that the businesses were slowing down? RL: Slowing down and-- GE: Different points of view about-- RL: The sons got married, and it was just problems, Jewish problems. GE: Right. RL: And you know, that and everybody wasn't getting along as we used to. Because growing up, my father and his brother Ben and my mother, who was called Tootie,and her sister Dorothy, we lived in a twin house. And we had a hole cut through it so we could walk back and forth. My parents had their baby, my sister first, so we got to move into, actually my aunt's house, and they moved into our house, and we just lived like that. And then at one point, they had to close up the wall because too many things were being thrown back and forth. GE: So the business ended in '96 but at that point it was still a thriving business. RL: It was slowing down. GE: Because I wanted to ask you, what do you see as being some of the factors that led to it slowing down? RL: I think the family members not getting along. I think the industry in itself. Because even with the retail stores, you could buy clothing cheaper than you can make it at that point. The textile waste part just lost what was made overseas so there was no textile waste. You know, how many manufacturers and contractors were left here. So I think it was just time that ; we just wanted to close it. GE: And so now do you want to share with us a little bit what you have done since? RL: Since then, we have the building, which we rent out. It's about a 130,000 square-foot warehouse. I happen to own 60% of it because I had 20%, I got my father's 20%, and I got my one cousin's, who lives in Florida.I bought his 20%. Ira in a sense had 20%, and his parents may have still been living, they had 20%. They both passed. They gave 10% of their share to their daughter, who had passed to her kids, and they gave 10% to Ira. So in a sense, Ira's sister's children, the three of them own 10%, Ira owns 30% of the building, and I own 60%. And, I guess I got married in '75, so we started making clothing, my wife and I. We had our own contracting facility that we actually made our own. First we had other people making it, then we started making it ourselves, and then we made garments for other people. Most of it was garment dyed. We had someone making sweaters for us, and everything would get dyed together. And we were selling to J Jill, Black-and-White, and a lot of boutique-type stores. And that business also was again, the retail stores of clothing was becoming less and less. So we closed that. And at the end of that business actually we were making pilates clothing, which was exercise clothing. And through the whole time, we had franchises of Benetton, and we had three stores, and we also had an ice cream franchise called Hillary's. And we closed all of those franchises, and I couldn't sit at home and just do nothing and that's why we started making the ladies clothing. Then once, at the end, like I said, we were making pilates clothing, and we advertised in a magazine, and we did a show out in California. My wife is a great baker besides designing clothes, and knitting and whatever. We were making biscotti, she was making some for our children because her mother used to send my kids biscotti and she said 'mom, I can make it taste better.' So we took some of our samples that my wife made of biscotti out to California to give it to the magazine and at that point they said, 'oh, could you do our corporate gifts?' And here we are, we didn't have a commercial kitchen, we didn't have a commercial oven, we had nothing commercial. And I said, 'sure, we'll do that for you.' It started out to be 100 tins, a hundred pounds, a pound in each tin. We bought a commercial mixer, put it in our house, and we had two commercial ovens that were electric put into our house. And in year one we started doing corporate gifts for this magazine. It turned out to be 1500 tins and 1500 pounds later. And someone who got that [biscotti] as a gift, that company, the next year, they wanted us to send it out to their customers. So we worked out of our house for two years doing corporate gifts. We worked Thanksgiving . . . from November to January. And we said, 'you know what, maybe we have something, let's open a retail store.' So we opened up a retail store. We got involved in the fancy food show in New York. So we have been doing that. It's been about 11 years now. We are selling at this point to some major grocery chains. We're in the second-largest coffee chain in the United States, mostly private label. And we were just on QVC for the third time. And a lot of small coffee shops, and again a lot of what we do is private label. As a matter of fact, someone who was in one of the coffee shops was a friend of someone who worked for us and they said, 'you know what I was in this coffee shop, looked like your biscotti, it tasted like your biscotti, but your name wasn't on it.' And, yes it was ours. So that's where we are right now, we have this bakery, one location and we're shipping all over for it. So it has been fun. It's retail and it's also wholesale. It's off of 512 in Bethlehem. GE: And so-- RL: Excuse me, we only do biscotti and cookies. We did rugelach, it just got too time-consuming. We do granola which we do some, we again, we do private label for some people. And we do brownies. My Boy's Baking. GE: So at this point you have this business, and you still have the warehouse. Is the warehouse pretty much rented out? RL: Once we moved out, it was rented to a return center for K-Mart. And the return center, what the return center is anything from a store that someone returns-- as you know you can go to any store and return whatever-- and it goes back to a return center. So you figure it was 130,000 square feet of merchandise that people . . . and they have six of these throughout the United States. K-Mart, when they closed, we were . . . it was empty for about six months, and we got another company in there who took the whole space, and it's a plastic company. They've been in there for ten years, and they signed another contract for five. GE: Good, good. Do you have any fond memories about the business that you want to share with us, any kind of anecdotes working, either working with your dad and uncles, or the time it was the cousins. Any particular stories that you want to share? RL: Well, it was unique that my father and his brothers could scream . . . if they had a huge argument, two seconds later, it was forgotten. When you get cousins involved and uncles involved, it doesn't happen like that. So I think that was, you know, you sort of get used to that. Memories I had was that every time I had a vacation, if it was from high school, if it was from college, I'd come and work in the business. And I tried to learn every part of the business, and I expected if I wanted, I would sweep floors. If I wanted my employees to sweep floors, they can't say well you never did it. I taught myself to drive a tractor-trailer. I love driving it, it's a good truck. So I was in, and I was in a retail store. So I was really in all aspects of the business. Not saying I knew everything about it, but G-d-forbid I could at least fudge my way through it. But I just loved to work there. It was just so much fun, and we had great employees which is very important. GE: About how many employees did you have? RL: At one point, 300 employees, throughout the retail stores and the warehouse. GE: Okay, wow, and about total sales, it may be interesting to hear of total sales and perhaps separately total profits. What percent was the retail, was the waste, was the fabric? Any, any-- RL: That's a business question, I could tell. GE: Yeah, but any feel for that? Which one was particularly small, large? In terms of sales and in terms of profits. RL: I don't know what percentages, but I would think the fabric to the manufacturers was probably the largest percentage. Under that was the sales to retail stores, and then our stores, our retail stores, and the textile waste. And probably the reason for that is because when you're selling a tractor trailer load of fabric, the dollar amount was a lot more than when we are selling a tractor trailer load of scrap. GE: Right, now just out of curiosity, so there you gave us a sense of the order in terms of sales, terms of the topline. What might it be in terms of profit, in terms of at least margin? RL: I would think it'd be almost the same thing. GE: Oh so, okay, okay, as to which ones would have had a higher margin compared to lower margin. RL: Because if you're picking up fabric from, and this is a business part of it, if you're buying someone's fabric that they have no more use for, you can buy it cheaper than if you have to go and make it yourself or buy from someone who's making it for you. So the profit was there. The retail stores sales were sort of like a set profit, and part of what brought down the wholesale to the crafts/notions and fabrics is the manufacturer's of a Coats and Clark, which was a thread company. They would start selling to customers directly and cutting out the wholesaler and at that point we could not compete. So that part of the business, a lot of the fabric people, if it were a Concord fabric or any other name fabrics that we were distributing, they would be out there selling in a sense our customers not because they knew they were our customers but because they themselves can get a higher dollar for that piece of fabric than they would if they sell it to us. Even though we may buy one- hundred pieces and someone is only buying ten pieces. GE: Right, right. They didn't protect their wholesalers. RL: Right. GE: So I think that's mostly...any other...what have you seen, so I don't know if you have anything to reflect on, you know, you've been here, it sounds like a minimum 40-50 years-- RL: 67 years. GE: Right, right, but I mean that you can even reflect on, right? And so very much change right in terms of what the textile industry had been locally compared to its little existence today. RL: The textile waste part because everybody was making stuff overseas so there was no more textile waste. GE: Right. RL: So yeah, it's diminished tremendously. GE: Right, what impact do you think it's had on the Lehigh Valley on the general community and what impact do you think it had on the Jewish community? If anything. RL: I don't know, well I think...I don't know if it's really had an impact except maybe for prosperity or you know that's what I was doing. Now even when we closed our business, I was devastated so what am I going to give my kids, I have nothing to give my kids. And again that's probably a Jewish thing. Maybe not, but what do I give my kids, I have nothing to give them. So I was very upset about that part. And I remember talking to the cantor and he said, no-- it was actually the rabbi, and he said, 'don't worry about it ; they'll find their own.' So I did forget, I was a contractor making flags also for a company that now had moved to Florida, excuse me to South Carolina. And they would give me the rolls of fabric, which were flags, I would take them to a contractor, and they would cut the flag out and sew it. We also did tablecloths for department stores if it was for a certain cosmetic company. We did NASCAR flags, we did the US flag, all kinds of different things. GE: At that point was that part of the Levine business or was that was part of yours and your wife's.. RL: No, that was a part of my own. GE: Right, okay, your own business. What was that business called? RL: Well I kept it under Rosey's Creations, which was my, our fabric part of the business. GE: Okay-- RL: Rosey's being R-O-S-E-Y Creations. Just, you didn't ask about My Boy's Baking. My wife and I have three children, grown, and actually three grandchildren, which is better than having the children, but don't record that. Your thoughts also? GE: No, I don't have them yet. RL: Oh, it's the best, GE: I look forward to it. RL: But, when my daughter was young, she used to say, 'where are my boys?' So we really didn't want to call it biscotti, we didn't want to give it . . . because what do we do if we start making cookies? So that's how we got the name My Boy's Baking from. Actually, my daughter . . . because people would go to her and say aren't you upset that it's called "My Boy's.." and she would say no because that's what I called them. GE: So while Sue is thinking about that, I also have a question. In the textile industry, it is dominated, or at least it was dominated by a lot of Jewish families, why do you think that's the case? Why do you think the Jewish community was dominant in that industry? RL: Probably because once someone was doing it and another Jewish person said, 'oh, maybe I should do it.' No, I really don't know because there are a lot of Italians in it too. GE: Right. RL: But Italians and the Jewish people are sort of similar. GE: Right, right. RL: And they all got, we all got along. GE: Right, right, any thoughts as to why those two groups? RL: Get along? GE: Or were in that industry? What about that industry made it attractive? RL: I really don't know. I mean just maybe for the enjoyment of it. It could be enjoyment. SC: Okay, I think I...my question is-- RL: In our retail stores or our host operation, we would sell remnants of fabrics, maybe a yard or two yards. I know in the retail stores, people would come in and say 'I want a quarter yard of this, I want a quarter yard of that,' which is very not cost-effective for us. But it was mainly to make the quilts and stuff. And we had all the supplies for it, you know, the thread, the fabric, and the stuffing or the foam that went in it. SC: So it was five or more and they were more profitable RL: Yeah because when you're cutting, it costs you just as much to cut 10 yards of fabric as it cost you to cut a quarter yard of fabric. And it's not just one quarter yard, they want 5 quarter yards. SC: Do you still feel comfortable talking about your daughters and where they worked-- RL: My children? SC: Yeah. RL: No, I'm very proud of them. SC: Good, go for it! I should have asked you that before. RL: My oldest son, Joshua, is married and has two sons. He works for Stephen Starr Restaurants. They have about 47 restaurants, each one of them . . . mainly out of Philadelphia. Each one pretty much has a different theme. They've opened in Florida, they've opened in Washington DC, and they've opened in New York. Actually Stephen Starr just won the James Beard Award, which is like a nationwide or worldwide top honor. One of his restaurants in New York, Le Coucou, a French restaurant, just also won the James Beard for the best restaurant. Le Coucou was voted the best restaurant in New York. My son Joshua runs all forty-seven restaurants ; from opening them, helping to open, to buying the supplies for the restaurants. And actually he started out, our family was very ice hockey oriented, so he went to school in Colorado, University of Colorado, and he was a ref for the semi-pros out on the West Coast. All my children went to Camp Canadensis, which is up in the Poconos. It's an overnight camp for two months or seven weeks. He, at one point, when he decided he didn't really like the life of an ice hockey ref, he went to work for the camp that they went to-- Camp Canadensis to help run the camp. He did that for a couple of years and the lady was supposed to possibly sell us the camp, and she reneged on it. So he interviewed at Stephen Starr Restaurants. And they said you don't have any restaurant experience, we really don't need you. Six months later, he saw the same ad in the paper, and went back to them and said, 'listen, obviously you haven't hired anybody.' And at that point, they hired him on the spot. He started out as assistant manager. He wanted to be a chef, but realized that you start out as assistant manager, manager, district manager, and now he runs all forty-seven restaurants. My son Andrew, who is two years younger than Josh, went to University of Colorado and when his brother left, he went to George Washington. George Washington in DC. And he became a teacher. He taught, first he taught at Radnor School District, actually he taught at a charter school in Philadelphia, fifth grade. Then he went to Radnor School, fifth grade teacher, then he got a job in a private school, Episcopal Academy, as a fifth grade teacher. He's married. They have a little girl who's 14 months old. My daughter-in-law, his wife, Debbie, got a promotion to her job and moved to Florida and after a year they realized that they wanted to be around family. And actually, Josh, for nine months moved out to California with his two children and wife and decided that when they all got sick one day and said, 'you know what, we have nobody here.' They came back to Philadelphia. Josh lives in Philadelphia, Andrew lives in Malvern. My daughter, Rachel, is an accountant. She is single and living in Philadelphia also. As a matter of fact, my son's Joshua's wife, Jill, works for an entertainment group who goes around and does bar mitzvahs and weddings and the dancers and the disc jockeys. And her brother, who happened to be Josh's counselor at camp, said, 'you know what, the Levines are having a bat mitzvah and your company's doing it, why don't you see if you can work it?' So she came to work my daughter's bat mitzvah, not being with my son or not, and a couple years later on the JDate said are you the Jill Rosen that... so we have videos of her, which she will not let us play of her performing at my daughter's bat mitzvah. And then we have the two grandchildren, Brody and Cooper. Brody just turned eight, and Cooper is six. He plays ice hockey and is travelling. As you can tell we have an ice hockey family. And then we have a granddaughter, Winnie Rose. GE: Wonderful. RL: Oh, Rachel did go to Pitt. SC: Oh, I remember the question. Is there a reason why you went down South to Clemson, only because there were-- RL: Philadelphia Textile was the number one school. I did not get in on my own. I was probably not a very good student, and my father said, 'we must know somebody.' And I said, 'Dad, I don't want to do that.' Clemson was the second best for textiles, so that's why I went down to Clemson, it was farther away from Allentown. SC: And were there any, when you were there, was that still an emerging textile area? RL: Clemson? SC: Out in the-- RL: Clemson area? Yes. SC: That's what I was wondering, method to madness. RL: I mean talk about 1972, yeah it was still big. SC: And then of course more and more textiles--[inaudible] RL: Down South around the country. SC: Wow, that's wonderful. I'm so glad that you talked about your children and grandchildren. GE: So now we just have a few final questions. SC: A few touchy feely questions. RL: Is that going to make me cry? GE: Depends on how you answer it. RL: You know why, because when I saw my Aunt Rose, it was the first time I saw her-- GE: Is she in Florida? RL: No, she's in New York, living with her son. I've seen her son on Facebook, and we've talked a little bit. And then when I figured I'd have to ask questions. So he called and I called him back, and he said, wait a minute, do you have an iPhone? We could FaceTime. And I'm telling you, she looks exactly the same. SC: That's so wonderful. RL: So it was, that was very emotional for me. SC: This is just a who you are type of question. So what do you value most in life? RL: My family. And you know, kids, my wife. Well let's do my grandchildren, my kids, and my wife...don't quote me. Family is very important to us. Even today, my daughter must call my wife 10, 15, 20 times a day. And it's just to talk. My wife lost her sister from cancer probably 20 years ago, so it's, and this is good for her to have my daughter very close. Every morning, I text her and say good morning. So family is very important and that's why both my boys moved back from Florida and California because you know it's family, it's all about family. And whereas we thought my daughter-in-law's, they weren't as, they weren't, I don't want to say weren't as close, one daughter-in-law was not. But we thought they'd resent it because we were so close to our kids. And, you know what, both my daughters-in-law call my wife now for questions or stuff. So it's, family is very very important. I remember when my oldest grandson Brody was sick in Philadelphia. If we had to go down there, I would close the bakery early to go down there and my wife would babysit one day a week, and I would leave to take her down, I would come back to work, and go back down. So family is very very important to us. SC: And what has made you feel the most creative in your life? RL: My wife. I mean you know it's, how creative am I? I don't really know, you know, it's my wife who is really doing the creative part. And I've just followed that in the financial part and worked it. Is that a good answer? SC: Yeah, it's a good meeting-- RL: Really? SC: It's a good match. RL: She's said she saved me, so. SC: Thank you so much. 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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00:51:59
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Robert Levine, June 1, 2017
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Robert Levine (three generations in Allentown) talks about how S. Levine & Sons business was started by his grandfather, a peddler in scrap metal originally and later in textile scrap. Robert’s father and his father’s three brothers entered the business in the mid 1940s and grew it substantially. During its heyday, the Levine business included textile waste, fabric wholesaling, fabric retailing, and purveyor of crafts and notions to fabric and retail stores. By the 1980s, the older generation had either passed away or retired and the Levine business was now run by the next generation, Robert and his cousin Ira. By 1996, between industry decline due to globalization and free-trade and conflicting ideas of how to run the business, the cousins sold off part of the business and closed the other parts of the business.
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LVTNT-28
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2017-06-01
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Marty Krasnov
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5.4 June 22, 2016 Marty Krasnov, June 22, 2016 LVTNT-27 1:59:22 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Marty Krasnov Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 KrasnovMarty_20160622 1.0:|15(5)|30(7)|45(7)|60(2)|73(15)|90(9)|105(13)|122(2)|135(10)|158(6)|179(12)|196(5)|211(7)|226(8)|243(10)|256(4)|271(4)|286(4)|303(5)|320(7)|335(7)|350(11)|365(14)|382(11)|401(5)|416(15)|435(10)|452(2)|469(10)|486(3)|503(10)|520(8)|533(5)|548(11)|563(5)|578(10)|591(9)|606(14)|621(4)|632(10)|645(10)|660(15)|675(6)|692(2)|707(9)|726(16)|743(8)|760(13)|779(6)|796(12)|813(10)|828(2)|847(5)|862(12)|875(7)|892(9)|911(14)|930(12)|947(6)|964(14)|983(9)|998(16)|1019(5)|1036(7)|1055(6)|1072(7)|1095(9)|1112(13)|1129(14)|1144(7)|1163(11)|1182(11)|1201(4)|1216(6)|1233(4)|1250(2)|1265(2)|1284(5)|1299(10)|1318(6)|1335(5)|1354(8)|1369(13)|1384(9)|1401(4)|1428(8)|1447(7)|1462(4)|1479(11)|1500(3)|1519(3)|1536(2)|1551(8)|1572(3)|1589(15)|1608(9)|1625(8)|1646(9)|1665(8)|1684(11)|1705(4)|1722(9)|1745(10)|1762(6)|1779(3)|1794(6)|1809(14)|1826(12)|1843(8)|1862(16)|1881(6)|1896(5)|1911(10)|1926(9)|1945(5)|1968(7)|1987(15)|2002(7)|2013(13)|2020(6) 0 https://youtu.be/y-5xsqEILEI YouTube video 0 Family History SC: Today is June 22, 2016. First I’d like you to put yourself into some kind of context. What’s your full name, when were you born and where were you born? 
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 ; MK: I’m Marty Krasnov, I was born in 1938 in the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia.
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 ; SC: Over your life where have you lived? Sort of to see an arc of where you’ve lived from Philadelphia perhaps to where you are now?
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 ; MK: I believe it was 1940 when the family moved to Allentown, and I basically have lived here ever since. 0 1053 Women Working Culture SC: Do you know where any other people worked in this country, whether the women worked because they were poor?
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 ; MK: My mother, apparently, always had to work, and she went to night school so I presume, but she didn’t talk much about it. I think she worked in a department store. My father and his older brother Joseph and, I presume, my grandfather because there's a safe . . . but we had one time, Isadore Krasnov & ; Sons. My grandfather was Isadore. I don’t know why they had this huge safe because they didn’t have too much at the time. They started peddling on the street and started making blouses and dresses in their own home, and I guess the business kind of grew. 0 1291 Education SC: Would you now talk about where you have gone to school and where you’ve worked from the time you were a little kid, all the way to when you started working? 
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 ; MK: My recollection of growing up was in what would today be referred to as the Jewish ghetto, which was somewhere between South Fulton or S. 15th St. to South 17th St. I grew up on 16th St. and, even today, some of the people you’ve interviewed grew up on that street. And I know almost every house when I drive by, who lived here, who lived there and what have you. 0 2021 More Family History GE: Can you give me the names of your parents and grandparents?
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 ; MK: Sure. I’m gonna take these pictures out so you can look at them. I knew I was going to show these pictures to someone. I have them, and we have many more and you’ve seen pictures very similar to these. We’ll start with my family, as children, my older sister, as you can tell, my sister, Roz, that is me, my older sister, Roz. She is living in New Jersey and she is seven years older than I, and my sister, Mitsi Goldenberg, living in Florida. Parents passed away, my father was 85. He died on my birthday in 1980 and my mother passed away in 1995 and she was 88.
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 ; GE: What were their names?
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 ; MK: Sam, Samuel and Fanny, with a Y.
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 ; GE: So, it’s Samuel Krasnov, and his father was Isidore?
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 ; MK: Isidore, and my mother’s father was Marcus, and I’m named after my mother’s father
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 ; GE: And what was your mother’s maiden name?
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 ; MK: Abramson. And this is when she was a little girl in Russia with her governess and brother. Both of those were born in Odessa. And this is her family in Russia. My Uncle Leon is on the left. 0 2363 Who Ran the Business GE: So Marty, we’re just going to continue now and talk more about the business. You shared with us a little bit about the origins. If you want to share with us a little bit more, I don’t know quite who is in the business, in your family?
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 ; MK: The business was set up with basically . . . I don’t know exactly when my grandfather died, but he wasn’t really active in the business. He didn’t speak the language. My father, and I guess his older brother, picked it up rather quickly, I’m not sure how quick. They both spoke with a little dialect, you know, that we’re all used to hearing from that generation. So, basically, it was my Uncle Joe and my father, and, at the start of the business, my dad was the “inside manufacturing person” and my uncle was the sales and marketing person. 0 2628 The Business During the War GE: And so the two had the military contract throughout the war?
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 ; MK: Surefit had. We were the only ones making slipcovers up until the end of the war and because the retail stores wanted slipcovers, somehow this Comfy was able to get fabrics or what have you. My dad’s whole factory was dedicated to the war products so they couldn’t flip back. They didn’t have the capacity to do that. And there are a number of old-time employees who stayed with the company for many many years, and I was able to get a flavor of what they did during the war. They employed hundreds of people in this silk mill on Sand Island in Bethlehem. 0 2946 Transition from Wartime to Peacetime for the Business GE: Marty, want to share with us a little bit, what was the transition from wartime to peacetime like for your father’s business?
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 ; MK: Well I think they did rather well during the war because of the contracts they had with the government and it kept a lot of people out of the Army. Maybe some of them wouldn’t have survived, I don’t know. The other thing about the war and shortly after, well even prior to the period, when I came into the business, and I’m a young know-nothing who thought I knew everything, Wharton graduate and all of that stuff. I asked, we have too many relatives working here. I remember everyone, because they were mostly immigrants, they talked loud, and we had an intercom system. I felt a little embarrassed because everyone would hear shouting, even when we would go to my grandmother’s house in Philadelphia every weekend. To me, as a kid, everyone was talking loudly. He hired a number of relatives. My attitude towards that was, you know, this is not a good thing because they’re not necessarily the best qualified.
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 ; Only later did I realize that he was doing a good thing and providing jobs. Many of them were hired during the Depression. After the war, he brought a number of relatives and others that survived the war, Holocaust survivors in, and provided jobs to them. 0 3162 Steady Growth of the Business GE: So it sounds, from what I’m hearing, that it was a little bit recession-proof. It didn’t really go up during good times that strongly or down during bad times. It was pretty steady.
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 ; MK: It was kind of steady.
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 ; GE: Steady but growing.
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 ; MK: Steady but growing. You know the ups and downs and what have you. My dad was very conservative. At that time, the major customers were the national chains like Sears, Montgomery Wards, and every major city had their homegrown department store and they sold to most of every city’s homegrown department store.
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 ; GE: And it sounds like it was nationwide. 0 3623 Marty's Active Involvement in the Business GE: So you really started actively in the business about 1960?
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 ; MK: 1960 and my brother in-laws, both brother in-laws, were in the business. And we also had my three cousins from my Uncle Joe. He had passed away in 1957 and the family, like a lot of situations, it wasn’t a good fit. And we bought them out in 1963. Our family acquired their interest and it was at a time where, I think, there was a recession or something. We lost some key people because of the family, not a feud, but it was a problem that existed.
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 ; GE: What did they end up doing?
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 ; MK: One ended up teaching, one lived in Philadelphia, two of them worked in New York, but one commuted from Philadelphia. He ended up teaching in Philly and he died at an early age. 0 3818 Diversification of Products MK: Now, from that time on, in more recent years, the company diversified in other products and had a very nice growth rate.
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 ; GE: Want to tell us about that?
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 ; MK: We were a little concerned about the slipcover industry and the furniture covering industry because we also went into furniture throws. As the market expanded, with the K-Marts of the world, they couldn’t handle the slipcovers, per say, but they could handle furniture throws. We were producing, I remember, ten thousand throws a day.
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 ; GE: And what is a throw, versus a slipcover?
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 ; MK: A slipcover is a fitted slipcover, with the cushions.
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 ; GE: And it kind of has that elastic edge, right?
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 ; MK: Well, they’re a little different today. But the way we did it, we did it with mostly knitted stretch slipcovers. 0 4065 Struggles with Competition MK: We acquired a little competitor that had a . . . from Beatrice Foods that sold certain discounters on consignments that we were able to have service people now go in and count the inventory. We controlled it and we got bigger margins. Then, around the early 70s, we could see that some of these major catalogs and department stores started going out of business. The Wanamakers, the Gimbels, and we were doing slipcovers with them as well, but not to the extent that we were doing it with Sears and Montgomery Ward. We had the opportunity and we decided we should diversify so we bought a company that was manufacturing bedspreads in Japan and it was a very niche market.
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 ; We couldn’t compete with the big mills, the Burlington or J.P. Stevens, with selling bedspreads and that was even pre-comforters. They owned the space and what have you in the stores. So we found this niche market where they call it outline quilting where the stitching is done around the design, so it brought it out and they called that outline. 0 4379 Opportunity for 60 Minutes Interview MK: At one point, I get a call from 60 Minutes and they want to interview me. They were doing a whole thing on the twin plants in Mexico, the assembly operations and I said, “all the major companies, Philips, General Motors, Ford, none of them use their own names. In Mexico, they use a different name, but they were employing thousands and thousands of people. Why don’t you interview them?” They wanted to come into our facility. It was a girl with an English accent on the phone and she said, “well we’d really like to interview you about it” and I said, “It’s not all bad. This Mexico opportunity that a lot of American companies are taking advantage of, if it wasn’t in Mexico, it would be in Asia. The law is that you can assemble US products, and you don’t pay duty when they come back. You only pay duty on the added value which is the labor.” 0 4543 Expanding into Women's Apparel MK: Then we eventually went into women’s apparel because we were making our knitting when the lycra pants became very popular with the women’s fashion. We had a knitting operation because of our stretchy fabrics that we made. We started selling that fabric, lycra fabric, and then we said, because of Mexico, we might as well manufacture the whole product. Through the period, the business grew steady and it was pretty sound. We had such a diversity of products and a diversity of customers. Our largest customer when we sold it in 1990 was J.C. Penney, that represented 6% of our business, so we had a lot of good attributes to it. And the reason we sold the company, much of it was through my initiating the processes. 0 4620 Multi-Generational Business MK: Both brothers in law were 10 years older than I. I was 50 at the time, they were 60. I had 2 nephews in the business, and my children were young, and my sister Mitzi just had girls. We didn’t have any direction that the family would go. I remember the problems we had with my uncle’s son, and I said, you know, we’re having a pretty good run. There’s a time. When the first generation comes up with the idea, and they’re the ones that struggle through it, and they’re uneducated. So they get it to a point and then the second generation comes in and they’re educated. They still have some values because they remember growing up in a row house and what have you. And they move it to the next level. The third generation could start running into problems because now you’re not dealing with brothers and sisters, you’re dealing with cousins. I went through a number of family succession seminars, and I had that implanted that someday--my dad had already passed away, and my mother had Alzheimer’s so we didn’t want her to know. 0 5110 Operations in Mexico GE: So a couple of questions about the business. When you were in Mexico, that’s where the assembly was taking place and you said you had about 500 people?
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 ; MK: Yes.
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 ; GE: Back here in Bethlehem, how many people were still here?
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 ; MK: We still had about 400-500 people here.
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 ; GE: And they were just doing everything but assembling?
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 ; MK: Well they were assembling slipcovers. We were still manufacturing furniture throws and slipcovers in Bethlehem.
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 ; GE: This was the other pieces? What was being assembled in Mexico?
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 ; MK: The bed coverings. The outline quilting. We had that niche and that whole niche was very labor intensive. So that was our only way we could sell a product because we were one of the first ones to go into outline quilting and the stores, you had a flower and you just bring the quilt around it. And you see that today. Now it’s a lot of automatic equipment that does that. They program it, but at that time, it was all very extensive labor. 0 5327 Unions SC: And the other question was, which labor union would it have been?
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 ; MK: The United Textile Workers of America. It was a smaller union, and we always had a pretty good relationship with them. We had strikes, I remember we’ve had strikes, but nothing really long-lasting.
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 ; GE: Just so I understand, you started out with Slipcovers, then you very much did the throws, the quilting became a niche that you were producing in Mexico, then you were also doing the throw pillows and curtains, right?
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 ; MK: Yeah, we always did that. Now what had happened, as our bed covering business grew, it was around that time where Sears went out of the catalog business. They gave up a five billion dollar business overnight. Five billion is what they were doing in their catalog. The Sears catalog was an icon. Montgomery Wards went belly up, so we ended up with, in terms of catalogs, and again, this is all pre-internet days. If the internet would have been existing then, in fact, I had started my own catalog. 0 5485 Sales Force GE: Now tell me a little bit about how the sales force worked. It sounds like one of your brothers in law headed that part.
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 ; MK: Yeah, we had our main sales office. The showroom was on 34th Street, between Madison and 5th Avenue. That’s the later years, when I was there. We had offices on 26th Street when I first started, but that goes back. They were very attractive showrooms, and we displayed a lot of the bed coverings and furniture throws because the catalog people didn’t need showrooms. We had a showroom in Chicago for a number of years, and we had a showroom in California for a number of years. We had a warehouse in California. We had, initially, full time sales people, but then that became a very expensive thing, and we had a few full-time sales people that catered to the major accounts, but then we gravitated towards sales reps to handle other lines, as well. 0 6573 Jewish Involvement in the Industry GE: And the last question I’m going to ask before Sue asks you the final couple of questions, why do you think Jews were overrepresented in the needle-trade industry? This was an industry where they were really overrepresented.
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 ; MK: Well, I guess there was a number of reasons. I think they started out like my father, in their own homes, because it was easy to get a sewing machine. They came from Europe. They made their own clothes, so they had some inclination, you know, about that. They certainly couldn’t get jobs in banks. Most of them were uneducated anyway. They didn’t go to college, many didn’t even finish high school. They started these companies, but it was easy to get into. You buy a couple of sewing machines, and you go into it. 0 6710 What Has Made You Feel the Most Creative? SC: So, the last two questions are, what has made you feel the most creative in your life?
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 ; MK: Well I think I inherited some of that from my father. When I retired and moved to California, I decided that, other than golf, I had to be a little productive and use my head. So we have a, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Osher program. Osher was an individual, and if you look it up, google Osher, they run senior citizen classes at universities. They have a terrific program in the desert because of so many retirees, and we were connected with Cal State of San Bernardino. I always managed to take courses there. 0 7053 What Do You Value Most in Life? SC: And this is very short. What do you value most in life?
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 ; MK: Well, I value humor, obviously family and what have you. But I value humor and I kind of gravitate to the deprived. I’m a Republican, leaning to the right on financial and way to the left on social. That kind of describes me. But, I appreciate, particularly in the later years, my parents, the struggles they went through, and that provided for a good life to me and my family. You could value a lot of the good things, and you could become very verbal, but basically, I like good humor and I like nice people, and I’m tolerant, too. People have different viewpoints. So what? Let it be. I’m kind of like laid back. And that’s my story. 0 MovingImage Marty Krasnov talks about how his father got into the furniture slipcover manufacturing business as well as how the company got the “SureFit” name. During World War II, the firm switched from making slipcovers for furniture to making parachutes for the military because the specialized equipment SureFit already owned to produce slipcovers was easily retrofitted to make parachutes. Marty and his brothers-in-law sold the business in 1990. SureFit is one of the very few brands that still remains. Interview with Marty Krasnov, June 22, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 22, 2016. First I'd like you to put yourself into some kind of context. What's your full name, when were you born and where were you born? MARTY KRASNOV: I'm Marty Krasnov, I was born in 1938 in the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia. SC: Over your life where have you lived? Sort of to see an arc of where you've lived from Philadelphia perhaps to where you are now? MK: I believe it was 1940 when the family moved to Allentown, and I basically have lived here ever since. SC: And can you tell me a little bit about your family history? What you know, first of all, perhaps about your father's family as much as you know. Where they came from, how they got to the United States, and when they got to the United States? MK: My father and his family were from an area in the Ukraine called Unum, (u-n-u-m). Or u-n-a-m, I'm not quite sure. The city still exists, I looked it up once or twice and it was heavily populated by Jews, and they must've had some religious institutions that attracted people from other areas to visit periodically. My understanding is, his father ran a general store. The only story that my father ever told about that is when he was a little kid, they had a crawlspace, and they had cartons where people would sit and sit around a stovepipe or whatever, and he constructed a gadget where you pull a string and a needle would go through the seat, and whoever was sitting there would jump. It's the only story I ever heard about this general store. Somewhere, at the age of 14 or 15, it's my understanding that to avoid the military school, and the Czars, and you've probably heard this from prior interviews, that was a time that they filtered a lot of these kids out of Russia through an underground railroad. He went through Italy so he ended up in Italy somehow and he had an uncle in Philadelphia. The family still remained in Russia. He had an older brother who I think was married at the time but maybe not. My father was born in 1895. I believe he was about 15 or 16 when he came over so that would've placed him coming here around 1910-1912, something in that timeframe. An interesting story, and this is an oral story that we heard, it was passed down in our immediate family. There are always question marks about it but this occurred with my father's grandmother, and we tried to put a date on it which would've been like the 1840s. They lived in a shtetl outside of this town, Unum. They had an ox and a cart and that's how they went from place to place and they were heading back to the shtetl in a blizzard. It was getting dark and when they got back to their home the baby who was a two-year-old or a one-year-old was missing and by now it was dark and you cannot go back. They didn't have flashlights or anything, and I guess they had a lot of children in anticipation of events like this and they presumed that the baby would freeze to death. We don't know what went through their mind. Obviously it must have been quite emotional. The next morning the villagers, the people in the shtetl, got up at daybreak and they went back the same way and they reached a certain point in the road and they see this black bear, and they startled the bear and the bear ran into the woods and at that spot, the baby was there, breathing, living, and in good shape. So they called this baby, which was my great-grandmother or my great great grandmother, I'm not really sure, the miracle baby of Unam. I and my older sister tried to find out if there's anything documented but obviously there wasn't. Whether it's a fable or whether it happened or not, it's a family story. Then my dad came over. He had an uncle living in Philadelphia at the age of 15 or 16, and incidentally, in Russia, my dad went to a yeshiva as a kid. That's how he got his education, so he was learned in the religion. Not overly religious himself, when he got here, but he was educated very well. He spoke Hebrew fluently, he spoke Yiddish. That's how they communicated in those days in the Ukraine. And he began working at the same textile factory as my uncle. So that brings them up to right before the First World War, and during the time that spanned when he got here and the First World War. His whole family came over and at that time, I know my uncle was married because my dad was drafted. Obviously he wasn't very anxious to go back to Europe. They didn't draft my uncle because he was the eldest and married. There was some regulation that absolved the eldest who was married from being drafted. My grandfather didn't speak English. The family consisted of my father and my uncle, Joe, who was the eldest, and he had another brother, two other brothers that were younger, and a sister. One of the brothers died from influenza that I never knew, but I knew all the other siblings of his. Another story, he was always very slight. I don't think he weighed more than a hundred pounds or a hundred and twenty pounds his whole life. There were certain weight requirements to meet when he was drafted and so they put him in Philadelphia. There's a place called the Camac that was the schvitz [Yiddish for baths] and they took him to the Camac the night before his physical. They wouldn't let him out of the [sauna] room so he would lose that extra eight pounds or five pounds. Then, at night, he was so thirsty, he snuck down to the kitchen and drank it all back, and he was drafted. They sent him to Fort Lee, Virginia. And the story is there were all these immigrants that they sent. All kinds of languages, you know, and he mentioned something strawfoot. They used to call it strawfoot, because they put a straw on the right leg or the left leg so the immigrants knew because they couldn't say right, left because half of them couldn't understand what was right or left. So they'd know that the straws were all supposed to march at the same time. And everyone went to sick call every day, except my father, he never went to sick call. A week before, he actually fainted and they took him to the hospital. He had like a sun-stroke, and they figured, well, he's credible because they never saw him in sick call before. And a week later, all of the others were shipped over to Europe and my dad never went. They just missed him. So that brings us to that point in time. My mother's family was quite interesting and we seem to know a little more about her because she spoke more than my dad. She was born in Odessa and, prior to her being born, her aunt married into the largest tea company in Russia. My grandfather, who I never met, was employed by them, and they sent him to South Africa, and he was there for seven years. And he wanted my grandmother, at the time living in Moscow, my mother had not been born yet, to move to South Africa. Things were good there, life was good there, the weather was nice, and it was cheap living but she wouldn't move out of Moscow. So seven years later he went back and the tea company moved him to Odessa, and that's where my mother and uncle Harry were born. It was a pretty large family of siblings. She had five brothers and she was the only girl, and the youngest in the family. We have pictures of her with a governess. I have one here and you can tell the way, the photography of the whole family, they were very well dressed, and you can tell they were reasonably affluent and had a good life in Russia. They sent the oldest son, Leon, my uncle Leon, they sent him to Switzerland to medical school. but Leon was a philanderer and a womanizer, and they didn't realize at the time that he wasn't really going to medical school. What he was doing was hanging out at the Bern Library with Trotsky and Lenin. We don't know much about what went on there but they were able to rescue him when they immigrated to the United States, so he never got too much involved and lived a happy life in Hartford, Connecticut. When my mother was eight years, old, the tea company sent the family to the United States and on the way, the ship, I guess they came through the Baltic, hit an iceberg, and they had to wait six months in Norway for the ship to be repaired. During that six-month period, the Revolution occurred, and the tea company was nationalized. And they're heading to the United States with a promise that they're gonna get aid by the tea company, but that doesn't exist anymore. I didn't know very much of this as a child. All I know is that my mother was brought up in a very poor environment in Philadelphia. Her mother was an invalid, her father had passed away, I guess was heartbroken, a couple of years after they arrived. My mother was born in 1908, I believe, and the Revolution was in 1917, so, when she passed away in 1995, she was 88. We found a diary that she had kept as a girl, and there were references in Yiddish about money that was supposed to arrive from London this month, and it didn't come and it didn't come last month. So the family didn't have access to any of the monies that were promised because obviously, there was no money. She was brought up in Strawberry Mansion, in Philadelphia. As I say, we visited and she still had a brother that lived in the same house that she was brought up in. My perception of her background was being very very poor. She went to Temple University at night, she was the only daughter, and she had to take care of her mother who was an invalid. I don't remember my grandmother, she died when I was two years old or so. The only grandparent out of all four was my grandmother, Rose, and she died when I was eleven years old so I knew her pretty well. I have pictures of both sides of the family. So I'm bringing it up to a point when they were raised in this country. SC: Do you know where any other people worked in this country, whether the women worked because they were poor? MK: My mother, apparently, always had to work, and she went to night school so I presume, but she didn't talk much about it. I think she worked in a department store. My father and his older brother Joseph and, I presume, my grandfather because there's a safe . . . but we had one time, Isadore Krasnov & ; Sons. My grandfather was Isadore. I don't know why they had this huge safe because they didn't have too much at the time. They started peddling on the street and started making blouses and dresses in their own home, and I guess the business kind of grew. There's a story that we were told, not by my father, but by one of the other relatives that during the First World War they manufactured these sailor blouses for women, and they were able to get large quantities of the fabric. Then the war ended and no one bought these blouses, and they couldn't pay their bills. And it was the fear of going to debtors' prison, I guess, that my grandmother insisted that they pay off every penny. She didn't want her husband and her two boys to go to prison. I guess they had that mentality. So that's a period that's kind of hazy with me. I guess they persevered in manufacturing. I think they probably got moved out of their home, and began to build this business in the blouses and dresses, from what I understand. The reason they got into the company, which I inherited, Surefit Products, was, my grandmother asked my father, who was always very good with his hands and creating things, an inventive kind of thing. My grandmother asked him to bring some fabric home to cover the sofa. In Europe they covered stuff with sheets, that's just what everyone did. And my father took this fabric and he made a slipcover out of it. And her reaction after he put it on -- he did the measurements and everything -- She said, in Yiddish, "This sure fits". So that's how the name came about. And they went to Lit Brothers, which was a major department store in Philadelphia at the time, and they put it on consignment and they did rather well with it and that was the beginning of Surefit Products and the slipcover business, which eventually grew into a pretty large company. SC: Would you now talk about where you have gone to school and where you've worked from the time you were a little kid, all the way to when you started working? MK: My recollection of growing up was in what would today be referred to as the Jewish ghetto, which was somewhere between South Fulton or S. 15th St. to South 17th St. I grew up on 16th St. and, even today, some of the people you've interviewed grew up on that street. And I know almost every house when I drive by, who lived here, who lived there and what have you. I'll tell you one humorous story about living there. Across the street from us was a family, George Somach. They were in the bridal business and George was a prominent person in town and certainly, in our synagogue. He was president of Temple Beth El for many years ; they named an auditorium after him, Somach Auditorium. I guess it was 1951, and I remember that because that's when the Philadelphia Whiz Kids [nickname of the Phillies team that year] played in the World Series and in those days when you had your wisdom teeth out, they took you to the hospital. And I'm in the hospital and George Somach was apparently in the room across from me. He had a heart attack, and he was in some plastic oxygen thing. They had this terrific invention, something new the hospital had, where they'd roll a TV in your room, you'd put a nickel in, and you could watch TV. It was wonderful, and I'm watching the baseball game. As a young kid, it was important, and I ran out of change. Mr. Somach, George, had a nurse in his room all the time. When I went in, she [the nurse] was on a coffee break, and I opened up the plastic because I panicked and I said, "Mr. Somach, I'm Marty Krasnov." He's in a daze, he didn't even know who I was. I said, "Sam Krasnov's son, I need some nickels, do you have any change? I'm watching TV. I need nickels." And he says "look in my pants. They're in the closet." So I go in, and I put my hand in his pocket. The nurse comes in, so now, they have my mother come to the hospital. He [George Somach] falls asleep. He doesn't know that he even told me to look in his pants. They're not going to wake him up and start inquiring from him, and I remember my mother taking me aside in the hospital, and saying "we don't have to tell your father about this." And I mentioned that story to George Somach's grandkids. One of them is a lawyer in town, and he didn't know. No one knew about this story, but anyway ; 16th Street was quite interesting because it was a great place to grow up. Just a wonderful area, there were all these row homes and, just from my perspective, even today, when we meet Alan Steinberg, whom you know. We were talking recently about it and it was just a terrific place. Everyone knew everyone else, the kids just enjoyed themselves. My next-door neighbor was Dr. Weiner, and we used to hide behind the trees when he came home from his dental practice. He had a very turbulent marriage, first marriage, and literally, pots and pans would come flying out the front door, and we'd be behind a tree or a car, watching this at 5:10 every day, and this is the background that I had. And then from there, right after my bar mitzvah, and I was one of the first ones at the new synagogue, at Beth El, that was bar mitzvahed. We had a little disruption during it because a dog came in and caused some fuss when I was up doing my thing. Rabbi Greenburg and Cantor Sherer, they were the officiators. So at age 13 right after we moved to Muhlenberg and Walnut Street and this was away from the rowhouse. We had a mulberry tree there and my sister had started college, she was home. My other sister was three years older so she was 16 or something and he [my father] remembered how to make wine. He thought he remembered how to make wine at his general store as a kid back in Unam, in Russia, and he put canvas under the mulberry tree and he had my sisters and I stamp with our feet. We thought this was kind of neat and I remember it was a real major happening because my sister Mitsi, I guess was going to a prom or something, and her feet were all purple and that didn't come out. It was just a big tado going on, to me it didn't mean anything. And then he mixed a little of this and a little of that and it tasted like mulberry juice. It didn't taste like wine. But we had a happy childhood-- we went to summer camps, and we had all the fine things that we could ever want. SC: So was the Surefit established in Philadelphia, then moved up here? MK: Yes, I understand they moved over a weekend, because they had some major union problems. I presume they moved to Bethlehem because it's a needle trades . . . being a female industry, and the Bethlehem Steel workers', their wives were good workers. And they moved to an old silk mill on Sand Island, and I think they bought it in 1940 or so or '39. I know I was told we moved here when I was 2 so it would've been 1940. I think they moved the company maybe a year before I was born, so that's how they ended up in Bethlehem. SC: Would you talk a little bit about your education? MK: Sure. I started out-- in fact, I was just telling this story to my cousin, the other night-- who was visiting from Cleveland. They were talking about their grandchildren in kindergarten and I had a vision of my first day in kindergarten, which was at the Swain School. In those days it was at the Masonic Temple, in the basement. They had a couple rooms for kindergarten. Mrs. Swain ran it and right next to it was a radio station because we used to always look through the glass and see the broadcasts there. I have this vision, that the first day, I went, living on 16th Street, which was close by the Masonic Temple, hiding under the bed, and my mother couldn't get to me and so she called Mrs. Swain. Mrs. Swain, Esther Swain, came to our house on 16th Street and negotiated with me to come out from under the bed and how wonderful the school is. I imagine she was successful. I don't have a recollection of crawling out. I just have a recollection seeing this strange woman and I, with an eye stare, I'm under the bed, and she's leaning under the bed. So then I went to grade school, all through junior high to Raub. So, living on 16th Street, I'd walk to school, and then when we moved to Muhlenberg and Walnut, I would take a bus to school. I went to Allen High, and then I went to Penn, University of Penn, Wharton School, so that was my education. My wife, who's not here, she, kind of a fun story about how I met her. I met her in El Paso, Texas, and she went to college for two years. I went to music school and we got married. So my education stopped. I graduated in 1960. I had foolishly, I had nothing to do in the summers so I took extra courses at Temple and Lehigh. When I was a senior, I only had maybe two classes and I began working for the company in New York and commuted back on Fridays, I arranged. So now I had a party weekend every week without having that depression Sunday night about going back to school on Monday. I graduated in 1960 with my class, and l still have some very close friends from Penn. GAIL EISENBERG: Can you give me the names of your parents and grandparents? MK: Sure. I'm gonna take these pictures out so you can look at them. I knew I was going to show these pictures to someone. I have them, and we have many more and you've seen pictures very similar to these. We'll start with my family, as children, my older sister, as you can tell, my sister, Roz, that is me, my older sister, Roz. She is living in New Jersey and she is seven years older than I, and my sister, Mitsi Goldenberg, living in Florida. Parents passed away, my father was 85. He died on my birthday in 1980 and my mother passed away in 1995 and she was 88. GE: What were their names? MK: Sam, Samuel and Fanny, with a Y. GE: So, it's Samuel Krasnov, and his father was Isidore? MK: Isidore, and my mother's father was Marcus, and I'm named after my mother's father GE: And what was your mother's maiden name? MK: Abramson. And this is when she was a little girl in Russia with her governess and brother. Both of those were born in Odessa. And this is her family in Russia. My Uncle Leon is on the left. GE: This is your mom's? MK: This is my mother's family and this is all her brothers. GE: So this little boy here? MK: That's my Uncle Sam, my Uncle Harry, my Uncle Leon here and my Uncle Eli. my grandfather Marcus, my grandmother Bertha, and my mother Fanny. So she looks like she's about two years old here and this picture then would be around 1910. When she was 8, that's when they left Russia, and the way they are dressed. and this picture of the governess and my mother. They were very affluent at the time, relatively speaking. GE: Your parents are Samuel and Fanny. your father's father was Isidore, what was his wife's name? MK: Rose. And that's this family here. And I don't know who all these other people are but, these two here, Isidore and Rose. The only grandparent I really knew was my grandmother Rose, who we called Bubbie [Yiddish for grandmother] , and she's the one who said " this sure fits", in Yiddish. GE: So Samuel's parents were Rose and Isidor, and with Fanny, her father was Marcus? MK: Yes, Marcus Abramson. GE: And Bertha. MK: And Bertha GE: And Marty, your siblings were Roz and Mitzi? MK: And that's it, and I'm the baby. And all three of us are living and in reasonably good health. GE: So Marty, we're just going to continue now and talk more about the business. You shared with us a little bit about the origins. If you want to share with us a little bit more, I don't know quite who is in the business, in your family? MK: The business was set up with basically . . . I don't know exactly when my grandfather died, but he wasn't really active in the business. He didn't speak the language. My father, and I guess his older brother, picked it up rather quickly, I'm not sure how quick. They both spoke with a little dialect, you know, that we're all used to hearing from that generation. So, basically, it was my Uncle Joe and my father, and, at the start of the business, my dad was the "inside manufacturing person" and my uncle was the sales and marketing person. My uncle lived in Philadelphia, and we lived here in Allentown at the time. My understanding, and I know, factually, they manufactured the slipcovers. In those days, they were able to use only woven fabrics because the furniture was not that diversified. Their market was, I guess, lower middle class, and that was the Goldblatts and the Lit Brothers and Gimbels, the department stores of that ilk They, eventually, as furniture became a little more diverse, they began a knitting mill. A lot of the slipcovers at that time were stretch fabrics and then they got in a big way in furniture throws, which you just threw fabric over the furniture with fringe and what have you, but that was later on. During the Second World War, because of the shortage of fabric and materials, they manufactured exclusively for the government. They had prime contracts for parachutes and pup tents because the product was bulky, like slipcovers, and they had the equipment that could handle larger type products. So they manufactured, as I said, parachutes and pup tents and, I guess, any canvas type products. It kept a lot of the employees out of the war because they were making strategic products for the military. And that, during the war, was when their main competitor opened up. The door opened for competition while they [Surefit] were doing all military work. A company called Comfy, out of Baltimore.The slipcover industry was not like the apparel industry with very niche type products and very small markets. So basically, it was just the two companies that eventually competed head-on against each other. GE: And so the two had the military contract throughout the war? MK: Surefit had. We were the only ones making slipcovers up until the end of the war and because the retail stores wanted slipcovers, somehow this Comfy was able to get fabrics or what have you. My dad's whole factory was dedicated to the war products so they couldn't flip back. They didn't have the capacity to do that. And there are a number of old-time employees who stayed with the company for many many years, and I was able to get a flavor of what they did during the war. They employed hundreds of people in this silk mill on Sand Island in Bethlehem. At one point in time, I knew when I was working and came into the business, we were the second largest manufacturer in Bethlehem. The first was Bethlehem Steel with 25 thousand and then it was Surefit, maybe with five, six hundred, seven hundred people at the time. The company, I recall, one of the big problems with Sand Island is that Sand Island is located between the Lehigh River and the Lehigh Canal. I loved it as a kid, going there on Saturdays, sitting in the office and shooting paperclips with a rubber band and the trains would go by and things were happening, both on the canal and the Lehigh River. Sand Island was right in between. I was a sophomore in high school or a senior in high school, and I know my father had given me his old company car that had a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, but it was my car. This was great. And they had - I forget which hurricane it was - and they've had floods before there. This one was really bad and I drove my father and there was the hill-to-hill bridge. The only way to get to Sand Island was down a ramp where Fritch Fuel is. They eliminated that ramp now, and they built a bridge from the North Bethlehem side, but at that time, you could only go with this ramp, and I remember we parked at the bottom of the ramp and walked all the way to the factory. They had a system where, if there was a potential flooding, they had ten people that would come in, but we were there for three days, and they wanted to rescue us by helicopter, which I was all for. I could see myself climbing a ladder, you know, this is terrific, but there were too many telephone wires. So they finally got us by Red Cross boat, but they threw lines across the canal and that's how we got food and water. There were ten of us that were there for three days. For me, it was very exciting, I was in high school and this was not the average day, you know. But, obviously, it was very devastating and shortly after, a year or two after, 1956, so the flood was, I think, around '55. If you look at the history books, it was a terrible flood. My car that he gave me ended up in Easton. That's the thing that upset me the most, not the hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory that they lost, it was my car that I had lost. SC: Hurricane Hazel. Because I was really little and I remember my parents going to their friends house and my brother was watching me to help them get water out of their basement. MK: Yes, it was a major one. I remember during the Korean War, they apparently had a Navy contract for bathrobes, because we had more bathrobes at home, Navy bathrobes. Anything that had a little hole or a tear, they couldn't put through production, so we ended up with all of these bathrobes. GE: Marty, want to share with us a little bit, what was the transition from wartime to peacetime like for your father's business? MK: Well I think they did rather well during the war because of the contracts they had with the government and it kept a lot of people out of the Army. Maybe some of them wouldn't have survived, I don't know. The other thing about the war and shortly after, well even prior to the period, when I came into the business, and I'm a young know-nothing who thought I knew everything, Wharton graduate and all of that stuff. I asked, we have too many relatives working here. I remember everyone, because they were mostly immigrants, they talked loud, and we had an intercom system. I felt a little embarrassed because everyone would hear shouting, even when we would go to my grandmother's house in Philadelphia every weekend. To me, as a kid, everyone was talking loudly. He hired a number of relatives. My attitude towards that was, you know, this is not a good thing because they're not necessarily the best qualified. Only later did I realize that he was doing a good thing and providing jobs. Many of them were hired during the Depression. After the war, he brought a number of relatives and others that survived the war, Holocaust survivors in, and provided jobs to them. So, at the time, I didn't appreciate what he was doing, and only later, as an adult, it sank in that it was a very noble thing, and expected, and it was a responsibility of his. Following the war, this would be in the late 40s and 50s I think, the business was successful. People had money. The thing about the slipcover business was, when times got bad, people had a tendency to, instead of buying furniture, they'd buy slipcovers. And then, when times were good, you have that large population that can't afford new furniture anyway, so they would maybe buy used furniture. There was a need for it, a market for it. The business flourished, but they had their ups and downs. GE: So it sounds, from what I'm hearing, that it was a little bit recession-proof. It didn't really go up during good times that strongly or down during bad times. It was pretty steady. MK: It was kind of steady. GE: Steady but growing. MK: Steady but growing. You know the ups and downs and what have you. My dad was very conservative. At that time, the major customers were the national chains like Sears, Montgomery Wards, and every major city had their homegrown department store and they sold to most of every city's homegrown department store. GE: And it sounds like it was nationwide. MK: Yes. GE: And that was both you and Comfy? Or were you more into certain regions? MK: Both. And some other little companies that started too. They were more lower end. I started in 1960 and at that time, the business was doing maybe $20 million. Which I guess, in today's dollars, would be pretty good, and we employed, I'd say five to six hundred people. After the flood of '55, he acquired a company called Laros. I don't know if that name strikes a bell. It was in Bethlehem. Major, major employer. Laros name is, I think he built the YMCA in Bethlehem . . . a very prominent individual, and their silk business kind of waned. So they sold out to Warnaco, the brassiere people. When they bought the company, bought the building, and it was about a 230-40 thousand square-foot building. Three stories. And we added on and eventually it ended up about 300 thousand square feet. GE: With Sand Island? Or instead of? MK: No, they kept the building on Sand Island. Eventually, the year 2000, the building was vacant, because we had already sold the business. But it was a building ; I brought in the Rouse company. The Musikfest was interested in buying the building and converting it. What they did now at Steelstacks, they were thinking of putting up a boardwalk, and I was in conversations. We brought the James Rouse company. They were the ones that did the Boston Faneuill Hall and Baltimore Harbor and the timing was wrong. But at the time, the building was this old silk mill with a thousand windows on both sides. It had to be boarded up, and we had fires every other day. Kids would go in, and we had an escaped convict living there for a month. It was just driving me crazy and then we called in the Amish. Someone said "get the Amish, they'll tear it down for you" because we thought the land would be nice to keep, on Sand Island. The problem with the Amish is you can't call them, they don't talk on the phone, but eventually, we finally got someone. We had asbestos in the building so that didn't pan out. I got so disgusted and it was just aggravating to me. I said the city was good to us all these years, I'm gonna give the building back to the city, which I did. And I know we were in California, about two months after I had given it to the city and they had the largest fire they ever had in Bethlehem. The building burnt down. And I'm sure, the powers to be, I'm not accusing anyone, but they instructed the fire department, "don't be too anxious to go down and put it out." When I owned it, I'd get calls all the time. That's just a side note about that Sand Island property, but they ended up with this property on River St.[?] One of the fun things, Laros, during the Second World War or Korean War, how they got into this, I don't know. They manufactured white corpuscles, synthetic white corpuscles, and they formed a company called Pahrmacan [?] which I think is still in business. I don't know what they do, but, up until 10 years ago they were. When they sold the building to us, the Pharmacan had a two story section in the building, not large, where they had this very sophisticated equipment that manufactured this. So the deal was, at the time, Warnaco would rent our River Street property, Sand Island property, for us, so they were really narrowing their operation down and they did that for a couple years, but this Pharmacam had to remain in our building for x number of years. Fun thing about that was they had an experimental lab, just a hut within our building, all glass. And you look in and you see all these people with white uniforms with masks and rabbits. Well when we'd bring customers to take a tour, which we often did because we had an interesting operation, they would say "what is that?" "Well that's our testing lab, we test all our fabrics. We give them to the rabbits." And they had to believe us, no one is going to make a joke and have all these people there with rabbits so we had a lot of fun with that and eventually they closed that down. GE: So you really started actively in the business about 1960? MK: 1960 and my brother in-laws, both brother in-laws, were in the business. And we also had my three cousins from my Uncle Joe. He had passed away in 1957 and the family, like a lot of situations, it wasn't a good fit. And we bought them out in 1963. Our family acquired their interest and it was at a time where, I think, there was a recession or something. We lost some key people because of the family, not a feud, but it was a problem that existed. GE: What did they end up doing? MK: One ended up teaching, one lived in Philadelphia, two of them worked in New York, but one commuted from Philadelphia. He ended up teaching in Philly and he died at an early age. He was on drugs, I don't know. My other cousin, I'm not quite sure what he ended up doing, and my third one, who I knew more about, because he lived in Allentown. His name was George Krasnov. He went into the knitting business and then I think he brought his kids in and, like all of the textile knitting businesses, they went by the way, you know. Interesting, Surefit is a very viable company today. GE: When did your father retire? MK: He never retired. He died at age 85. That was it. Like many of the fathers of people you interviewed. Only this generation retires early. GE: So he, you, and your two brothers in-law? MK: Yes. GE: And who stayed in charge of the operation and who took over more of the sales and marketing? MK: My oldest sister's husband was in New York. We always had national sales managers and that was the structure. My sister Mitzi's husband was more in production and I was in the finance part. And, that was how it was after we acquired the other family's interest. Now, from that time on, in more recent years, the company diversified in other products and had a very nice growth rate. GE: Want to tell us about that? MK: We were a little concerned about the slipcover industry and the furniture covering industry because we also went into furniture throws. As the market expanded, with the K-Marts of the world, they couldn't handle the slipcovers, per say, but they could handle furniture throws. We were producing, I remember, ten thousand throws a day. GE: And what is a throw, versus a slipcover? MK: A slipcover is a fitted slipcover, with the cushions. GE: And it kind of has that elastic edge, right? MK: Well, they're a little different today. But the way we did it, we did it with mostly knitted stretch slipcovers. After the department stores started going by the wayside, we began selling more and more to the catalog people-- slipcovers per se, the fitted slipcovers. Each had individual cushions, they were solids or printed, and they stretched, and we fit x number of styles of furniture. We couldn't fit all of the styles. So, we sold to Spiegel, Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Penneys had their own catalogs. Any catalog in the country, at a time, this is pre-internet. And Sears catalogs and Montgomery Ward catalogs, these were huge things. Then it evolved where we would basically, it was a great way to present the product, and we would present it in room scenes. So you'd show a living room with our slipcovers and then with draperies and toss pillows, but we were the largest resource for Spiegels for toss pillows. We had maybe 10-12 pages of slipcovers and every page had toss pillows on it that matched the slipcovers and people would just buy toss pillows and draperies, like window treatments. We were selling a whole coordinated room, so that's when that business started taking off, in a bigger way, even though we were losing the department store business. In place of that, came the discounters. All of a sudden, the discounters started showing up, the Zayres, Korvettes the Kings, and we sold them all. And that's how we sold the furniture throws. A throw is 60 by 90 for a chair, sofas, 70 by 140, so we had different sizes, four sizes of a furniture throw. We laminated it with foam so they wouldn't slip and you put either a ruffle or a fringe around them. It was a simple bulky product. As I said, I remember because I'd see these things coming down the chute every second. I said "My God, everyone's buying one of these things every second." So the business began to grow and, as the discounters grew, that became a major factor. We acquired a little competitor that had a . . . from Beatrice Foods that sold certain discounters on consignments that we were able to have service people now go in and count the inventory. We controlled it and we got bigger margins. Then, around the early 70s, we could see that some of these major catalogs and department stores started going out of business. The Wanamakers, the Gimbels, and we were doing slipcovers with them as well, but not to the extent that we were doing it with Sears and Montgomery Ward. We had the opportunity and we decided we should diversify so we bought a company that was manufacturing bedspreads in Japan and it was a very niche market. We couldn't compete with the big mills, the Burlington or J.P. Stevens, with selling bedspreads and that was even pre-comforters. They owned the space and what have you in the stores. So we found this niche market where they call it outline quilting where the stitching is done around the design, so it brought it out and they called that outline. And they used big, long-arm sewing machines and we acquired a very small company in Japan, and we operated in Japan for maybe 2 or 3 years. Then it was tough because it was not into a price point that meant anything and so we moved it to Korea. We had a little more success there because the labor rates were much much lower and all our fabric came from Japan so we were able to function. But, as it became popular, we realized that long term, if we're gonna make a business out of this, we've got to move it closer to the country. First of all, it costs too much money sending people over all the time. It's a bulky product so we had to ship by container which would take two months. We sold, for example, Sears a Diane Furstenberg design and it was the best selling bedspread they had, and we couldn't meet the deliveries. Then the next year we had too much because of the requirement. It was too difficult. We were like "we've got to get this thing closer, we've got to go to a real low labor market because the labor involved is very expensive", so we said, "ok we'll change. We'll buy all our fabrics here in this country now", and we changed the whole operation. We went to Haiti and that was really a forte I had. I enjoyed doing that, going to a country and having no idea. Korea was already set up. I wasn't too involved in that, but Haiti I was. The problem with Haiti is that we had to get our polyester batting from Puerto Rico because you couldn't ship it from the states because it was too expensive. And Puerto Rico was a big brassiere industry and that's where they used all this polyester. Well the guy that owned the only factory ended up with a hernia, and he was in the hospital for a couple weeks, and he closed the factory, so this is not good. So we closed Haiti and, at the time, we were able to go into Mexico on the border at Juarez, Mexico. I basically set that up and researched it and got the whole thing going and, as I said, it was pretty good at that time. That's when everything started growing in our bedspread business and, eventually we ended up with 600 employees in Mexico, manufacturing outline quilted products. We were the first ones to do all of these kinds of Americana quilts where you put all of those pieces together. Anything that could be labor intensive. At one point, I get a call from 60 Minutes and they want to interview me. They were doing a whole thing on the twin plants in Mexico, the assembly operations and I said, "all the major companies, Philips, General Motors, Ford, none of them use their own names. In Mexico, they use a different name, but they were employing thousands and thousands of people. Why don't you interview them?" They wanted to come into our facility. It was a girl with an English accent on the phone and she said, "well we'd really like to interview you about it" and I said, "It's not all bad. This Mexico opportunity that a lot of American companies are taking advantage of, if it wasn't in Mexico, it would be in Asia. The law is that you can assemble US products, and you don't pay duty when they come back. You only pay duty on the added value which is the labor." I said, "As an example, we were in Asia, and in Asia, we had to use all foreign fabrics and what have you. Now, we're in Mexico, we're using all US fabrics. We're employing people because we have to cut the fabric in the United States." You can't cut in Mexico, and I said "We're employing many, many more people here in this country because we're in Mexico and other vendors are benefitting as well." "Well that's an interesting viewpoint", she says, "Can we interview you?" I said "excuse me, I've got to take another call and think" and I look out my window and from my window, at our factory. I could see 4-5 miles of Bethlehem Steel and I said this is not gonna be a good idea. It's a no win, so I declined. It was my chance to be on 60 Minutes. But the business flourished. Then we eventually went into women's apparel because we were making our knitting when the lycra pants became very popular with the women's fashion. We had a knitting operation because of our stretchy fabrics that we made. We started selling that fabric, lycra fabric, and then we said, because of Mexico, we might as well manufacture the whole product. Through the period, the business grew steady and it was pretty sound. We had such a diversity of products and a diversity of customers. Our largest customer when we sold it in 1990 was J.C. Penney, that represented 6% of our business, so we had a lot of good attributes to it. And the reason we sold the company, much of it was through my initiating the processes. Both brothers in law were 10 years older than I. I was 50 at the time, they were 60. I had 2 nephews in the business, and my children were young, and my sister Mitzi just had girls. We didn't have any direction that the family would go. I remember the problems we had with my uncle's son, and I said, you know, we're having a pretty good run. There's a time. When the first generation comes up with the idea, and they're the ones that struggle through it, and they're uneducated. So they get it to a point and then the second generation comes in and they're educated. They still have some values because they remember growing up in a row house and what have you. And they move it to the next level. The third generation could start running into problems because now you're not dealing with brothers and sisters, you're dealing with cousins. I went through a number of family succession seminars, and I had that implanted that someday--my dad had already passed away, and my mother had Alzheimer's so we didn't want her to know. So in 1990, we contacted Bear-Stearns, an investment banking company in New York that is no longer here. We met with them and worked out values. Our main thought was basically to try to bring in a foreign buyer. Number one, we thought we'd get more money. Number two was we could keep it a secret as long as we could from our customers and employees of the company that it was being offered for sale. Certainly for our employees, we didn't want them to know. Everyone was doing well. And they liked what they saw, after we established a value so there was no real conflict of interest. They had formed a leveraged buyout group. They had bought the first one that was a real success that was [??]. And they liked what they saw with us, a nice growth, diversity of product, and customers, so they made an offering, and we sold it to them, and I had a five-year contract. This was 1990 and, right prior to the selling, the country went into a pretty deep recession, and I didn't like the way they [the new owners] reacted to it. They were making decisions that were short-sighted. You know, you would struggle through it, but they would get rid of this and do that and I was very upset about it. And I said to them, this isn't for me. It was easy to say because we had money in the bank and I realized what I wanted to realize. My two brothers in-law stayed on for maybe another six months and it became unpleasant. They got rid of employees, and we had a lot of guilt with it. I did, I had a lot of guilt, and I thought it was just best to part ways. So I had very little contact. I still don't have any contact. Most of the people are gone, it's been 26 years. Bear-Stearns got caught up in that bubble. The company was sold two or three times, but I understand they're doing decently, and now the internet has been a big help to them. If you Google "Surefit", you'll see their website and it's quite impressive. They still sell to Target and Wal-Mart. They did get in a lot of trouble because of those two accounts, which represented well over 50% of their business at one time, and when they started manufacturing everything in China, they kept their warehouse. They moved out of our building a couple of years after we sold it. I was still here in town and I ended up with 22 tenants and, because it was an ancient building and these were not quality tenants, a couple were, I said "what do I need this for?" so I sold the building. We gave away the Sand Island property to the city. Interesting story was at the beginning of my rental process, all of a sudden, I became a realtor. The Women's Junior League, I guess it is, came to me and said, we had very few tenants in the building, so they said, "We're bringing a dinosaur exhibit into the area and we would like to rent, but we don't have any money to pay you. The reason we like your space is because you have this two-story room and it's perfect for the main dinosaur." So I negotiated with the Women's Junior League and, what they agreed to do was, through their volunteers, they were going to put up partitions and do this and do that, which would enhance the value afterwards. We broke up some of the spaces after they left that we could now lease. So it worked out fine. They were there for 6 months. It was in conjunction with Lehigh University. They had all kinds of computer stuff. I don't know if any of you went to that dinosaur exhibit. They had 100,000 children go through from all over and it was a big thing in the area. It attracted other people and everyone was in that building. I sold the building in 2000, and we started spending our winters in California. So after this whole story, I have been fortunate to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And my story is very similar, I'm sure, to many people you interviewed, in terms of the families and the backgrounds and how they ended up here. GE: So a couple of questions about the business. When you were in Mexico, that's where the assembly was taking place and you said you had about 500 people? MK: Yes. GE: Back here in Bethlehem, how many people were still here? MK: We still had about 400-500 people here. GE: And they were just doing everything but assembling? MK: Well they were assembling slipcovers. We were still manufacturing furniture throws and slipcovers in Bethlehem. GE: This was the other pieces? What was being assembled in Mexico? MK: The bed coverings. The outline quilting. We had that niche and that whole niche was very labor intensive. So that was our only way we could sell a product because we were one of the first ones to go into outline quilting and the stores, you had a flower and you just bring the quilt around it. And you see that today. Now it's a lot of automatic equipment that does that. They program it, but at that time, it was all very extensive labor. GE: So when you were doing that, Burlington and J.P. Stevens were not doing that, correct? MK: Correct. It was not an important market to them. They couldn't compete with U.S. labor, and I don't think they were anxious to go offshores in those days. They had unions and what have you but we had a union here too, a textile union. In Mexico, well, we actually ended up with a union in Mexico. The wage rates made it possible for us to get into that business. We didn't take jobs away. We actually created jobs because of this. We had a large warehouse in El Paso, Texas. Because my wife was from El Paso, it made it kind of, not easy, but I was familiar with both sides of the border at that time. SureFit had closed that many, many years ago, but that was actually during the recession. That was one of the things that they began to minimize, but today, I'd be concerned about driving into Juarez. I had no qualms about it when we were there, but it's not a pleasant place to be today. SC: What was the address of the building in Bethlehem? MK: Its East, Broad, and Wood streets. And we still have a company called Broad and Wood Realty because, when we sold the building, we did a tax-free exchange, and we kept the entity, and we owned property because of that and some other company buildings. We owned property in Florida and Pittsburgh. Commercial property. SC: And the other question was, which labor union would it have been? MK: The United Textile Workers of America. It was a smaller union, and we always had a pretty good relationship with them. We had strikes, I remember we've had strikes, but nothing really long-lasting. GE: Just so I understand, you started out with Slipcovers, then you very much did the throws, the quilting became a niche that you were producing in Mexico, then you were also doing the throw pillows and curtains, right? MK: Yeah, we always did that. Now what had happened, as our bed covering business grew, it was around that time where Sears went out of the catalog business. They gave up a five billion dollar business overnight. Five billion is what they were doing in their catalog. The Sears catalog was an icon. Montgomery Wards went belly up, so we ended up with, in terms of catalogs, and again, this is all pre-internet days. If the internet would have been existing then, in fact, I had started my own catalog. When we saw that we were losing Sears and Wards, I put together a "Slipcovers of America" catalog and we'd advertised in House Beautiful and what have you. It was growing at the time we sold the company, and we did room scenes as well, but we didn't have enough substance in it. I wasn't willing, knowing we were going to sell the company, to really invest a lot of money in advertising and bringing in customers. So that thing eventually dwindled through Behr Sterns' as well. In any event, yes, we did, up until the time we sold, and after we sold, in Bethlehem, they still manufactured slipcovers, draperies, decorative pillows, and furniture throws. GE: Now tell me a little bit about how the sales force worked. It sounds like one of your brothers in law headed that part. MK: Yeah, we had our main sales office. The showroom was on 34th Street, between Madison and 5th Avenue. That's the later years, when I was there. We had offices on 26th Street when I first started, but that goes back. They were very attractive showrooms, and we displayed a lot of the bed coverings and furniture throws because the catalog people didn't need showrooms. We had a showroom in Chicago for a number of years, and we had a showroom in California for a number of years. We had a warehouse in California. We had, initially, full time sales people, but then that became a very expensive thing, and we had a few full-time sales people that catered to the major accounts, but then we gravitated towards sales reps to handle other lines, as well. It was a difficult product to sell, very difficult. During this time, we have a little side-story. We also did a lot of work with foam because of the furniture throws and we had products that used foam to some extent. How we got involved with it, I don't know, but it's interesting. We end up signing a contract with Jane Fonda on her exercise mats. She put out the video, if you recall her video, which was the most popular video ever sold because it made sense. It was the first one that people had to use every day. It's not like how to cook something or a recipe and you use it once. This one, you watch the video every day. What was the name of her video? GE: It was a workout video. MK: Yeah, Jane Fonda's workout. Well we signed this contract for the events, and I saw on your little thing that you wanted a side-story, so I'll give you one. Karl [Home] Video was the one who really put her in business. He was the one who came up with the idea of taking her exercise thing and distributing it. They came to us, after we signed a contract, and they said, "We will give you exclusive rights to her video for the department stores". Well, many department stores didn't have sporting good departments and our salesmen would go nuts. Who do you sell this to? That never really took off but we had exclusive rights to her thing. I met her once and the one who did all her work was a bathing suit company out of Long Island, and the son got infatuated with her. Same immigrant father and the whole bit but the son got lost in this Hollywood bit, and they were Penneys largest supplier of bathing suits and, two years later, they were out of business. They hired Theoni Aldredge [?], a Broadway costume designer and she was the designer for hers, which was way overpriced. We did the mat and it was just simple different colored stripes, a workout logo, and a nice packaging, and we didn't know who to sell it to. She got a royalty, and we sold it to a few sporting goods chains and what have you. But, I remember, when she was doing all the PR leading up to the big event at the Shubert Theatre, where they brought in, (the bathing suit son brought in) the chorus line, the actual original Chorus Line people and they each wore her outfits and what have you. I remember we were sitting behind his father, who didn't look very happy about this because they footed the bill. So we did the mats for maybe 3-4 years with Jane Fonda. When she started out with the PR, she started in Burdines in Miami, and they cancelled her appearance because of all the problems with the veterans, and she went to Atlanta and they cancelled that. As she made her way up the East coast, word spread and they didn't want to have anything to do with her. Now she is going to have an appearance at Bloomingdales or Saks in New York, and she was interviewed the night before and she says, "Look, I'm tired of this, I've paid my dues" or whatever her rationale was and she said "I'm showing up. I'm gonna be there". Little did anyone know, but they called her and said, "You're not coming. You come and all your merchandise is going out." They couldn't afford to do anything with it, so the whole thing was not a successful project from every aspect. And that's just a side note. We didn't expect to make a lot of money, I guess, but someone in our organization said "Hey this is an opportunity." They knew someone and that was it. One of our sales managers who lived in Chicago by the name of Gordon Toland was very friendly with Hillary Clinton's father. Hillary Clinton's father worked in Scranton Lake [?[ and then they moved to Chicago. He became a sales rep for the airline upholstery industry, and our sales manager, of course they're kind of in the same industries, were neighbors. I remember being at a barbeque there and they invited the neighbors, but I don't have a clear picture of Hillary being there or anything. But, years later, they were very close friends, and they were always invited to Clinton's Governor's home in Arkansas. Years later, President-Elect Clinton was in Santa Barbara, California, and, I guess, the Tolands were out there with the Rodhams. There's a picture my sister has of her, my brother-in-law, Hillary and Bill, standing behind a sofa. Hillary's mother is sitting on the sofa with her feet up, drinking a beer out of a bottle, and the father is sitting next to her. So I presume our sales manager took this picture because he wasn't in it. And, I'm not a Hillary fan because of that. GE: Interesting. Marty, on a totally different note, tell us a little bit about your civic involvement and your community involvement. MK: Well, I've been on a lot of committees over the years. When I was young, I co-chaired the Campaign Federation for the campaign with Arnold Finkelstein. I was on the Federation board for many, many years. I remember us starting the George Feldman Achievement Award. Some of the things were very moving. Of course, it was during some of the wars. I remember the Wilkes-Barre flood, and they had a special meeting where about two dozen men went to the Jewish Community Center in the boardroom and they raised, within 10 minutes, $100,000 to send to the Wilkes-Barre Jewish Community Center. Things like that were very touching. We had a parlor meeting in our home. We had a shag rug that I remember. One of the older guys who had a cigar, and we didn't know until after they all left, but he put the cigar out in our shag rug. My wife was beside herself. But, we participated in that. That's how I got to know Ivan[Schonfeld] real well. We went on a mission with him in 1990, right after we sold our business, I remember. There were ten of us. We went to Hungary and brought a planeload of Russian immigrants into Israel. They had a video, like you are doing. This woman accompanied the mission, with the idea they're going to show this, which they did, to a full meeting at the center. And, no one really paid much attention while she was videoing this whole, ten-day mission from Hungary to Israel. And I was the one that carried her tripod, and I felt a little responsible. They were all guys except for Elaine Lerner, she was there. You know Elaine Lerner? GE: I know the name. MK: She was just wonderful. We were in the Old City, and I was dying for an ice cream. We were in the Armenian section and I see this ice cream store, and Ivan's on his megaphone, "We're going to the Knesset, get on the bus, everyone on the bus!" and I said, "Elaine, I'm dying for some ice cream." She says "I'll deal with Ivan. You go in and get yourself an ice cream cone." So I come out and the streets are all these cobbled streets, and I trip, and the cone falls down. And I remember her, she was patting me on the back like my mother saying "It's alright Marty. We'll get you another ice cream cone later." But that's how I got to know Ivan real well, and he was great because he was the director of the Federation for many years. Other involvement in the Jewish communities and mostly the Jewish institutions. I was on the board there, but later on, I cut everything off and became very inactive. I kind of paid my dues and, of course, we're in California now, six months a year. Hobbies, I play golf, I'm living a nice life. GE: We no longer have much of a thriving textile industry in this community. How do you think the Jewish community has been affected by that? MK: I think the needle trades was the big industry. Maybe the second, they owned a lot of retail stores, Hess Brothers' and boutique type things. The medical industry has replaced the needle trades industry, but I think its effect is that a few things have changed. The area is spread out and there's too many other activities for children growing up. They don't mingle as much. We were in a concentrated thing. Everyone knew everyone. It's spread out today. I guess there's advantages and disadvantages to that. I know the institutions are all hurting money-wise because it was a different ballgame then. The people that had the money were the manufacturers and they contributed willingly. Professionals have a tendency of not doing that. A lot of them are new to the area. I guess it's good and bad. I think it's put a strain on a lot of the institutions, from the synagogues to the Jewish Community Center.There were a lot of big egos from people who owned manufacturing. And the egos translated into their own institutions because they were the major contributor. I think things have to change. The concept of a campus of institutions makes sense where, in my mind, I'm not really into the numbers today but, just on the surface, I think it would be nice to have the Jewish Community Center and the day school certainly should be combined in some way or another. More of that consolidation. Times are changing. That generation has died off and is dying off. You've got to service the needs and today it's open. One of the questions, did I ever have any real anti-semitism growing up as a child? I don't recall. Maybe because we were isolated but in high school, I don't remember any incidents that bothered me or were lasting or made an impression. I'm sure there was a lot. I know we lived on 16th Street and sold our house, unbeknownst to us to Thompson [?]. His father owned the deli and ran the deli at the old JCC. He worked for Bethlehem Steel, and he worked for my dad for a couple years. He worked for Bethlehem Steel in the 30s, and he was a member of the Communist party, which was not unusual. Then the FBI got him as an undercover to stay in the party and, when I was in high school, they had the hearings in Washington. The father now had a little sandwich shop next to our high school. We always used to go there for lunch. The newspaper came out, I forget his first name but his last name was Thompson and he was called in to testify in Washington. That's the only anti-semitism was in this window, "Down with the Jews", and it was two weeks until he went to Washington to testify and, during that two-week period, he was not allowed to expose who he was, and the only one, we heard later, I'm sure he told his wife, was Rabbi Greenburg. He had to let someone know that he was doing this for the FBI. During the testimony, we found out our house on 16th Street was sold to a veteran who had a repair shop for radios and TV. Well maybe not TV then, but radios. And he was head of the Communist Party of Eastern Pennsylvania and, where we used to play ping pong in our basement, they used to have all these big meetings going on with the Communist Party. This was all going on during the height of the Cold War. There was a certain feeling that we were going to be bombed. So our house was used for Communist meetings. GE: And the last question I'm going to ask before Sue asks you the final couple of questions, why do you think Jews were overrepresented in the needle-trade industry? This was an industry where they were really overrepresented. MK: Well, I guess there was a number of reasons. I think they started out like my father, in their own homes, because it was easy to get a sewing machine. They came from Europe. They made their own clothes, so they had some inclination, you know, about that. They certainly couldn't get jobs in banks. Most of them were uneducated anyway. They didn't go to college, many didn't even finish high school. They started these companies, but it was easy to get into. You buy a couple of sewing machines, and you go into it. In the New York area, of course, in the needle trades, there were so many Jewish women involved with that because they learned it from their mothers and, as I said, it didn't take much to buy 3 or 4 sewing machines and many of them, like my father and his father, they started peddling on the streets. They didn't have any options, in terms of employment. They didn't speak the language. That was another thing. So, why not other things to get involved? They did. It's not like all of them got into the needle trades, but it was an easy entry. GE: Thank you. These are our last couple of questions. SC: So, the last two questions are, what has made you feel the most creative in your life? MK: Well I think I inherited some of that from my father. When I retired and moved to California, I decided that, other than golf, I had to be a little productive and use my head. So we have a, I don't know if you've ever heard of the Osher program. Osher was an individual, and if you look it up, google Osher, they run senior citizen classes at universities. They have a terrific program in the desert because of so many retirees, and we were connected with Cal State of San Bernardino. I always managed to take courses there. One class I decided to take was creative writing. I knew I had a little talent, based on emails and letters I write. So I took this course in creative writing, and basically, the course had maybe 30 people in it.We met once a week for eight weeks and she gave us, sometimes, topics. Other times, just freelance and you go and write and you email it to the instructor, and she'd review all of them and she'd read three or four of them in the class. It seemed like every week she'd be reading one of mine. And I'm not a good writer, but the stories were bizarre and some of them were very touching. And I did come in-- the Palm Springs Writers' Guild has a contest-- and they sent my story in and I got honorable mention, which would be the last thing in the world I ever thought I would get. I started writing all of these stories. Then, afterwards, the class formed our own writing group,, and we had a mentor that published and she liked our small group. We only had four people in our group, and we'd meet every week and basically, during four-five months, we'd do this all the time, and we wrote. So that's when I realized that maybe I was a little creative, and I enjoyed it. And my wife thinks some of the stories are very good. Not necessarily well written. She helped me on some of them. This is cute, before I leave there's a restaurant that is terrific for breakfast and lunch where we live in the desert, Louise's, and I go there one day. It's lunchtime and I run in by myself and a friend of mine is sitting on a chair in front of the restaurant, reading a book. "What are you doing, John?" He said, "Well, I already ate, I'm waiting for the car dealer to call. When they're finished, then they're gonna pick me up." Then I said, "Keep me company, we'll go inside." So we go inside the restaurant and I said, "We'll go sit at the counter so we can eat fast, and I'll take you to the dealer." So we sit at the counter. They hadn't cleared his dishes because he had just finished and all of his dirty dishes are at one end of the counter. And in the interim, a woman sits down next to his dirty dishes. I sit next to the woman, and he's sitting next to me. He sees the empty dishes so he goes over and his glass still had half a glass of iced tea and he brings it back. The woman sees what's happening, and she gives me one of these things and her eyes are wide open and she said, "Can you believe that? Did you see that? Can you believe that?" I said. "Well, I've known him for many years. He doesn't buy his own drinks." Then, the waitress comes and he orders a refill. She gives me another one of these and says, "I can't wait to tell my friends, this is incredible." Well it ends and, we're one of the few people that still get Reader's Digest, 100 words or less, and I write this story. Fitting it in under 100 words, that was tough, and I thought this was really neat, and I submitted it. I couldn't fit in the refill. That really bothered me. I was sure I was gonna win $100 from this and other people read it and they said, "This is terrific". I never heard from Reader's Digest. It's their loss. So I have some creativity. SC: And this is very short. What do you value most in life? MK: Well, I value humor, obviously family and what have you. But I value humor and I kind of gravitate to the deprived. I'm a Republican, leaning to the right on financial and way to the left on social. That kind of describes me. But, I appreciate, particularly in the later years, my parents, the struggles they went through, and that provided for a good life to me and my family. You could value a lot of the good things, and you could become very verbal, but basically, I like good humor and I like nice people, and I'm tolerant, too. People have different viewpoints. So what? Let it be. I'm kind of like laid back. And that's my story. SC: Thank you very much. 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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Marty Krasnov, June 22, 2016
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Marty Krasnov talks about how his father got into the furniture slipcover manufacturing business as well as how the company got the “SureFit” name. During World War II, the firm switched from making slipcovers for furniture to making parachutes for the military because the specialized equipment SureFit already owned to produce slipcovers was easily retrofitted to make parachutes. Marty and his brothers-in-law sold the business in 1990. SureFit is one of the very few brands that still remains.
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LVTNT-27
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2016-06-22
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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
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Maxine Klein
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5.4 April 8th, 2016 Maxine Klein, April 8th, 2016 LVTNT-06 10:16 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Maxine Klein Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 KleinMaxine_20160408_revised.mp4 1.0:|23(4)|46(10)|65(17)|86(9)|113(6)|134(11)|161(10)|188(3)|221(17)|240(13)|245(9) 0 https://youtu.be/I6G8bjDJq9c YouTube video 0 Introduction—Maxine Klein: Women's Health Nurse Practitioner SCB: Today is April 8th, 2016, an interview — a second interview — with Maxine Klein. Maxine, would you talk about your career as a nurse? 
 ; 
 ; MK: Yes, thank you. I went to school as a nurse, excuse me, when I was thirty-eight. And why I did that essentially two — well many reasons, but two of the main reasons — one of them, I was involved in some community projects, the- at the Center Hakol, the development of the newspaper, Hakol. And my partner and I decided we wanted to be paid for this job because it was enormous, and they told us, no, they weren't going to, so we both decided we would go and become professionals of some sort or another. I always felt that I wanted to be more than Mrs. So and So ; growing up at the time that I did, the first half of my life, we were programmed into the old ways of becoming secretaries or teachers or nurses and- but mainly wives and mothers. And then the Women's Movement happened in the middle of that, and all of a sudden women were supposed to be more than that. At first I resisted this, but then I decided that I thought I would like to be more than that, too, and have my own identity. 0 121 First Job at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Center MK: So I finished in three years and- and then I- my first job was at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Center. I never really wanted to work in a hospital, I always felt that I wanted to use the nursing authenticity, shall we say, as a segue into something else. It was a sort of a quick and legitimate way to get that authenticity. And I was always interested in education, but I didn't want to be a school teacher either. So my first job was at Good Shepherd Rehab, which is a lot of patient teaching as well as patient care. That was a- a- a what was that? Seven to three job, which was very difficult for me because I still had my family. 0 172 Second Job Following Loss of Husband—Working as an Oncology Nurse Specialist MK: A month after I started there, I also passed my- my boards, and my husband died suddenly on August 8th. I had started there in the beginning of July and he died on August 8th. So I left that day and I did not return there. And I took about six months to kind of reorganize myself because he was involved in several businesses, et cetera, and all that had to be straightened out, and my children's lives were in the middle of this and that as well. And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to work in a hospital, I didn't want to work full time because I had these other- Anyway, close friend of mine arranged for me to interview with one of the local oncologists who was looking for a nurse to come in and give his patients what he couldn't do — education, time, contact with family, help to understand what the patient needed about their treatment, about the disease, etc. So I went and interviewed and he hired me. It was David Prager who was a wonderful oncologist and is now deceased. And I worked for him and his partners for seven years as an oncologist nurse. I became an oncology nurse, I became an oncology specialist and I helped design patient education as well as some courses for visiting nurses to come through to learn how to do some- certain techniques. And it was very exciting, for me, it was very, very exciting. And very helpful, I was helping people in a time when they needed it and if it was end of life and they needed help and had to have a good death as well. So it was- It was- And I think it was a sort of a healing process for me, too. Having lost my husband, the whole process was somehow therapeutic as well as it turned out. 0 301 Twelve Years Working as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner for Planned Parenthood MK: I began to realize that I was losing a sense of perspective. My friends were telling me, oh, they had a bad cold or their shoulder was hurting and this and that, you know, “I can't do it.” And I'm thinking, “Are you kidding? What are you telling me this for? I’m dealing with people making life and death decisions!” And I started to lose touch with the main real world. And I thought, you know, either I'm getting healed or something, something needs to change, I'm going off on the wrong end here. So I- I left that job. I worked for a little while as head of the hospice volunteers. I didn't like that much. Then I volunteered at Planned Parenthood. My daughters all went to Planned Parenthood and I volunteered doing all sorts of things there for about a year. And then the- the manager at the Allentown clinic said that the- the clinician was going to leave Planned Parenthood, would I be interested in becoming a nurse practitioner? And they would pay for me to go. There was a special program with Planned Parenthood and the University of Pennsylvania and the United States government to try to get clinicians into places where- that serve the underserved. So it was a speed up kind of thing. And I could become a women's health nurse practitioner in one one- one year’s time, which would give me a certificate, not a Master's Degree, and I didn't need anything other than my Associate’s Degree and my RN license. And so I thought, okay — nothing else is happening right now. A year will go by and either I will be a nurse practitioner or I won't. So I said, yes, I'll do it. 0 480 Maxine Klein's Creative Inspirations SC: What has made you feel the most creative in life? I know we asked you this before, but sometimes it changes. 
 ; 
 ; MK: I don't remember you asking me that. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Maybe we- 
 ; 
 ; GE: No, we did.
 ; 
 ; MK: But I don't know what I said. 
 ; 
 ; GE: I don't remember. 
 ; 
 ; SC: And that doesn't matter. 
 ; 
 ; MK: Oh, I'm sorry. 
 ; 
 ; GE: That’s okay, just leave it.
 ; 
 ; MK: Most creative? I think, I think interacting with other people, helping people to see the world the way they need to see it sometimes takes a lot of energy and creativity on my part. 0 592 Maxine's Values SC: And what do you value in life? 
 ; 
 ; MK: Well, probably the love of my family and my children and all the people that I, I know and love — that's definitely the most valuable to me. 0 MovingImage Maxine, the younger sister, talks about being influenced by the women’s movement in the 1970s. From that, Maxine returned to school, became a registered nurse and, later, a nurse practitioner. Maxine enjoyed a fulfilling career working with a local oncologist’s office and later at Planned Parenthood.
 ; Interview with Maxine Klein, April 8th, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is April 8th, 2016, an interview -- a second interview -- with Maxine Klein. Maxine, would you talk about your career as a nurse? MAXINE KLEIN: Yes, thank you. I went to school as a nurse, excuse me, when I was thirty-eight. And why I did that essentially two -- well many reasons, but two of the main reasons -- one of them, I was involved in some community projects, the- at the Center Hakol, the development of the newspaper, Hakol. And my partner and I decided we wanted to be paid for this job because it was enormous, and they told us, no, they weren't going to, so we both decided we would go and become professionals of some sort or another. I always felt that I wanted to be more than Mrs. So and So ; growing up at the time that I did, the first half of my life, we were programmed into the old ways of becoming secretaries or teachers or nurses and- but mainly wives and mothers. And then the Women's Movement happened in the middle of that, and all of a sudden women were supposed to be more than that. At first I resisted this, but then I decided that I thought I would like to be more than that, too, and have my own identity. So I decided I would go to the community college because I still had three children that I was responsible for and my husband. And I- it was a two year program to become an RN, I did it in three years so that I could organize my life. That- I was at school from eight to four, whether I had class or not ; I did all my work at school and then when I came home at four, I was with my family for the rest of the evening and I didn't have to be distracted with any other work. And this seemed to work quite well. So I finished in three years and- and then I- my first job was at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Center. I never really wanted to work in a hospital, I always felt that I wanted to use the nursing authenticity, shall we say, as a segue into something else. It was a sort of a quick and legitimate way to get that authenticity. And I was always interested in education, but I didn't want to be a school teacher either. So my first job was at Good Shepherd Rehab, which is a lot of patient teaching as well as patient care. That was a- a- a what was that? Seven to three job, which was very difficult for me because I still had my family. A month after I started there, I also passed my- my boards, and my husband died suddenly on August 8th. I had started there in the beginning of July and he died on August 8th. So I left that day and I did not return there. And I took about six months to kind of reorganize myself because he was involved in several businesses, et cetera, and all that had to be straightened out, and my children's lives were in the middle of this and that as well. And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to work in a hospital, I didn't want to work full time because I had these other- Anyway, close friend of mine arranged for me to interview with one of the local oncologists who was looking for a nurse to come in and give his patients what he couldn't do -- education, time, contact with family, help to understand what the patient needed about their treatment, about the disease, etc. So I went and interviewed and he hired me. It was David Prager who was a wonderful oncologist and is now deceased. And I worked for him and his partners for seven years as an oncologist nurse. I became an oncology nurse, I became an oncology specialist and I helped design patient education as well as some courses for visiting nurses to come through to learn how to do some- certain techniques. And it was very exciting, for me, it was very, very exciting. And very helpful, I was helping people in a time when they needed it and if it was end of life and they needed help and had to have a good death as well. So it was- It was- And I think it was a sort of a healing process for me, too. Having lost my husband, the whole process was somehow therapeutic as well as it turned out. However, at the end of that time, I did seven years, I began to realize- am I going on too long? GAIL EISENBERG: No. SC: No, keep going, please. MK: Oh okay. I began to realize that I was losing a sense of perspective. My friends were telling me, oh, they had a bad cold or their shoulder was hurting and this and that, you know, "I can't do it." And I'm thinking, "Are you kidding? What are you telling me this for? I'm dealing with people making life and death decisions!" And I started to lose touch with the main real world. And I thought, you know, either I'm getting healed or something, something needs to change, I'm going off on the wrong end here. So I- I left that job. I worked for a little while as head of the hospice volunteers. I didn't like that much. Then I volunteered at Planned Parenthood. My daughters all went to Planned Parenthood and I volunteered doing all sorts of things there for about a year. And then the- the manager at the Allentown clinic said that the- the clinician was going to leave Planned Parenthood, would I be interested in becoming a nurse practitioner? And they would pay for me to go. There was a special program with Planned Parenthood and the University of Pennsylvania and the United States government to try to get clinicians into places where- that serve the underserved. So it was a speed up kind of thing. And I could become a women's health nurse practitioner in one one- one year's time, which would give me a certificate, not a Master's Degree, and I didn't need anything other than my Associate's Degree and my RN license. And so I thought, okay -- nothing else is happening right now. A year will go by and either I will be a nurse practitioner or I won't. So I said, yes, I'll do it. I had to move to Philadelphia for four months, which I did, and then did the rest of my internship at- in Easton at the Easton Clinic, and I became a women's health nurse practitioner. And then I worked for 12 years. At the time that I did it, I thought, how long am I really going to work? You know? I mean, well, if I work two years, it'll make it worthwhile. But I worked twelve. And it was most exciting and most gratifying and it kept me young, kept me in touch with all different ages of people and what was happening, and I could do a lot of teaching in a really short amount of time to a patient population that really, really wanted that teaching. So it was very gratifying and I'm glad I did it. And then when I was sixty-five, I decided I think I'm getting tired and I had some health issues and I thought, I'm going to retire before they kick me out. So that's what I did. I retired from Planned Parenthood. So now I'm looking for my next career, shall we say. Is that enough? GE: Yes. SC: Well, may I ask you--? MK: Sure. SC: What has made you feel the most creative in life? I know we asked you this before, but sometimes it changes. MK: I don't remember you asking me that. SC: Maybe we- GE: No, we did. MK: But I don't know what I said. GE: I don't remember. SC: And that doesn't matter. MK: Oh, I'm sorry. GE: That's okay, just leave it. MK: Most creative? I think, I think interacting with other people, helping people to see the world the way they need to see it sometimes takes a lot of energy and creativity on my part. GE: Can I ask you- Can you, can we just mute that? MK: Yes, I can turn it off. GE: Yeah, let's turn that off and just say the- 'cause what you said is beautiful, perfect, I just don't want to have that-No, no, no. I'll get it for you. [cross chatter irrelevant to interview] SC: So, what has made you feel the most creative in life? MK: I was- I think working with other people, helping people to solve their problems, helping them to understand what they need to understand. It takes a lot, for me. it takes a lot of creativity and getting outside of myself and trying to be in somebody else's skin to- to help them. I think I feel the most alive when I'm doing that. I don't know if that's the same as being creative, but that definitely makes me feel most alive and most energized. SC: And what do you value in life? MK: Well, probably the love of my family and my children and all the people that I, I know and love -- that's definitely the most valuable to me. SC: Do either of you have any questions? 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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Maxine Klein, April 8th, 2016
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Maxine, the younger sister, talks about being influenced by the women’s movement in the 1970s. From that, Maxine returned to school, became a registered nurse and, later, a nurse practitioner. Maxine enjoyed a fulfilling career working with a local oncologist’s office and later at Planned Parenthood.
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Kathy Katzman
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5.4 May 26, 2016 Kathy Katzman, May 26, 2016 LVTNT-19 18:49 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Kathy Katzman Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 KatzmanKathy_20160526 1.0:|17(2)|34(13)|53(5)|74(2)|91(5)|110(5)|129(5)|146(10)|167(11)|202(3)|233(4)|262(5)|289(4)|306(7)|331(8)|354(7)|383(16)|414(10)|431(13) 0 https://youtu.be/cs1hVW_e4fY YouTube video 0 Introduction—Kathy Katzman's Childhood & ; Education SC: Today is May 26, 2016, and so would you give me your full name, with your maiden name and where you have lived? 
 ; 
 ; KK: My name is Kathy Lackritz Katzman. I was born June 21, 1952, in New York City. I lived actually in Scarsdale until I was five, at which time my parents divorced, and then we moved to New York City, to Manhattan. And I lived there until fifth grade when we moved to Philadelphia and graduated from Friends Select School in Philadelphia and went to Boston University. I studied to be a teacher. When I first graduated, we got married. Seth and I got married right after I graduated college, and we moved to Schuylkill Haven-Pennsylvania. When you talk about culture shock, here is a girl who lived in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and ended up in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, with I think was a population, maybe, 2000. 0 89 Early Childhood—Careers & ; Childrearing KK: I got a job teaching first grade in Tamaqua, which was about 40 minutes from Schuylkill Haven, and I taught for a year and really did not like it. I decided it wasn't for me. And at that point, we moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and I got a job working at Sears in the women, the lingerie department. And we lived in Lebanon for a little over a year and then decided to move to Allentown. And I decided that I was going to go back to school. I got accepted to Lehigh for a Masters in reading, but soon after that discovered I was pregnant. So, I never went back to school, and I stayed home with my children. We have three sons who are now thirty-six, forty, and thirty-two. 0 189 Volunteering in the Allentown & ; Jewish Communities KK: [A]nd I did a lot of volunteer work. I was very involved with the PTO at the elementary school. I was very involved with different Jewish organizations, and I always seemed to be the treasurer for these organizations. So we belonged to Temple Beth El, and I was the treasurer for the sisterhood for many years. And I used to go into the Temple all the time, and about six and a half years ago, I was in there, and I discovered that their bookkeeper was becoming the Executive Director, and they were looking for a bookkeeper. I said, “Oh! I might be interested in that.” And they hired me! So I've been working as a bookkeeper at Temple Beth El for about six and a half years, perfect job-- Monday, Wednesday, Friday, takes me three minutes to get to work and it's a wonderful environment, it still gives me some time off. 0 261 Children & ; Grandchildren SC: So what are your children’s names, and what are they doing now?
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 ; KK: Ok. Adam is our oldest, he’s the one who’s 40, and he's an attorney, and he lives in Southeast Florida. His wife is also an attorney, and they have an almost 3-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter. So after three girls, three boys, I got to have a girl, well four boys, if you include the grandson. And our middle son, Jared, the one who had the web hosting business, has a Masters of Engineering and Computer Science. He lives in Denver, Colorado, and he's the director of technology at a private school there. He’s actually chaperoning a trip in China right now. And our youngest son, Glenn, lives in Oakland, California, and he’s a history teacher. He took a while to decide what he wanted to do. He graduated in political science and history, and first he wanted to teach, and then he decided he wanted to go to law school and he ended up with a full scholarship to law school in San Diego which is how we went to California, he went for one semester and said “I hate law school, I don't want to be a lawyer,” left law school got his Masters of Education, and he teaches at a charter school in Oakland. And neither Jared nor Glenn is married, unfortunately. 0 372 Family History KK: I believe that both sides of my family were from Russia originally. My mother's name was Vera Warsaw, her father, Jack Warsaw, was actually the founder of Phoenix Clothes here in Allentown. It was originally a silk mill, and he turned it into a factory. I believe he came here very, very, young. His name was originally Warshowsky, and he changed it to Warsaw. I really don't know anything about his parents at all. They were long gone by the time I was on the scene. Her mother was named Maddie Newmark, again I believe she was born in the United States, but I'm not really sure, and I don't really know about her parents either. My father was Morton Lackritz, and his parents were Joseph and Mildred, it was Mildred Becker originally. I think they were both born in the United States, I'm not positive, but the grandparents were from Russia, and that grandfather was also in the garment business, but he was in the garment business in New York. 0 532 Kathy's Grandfather—Jack Warsaw & ; Phoenix Clothes GE: Let’s see. So Jack Warsaw, he bought a silk mill here.
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 ; KK: Yeah, well, Phoenix Clothes was originally a silk mill, but I'm not sure exactly the transition.
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 ; GE: And do you know what they made?
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 ; KK: They made men's suits. They were very high quality, high-end men's suits.
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 ; GE: Do you know who he sold it to? 
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 ; KK: He didn't sell it.
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 ; SK: He did sell it. He sold it to Genesco.
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 ; KK: Oh, he did? Ok, you see, he knows more than I do. Yeah, he had a partner, Nat Berkowitz, was one of his partners, and there was another one I think, I don't remember any more. 0 740 Kathy's Inspirations and Values SC: So, what makes you feel most creative? 
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 ; KK: When you're saying creative, you mean fulfilled? 
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes, that would be another…
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 ; KK: Ok... I would say my relationships. Again, my family is my number one relationship, but my friends, too. My friends are very important to me. And loyalty, but again my family is definitely number one.
 ; 
 ; SC: And that’s what you value most?
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 ; KK: Yes.
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 ; SC: Thank you. So anything else either one of you thought of that you’d like to say? 0 796 How the Business Changed Seth KK: Seth was saying about it, being in the garment business changing him and I've known him since he was eighteen. We met when I was sixteen and he was eighteen. We’re about to have our forty-third anniversary, and as he said about being quiet, he was a very quiet, introverted young man. Once he went into business you can’t be that way, and definitely he changed his personality. 0 824 Meeting Seth/Seth's Education SC: Did you meet in Allentown?
 ; 
 ; KK: No, I was actually on a teen tour across the United States. Seth had just graduated high school and he was driving across the country with a friend of his, whose girlfriend was on my teen tour. And that was how we met. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Is that what inspired one of you or both of you to go to school in Boston? 
 ; 
 ; KK: Me. He was at Brandeis, and that's why I went to Boston. 0 MovingImage Kathy Katzman talks about living in New York, Philadelphia and Boston before she married Seth. Their first home together was in Schuylkill-Haven Pennsylvania, a community of 2,000. They then moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, still very small, and stayed there for a year before moving to Allentown. Coincidently, Kathy was familiar with Allentown because her grandfather was a founder of Phoenix Clothes located in the Lehigh Valley, which made high-end men’s suits. Kathy was a stay-at-home mom, active in the Jewish organizations and at the local elementary school.
 ; Interview with Kathy Katzman, May 26, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is May 26, 2016, and so would you give me your full name, with your maiden name and where you have lived? KATHY KATZMAN: My name is Kathy Lackritz Katzman. I was born June 21, 1952, in New York City. I lived actually in Scarsdale until I was five, at which time my parents divorced, and then we moved to New York City, to Manhattan. And I lived there until fifth grade when we moved to Philadelphia and graduated from Friends Select School in Philadelphia and went to Boston University. I studied to be a teacher. When I first graduated, we got married. Seth and I got married right after I graduated college, and we moved to Schuylkill Haven-Pennsylvania. When you talk about culture shock, here is a girl who lived in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and ended up in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, with I think was a population, maybe, 2000. I got a job teaching first grade in Tamaqua, which was about 40 minutes from Schuylkill Haven, and I taught for a year and really did not like it. I decided it wasn't for me. And at that point, we moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and I got a job working at Sears in the women, the lingerie department. And we lived in Lebanon for a little over a year and then decided to move to Allentown. And I decided that I was going to go back to school. I got accepted to Lehigh for a Masters in reading, but soon after that discovered I was pregnant. So, I never went back to school, and I stayed home with my children. We have three sons who are now thirty-six, forty, and thirty-two. And I worked, I taught in a nursery school for a year or two when my youngest son was in nursery school. And then I really did not have a paying job for a number of years until our middle son started his own web hosting business when he was fifteen, and I became his bookkeeper,I guess you would say. And I worked from home for quite a while, and I did a lot of volunteer work. I was very involved with the PTO at the elementary school. I was very involved with different Jewish organizations, and I always seemed to be the treasurer for these organizations. So we belonged to Temple Beth El, and I was the treasurer for the sisterhood for many years. And I used to go into the Temple all the time, and about six and a half years ago, I was in there, and I discovered that their bookkeeper was becoming the Executive Director, and they were looking for a bookkeeper. I said, "Oh! I might be interested in that." And they hired me! So I've been working as a bookkeeper at Temple Beth El for about six and a half years, perfect job-- Monday, Wednesday, Friday, takes me three minutes to get to work and it's a wonderful environment, it still gives me some time off. SC: So what are your children's names, and what are they doing now? KK: Ok. Adam is our oldest, he's the one who's 40, and he's an attorney, and he lives in Southeast Florida. His wife is also an attorney, and they have an almost 3-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter. So after three girls, three boys, I got to have a girl, well four boys, if you include the grandson. And our middle son, Jared, the one who had the web hosting business, has a Masters of Engineering and Computer Science. He lives in Denver, Colorado, and he's the director of technology at a private school there. He's actually chaperoning a trip in China right now. And our youngest son, Glenn, lives in Oakland, California, and he's a history teacher. He took a while to decide what he wanted to do. He graduated in political science and history, and first he wanted to teach, and then he decided he wanted to go to law school and he ended up with a full scholarship to law school in San Diego which is how we went to California, he went for one semester and said "I hate law school, I don't want to be a lawyer," left law school got his Masters of Education, and he teaches at a charter school in Oakland. And neither Jared nor Glenn is married, unfortunately. SC: So will you go back in your family and tell the names and where they're from, and what you know about your family as far back as anyone has told you? KK: I believe that both sides of my family were from Russia originally. My mother's name was Vera Warsaw, her father, Jack Warsaw, was actually the founder of Phoenix Clothes here in Allentown. It was originally a silk mill, and he turned it into a factory. I believe he came here very, very, young. His name was originally Warshowsky, and he changed it to Warsaw. I really don't know anything about his parents at all. They were long gone by the time I was on the scene. Her mother was named Maddie Newmark, again I believe she was born in the United States, but I'm not really sure, and I don't really know about her parents either. My father was Morton Lackritz, and his parents were Joseph and Mildred, it was Mildred Becker originally. I think they were both born in the United States, I'm not positive, but the grandparents were from Russia, and that grandfather was also in the garment business, but he was in the garment business in New York. He invested very heavily in some sort of new zipper. Zippers were very new in the world back then. We're probably talking about, I'd say the late thirties, maybe, and ended up going bankrupt, with this big investment. And my father had worked with him briefly, and I'm not sure what my grandfather ended up doing after that, but my father went out of the garment business altogether and became an electronics salesman. That's what he did for his whole life. And unfortunately, I don't know very much about the family history at all further back. SC: So I have a question, I'll ask you the same questions, but maybe, do you have some business questions or questions about the--? GAIL EISENBERG: So one quick thing, Lackritz, can you just spell that? KK: L-A-C-K-R-I-T-Z. GE: Let's see. So Jack Warsaw, he bought a silk mill here. KK: Yeah, well, Phoenix Clothes was originally a silk mill, but I'm not sure exactly the transition. GE: And do you know what they made? KK: They made men's suits. They were very high quality, high-end men's suits. GE: Do you know who he sold it to? KK: He didn't sell it. SETH KATZMAN: He did sell it. He sold it to Genesco. KK: Oh, he did? Ok, you see, he knows more than I do. Yeah, he had a partner, Nat Berkowitz, was one of his partners, and there was another one I think, I don't remember any more. GE: The only one that I heard of who made suits is Billera? KK: They made slacks ; in fact, they had their factory in my grandfather's building. GE: Oh, isn't that interesting! SK: Yeah, they knew each other pretty well. GE: Ok. We're hoping somebody here actually has a connection with Billera, that hopefully when somebody comes into town, we're going to get an opportunity to interview them. KK: I'm right that they made slacks, right? SK: Yeah. They might have made other things, but they were known for their slacks. GE: How about Mort Levy? What did he make? SK: Mort Levy had done different things. I'm trying to think what he did. I thought he was in sportswear, but I'm not sure exactly, to tell you the truth. Pants. Yeah, pants. That's what he made. KK: Roberta Penn might know, that was her uncle. SK: But it was pants, that's definitely what he did, I remember. I was at his factory. GE: So all you know is that your grandfather did Phoenix Clothes, do you know what years he was in business? KK: I think he started it in the twenties. SK: Her grandfather started the business but didn't start in that business, he made vests and different things. I don't know the name of his businesses, but he was in business in another business making vests. He got together with-- KK: Nat Berkowitz. Nat Berkowitz. I don't remember. SK: There was three men, I don't remember the names, they got together, he was really the financial one. The three of them got together. I think it was in 1950. GE: And they stayed in business until when? SK: They sold it to Genesco, which was a big company that bought that company. KK: In the early eighties, maybe? Because my grandfather still had his office there for years. SK: He had a big plant. He was really big. GE: So when you came here, your grandfather was still here. KK: Oh yeah. GE: Wow. KK: It was sort of funny because as a child I would come here occasionally because of my grandfather. My grandfather actually did not live here, though. My grandmother refused to leave New York and move to Allentown, so he would live here during the week and go back to New York on weekends. GE: We have certainly spoken with many who, at least for a temporary time, for six months or a year-- KK: She never moved here. Ever. And then she would go to Florida for the winters and he would go down to Florida. GE: Thank you. SC: So, what makes you feel most creative? KK: When you're saying creative, you mean fulfilled? SC: Yes, that would be another-- KK: Ok... I would say my relationships. Again, my family is my number one relationship, but my friends, too. My friends are very important to me. And loyalty, but again my family is definitely number one. SC: And that's what you value most? KK: Yes. SC: Thank you. So anything else either one of you thought of that you'd like to say? KK: Seth was saying about it, being in the garment business changing him and I've known him since he was eighteen. We met when I was sixteen and he was eighteen. We're about to have our forty-third anniversary, and as he said about being quiet, he was a very quiet, introverted young man. Once he went into business you can't be that way, and definitely he changed his personality. SC: Did you meet in Allentown? KK: No, I was actually on a teen tour across the United States. Seth had just graduated high school and he was driving across the country with a friend of his, whose girlfriend was on my teen tour. And that was how we met. GE: Is that what inspired one of you or both of you to go to school in Boston? KK: Me. He was at Brandeis, and that's why I went to Boston. SC: But what happened to you, that's why you go to a liberal arts college? SK: Actually what really happened, I applied to a number of schools. Actually my brother and sister both went to Boston University. My brother actually graduated, my sister didn't because she had some health issues. But I figured I'd probably go to BU or something. But what happened, my brother, when I went up to see him, he said: "let's go see the colleges." So we went around, and he said: "let's see Brandeis!" And I said, "Wow, this is a nice school! I'll just apply here!" I had no idea about Brandeis. I really didn't. I had no clue about Brandeis. It looked like a nice school, so I just applied. What happened is I never went back. They wanted to have an interview, so I said: "Ok, we'll have an interview." And the interview was in Philly, so my mother drove me to Philadelphia. I had the interview, and I was sick as a dog that day. I remember, I had a great interview with the guy, so he was asking what I was doing. So one summer, it was my junior year, the summer of my junior year, my friend and I decided I wasn't going back to camp. I said, we're gonna do a project so we decided we were gonna build a one-link particle accelerator. It's like an atom smasher. It's one of these crazy things you see in Scientific America. We're looking at it, and we said, "we can do this!" We're looking at it, and I said, "Oh, we'll copy this," so we go to [unintelligible], they lend us some equipment. This is something that would never happen today. So we ended up pulling this stuff off, you know we made this thing work. You know, it was in my basement. KK: For years, it was in your basement. SK: Yeah! So we spent all summer doing this, we made this thing work, so at the interview, I don't know if the guy knew any science or not, but I was explaining what we did this summer, and the guy was like fascinated! We must have been in there at least an hour or more talking about this particle accelerator. I didn't think anything about it, you know, I knew Brandeis was hard to get into, so I didn't expect to get into Brandeis anyways. And I had good grades ; I graduated probably in the top 10% of my high school class. I never killed myself in high school ; in fact, I was bored in high school. I found it very boring. It was a public school. Like I used to go down and complain, you know because they stuck me in these classes, I said, "isn't there a better class? What happened?" I guess they had filled up the APs, and I couldn't get in, so I was stuck in the regular classes. I didn't even have to show up, and I could get an A. So I did lots of extracurricular things ; I always did different things. So I applied to schools. I knew I was going to get into Boston University. University of Pittsburgh I applied to as a safety school. Tufts was another one I thought I'd try to get in to. KK: And Columbia, you said, right? SK: Columbia did me a favor, because I went to Columbia, had a horrible interview with them. I didn't like the school, but I still went. So it's just as well I didn't get in. And then, for whatever reason, I thought I'd go to BU, and BU accepted me. And I think Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, the guy said "Why do you want to come here?" I looked at him and said [unintelligible]. He just said to me, "You're not going here." He looked at my parents, and after the interview, he said, "You're not going here." He said to me, "You're in. Why are you gonna go here?" KK: And the funny thing is when we took Jared to look at schools, and he wanted computer science, and we took him to Brandeis and met with the head of the computer science department, and he said to Jared you don't want to come here, we're not gonna have what you want and what you need. GE: But that's wonderful that the school was that frank. SK: But Brandeis is an interesting school because it has a lot of high powered people there, it's very liberal artsy, it was Boston, it was 1968. KK: Susan Sachs was in his classroom, from the Weather Underground. SK: I knew Susan Sachs. I sat next to her in Spanish class. GE: That was your father's mother, was Maddie--what was her last name? 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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Kathy Katzman, May 26, 2016
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Kathy Katzman talks about living in New York, Philadelphia and Boston before she married Seth. Their first home together was in Schuylkill-Haven Pennsylvania, a community of 2,000. They then moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, still very small, and stayed there for a year before moving to Allentown. Coincidently, Kathy was familiar with Allentown because her grandfather was a founder of Phoenix Clothes located in the Lehigh Valley, which made high-end men’s suits. Kathy was a stay-at-home mom, active in the Jewish organizations and at the local elementary school.
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2016-05-26
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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
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Seth Katzman
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5.4 May 25, 2016 Seth Katzman, May 25, 2016 LVTNT-29 1:07:35 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Seth Katzman Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 KatzmanSeth_20160525 1.0:|19(2)|38(13)|61(6)|82(2)|105(3)|130(7)|155(7)|178(19)|203(3)|228(4)|251(4)|274(9)|297(5)|324(4)|347(14)|374(8)|399(12)|424(6)|445(12)|472(6)|499(2)|526(2)|551(8)|574(8)|599(13)|624(15)|649(11)|672(10)|695(14)|722(7)|737(3)|754(14)|777(11)|806(3)|833(13)|870(3)|901(6)|924(18)|947(7)|972(6)|995(15)|1022(3)|1051(4)|1076(9)|1105(11)|1136(13)|1163(15)|1194(11)|1221(10)|1248(14)|1277(3)|1304(4)|1329(2)|1360(8)|1387(8)|1412(3)|1433(14)|1460(5)|1487(4)|1512(10)|1539(13)|1566(3)|1587(12)|1614(8)|1643(15)|1672(9)|1699(14)|1702(9) 0 https://youtu.be/UqqG8LRCHbA YouTube video 0 Katzman's Life Before the Business Today is May 25 and we’re going to start with and this is 2016, and we’re going to start with your life story because it interweaves for what we’re doing and for instance, we are looking at women this year and so we want to have all of this even though it’s long. So if you would give your full name, where you were born, and when you were born and talk about your early life and from the time you were born and any memories that you think have been important. 0 303 Education at FIT [A]nd at that point before I went to the business, my father said well you should go to FIT, and FIT is the Fashion Institute of Technology. So what happened, my brother, since I was going to the business, my brother had graduated before I had, he was five years older than I was. He was in the Peace Corps and doing different things, hadn't really settled on anything he wanted to do, and he said ‘well since you're going into the business, maybe I'll try with you.’ So we both went to FIT...
 ; 0 412 History of the Business Just to give you a little background about our business, my father was actually in the business a long time, in the apparel business. He wasn't in this particular business that long that he had. My father and my uncle had started a business, really manufacturing t-shirts to start out with. They had a couple different plants and that’s one of the reasons he moved to Allentown. 0 492 Managing the Pine Grove Contracting Business So when I came along, my brother and I both started in the business. He had a manager at the time, he didn’t plan to replace his manager, he figured we would learn the business with him and then see what would happen. As it turned out, after about two months my manager decided he was going to go into his own business, in the flower business or something. So he quit after two months, so I ended up taking over the production there. 0 595 Change and Competition in the Garment Industry That changed relatively quickly in a year or two because what happened is the garment industry itself started to change a lot. You had a lot of competition from the South, and then within a couple years you had competition from Chinatown and overseas. In the beginning, Chinatown was actually cheaper than overseas because they never paid minimum wage in Chinatown, and it was always a problem there. We were a union plant so I always had to deal with the union and the employees. 0 848 Adaptation and Growth: From Associations to Private Labor So really what happened is in my father's business, I said he had one customer, and I used to go into New York every, pretty much every other week, what was needed. Because they helped me learn the business actually about the pricing, and they gave me different things to price, and I worked for manufacturing people there because they gave us a lot of different stuff. We did a tremendous amount of styles. Women's clothing had a tremendous amount of style, and it was dresses. What took place in a few years was they moved away from Pennsylvania doing manufacturing, so I had to find other work so I would go to New York City and knock on the different doors to make sure that I had enough work for the plant I started doing different things. 0 1075 The End of the Pine Grove Business—Offshoring to Mexico But then essentially when it got to be the later 90s, everything went offshore, and I couldn’t stay in Pine Grove. And even though I had good relationships with the union and the help, and we were in Pine Grove a long time, I felt bad in a way. You know, but I tried to do what I could and we transitioned out, and I ended up closing the factory over there. I still moved to Allentown, I moved my operations to Allentown, but I had to go to Mexico.
 ; 0 1301 '80s-90s: Struggling Production in Reading and Pine Grove SC: I’d like to take you back to your family history, as far back as you know, but I have one question, which union?
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 ; SK: ILGWU
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 ; SC: Okay, that’s what I thought, but yes, and also, there was another question I had with how far was Pineville from Reading?
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 ; SK: Pine Grove from Reading is…
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 ; SC: Pine Grove, I’m sorry.
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 ; SK: Pine Grove from Reading is approximately 45 miles
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 ; SC: Because they had all the outlets by that time, all the stores and the business, weren’t they? Reading was still producing when you were...?
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 ; SK: Actually my uncle was still in business at that time. He was in manufacturing, but they had problems also with that, even the manufacturing. 0 1455 Family History SC: Could you talk about the names you know in your dad’s family and your mother’s family? Where they came from as far back as you know.
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 ; SK: As far back as I know. Quick thing I never knew my grandparents really. I knew one grandparent ; my great-grandparents I never knew. They were long gone. My great grandparents-- actually from one side was from Poland I think. My parents . . . 0 1900 Legacies: Garment Businesses in the Lehigh Valley Today SK: You know, there’s another guy that is really Jewish, but not Jewish in a way, that might still be working in the Valley.
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 ; GE: Although it has happened to be mostly Jewish, it doesn’t have to be.
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 ; SK: There’s a guy here that’s still working actually, that does apparel stuff, he does embroidery, which is Lilly daVid. Now I don’t know if David, cause I haven’t talked to them in years, but I believe that they are still there because they do embroidery, they used to do embroidery for me all the time. 0 2025 From Rick Knit to Summit Station Manufacturing GE: Thank you. So a couple of follow-up questions, one,you’ll share those stories about the Miss America and about the other. Couple of follow up questions. One, what was the name of your businesses? Initially you were manufacturers right?
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 ; SK: Initially we were always contractors. We started out as a contractor.
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 ; GE: You did, your father did?
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 ; SK: My father did. And the name of the business was Summit Station Manufacturing.
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 ; GE: That was your father with the T-shirts? Correct?
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 ; SK: Well, no, my father and the T-shirts started out as Rick Knit. 0 2283 Expanding the Business: Goods and Clientele GE: Well do you want to share with us - so then it was really a matter, if I understand correctly, it was the matter of keeping your cost down, and that’s how you tried the Mexico...
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 ; SK: The beginning problem was actually getting work that you could actually make at a price. And I would go to different places and like I said, I ended up doing a lot of different things. I expanded out of dresses. I started doing blouses, sportswear. I went into running suits. I went into anything that we thought we could make. We actually made outerwear, too. For LandsEnd, we actually made outerwear, that’s how I got started with LandsEnd. 0 2568 Working with LandsEnd GE: So during this time, if I understand correctly, these were where you were doing a lot of small runs?
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 ; SK: Yeah, my business was [doing] a lot of small runs. That’s how I really survived. Later on by 1995 when I hired an outside sales person and he said I have contacts I think we can do business. And the reason he knew me was because when we started he found out I did some smaller runs through some of these guys. And we connected, I went to New York, I used to go to New York a lot. And in New York, we started talking and his name was Jim Stabile and he was working for somebody else at the time and said you know, I bet we could get together and do something. And, you know, you kind of listen, and they never do it and then one day, he called me and said I think we could do something, you want to come in? And we got to talking, and I said okay if you think you can do this, I’ll do this and that's what happened. We started getting sales and then I went out to LandsEnd. I would go out with him, and we would restructure some deals, and we actually got some contracts and that’s how I got started. 0 2981 Life After the Business GE: So at that point, you’re about 50 I assume. And so I’m just kind of wondering if you wanted to share with us what you’ve done since, um you know, in terms of how did you personally have to adapt, right?
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 ; SK: Well, when I left I actually liquidated the plant. I actually walked away. It cost me a lot of money, really a lot of money. Okay but, I almost thought that I would have to declare bankruptcy. Because of how I handled most of my customers, and I had good relationships with everybody, I was able to pay, repay everybody and that type of thing. When I say everybody, there’s only one person I didn’t really repay at the end, but they actually should have paid me. 0 3296 The Jewish Community in the Apparel Industry GE: So a couple of last questions before Sue gets back to you. What do you think about the community here? How has the community been affected, in terms of when it was 1950, when you were very young, there were many families that were in this business.
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 ; SK: You’re right, the community has definitely changed a lot. When I was growing up as a kid there were a lot of small businesses. In fact when I went to the synagogue, even in the Jewish community there were a lot of small businesses. In fact that was the majority of people, you had doctors and lawyers but the majority of givers, the people involved in the community, were all small business people. On that, in fact a lot of the givers to the [Jewish] Federation were from the garment business. 0 3750 Katzman's Artistry and Family Values SC: Okay, so I really only have two more questions, so one is what has made you feel most creative in life?
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 ; SK: What has made me most creative in life?
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 ; SC: Given you a sense of satisfaction or creativity or whatever other word you want to add?
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 ; SK: It's a mix, it's a mix of things for me because essentially I would say my family has been one of my key satisfactions in my life, no matter what because they have always been there, and I always have enjoyed them, proud of them. But one of the things, the garment business was a big change for me because I was a shy little guy. I'm still quiet, but it made me do things I would never do. 0 MovingImage Seth Katzman shares fond memories growing up in Allentown during the 1950s and 1960s. While attending Brandeis University Seth decided that rather than pursue his original plan to attend medical school, he would instead take over his father’s apparel contracting business. His father wanted to retire anyway. Seth’s older brother joined him initially in the business. Not many years later, the traditional sewing contracting business in Pennsylvania was diminishing and Seth had to adapt to the changing environment. Seth stayed in the apparel business until 1999, much later than many other contracting businesses in Pennsylvania. Interview with Seth Katzman, May 25, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is May 25 and we're going to start with and this is 2016, and we're going to start with your life story because it interweaves for what we're doing and for instance, we are looking at women this year and so we want to have all of this even though it's long. So if you would give your full name, where you were born, and when you were born and talk about your early life and from the time you were born and any memories that you think have been important. SETH KATZMAN: My name is Seth Katzman. I was born on March 28, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York in Methodist Hospital there. My family moved to Allentown when I was one-year-old so basically I consider myself an Allentownian, believe it or not. The rest of my family did live in New York at the time, probably around Queens. Most of my family, I should say my immediate family, was from New York at the time there, so when we moved out to Allentown, I should say my parents moved out to Allentown, it was a big move because everybody was in New York. It was unheard of that somebody would move to the Lehigh Valley away from the city. So essentially I grew up in Allentown, I went to the public schools in Allentown, we were members of Temple Beth El in Allentown. I went to Hebrew school at Temple Beth El, I got bar-mitzvahed at Temple Beth El, I got married at Beth El. Unfortunately I buried my parents as well at Temple Beth El over there. I have a long history just being in the Lehigh Valley overthere. So as a kid my mother, my parents were always involved with the Temple and at the Center. Actually my mother was very active on that. My father was also on the board of different things, so as a family we always went to services on a somewhat regular basis. I went to Hebrew school and everything. So I had a pretty normal, safe and good childhood in Allentown. Actually, my parents moved to 29th and Liberty St. At that time that was almost the end of town. There weren't any houses past 30th Street. I used to play in the fields out back as a kid. As I was growing up they kept building more and more homes. A lot of my friends and I became friendly with a lot of kids. Basically what I said, I went to public school and really formed a lot of different friendships over the time and as time moved along, graduated from William Allen High School and went to Brandeis University. I graduated from Brandeis. At Brandeis, I made a fateful decision, which was not to go to medical school. So instead my father had a business at the time, and I knew he wanted to retire. I think what happened was one of the reasons I didn't go to med school was I was getting tired of school. But also at the time I was seeing Kathy and I decided that I don't know if I really want another 8 to 10 years in school before I get out. I knew my father wanted to retire and I kind of just said 'okay I'll try the business on that,' and that's how I got into the garment business over there. Because really the only work experience I had besides the garment business was that I was a waiter at camp one summer. That was my total work experience before the garment industry. But I started out really driving my father to work because he had health problems. And I think by senior year of high school, during the summer, I drove him all summer to work and I would work in the factory for no pay. Just helping out with whatever they had doing there. And I did that for - I think it was two summers I did that. One summer I went to art school because one of the things I got interested in at Brandeis was art. I was doing painting and different things. So that's how I really got exposed to start with the business. So when I graduated, like I said, I really didn't decide to go into the business until close to graduation, and at that point before I went to the business, my father said well you should go to FIT, and FIT is the Fashion Institute of Technology. So what happened, my brother, since I was going to the business, my brother had graduated before I had, he was five years older than I was. He was in the Peace Corps and doing different things, hadn't really settled on anything he wanted to do, and he said 'well since you're going into the business, maybe I'll try with you.' So we both went to FIT, and the problem with FIT was it was kind of interesting, the professors were nice but I had just done four years of school. My brother's really an intellectual type, he had done a lot of reading in school, he graduated from Boston University, and we both looked at these courses and said 'jeez this is kind of a little slow for us.' And then it was good with the technical courses because we didn't have the technical background for the apparel. But the other courses they wanted us to take-- marketing and some different things-- were really I think really elementary to us. And we said could we speed this up, and what really happened was they didn't let us really speed it up. But what we did was we took the technical courses, kind of skipped the other courses, and by the end of the semester we were only going like one day a week. We were trying to just do technical things then we would just go home and work at that time. So by the time June came, we were done with FIT after about a year of doing that. We did make some interesting contacts and got to meet different professors and different things. So the summer 1973 I would say is when I started really working full time. When I started out, my father had a manager of his business. Just to give you a little background about our business, my father was actually in the business a long time, in the apparel business. He wasn't in this particular business that long that he had. My father and my uncle had started a business, really manufacturing t-shirts to start out with. They had a couple different plants and that's one of the reasons he moved to Allentown. I think they had a place in Hazleton, a place in Allentown, and a place in Reading. My uncle I think ran the place in Reading, and my father kind of took care of the ones in Hazelton and in Allentown. Rather than travel all the time from New York, he decided to move to the Valley. So as time went along they built their business, and I think beside t-shirts they started making golf shirts and after a certain period of time I think my father and my uncle had a falling out. My uncle bought my father out, but I think my father . . . I'm trying to think, 1965, he kind of got out of business but decided he couldn't retire. He didn't want to stay retired, so he ended up buying a contracting business in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, which was a dress business contracting business, and that was the business I started in. So when I came along, my brother and I both started in the business. He had a manager at the time, he didn't plan to replace his manager, he figured we would learn the business with him and then see what would happen. As it turned out, after about two months my manager decided he was going to go into his own business, in the flower business or something. So he quit after two months, so I ended up taking over the production there. It was an experience because what did I know about production, I really had to learn everything from there. So at that point, I started to really do what I had to do to run the business. I had to learn all the things about pricing, production, and sewing. I learned how to sew ; I learned everything in the business. My father actually didn't know how to do those things. He knew the outside of the business-- he knew how to price, he knew about the sales part-- but he really didn't know the inside sewing part. So I had to run that, so that's really what I got to do. So it didn't take me too long, I mean I kind of started doing it. I went to New York on a frequent basis to learn about the buying from our manufacturer. At the time we were strictly a contractor. My father really only had one customer, and it was a question of how much you can get out the door. So it was a question of how good you were, were you doing your planning and production, and doing that. And that's really kind of how we made money was getting your production done, and if you had it priced right, and you did the quality right. That changed relatively quickly in a year or two because what happened is the garment industry itself started to change a lot. You had a lot of competition from the South, and then within a couple years you had competition from Chinatown and overseas. In the beginning, Chinatown was actually cheaper than overseas because they never paid minimum wage in Chinatown, and it was always a problem there. We were a union plant so I always had to deal with the union and the employees. We had about 50-75 employees. I think when I started it was 75 employees, and it kind of whittled down a little bit for various reasons which took place, but we had a fairly sizable operation for what we were doing. It was, as it was, antiquated-- it was an old building. We kept it in fairly good shape ; my father put air-conditioning in. It was fairly comfortable in the building and for the employees over there except when you were in the pressing room ; it didn't matter whether you had air conditioning or not. It was very hot, so as I learned that, after a year my brother decided he didn't like the business and left over there. Kathy and I had moved to Schuylkill Haven to start out with because I'd be at the plant, we would start at 7 o'clock in the morning, I was at the plant 6 to 6:30. I opened the plant and basically started running the plant. It was very long days. It was most likely from 6:30 getting there or getting there at 7 to 5:30- 6:00 o'clock at night. Because even though the plant really ran from, they worked seven hours a day. They might have been done but there was over time and then there was planning I had to do, and calls I had to take, and stuff like that so I really was there pretty much the full day of work. By the second year, we decided we didn't like Schuylkill Haven, and we moved to the booming metropolis of Lebanon, Pennsylvania. After living in Lebanon for about two years, we decided since it took 40 minutes from Lebanon to Pine Grove each day, and half for the extra 15 minutes, I might as well go to Allentown, and that's what we did in 1976/75. We moved to Allentown and then I would commute to Allentown to Pinegrove. So I would get up at 5:30 in the morning basically and go to-- in some cases I would get up earlier and I would go to the gym--to do that but that's pretty much what I did for 25 year. SC: And as far as the workers at Schuylkill Haven, were they mostly Eastern European by that time? SK: No, all the workers, we were in Schuylkill County. It was all Pennsylvania Dutch, all-white. There were no minorities. You just didn't have it. It was very close knit, in fact, I was the outsider. My father and I were the outsiders really. There weren't really too many Jewish people in Pine Grove. Actually, the optometrist was Jewish. There were a couple of other contractors or manufacturer ; actually I would say contractors in Pine Grove. There was another manufacturer called Canoe Mfcg. They were Jewish as well, they live in Reading. They had a sizable operation over there. There was another outerwear plant called Fox-Knapp that had been there a long long time. They were probably the first ones there. They probably had about 100 employees. Canoe probably had about maybe, they had a lot of employees, they might have had 200, I'm not exactly sure. And there was another small contractor, there might have been another small contractor there at the time. But really what happened in a few years was just the three of us left, and actually by the time I left Pine Grove, I was the only one left as an apparel manufacturer in Pinegrove. So really what happened is in my father's business, I said he had one customer, and I used to go into New York every, pretty much every other week, what was needed. Because they helped me learn the business actually about the pricing, and they gave me different things to price, and I worked for manufacturing people there because they gave us a lot of different stuff. We did a tremendous amount of styles. Women's clothing had a tremendous amount of style, and it was dresses. What took place in a few years was they moved away from Pennsylvania doing manufacturing, so I had to find other work so I would go to New York City and knock on the different doors to make sure that I had enough work for the plant. I started doing different things so I started doing blouses, I started doing dresses, I kept doing dresses, I would do slacks, I did sportswear of all different types on that. I also took work that wasn't union at the time when I started to think. After 2 to 3 years there I became involved in the dress contracting unit there you know which was a manufacturer's association for dresses. It was out of Wilkes Barre, but it had all the contractors around Eastern PA. That might've been 200 of us. GAIL EISENBERG: Was that the Delins? SK: No, that wasn't Deins, that was Atlantic Apparel. This was the counterpart to Atlantic Apparel, it was the dress division. It was a similar group to Atlantic Apparel, but it did dresses. What I learned quickly was after a couple of years, actually I was the youngest guy on the Board. When I walked in, it was actually kind of funny. I was in my twenties and they put me on the Board, I was the youngest person where everybody else was probably in their 40s or 50s. There was a 20 year gap on that. I was the youngest guy there. So I started going to the meetings and after years of being there I said to them, 'you guys are not going to be around unless you change,' and they all looked at me and laughed because you know they were older and said 'we can't change, we can't do this.' I said, 'I don't think you can continue to operate the way you operate.' And really within another five years or so, I would say by 1988 or so, I left the Association and formed my own contract with the union. Because what happened is I didn't have union sources anymore for work, and I really was working totally non-union sources. What I really ended up doing was instead of being just a straight contractor, I started doing package deals and different things, I would take on different work. It took me a number of years to learn a lot of this because I took contracting work from other contractors, there were a lot of mistakes I made in different things, but what I realized was the contracting business was going to end, and I went into the private labor business. Then I ended up getting a salesman, I guess in the 90s, and basically we started doing business with LandsEnd and Eastern Mountain Sportswear. Ellesse and I really started to build a business. The problem was there was a lot of risk for me since I had to finance everything myself. So I was really a small player for these guys but what I was able to do is that I was able to do fairly good quality for them, which took a long time to do. I mean it was really painstaking to learn how to do it because I had a plant that was really a popular price plant that made very typical goods, and I had to make high-quality goods. And it was kind of painful to learn that, and get the operators to do it, and we did do it successfully for a while. But then essentially when it got to be the later 90s, everything went offshore, and I couldn't stay in Pine Grove. And even though I had good relationships with the union and the help, and we were in Pine Grove a long time, I felt bad in a way. You know, but I tried to do what I could and we transitioned out, and I ended up closing the factory over there. I still moved to Allentown, I moved my operations to Allentown, but I had to go to Mexico. And I did contracting with the union plants in Allentown for about a year or two. That's how long it lasted. I was in Mexico trying that. Even Mexico was a hard thing because maquiladora kind of went down there, started up from scratch, had to send our equipment down there, hire people, and do different things. It was a pretty risky proposition actually. And it was risky because the laborers in Mexico couldn't make the quality goods that I needed right away. It was a big learning curve for them. And it took me months to really train them and it cost a lot of money to do that. But I managed to make that happen there and we got some good contracts from LandsEnd and Eastern Mountain Sports. The problem I had, the Mexicans were great people, and they were good to work with except their time management was a little bit slower than what we're used to here, so they were always late in getting things done. And what would happen is it created a problem for me as far as you know. I got certain penalties from the manufacturers and the cost was contracts over there but I still managed to make it work. And we were going good for a year, and management would go good, and then what happens they went to China, and we ended up losing the contract. And when I saw that happen I kind of closed. I decided I was just going to get out and we had closed. I decided to close and liquidate it out and get out of it and that was another painful process, too. But it was a lot of pressure on me because essentially I had the bank loans, and they were sizable bank loans. I had a lot of pressure from LandsEnd and the others. In fact, we needed to approach Walmart, and Walmart said to me "you have to be able to take a million-dollar order, that's the minimum order we'll do with you." But I was taking million dollar orders because that is what I had to take even with LandsEnd to do business, and even the other people, you couldn't stay in business taking small orders. I knew I had to go to 5 to 10 million dollars minimum. We were probably at 5 or 6 million dollars but what happened is because of the credit lines, they really put a big demand on me and stress and one of the suppliers, I found out later actually, wasn't happy because they said even though I paid the bank and everybody on time, they just felt like I was too small, and I ended up losing a contract from LandsEnd, which I found out later. But when they cut me out of the program-- because I had done this program for five years-- that's when I decided to close. I said this isn't right. So what happened, I liquidated out about a year later, and they ended up coming back to me and said "do you want to do this" because what happened is that they got screwed because they couldn't get the quality from the other supplier but at that point I said "I'm done" and I had decided to close and extricate myself out of that. And that was the end of the apparel business for me really by 2000, by 1999 actually, it was over for me. SC: I'd like to take you back to your family history, as far back as you know, but I have one question, which union? SK: ILGWU SC: Okay, that's what I thought, but yes, and also, there was another question I had with how far was Pineville from Reading? SK: Pine Grove from Reading is-- SC: Pine Grove, I'm sorry. SK: Pine Grove from Reading is approximately 45 miles SC: Because they had all the outlets by that time, all the stores and the business, weren't they? Reading was still producing when you were...? SK: Actually my uncle was still in business at that time. He was in manufacturing, but they had problems also with that, even the manufacturing. Really what happened is most like in Pine Grove, Fox-Knapp had been there for 100 years. They made outerwear, there weren't a lot of guys making outerwear. And outerwear went strictly to China, overseas, Korea. They just couldn't compete, and they ended up closing the plant over there. And the same happened, now you could do manufacturing the children's wear, and I guess the same thing happened to them. They had problems and they just closed. I was actually, like I said, I was able to stay because what I did is I did certain work in Mexico, and I did certain work in Pine Grove, and also I had a good connection with my sales guys at LandsEnd. We were able to produce for them on a very quick turn. We had a special system that you can turn things in a couple days, and we were able to really get the goods for them but the problem is I was paying $17 an hour. They could land the goods, the whole product complete, for 10 bucks. There was no way you can compete. It didn't matter how good and how fast, the only thing I could do was on reorders. We were good, and they really depended on us, and that's how we lasted in Pine Grove as long as we did for that. Because the plant, the plant people were generally pretty good, you know, they tried to get the quality right and get it done, and we were pretty responsive to getting things done. And it's not that we didn't have problems, we did have problems. Generally you know we were pretty consistent for them on that. SC: Could you talk about the names you know in your dad's family and your mother's family? Where they came from as far back as you know. SK: As far back as I know. Quick thing I never knew my grandparents really. I knew one grandparent ; my great-grandparents I never knew. They were long gone. My great grandparents-- actually from one side was from Poland I think. My parents . . . my father's was from Poland then. My mother's was from Kiev, Ukraine, over there. So they came to New York City, the typical Eastside. My mother's side had a store in the Lower East Side, on Orchard Street where else on that. And their whole family worked that store for a long time. Actually they worked that store until the 80s ; I think on that type of thing until the neighborhood really changed over there. My father lived with my mother's family when they got married, so they lived in New York City. And it was hard on my father because my father did not work in the, he tried working in the business with them, and decided this isn't for him. So he started looking for other businesses. He worked in the bank for a while, he had a decent position in the bank, but he decided that he wanted his own business. So then he started looking for a different business. He probably failed in a couple businesses before he ended up connecting with my uncle working in the business room. But they still lived in New York with the mother's family till 1950 when they moved, 1951 when they moved to Allentown. So that was there. Now my father actually was from Detroit, and I don't know about his family too much on that type of thing. What I do know is my grandmother at the time lived in New York City as well. I never knew my grandfather, I think he passed away when I was one year old and I wouldn't know. They lived in the city. My grandmother-- I don't know exactly which business she was in-- whatever it was she was, pretty tough, tough woman. She lived in the city and she would come visit us every two weeks or something. She died right before my bar mitzvah on that but I remember her being there. She would cook and stuff, she liked seeing the kids and stuff. Really I didn't know her that well. We used to see her at the holidays. Whenever we had Passover and stuff, we would always go into the city with our families. We would have big seders, families would be there on that. And my mother and her sister were very close. My aunt lived in Belle Harbor and she didn't live two blocks from the beach. So every summer we'd all go visit her, extended stay because when I was a baby she would bring me along, and she had a nanny for me, and we would stay right in my aunt's [home] and go to the beach all summer. We would stay just about most of the summer over there, so my sister and my aunt were very close. We got very close with that side of the family. Still close today, really I just know my cousins. SC: Do you know their names? SK: Well my mother's name was Veiner over there, her sister was also a Veiner, but became a Weiss, and Weiss was our cousins on the other side over there. Now her husband was an optometrist. They lived in Belle Harbor for 30/40 years, whatever, they were there a long time. And their kids grew up there ; we became very friendly with their kids. They had two boys, Alan and Fred. Fred became a doctor, moved to California. Alan stayed in the New York area, he became an accountant. Fred has passed away since then but I know the other families in California still keep in touch with them in California. Alan, we still keep in touch with him. He's still in the city but his kids, one's in Washington, the other's in Hawaii over there. So really that's pretty much, or we're pretty close there. I have other family members in New York, which we still occasionally see, a lot of cousins over there. One of the cousins was also in the garment business. He was like a rep selling different things for a long time. I think that was it, everyone else was not. The other part of the family stayed in the store actually. My father's side he had four other brothers, most of them stayed in the city as well. One of them was a banker actually at Sterling National Bank, and he became the president or vice president, he's high up that for a long time. His other brother had another dry goods store where he sold for a long time in New York, as well as another store, which he sold. And his other brother died younger. I don't know what he was in, he was doing something else but he died when I was much younger from that type of thing. SC: Do you know when your grandparents or their parents came to the United States? About what year? SK: I think it was in the 1900s era, it's got to be the late 1800s when they first came because my parents were both born in the United States. So they had to have come back then and I don't exactly know the details. I only saw, you know my parents never really talked about it too much. It was interesting. Actually, there were a lot of things I saw just from looking through the stuff that they left when they passed away. But they never talked too much about their families and that type of thing. SC: They embraced the United States. I think that's it, do you want to trade positions? GE: You know what, what we're going to do is we're just going to take a minute just so that we can make sure that we're doing okay technology wise. SK: So we actually started making goods for the Miss America contest. And we also made stuff for the US Open. We had [Ivan] Lendl made in our unit, we made it as one of the manufacturers, to see them play. Also, Chrisy Evert had some stuff that we had, we made stuff for her as well. GE: I'm going to let you tell me in a minute. So just pause, we are going to take a break. SK: You know, there's another guy that is really Jewish, but not Jewish in a way, that might still be working in the Valley. GE: Although it has happened to be mostly Jewish, it doesn't have to be. SK: There's a guy here that's still working actually, that does apparel stuff, he does embroidery, which is Lilly daVid. Now I don't know if David, cause I haven't talked to them in years, but I believe that they are still there because they do embroidery, they used to do embroidery for me all the time. GE: The other one that I was going to reach out to, the other one I know, that I just heard recently is Harris Malkovsky. And I don't know if he does any, from what I understand he is a middle man. Does he just buy stuff..? SK: I don't know what Harris does, but he was in the garment business GE: Right, and here's something, so I thought I would reach out to him SK: Yeah, no he would be good too. But Stu Ullman, the reason I say that, his father started Canoe Manufacturing, which was in Pine Grove way before we were. So he was there for a long time. But he really is definitely a person to speak to. I think he still is in the garment business-- David Lilly. He's down off Lehigh Street there, I'm trying to think. SC: Are they still there? SK: Yeah, they are still there, I forget the name of the street that they are on. No, when you take a left, right before the diner's right there. There's a diner there, I can't remember the name of the street. SC: So it is not in Emmaus? SK: No, it's right in Allentown. SC: So it's right in Allentown. SK: It's 18103, if you look it up on the Internet, it will be there cause he's, I'm positive he's still there. GE: Thank you. So a couple of follow-up questions, one,you'll share those stories about the Miss America and about the other. Couple of follow up questions. One, what was the name of your businesses? Initially you were manufacturers right? SK: Initially we were always contractors. We started out as a contractor. GE: You did, your father did? SK: My father did. And the name of the business was Summit Station Manufacturing. GE: That was your father with the T-shirts? Correct? SK: Well, no, my father and the T-shirts started out as Rick Knit. GE: R-I-C-K-K-N-I-T? And that was the t-shirts, correct? SK: That was the t-shirts and the golf shirts. That's what evolved into the golf shirts business GE: And then just tell me the evolution? SK: The evolution was my father and uncle were partners in that business and then they were in it since the 50s. I think in 1965 they split, they had a parting and then essentially my father left that business. My uncle still continues to run the business with his son, then his son ran it for a long time. I don't think they are around anymore.They ran it for a while. Then what happened was my father looked for another business. He was thinking about different businesses, but he ended up buying a contract plant in Pine Grove and called it Summit Station Manufacturing. GE: So he called it Summit Station Manufacturing but you were always a contractor? SK: He was only a contractor and that's how I started, it was strictly contracting. He strictly worked for union jobbers at the time in New York City. It was all union work. GE: Right. And you said there was one customer, who was that customer? SK: That customer was called Dorby Fox. GE: Ok, Dorby, D-O-R-- SK: D-O-R-B-Y Fox over there. And they were on Seventh Avenue ; there were right in the garment industry GE: Right, and you said it was dresses? SK: Yes, all dresses. GE: And what type--was it very casual dresses? SK: No, they made all types of dresses. They made fancier dresses. They didn't make wedding dresses or anything like that. But they really made more popular priced dresses, stuff at JCPenney, Sears ; those were the type of dresses they were selling. That was the type of market they were selling. GE: And was it typically old women as opposed to teens? SK: Women, mostly women, yes, mostly women. GE: And how long did your brother stay in the business? SK: One year. GE: Oh, so he was only in it-- and you were in it with your father? Or once your father left, he was done? SK: What happened was when my brother and I both started, my father was still there. Like I said, my manager left after two months. I took care of the. . . it's just, I'm more detailed than my brother. My brother is way more marketing/sales person. I just picked up on the details, so I really became the plant manager, running it because you had to know a lot of details. It was a heck of a lot of details to know. So, I lasted about a year. We both shared, you know, the production duties. I basically helped tell my brother. My brother and I both helped in planning and ran the sewing. After a year, my brother said that he couldn't take it anymore and had enough and left. At the time we were living in Lebanon, and he just left and went to try to do something else. GE: And then it sounds like you stayed with this until the end. SK: Yeah, I did. What really happened is I ended up running the plant, not happened, I did run the plant. I was responsible for all of the production and everything. I was the one that scheduled everything and the quality and stuff like that. My father helped a little bit, but my father really had some health issues, so after a year or two, he left and went in the winter to Florida. So really in six months I was basically all on my own. Now he would call, and if I had a problem, but I was really on my own. And really within a couple of years he ended up retiring. I would say within five years he was not coming to the plant. GE: Well do you want to share with us - so then it was really a matter, if I understand correctly, it was the matter of keeping your cost down, and that's how you tried the Mexico... SK: The beginning problem was actually getting work that you could actually make at a price. And I would go to different places and like I said, I ended up doing a lot of different things. I expanded out of dresses. I started doing blouses, sportswear. I went into running suits. I went into anything that we thought we could make. We actually made outerwear, too. For LandsEnd, we actually made outerwear, that's how I got started with LandsEnd. I made their 'squall' jacket. Then, most of the squall jackets were made in California, but I made it because I could make it quicker and delivered the small runs quicker so basically that's how I got started with them. It was painful, it was really painful because making outerwear from a dress plant, it was really an experience to do, but these are things I undertook. I would take on a lot of different things that a lot of people would never do because I just felt like if I could find my niche, and that's what I was looking for. And in that process I ended up working on making warm-up suits and different things. I started with Ellesse and that was like a semi package thing, and I had to do different things for them. We made different warm up suits and they actually made stuff for the US Open, so that's how I got to make stuff for the US Open. They would make it for a lot of these tennis pros, and would wear their label. And we made a lot of their suits and stuff like that, like I said, [Ivan] Lendl. Actually, I think Lendl was not Ellesse, they worked for Mizuno also, that was another contact that I made. And Mizuno was a Japanese firm, and the craziest thing about them is they wanted to see the plant so they came from Japan to see my plant. So I will be there, and then he said, well can you stay a little bit later at 8 o'clock at night and he said, can you stay a little bit later, 11 o'clock at night. They came to my plant. They roll up in this big limousine, literally, I'm so serious. It was really funny. So 11 o'clock at night they come and look at my plant, literally. I was there until 12 o'clock/12:30 at night with them. And the reason I remember Lilly daVid is Lilly daVid would do the embroidery. Some we would first self-cut, then I would take it down myself to Lilly daVid a lot of the time or ship it. And Lilly daVid and Ellesse, they were really friendly, they would be there and what they did with Mizuno even, I think Lilly daVid had a party one time and all the people who were doing the contracting or designing for them got together and they served sushi. We all got together one day and had this big raw tuna that they had for lunch, and we all got you know for the customer we were there. It was actually my first time that we had sushi, and that's how I got to like sushi. It was pretty good sushi. But it was this huge raw tuna sitting there, and we had it and it was an interesting experience. But we made different things for different people at that time and that's how I started getting into manufacturing because I wasn't total manufacturing, but I had to buy certain things or do certain things for them, and I got to learn about how to put the garments together on different things. And I got a lot of different experiences during those things and also during that time there was another time when we made dresses for the Miss America pageant and that was on TV. And that was kind of a thrill because you made these dresses, and we shipped them out, and you actually got to see them wear them on TV. And I think we got mentioned on TV. But that was some of the other things that we did. GE: And when you did that, that was for whom? SK: I don't even remember anymore, to tell you the truth. It was another one of those deals that was, I don't know, it might have been through Ellesse through somebody again that we. It wasn't Ellesse actually, the dresses were not Ellesse. It was somebody else, and I don't remember anymore who it was for, another contractor. It was kind of a contract, wasn't totally a contract. It was a guy who sent me a couple of packages. A lot of things we had to do for them and package it and put it together. GE: So during this time, if I understand correctly, these were where you were doing a lot of small runs? SK: Yeah, my business was [doing] a lot of small runs. That's how I really survived. Later on by 1995 when I hired an outside sales person and he said I have contacts I think we can do business. And the reason he knew me was because when we started he found out I did some smaller runs through some of these guys. And we connected, I went to New York, I used to go to New York a lot. And in New York, we started talking and his name was Jim Stabile and he was working for somebody else at the time and said you know, I bet we could get together and do something. And, you know, you kind of listen, and they never do it and then one day, he called me and said I think we could do something, you want to come in? And we got to talking, and I said okay if you think you can do this, I'll do this and that's what happened. We started getting sales and then I went out to LandsEnd. I would go out with him, and we would restructure some deals, and we actually got some contracts and that's how I got started. GE: And even with LandsEnd was it, were these concerns small runs? SK: For LandsEnd we started on a small basis but I was totally responsible for everything. In other words, they would tell me where to order the fabric but I had to buy the fabric. I had to buy the trims. I had to do everything. And really at the beginning I had a hard time making it. I can't figure out how they put these deals together because I was always behind the 8-ball. It was very very tight for me, and they gave me a little bit more money because it was smaller runs, but I always couldn't get a bigger run because my pricing was wrong. Then one year he got a big contract and they said to me if you get this contract they will introduce me to the fabric person. They said you're going to get special pricing if you get this contract. And they gave me the pricing for the fabric. And I saw the pricing for that fabric, and I saw the pricing that I had to pay for the fabric, and it was a huge difference. And they said 'well if you buy the zippers this is the source you should use.' Actually they didn't tell me the source, they said, 'we want you to buy 25,000,' we're talking about big buying. And I said, 'if I do 25,000,' and I went to the zipper guy, I said, 'what price would you give me?' And all of a sudden, the prices were different. I mean substantially different, like way different. And that's how I got into the contracting. I realized, wait a second, there is a different world here. And then I started calling suppliers, and if the supplier couldn't do the business, they said, well try this supplier. And you know when I talked to . . . with a lot of people when I told them 25,000 or I'm not going to spend $10,000 with you, or $20,000 or you know. The fabric guys were not hundreds of thousands of dollars, the zipper guys were thousands of dollars, could be $20,000/30,000. It was now big orders for them. And when they said LandsEnd, they knew who I was doing it with. They said that they'll work with me and do the business and that's how I got into the contracting business. But there was a big difference in the beginning. I was struggling, you know, how could these guys do these? How they did it was through the buy-in because they get special deals. Everything was a special deal and unless you knew and had the contacts to it, and Mizuno couldn't do this again. I started with the bank in Pine Grove and I got started with a small line of credit and all of a sudden I got big lines of credit. Today you couldn't do that, by the way. They would never grant me the credit. I had million dollar lines of credit. Nobody today would grant you that thing, not in this world today. They do not do that then. I could finance nothing but I lived check to check. In other words. I'd have people who would look at me and say, I had these enormous checks come in, and I'd have to go to the bank, cash it. Even with LandsEnd, I would spend, I had a special deal with them that said, I have to get paid right away. And they worked with me, I got to give them credit, they did work with me, but they were tough. You had a problem with your quality, they would hold, no matter what, whatever you had with them, they would not pay you. If your quality wasn't good, they didn't just not pay, they rejected the lot, and you had to fix it or do whatever it was and they'd say, 'we're sending back 'x' amount and wouldn't give you the money.' And that's why I said at the beginning with LandsEnd, you really had to know, cause if you'd ship for me it was really critical because I was doing so much quantity. I had to make sure the quality was right and get paid. I've got to tell you another thing, so there is a lot of risk, or else a lot of people would have done what I did. Like I'm surprised I did what I did. I did it, and then I realized that I reached a certain point with Mexico. I got a lot of disappointment a lot of times, and I said I can't keep doing this, it was just too much risk for me. And that's what got me out of it, really. Just one day I realized, I said, I had everything on the line and nobody else had everything on the line, and I just said, I'm not going to do this anymore. GE: And what year was that? SK: It was 1999 that I finally pulled the plug. I just said, and it was tough because really I had been doing this, people were depending on it. I really gave it a shot because I knew when I went into the private labor because I knew that contracting was not going to make it. And I knew I had to go between 5 and 10 million dollars to survive, and I was close to doing it but the problem was with LandsEnd. The old way was you go in, you make a handshake with the guy, and they would live up to what they did. At LandsEnd, that's not what happened. I had contracts by the way, of a big size, but they didn't even live up to their contracts. That's what, when that happened to me, I said wait a second. Actually, at the end I had to sue Eastern Sportswear to get my money, and I had to settle with them because the smaller you are, you know you're not going to court at the end, even though they owed me the money, I settled with them, and gave them a discount to get out of it. And after that happened, that's when I said, I'm done. Cause I just didn't have the financial wherewithal you would need to have substantial money to do what you're doing. And not only that I couldn't rely on them, the garments had really changed. Even LandsEnd started to change within their organization. It wasn't the same. That was a real close-knit organization there, you almost became a part of their family in a way. If they counted on you ; they would tell you certain things. Not that they wouldn't demand and hammer you on the price but if they gave you the order, they would cut you certain breaks. They would help you with the money if you said you needed the money on some things, and if you delivered for them, they would help you. But after that happened, I said I can't count on this anymore and stopped. But they were a good organization to work with, it did help me, but it changed, the whole world changed. Everything went overseas. GE: So at that point, you're about 50 I assume. And so I'm just kind of wondering if you wanted to share with us what you've done since, um you know, in terms of how did you personally have to adapt, right? SK: Well, when I left I actually liquidated the plant. I actually walked away. It cost me a lot of money, really a lot of money. Okay but, I almost thought that I would have to declare bankruptcy. Because of how I handled most of my customers, and I had good relationships with everybody, I was able to pay, repay everybody and that type of thing. When I say everybody, there's only one person I didn't really repay at the end, but they actually should have paid me. I left them my equipment so it ended up being fine, and that was down in Mexico--maquiladora. And I wasn't too happy with them, but they actually ended up ahead in the deal because they never would have gotten the business that I gave them. And they were very late, and they actually caused me a lot of money, and frankly, they should have cut me better breaks, but they didn't. But I don't harbor any resentment, it's what it is, it's the way we had the business of doing it. So when I left I took a year off because I was really kind of stressed, to say the least. And I ended up paying the bank completely back with the credit lines which I had to sign for personally. In fact all the credit lines, I paid all my suppliers, I paid all of the contractors and everybody got paid. And I was almost surprised because I didn't think that was going to happen, but I was able to do it. And I liquidated out on that. I had a manager, I said I would help him if he wanted to stay as a contractor. I didn't want to be in the garment business anymore. I said, I've had enough and I really had so I lent him a little bit of money. He was the biggest disappointment because he was with me a long time and at the end he kind of just reneged on me because I lent him a fair amount of money. I mean not like the garment business, but I did lend money to get started in that. I guess it didn't work out. I knew it would be tough but it's not the money that bothered me, it's just how it ended. He didn't come to me and say, 'hey Seth,' you know, he kind of just walked out, and you know just kind of left it that way. So that kind of left me negative a little bit. But like everything else I've moved on, and I, you know, it's just, I took a year off to kind of relax, did some different things, went on some vacations, just did different things. Then I started to get really antsy and wanted to look for another ; I always intended to look for another business. But it wasn't going to be in the garment business, I was kind of done with that. So I started looking around after that. My brother was in Valpak since 1991. So this was 2000 at this point, and I was looking. I put out flyers for different businesses and was looking around. I didn't want to go, like I said, in the garment business, I probably could have gotten business as a consultant going overseas and stuff, but I didn't want to do that. I didn't really want to travel like that. So I started thinking about other businesses. My brother said, 'hey I need some help here, why don't you just, you know what you needed, I need a manager.' Well I looked at his business and said, his business is strictly marketing and sales. I said, I'm not really big on sales, it's not me. You know, it's more him. And I said, I'll look at your salespeople inside, you know, to see if you have the sales person. So I looked at the salespeople, and I said to him, you don't have any. You're lucky if they are salespeople, let alone, you could have them as a manager. Then I sort of said, I wasn't going to do that. I said I'd help him for a while, if he wanted me to. But then he made me a proposal, and I guess I was kind of antsy. too. I looked at his figures and said, now I guess we could make this work. But I said, I could really do that inside for you, because his wife was doing the inside at the time, and didn't want to do it. And I said, I can help in the sales, but I'm not really going to be a prime salesperson. I said I can help really do the inside for you and do all the financial stuff and help. I can do everything, but I said don't count on me as the prime salesperson. I'll do what I have to do for you, you know I'll help in the sales. So that's how that got started on doing that because what we decided to. We would split the business in the sense that I let him own that business. I did not want to own the business, I said we can work as partners. I'll treat you like I own the business, but I'm not going to own anything so that's how we got started. And frankly that's how it is today, basically I run the business for him on that. I do a lot of the sales, in fact I do more sales than I want. But I do the sales, I help out with the sales people, I do all the financials, I do all the inside, all the technical stuff I do on that type of thing. So that's really what's happened, he still likes marketing and the sales, so he still does that. My brother never pushed himself that hard on that business. He kind of goes along, you know, we do it on that type of thing and we're still doing it on that. GE: So a couple of last questions before Sue gets back to you. What do you think about the community here? How has the community been affected, in terms of when it was 1950, when you were very young, there were many families that were in this business. SK: You're right, the community has definitely changed a lot. When I was growing up as a kid there were a lot of small businesses. In fact when I went to the synagogue, even in the Jewish community there were a lot of small businesses. In fact that was the majority of people, you had doctors and lawyers but the majority of givers, the people involved in the community, were all small business people. On that, in fact a lot of the givers to the [Jewish] Federation were from the garment business. I used to know, my father used to take me down to his plant, show me things. You had, um, I'm trying to think, some of the others there, not Bernstein, it was belts, you know, Braunstein. Braunstein, I knew Nate, I was at his plant and so, they were all involved in the garment business, you know. And there were a lot of big givers, a lot of big plants actually. We were a small plant in comparison to what they were. That started to change, some people retired, some people had to retire. You know if you get out, some people sold, so the businesses did not stick around. So really say by the 90s there, you started to see the change. By 2000 there weren't too many people left over there. In fact, the Atlantic Apparel when you talk about it in sportswear, I think they had like 500, close to 500 plants in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding area. I don't know who was left, there were very few left on that type of thing, and even the garment in the dress apparel, we had like 200 and some. There was nobody left. In fact, I think I was the last one left, but I wasn't a part of, I made my own contracts at that point. I wasn't even a part of it anymore. I think I was the last one left on that type of thing. So there was nobody left on that type of thing, all those businesses shrank or disappeared over there. So what happened over time was you had professionals come into Allentown. There's still some small business people, but even the small business community started to have problems. By 2008 when you had the recession, it was a turning point, I think you lost businesses there. And being in Valpak, I see a lot of small businesses. People in the Jewish community, they had small businesses, but they're not too many of them, and that disappeared. Now you have a lot of professionals that have taken that place but it's really changed the character of the community. GE: How? GIve us an example? In what ways do you think? SK: Well it's a combination of businesses changing, but I also think it has socially changed. When I grew up, the synagogue was a social side of religious thing. Religion was always a secondary thing, I mean it was always secondary. It played a part in our community, but it was really secondary. The temples were social ; people went to the temple to meet people and to get their friends. And my mother and everyone, she had a clique. My mother really knew a lot of people because she was involved in not only the temple but also in the auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center. She was involved in all these things. But the women didn't work at that time so you had them involved in all these community type things--Jewish affairs, Hadassah-- you name it, my mother was part of it. She was involved in doing that, and I grew up with that, and my father tagged along cause you know he had to because of my mother and that was part of it. But that started to wane because women had to go to the workforce and became more involved, and not that they weren't involved in the community, but less so. It became less and less. And then also what happened is as the older generation died off and moved away, the younger generation, not as many stayed here, because the opportunities weren't here. They didn't go into the family business because there wasn't a family business to go into. Now some didn't want it, and did different things. It, you know, changed, and the dynamic people moved away, and people came here, but I don't think now as many people move here as they used to 10 or 15 years ago. GE: Okay, good. My last question before I turn it over to Sue is why do you think that the Jews were really overrepresented in the apparel industry? From what we've seen and from what we've read, it's very many Jews and Italians. But why do you think that the Jews were overrepresented in that industry? SK: I would say that there are a couple factors. One is discrimination factor that you couldn't have, you couldn't get into other businesses fields that easy or that readily, you weren't accepted, so they started in that. A lot of these Jewish merchants started as peddlers and they built up. Now, maybe some of the owners, their parents might have been peddlers to start out with, and they got started because you could start a garment business relatively inexpensively. Not that you didn't need money, you could start it up relatively easily, you could never do that today, could never do it. That's what's hard about small businesses, in general it's hard to start a small business. Any small business requires a fair amount of capital. But in those days you could go to a guy who'd lend you a machine, they would lend you, you could buy things on credit, and they would let you get started. And you could make a living and that's how they started a lot of them. That type of thing, I think that's what happened a lot. That doesn't happen today out there, and for a Jewish guy, like I said, it was an opportunity. There weren't a lot of opportunities, and you could make decent money if you were good. Now a lot of guys didn't make it obviously, but there were a number of guys who did make it and became good. Now, not all, some of the Jewish guys or Jewish merchants that were here in the Valley, their fathers had started a business. So that's how the guys who were bigger generally got bigger, their parents had started before them. Like Mr. Mort Levy, his father started the business and then he built it and obviously expanded it. His father started it before he started and he grew up in it. I got to mention Mr. Levy because Mr. Levy helped me. He mentored me a little bit when my father passed away when I was 36. I was really on my own pretty much, on the younger part of business. My father really had no connection at all with what I did on that, but I used to talk to Mr. Levy, and he would help me in a lot of cases. There were a lot of Jewish people that had these factories and that's how they built up. GE: Okay, great, thank you. Okay, I'm just going to push this. SC: Okay, so I really only have two more questions, so one is what has made you feel most creative in life? SK: What has made me most creative in life? SC: Given you a sense of satisfaction or creativity or whatever other word you want to add? SK: It's a mix, it's a mix of things for me because essentially I would say my family has been one of my key satisfactions in my life, no matter what because they have always been there, and I always have enjoyed them, proud of them. But one of the things, the garment business was a big change for me because I was a shy little guy. I'm still quiet, but it made me do things I would never do. And that's what I found interesting about it. After all the years, you know, it changed whether I went to med school. In retrospect, I could have been a doctor probably, probably wouldn't have been a problem for me. But the garment business just changed my life by doing it over there, so being creative is really up to you as a person. Brandeis changed my life in a certain way. It stopped me from being a doctor, believe it or not, because I learned about art, and I never knew I had an interest in art. What happened was that at Brandeis, I had taken all the science courses. I had taken organic chemistry, I was ready to go to med school and had taken this art course. I think during my sophomore year, and I said I liked it. And I was talking with the professor, and at Brandeis, you could speak to professors pretty easily, and I was doing this artwork and this guy says, 'you should really take more art courses.' He said, 'I think you have the ability.' And I started taking some more in my junior year, and I really enjoyed them, and I said, you know what, I don't really want to go to medical school. I stopped taking science courses. I was one course away from my science degree at Brandeis, but then I stopped, and I said that I'm just going to take art courses. And the rest of my courses were all art courses. They were all drawing, art history, to me they were so simple after science, it was like a breeze for me, and I enjoyed them so much. And I learned a lot of different things at Brandeis cause essentially I got to meet the professors, and the courses were really different. Actually, one of the professors there, I'm trying to think of his name, I don't know, he contributed to the art museum in Allentown over there, it was one of my professors over there, and he used to invite us out for wine. It was just a completely different environment from the sciences. But even the science professors that I got to talk to over there. So that's what changed my mind about expanding, looking at things differently over there and the garment industry. You had to be more creative, maybe that's why I stuck with it longer because I realized I could do things with it, I was willing to try different things over that thing. SC: So it changed the way you looked at things, and more artistically. SK: I used certain things artistically. I still do a little bit of drawing and painting. I said to Kathy that really to be an artist you have to do it full-time. It's hard to do it part-time. I still do crazy things but I always liked the abstract art and I would do different things, I would do canvases and different things. I said I can never make a living doing that. If I had my choice going back, I probably would have been an artist. But I don't think I could have made a living doing it although when I go to the museums and look at some of the stuff of some of the artists who "made it." I have to laugh because I was doing some of that stuff that they were doing, and I was looking at it. That's chance, really it is chance. SC: And what do you value most in life? SK: I still value my family the most in life and really you know people say that the money and different things. Your money is not just life because it's not all about money, it's, there's a balance that you strike between. Yeah it's good to have means. Then you could support yourself and your family and send the kids to college, and you know, help them when they need help. But it's really about relationships with your people, the community you live in that you feel comfortable with, friends that you have over time. Yeah, even friends as you get older, they move away too and you know it's good having them but it's, you still rely on your family to some degree-- my wife, my kids, your grandkids, and that becomes really one of the most important factors. 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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Seth Katzman, May 25, 2016
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Seth Katzman shares fond memories growing up in Allentown during the 1950s and 1960s. While attending Brandeis University Seth decided that rather than pursue his original plan to attend medical school, he would instead take over his father’s apparel contracting business. His father wanted to retire anyway. Seth’s older brother joined him initially in the business. Not many years later, the traditional sewing contracting business in Pennsylvania was diminishing and Seth had to adapt to the changing environment. Seth stayed in the apparel business until 1999, much later than many other contracting businesses in Pennsylvania.
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LVTNT-29
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2016-05-25
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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
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Larry Hirsch
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5.4 June 23, 2015 Larry Hirsch, June 23, 2015 LVTNT-12 2:00:58 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Larry Hirsch Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 HirschLarry_20150623.mp4 1.0:|17(13)|30(13)|41(14)|54(5)|67(3)|80(16)|93(3)|104(9)|117(6)|132(18)|145(14)|162(3)|175(14)|190(5)|207(7)|222(2)|233(10)|262(2)|279(9)|298(4)|309(18)|320(15)|339(9)|350(5)|361(7)|374(7)|387(3)|402(2)|419(15)|434(17)|453(6)|462(3)|479(4)|492(8)|507(8)|520(7)|539(10)|552(3)|569(10)|588(3)|599(16)|612(4)|629(4)|642(3)|657(8)|668(18)|683(2)|692(15)|703(9)|714(15)|733(7)|744(9)|755(15)|768(10)|783(2)|802(16)|817(9)|834(4)|851(6)|866(9)|883(10)|900(5)|915(16)|928(14)|947(10)|956(13)|969(8)|988(3)|1001(7)|1018(6)|1033(8)|1046(10)|1059(12)|1072(18)|1083(14)|1098(6)|1113(3)|1126(7)|1147(14)|1162(4)|1177(8)|1194(13)|1211(3)|1236(12)|1253(14)|1264(5)|1285(14)|1294(16)|1309(8)|1322(3)|1345(3)|1360(8)|1371(16)|1384(15)|1397(11)|1416(16)|1429(5)|1448(17)|1467(12)|1484(10)|1497(5)|1512(16)|1527(5)|1538(12)|1555(7)|1576(10)|1593(14)|1612(4)|1627(9)|1638(12)|1657(12)|1678(4)|1693(4)|1710(13)|1725(9)|1740(13)|1757(10)|1770(16)|1783(14)|1818(8)|1837(3) 0 https://youtu.be/ilb62eem9i4 YouTube video 0 Introduction—Larry Hirsch SC: Today is June 23, 2015. So would you just talk about yourself, when you were born, where you were born, etc. And then go back in your family history as far back as you know because it’s really helpful for us to see the patterns of how people came to be in the textile industry. 
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 ; LH: Well, I was born August 3, 1945. I won’t go into my whole long history, but I was adopted. I was born in Canada ok so I pretty much starting with the beginning. 0 48 Father & ; Grandfather—Emigration and Family Business LH: My grandfather came to this country from Hungary in the early 1900s. He was I believe either 15 or 16 years old ; came here by himself. Couldn't speak English. He was trained as a tailor. So for a number of years, he traveled around the country working in different cities as a tailor. It's funny how, he didn't talk about it very much and unfortunately if I had been smarter than I over the years I would asked him a lot more questions than I ever did, you know, but somehow and I don't know exactly how he ended up in Bethlehem and that's where he met my grandmother, who had also come from Hungary. And then in 19 . . . oh my father was born in 1918 in Philadelphia. And then at one point they moved to Allentown. They apparently lived in many different locations in the Lehigh Valley. 0 227 Hirsch's Parents—Mylo Manufacturing LH: [A]nd my father then was a salesman for the selling the uniforms. And he also worked nights at Bethlehem Steel just to try to make a living. As far as I can remember he somehow met someone who manufactured as he called it children's sunsuits. You don’t hear that word any more whatever sunsuits were and the guy said to him if you open a factory, I will supply you with work. So, of course, my father didn’t have any money, and I believe he borrowed some money from someone he knew. In fact, I’ll include that, I believe his name. . . They referred to him as Doc Shaffer, his real name was Ben Shaffer, Benjamin Shaffer. [Could not confirm correct spelling of name] He was very big in textile machinery. He bought and sold textile machinery, apparently had made a lot of money during the Second World War, and my father and his son grew up together. His son was my father's best friend, and I believe that's where he borrowed the money from, it was from Doc Shaffer. He opened the factory with my grandfather and my mother, and that's really how he got his start in the garment business. 0 384 The '50s: Manufacturing Children's Polos LH: I think after a certain period of time my father at some point met another gentleman, and they went into business together. And they started manufacturing their own line of children's what they called back then Polo shirts. They were basically T-shirts, but fancier T-shirts, pullover, and they had a sales office in New York City they had sales reps all over the country. At one time, they had their own knitting, they would knit their own fabric, and it was fairly large, it grew into a fairly large business. But I think what kind of doomed them was the Korean War. Where you know back then, you would take a position in . . .cotton that you used for knitting, but when the war came, you know, the price of cotton either went through the roof or whatever so eventually they closed up that business. 0 521 A Lucky Break—Renting to Western Electric LH: [I]n business luck always plays, in some cases, a big role. And in order for him to get financing for the building he had heard of this little company that was looking for space called Western Electric. So we went to the bank he talked to the people at Western Electric, and they told him if you buy the building we will rent X amount of space from you in the building. So with that in hand he went to the bank, but at that point the bank said to him at first they said no they won't loan him the money. Because he didn't have really much collateral for it and they spoke for certain period of time, and eventually my father thanked him for his time, got up to leave, and the guy said to him, “Wait a minute,” he said, “I'm going to give you the loan.” My father said, “Well why? you just told me . . .” He said, “Based on talking to you,” he said, “I like your attitude, and I think you're going to be a success.” They gave him the loan, and he bought this very large building, and Western Electric rented two floors in the building. 0 673 Contract Manufacturing in Philadelphia LH: So when they closed that up my father went back into contract manufacturing. And he worked primarily then for companies that made men's, and boy’s knit shirts, polo shirts whatever you want to call them. Those firms were primarily, well a couple of them were from Philadelphia, and the largest part of their business was sweaters. At that time, in Philadelphia was . . . first of all, manufacturing in Philadelphia was tremendous, tremendous. Especially sweaters, knitting sweaters in Philadelphia. So a lot of those firms then branched out to making what we called cut and sewn knitwear. I don't know exactly how my father ever came in contact with them. But what I always thought was interesting, he worked primarily for three firms, and they, the owners of the three firms, were all related, and they were competing with each other. So when someone from one of their firms came to the factory they were forbidden to go out on the floor because they didn't want someone stealing the ideas from the other companies he was working for. But my father became very successful during that time. 0 863 Early Family History SC: [W]hat names do you know of the family, even going back to Hungary? Do you know any of that information? Of the two families?
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 ; LH: As far as I know my grandfather had a sister. My grandfather, as far as I know, never went back to Hungary. And had little if any contact with his family after he came to this country. I don't know why. It just never happened. And I don’t know what happened to them. 
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 ; SC: Do you know their names, any of the names? 
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 ; LH: Well let's see, I was named after my grandfather's father his name was Leopold Hirsch, and the name Hirsch was the name that he came to this country with it wasn't a shortened version as a lot of people who were Hirsch might have been Hirshberg or Hirschfeld. It was just Hirsch. My grandmother came to this country with her whole family: parents, sisters, brothers, what have you. It's interesting, this is something that I found out not too long ago is that my grandmother's father was also a tailor. So then I start thinking, okay, well he was a tailor in Bethlehem so I think that's how my grandfather ended up meeting my grandmother. 0 1173 Mel Roth, Muhlenberg Alumnus LH: But at different times several of my mother's sisters or brothers lived with us. So, for instance, my uncle Mel, who went to Muhlenberg, he lived with us when he went to Muhlenberg. 
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 ; SC: What years did he go to Muhlenberg? 
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 ; LH: What year...hmm
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 ; SC: It was before ‘57. 
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 ; LH: Okay yeah, I might've been, I think I was less than 10 years old, I think. 
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 ; GE: So, the early 50s. 0 1392 Larry Hirsch's Adoption & ; "Butterbox Babies" LH: I was born in a maternity home in Canada, which became infamous. It was a baby mill. Mothers would go there to have their babies. A lot of the babies, if they were born not very healthy, they were killed. A lot of mothers were told that their babies died, and then the maternity home essentially sold them to someone else. So I believe it was in the late 40s a reporter kind of got wind of what was going on there and wrote a book and did a whole feature on. It was called Butterbox Babies, and they were . . . The reason that Butterbox, butter in those days was delivered in wooden box, and that's what they used to bury the babies in these little wooden boxes. So when my parents are looking to adopt, back then, first of all, if you were Jewish, it was very difficult to adopt a child that was not Jewish. So, of course then there were a very limited number of children available, but my Aunt Bea had seen an ad in the New York newspaper about this maternity home in Canada. She contacted the people there, had some correspondence with them then put my parents in touch with them, and that’s how my parents ended up with me. But eventually the home was closed, and because of what went on at that home all of the adoption laws in Canada and the United States were changed because of what happened there. So there was a book written, there was a movie made about Butterbox Babies. 0 1840 Hirsch's Childhood and Education SC: Could you talk a little bit about where you have lived, where you went to school, your education and then after your education any places you worked actually from the very beginning, paperboy if you did that, you know anything. 
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 ; LH: I grew up in Allentown. I went through the whole Allentown school system, and I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City - which, back then, was a two-year school. And they had their major course was apparel design, but they had a small course in apparel management and engineering, which is what I took. 0 1920 Early Work Experiences SC: So if you would talk a little bit about your work history. Anything that you did from before you became a business mogul as an adult. Any steps that you took that will be helpful to us. 
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 ; LH: Well primarily, every summer I worked at the factory doing odd jobs, worked in the cutting room, worked in the shipping department but what's interesting my real interest growing up was art. Then in high school I took art classes, there was an art teacher then his name was Jim Musselman, I don't know if you have ever heard of him?
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 ; GE: Musselman Advertising? 
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 ; LH: Yes, very well known, not only teacher, but and as an artist himself in the Lehigh Valley, and initially that's really what I wanted to do I wanted to go into commercial art, something like that. But I think when I explored it more I realized that it wouldn't be easy to make a living. 0 2049 Adulthood—Marriage and Children SC: And can you talk about your family life from the time that you became an adult and your family?
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 ; LH: Well, I think certainly growing up as I said earlier I grew up right around the corner from here.
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 ; SC: What’s the address?
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 ; LH: 414 North Leh St. and as I said, my parents bought the house in 1945, and I still live there. But yeah I had, I think I had a nice childhood growing up. I met my wife at FIT, and we got married. Not long after we got married, she became pregnant. So when I finished with a FIT that's I came back home, and I went into business with my father and grandfather who remained, essentially my grandfather remained active in the business almost up to the day he died. 0 2325 Atlantic Apparel Association GE: So Larry, what we’re going to do now is just explore a little bit more your own family’s history, and maybe if you want to explain first you can say that you know a lot about just the apparel industry. Why don’t we first just talk about what you know about local apparel industries. And so go back as far as you’re comfortable. I know that you and your father, am I correct, were both presidents of the Association or helped develop the Association. 
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 ; LH: Yes.
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 ; GE: In fact, why don’t you start by telling us about the Association.
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 ; LH: Well you mentioned earlier the Atlantic Apparel Association, which originally was called the Slate Belt Association, okay, and that Association was a collective group of people that negotiated with the union, with the ILGWU for their contracts. Whereas the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association was born as a self-help organization to help promote the apparel industry and to be able to share ideas. Because for many many years those that were in the garment business [didn’t] really talk to each other about who they were working for or how they were doing things. It was this real secretive like you didn't allow anybody else to come into your factory because you didn't want them to see what you're doing. 0 2810 The Height of the Apparel Industry in the Lehigh Valley/Allentown's Sewing School LH: You know that people don’t realize at one time the apparel industry, and I'm not including knitting, dyeing, finishing, in the Lehigh Valley, we were collectively the largest employer in the Lehigh Valley. We were bigger than Bethlehem Steel as many as 24-25,000 people worked in the apparel industry. In the State of Pennsylvania, I believe overall we were the second largest employer next to Bethlehem Steel and US Steel. It’s incredible. And a lot of people made a living. It's interesting because back then what I always hated was, we were considered a low-wage industry. Well the problem was they were comparing us to Bethlehem Steel and Mack Truck where people were making $15-$20 an hour, and I'm talking back in the ‘60s. Whereas, it's interesting, I'd say as long ago as at least 30 years ago we had what we called a shop average of eight or nine dollars an hour. Thirty years ago, that was considered low-wage. We had factories that had shop average is $10 an hour, $14 an hour, but we were still considered low-wage industries. Through the Association we started the Allentown Sewing School because there was a time when everybody was busy. The labor market, virtually nobody existed and what everybody was doing, everybody was trying to steal help from somebody else which was really not good for any of us. So we started a sewing school. 0 3168 Business Contacts in Women's Apparel LH: As I said earlier, my father in the 50s was working from men's and boy's companies, and as that started to die off, we ended up getting into the women's. So over the years we worked for... basically you mention the name we work for them. okay Liz Claiborne back then we worked for companies like Bobbie Brooks, I don't know if you remember them. We work for companies called College Town. Who’s the big one in Philly that I just heard about his closing?...Jones New York, Sidney Kimmel. Did you ever hear of Sidney Kimmel. The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia ; he was the benefactor of the Kimmel Center. That was his company. Just recently I heard they were (makes a sound). They were one of the giants of the industry. We worked for Ship’n Shore. A lot of these companies we started with them almost in the beginning. Again, it's interesting, a lot of these women’s firms were sweater manufacturers who then decided to go into what we called the cut and sewn knitwear. So a lot of them, we were there at the beginning when they first started, but again in Philadelphia you had huge companies Devon’s Apparel and Clean Casuals. These were all companies we worked for at different times. 0 3443 Icons in the Garment & ; Needle-Trade Industries LH: Yeah, this Allison manufacturing made basically T-shirts that they screen-printed, and their licenses were with like Disney. The one that put them on the map was Daniel Boone, but big. They employ here in Allentown, they employed over 300 people, 350 people here. But there were many real icons in the Lehigh Valley. You had the gentleman that owned Phoenix Clothes, Berkowitz I don't remember his first name. They employed at one time, 1,500 people. I don't necessarily think they all were here because he also had another factory somewhere else in Pennsylvania but big, they made men's suits. Then you had a place like Cross Country Clothes in Northampton employed 900, a thousand people.
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 ; GE: What family was that?
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 ; LH: Billera.
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 ; GE: I think they’re still around, right?
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 ; LH: They’re no longer in the industry. 0 3696 Silver Line Versus Interstate Trucking Companies LH: Back then there were primarily two trucking companies that served the garment industry in this area. One was Silver Line and the other one was called Interstate Dress Carriers.
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 ; GE: Do you know what families ran those?
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 ; LH: Interstate Dress Carriers was a gentleman named Lieberman, I believe. I mean these people were big. I mean, there was a whole interesting history. 
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 ; GE: Were they from this area?
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 ; LH: No, New York. These were very different times that some of these people were connected. Do you know what I'm saying when I say connected?
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 ; GE: We do. Are you saying Mafia? 
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 ; LH: [Larry shrugs]I’ll tell you a quick story. When I first was working for my father. . . Back then, and I'm not going to make it a long story. Back then you used either Silver Line or Interstate that was it, period. 0 3960 Expansion of the Family Business LH: So what happened is at one point we had one factory, and we now had four families we had the support. So we decide well the only way we could do that was we have to get bigger, we have to grow so what we did is first we bought another factory that was over on the east side of Allentown. We named that factory Knit Wits. We then bought two other factories, which we combined into one, and that was located more in the west end of Allentown called Hirsch Manufacturing. So collectively at one point we employed at least 250 people between the three factories.
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 ; GE: This is at what time? 
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 ; LH: I’d say again, late 60s early 70s, and we grew to the point where we were shipping at times between 4 and five thousand dozen a week. 0 4254 1985: Changes in the Garment Industry and the Decline of the Family Business GE: You want to share with us maybe the last 10 years as it started to . . . First of all, how long was your company in business? 
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 ; LH: Well, my father closed up his factory, closed up Allentown Manufacturing, he had been in business for about 50 years, I think it was. So he closed up about, it's now going on 30 years ago. 
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 ; GE: So about 1985. 
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 ; LH: Yeah, he had to close. I mean the business . . . What had happened was that over the years, especially, we were in the women's apparel, most of those companies that we worked for were connected, were union. They belong to the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. So when we work for them, they would pay a lot of the benefits for us to the union. Well, what happened was that percentage that they were paying kept going up and up and up, and the only way they could escape the union . . . Now some tried to go down south, but they still had to pay the union. So that's really, in my opinion, that's really when stuff started going overseas. 0 4560 Life After the Family Business—Larry Hirsch's "Garment Works" GE: And then you said that you were starting your own factory. 
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 ; LH: Yes, I started my own factory not connected to the union. It was nice, it was a nice little factory. It was called The Garment Works. And I took over the building that we had had Knitwits in over on the East Side. I took over that building. 
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 ; GE: What did you make here, and for whom did you make it? 
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 ; LH: Well, again, I was, I primarily was making children's, more children's knitwear and then went along pretty nicely for maybe 10 years.
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 ; GE: Wow that was one of the last ones. 
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 ; LH: Yeah, maybe a little less than 10 years. Had a nice factory. At one time, maybe I employed as many as 40 people. Then again, some of those people that I was working for started disappearing, going out of business, so then what I did . . . Before I closed the factory, I started doing what we called, we did pressing, finishing, and packaging for companies. Because around that time what became very big was garment-dyed garments, garments that were dyed after they were sewn. And a lot of them needed to be pressed and packaged and what have you. So I started doing that. 0 4830 Walmart's Impact on the Garment and Needle-Trade Industries LH: I worked for a company called Wright Knitwear, big company. They were up in Schuylkill Haven, Orwigsburg, Allentown . . . Their main account was Walmart.
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 ; GE: What was the family name who owned that? 
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 ; LH: You know what I don't remember.
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 ; GE: But they were not an Allentown family. 
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 ; LH: No, so I did a lot of work for them. I did sewing and the packaging for them. Good company, you know, and they're the ones that moved to El . .. You know Walmart beat them to death and being that over 50% of their business was with Walmart . . .And Walmart said, the guy told me one day, he said Walmart said to us, “You know the 50,000 dozen that you made for us last year. . . Yeah . . . we want to pay you less than we did last year.” You know it got to the point of how cheap is cheap. You know. So they moved everything to El Salvador. Just so they could still produce the goods cheap enough for Walmart. You know what, and after that I never set foot in Walmart ever again, ever. And I knew other people that were put out of business also by Walmart, and I said I will never, ever buy anything from them ever again. 0 4998 The Lehigh Valley Needle-Trades Association GE: Yes, The Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, so that began in the 60s, and how long did that last? 
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 ; LH: At least I think 25 years.
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 ; GE: Ok until about 90, around that time period? Is that right?
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 ; LH: Yeah.
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 ; GE: And during that time, it sounds like you and your father were very active. Were you employed at the Needle Trades, or were you a volunteer? 
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 ; LH: Yeah the only person that got paid was Jim Chambers.
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 ; GE: You were just founding members.
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 ; LH: Yeah, my father was the original president of the Association. 0 5203 Participation in the Jewish Community and Allentown Politics GE: Will you tell us about your father’s and your activity in the Jewish community in the broader Lehigh Valley or Allentown Community. 
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 ; LH: That’s an interesting point that I have discussed with some people recently in that why weren't more Jewish people active in local politics. Interesting very interesting. I don't know the exact answer of that. I tend to think some of it may have had to do with not wanting to be too visible. You know because when you consider who some of the local industry people were they certainly could become mayor, senators, you name it. But they, for the most part, chose to stay out of politics. 
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 ; GE: How about organizations--Kiwanis, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, any of those things? 
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 ; LH: We were a member of Chamber of Commerce. I at one time, when I was president of the Association, I was also on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, and I was also on the board of directors of what was then called Manpower, which was the state agency that provided funding for training. 0 5461 Impact of the Garment & ; Needle-Trade Industries on the Lehigh Valley's Jewish Community GE: Ok, what is your sense of how both the Jewish community as well as the larger community was affected by the disappearance of this industry? 
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 ; LH: I think honestly, in my personal opinion, I think the Lehigh Valley lost its identity, I really do. I mean what are we identified with today? The largest employer in the Lehigh Valley is Lehigh Valley Hospital. Is that what we’re identified with today, I don't know. You know, one time it was Mack truck, and it was, of course, in Bethlehem, it was Bethlehem Steel. But it was also the apparel industry. The other thing I think was affected . . . There were a lot of men in the apparel industry that made a lot of money. Some of them made a lot of money while they were in business ; some of them made money when they sold their business. 0 5838 Hirsch's Business Properties GE: Before I turn it over to Sue, there was a question I wanted to ask you when you got out around 1995 were you able to sell your businesses?
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 ; LH: No, I just had to close-up.
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 ; GE: How about the buildings, do you still own the buildings?
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 ; LH: Well, after I went out of business, I basically took over because now we had empty buildings.
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 ; GE: How many?
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 ; LH: Three, so we had to try and rent them, so that became my new job was trying to, in some cases renovate and to rent.
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 ; GE: How has that worked out? 
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 ; LH: It worked out pretty well for a number of years. I think we were fortunate in that at one point we had a tenant, the building was over there on Madison Street, and tenant came to me and said they wanted to buy the building, so we eventually sold the building to the tenant. 0 6036 Recycling in the Garment & ; Needle-Trade Industries GE: And Levine is the sewing store? Is that who you mean?
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 ; LH: Yes, at one time they had sewing store, but their major business was buying and selling fabric. In other words, a manufacturer would design and produce what they wanted for the season, so the end of the season, they'd have fabric leftover so companies like Levine would buy the fabric. And they occupied several buildings in Allentown filled with, I mean, an unbelievable amount of fabric.
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 ; GE: Because of what I knew is they had fabric stores. They had a big fabric store downtown. 
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 ; LH: Yes, yes, one time they had a few of them. Yeah, nice people. I think the one time there were like 4 brothers involved but what they also did, this was interesting, when I first started with my father, when we would do cutting. . . you know you don't use every inch of fabric you have fallout, clippings whatever you call it, and we would put all of that in these big burlap bags, okay, and sell it to Levine's.
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 ; GE: Also, is that also Sheftel? 
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 ; LH: Yes, Sheftel also did that. 0 6668 Hirsch's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: Well I have a couple of sorts of theoretical or thought questions. The first one is what do you value most in life? 
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 ; LH: My children and my grandchildren. See, I didn't hesitate.
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 ; SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or creative or sort of satisfied in life?
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 ; LH: I think that when I was in a business that I was really good at what I did. I think we, at one time, we had an operation that was, at times when I think back, I wonder how did we do it? How did we produce five thousand dozen a week, how did we do that? You know you have to be doing something right. And I think I’ve prided myself on producing a quality garment, a real quality garment. We stood behind . . .if we did something wrong, we made it right. 0 6904 Relationship to Employees GE: How about your relationship with your employees? You didn’t talk about that. 
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 ; LH: I mean personally, I think, overall, I had very good relationships with the employees. At times my father felt I was too tough, but overall, you know what, I never felt that I was better than they were. I never asked anybody to do something that I wouldn't do myself. And that included cleaning the toilets, truthfully. I can tell you how many times I cleaned toilets. I will say that over the years, once in a while, when I would run into somebody who had worked for us . . . In fact, when my father passed away, on one of those websites where you can do…
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 ; GE: Oh, like the obituary?
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 ; SC: That you can leave comments and memories.
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 ; LH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody wrote in there that he was the most wonderful boss that she ever had, and working for him was an honor. I’ve come across employees that have said to me that it was the best place they ever worked. 0 MovingImage Larry Hirsch talks about how his father got started in the apparel business with his grandfather. Larry’s grandfather was a skilled tailor who would make the patterns from the drawings or sketches of their clients. They started making young girl’s sunsuits, then making men’s and boy’s polo shirts, later making women’s knitwear. The Hirsch family were founding members of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association. The purpose of the association was to have owners work together to promote the industry and share ideas. Larry’s father closed his factory in 1985. Larry and his brother-in-law started their own apparel factory and ran that for another ten years.
 ; An interview with Larry Hirsch, June 23, 2015 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 23, 2015. So would you just talk about yourself, when you were born, where you were born, etc. And then go back in your family history as far back as you know because it's really helpful for us to see the patterns of how people came to be in the textile industry. LARRY HIRSCH: Well, I was born August 3, 1945. I won't go into my whole long history, but I was adopted. I was born in Canada ok so I pretty much starting with the beginning. My grandfather came to this country from Hungary in the early 1900s. He was I believe either 15 or 16 years old ; came here by himself. Couldn't speak English. He was trained as a tailor. So for a number of years, he traveled around the country working in different cities as a tailor. It's funny how, he didn't talk about it very much and unfortunately if I had been smarter than I over the years I would asked him a lot more questions than I ever did, you know, but somehow and I don't know exactly how he ended up in Bethlehem and that's where he met my grandmother, who had also come from Hungary. And then in 19 . . . oh my father was born in 1918 in Philadelphia. And then at one point they moved to Allentown. They apparently lived in many different locations in the Lehigh Valley. So my father pretty much went through the Allentown school district, and I believe he graduated like in 1936. My grandfather at around that time was making uniforms. Now when I say uniforms, they were uniforms that primarily gas station attendants wore that had their insignias on them and his factory if you want to call it that was in his house. So one-bedroom I remember my parents telling the story when they first got married they had to be out of their bedroom by like 7 o'clock in the morning because there were sewing machines in their bedroom and women then would come in and do the sewing in that room and my father then was a salesman for the selling the uniforms. And he also worked nights at Bethlehem Steel just to try to make a living. As far as I can remember he somehow met someone who manufactured as he called it children's sunsuits. You don't hear that word any more whatever sunsuits were and the guy said to him if you open a factory, I will supply you with work. So, of course, my father didn't have any money, and I believe he borrowed some money from someone he knew. In fact, I'll include that, I believe his name. . . They referred to him as Doc Shaffer, his real name was Ben Shaffer, Benjamin Shaffer. [Could not confirm correct spelling of name] He was very big in textile machinery. He bought and sold textile machinery, apparently had made a lot of money during the Second World War, and my father and his son grew up together. His son was my father's best friend, and I believe that's where he borrowed the money from, it was from Doc Shaffer. He opened the factory with my grandfather and my mother, and that's really how he got his start in the garment business. SC: Was your mother connected to the garment business in a specific way? LH: No, my mother grew up in Northampton, and her father owned a furniture store in Northampton, but I think after a certain period of time my father at some point met another gentleman, and they went into business together. And they started manufacturing their own line of children's what they called back then Polo shirts. They were basically T-shirts, but fancier T-shirts, pullover, and they had a sales office in New York City they had sales reps all over the country. At one time, they had their own knitting, they would knit their own fabric, and it was fairly large, it grew into a fairly large business. But I think what kind of doomed them was the Korean War. Where you know back then, you would take a position in . . .cotton that you used for knitting, but when the war came, you know, the price of cotton either went through the roof or whatever so eventually they closed up that business. But during that time as they were growing, my father bought a very large building in Allentown, which he didn't need the whole building for himself, but he was fortunate and again you know - in business luck always plays, in some cases, a big role. And in order for him to get financing for the building he had heard of this little company that was looking for space called Western Electric. So we went to the bank he talked to the people at Western Electric, and they told him if you buy the building we will rent X amount of space from you in the building. So with that in hand he went to the bank, but at that point the bank said to him at first they said no they won't loan him the money. Because he didn't have really much collateral for it and they spoke for certain period of time, and eventually my father thanked him for his time, got up to leave, and the guy said to him, "Wait a minute," he said, "I'm going to give you the loan." My father said, "Well why? you just told me . . ." He said, "Based on talking to you," he said, "I like your attitude, and I think you're going to be a success." They gave him the loan, and he bought this very large building, and Western Electric rented two floors in the building. So when he then, it was interesting, when he was manufacturing his own line of clothing their label, the name of their company was Mylo Manufacturing. That stood for Merle and Larry. Merle is my sister, that's how he came up with Mylo.I think you know a lot of people in the garment industry named their companies after their children or after their mother, or . . . So when they closed that up my father went back into contract manufacturing. And he worked primarily then for companies that made men's, and boy's knit shirts, polo shirts whatever you want to call them. Those firms were primarily, well a couple of them were from Philadelphia, and the largest part of their business was sweaters. At that time, in Philadelphia was . . . first of all, manufacturing in Philadelphia was tremendous, tremendous. Especially sweaters, knitting sweaters in Philadelphia. So a lot of those firms then branched out to making what we called cut and sewn knitwear. I don't know exactly how my father ever came in contact with them. But what I always thought was interesting, he worked primarily for three firms, and they, the owners of the three firms, were all related, and they were competing with each other. So when someone from one of their firms came to the factory they were forbidden to go out on the floor because they didn't want someone stealing the ideas from the other companies he was working for. But my father became very successful during that time. At times, they employed over 300 people with a dayshift/night shift. Again my grandfather was very active and instrumental in the business. Actually, my grandfather made all of the patterns. He did all the designing for each of these companies. They would give him ideas ; drawings sketches. He would then, you know, design the garment, and he would make all the patterns for all the garments they produced. And I think for my father at that time it was a very exciting time for him. SC: So may I ask a couple follow up questions: what names do you know of the family, even going back to Hungary? Do you know any of that information? Of the two families? LH: As far as I know my grandfather had a sister. My grandfather, as far as I know, never went back to Hungary. And had little if any contact with his family after he came to this country. I don't know why. It just never happened. And I don't know what happened to them. SC: Do you know their names, any of the names? LH: Well let's see, I was named after my grandfather's father his name was Leopold Hirsch, and the name Hirsch was the name that he came to this country with it wasn't a shortened version as a lot of people who were Hirsch might have been Hirshberg or Hirschfeld. It was just Hirsch. My grandmother came to this country with her whole family: parents, sisters, brothers, what have you. It's interesting, this is something that I found out not too long ago is that my grandmother's father was also a tailor. So then I start thinking, okay, well he was a tailor in Bethlehem so I think that's how my grandfather ended up meeting my grandmother. So I, you know, growing up I certainly knew a lot of my grandmother's family, but my father was an only child so. . . SC: What were their names, your grandmother's family? LH: Lowy. SC: And what was your grandmother's name? LH: Josephine. SC: Josephine Lowy. LH: Yes. My grandfather's name was Ernest Hirsch. SC: And do you know his wife's maiden name? LH: my grandmother? SC: Yes. LH: Lowy. SC: Ok and then how about going down one your father and your mother. What was your mother's maiden name? LH: Roth, yeah pretty common name. A lot of Roths. My mother was one of seven children. Yeah, it was Roth. GAIL EISENBERG: And what was her first name, your mother? LH: Mildred. SC: And as far as where they lived, where everybody lived and went to school, do you know any of the other people, where they lived and went to school? That you haven't mentioned where they lived. LH: Yeah, my sister, my mother's family, several of them, they all grew up in Northampton. Both of my mother's brothers were in the Korean War. My one uncle was a doctor, and he was the first medical person to be wounded in Korea. Not that that's something you really . . . ,but he was fairly, wounded fairly badly. When he was able to, he came to live with us while he was recovering from his wounds. But at different times several of my mother's sisters or brothers lived with us. So, for instance, my uncle Mel, who went to Muhlenberg, he lived with us when he went to Muhlenberg. SC: What years did he go to Muhlenberg? LH: What year...hmm SC: It was before '57. LH: Okay yeah, I might've been, I think I was less than 10 years old, I think. GE: So, the early 50s. LH: Then, different sisters . . . My mother's oldest sister ended up in New York City. She was very interested in acting. She was in a number of television shows, did a lot of off-Broadway stuff. In fact, my mother's cousin recently showed me a book that has a picture of a class of students at the Lee Strasberg Acting Studio in New York. So in that picture is by my aunt, Marilyn Monroe, and I can't remember some of the other people. But she knew many many many many people and her daughter ended up going into acting. And her daughter was on a daytime soap opera as a child for quite a while. She then made a movie. She was in a movie with Robert Duvall, James Caan, and there's a woman, and I can never remember, and my cousin as a child was in this movie. And the movie was produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Now it wasn't a big movie at the time because this was before Robert Duvall and James Caan had become big stars. So that's kind of my connection. So now I'm the oldest of 24 first cousins just on my mother's side of the family. SC: What was her name, her cousin's name, who was in-- LH: My aunt? SC: Your aunt. LH: Beatrice. Beatrice Zimmet was her married name. That's a whole other story with my aunt and my adoption, what have you. There's a whole history. SC: Would you be comfortable sharing if you know your birth parents' names? LH: I was born in a maternity home in Canada, which became infamous. It was a baby mill. Mothers would go there to have their babies. A lot of the babies, if they were born not very healthy, they were killed. A lot of mothers were told that their babies died, and then the maternity home essentially sold them to someone else. So I believe it was in the late 40s a reporter kind of got wind of what was going on there and wrote a book and did a whole feature on. It was called Butterbox Babies, and they were . . . The reason that Butterbox, butter in those days was delivered in wooden box, and that's what they used to bury the babies in these little wooden boxes. So when my parents are looking to adopt, back then, first of all, if you were Jewish, it was very difficult to adopt a child that was not Jewish. So, of course then there were a very limited number of children available, but my Aunt Bea had seen an ad in the New York newspaper about this maternity home in Canada. She contacted the people there, had some correspondence with them then put my parents in touch with them, and that's how my parents ended up with me. But eventually the home was closed, and because of what went on at that home all of the adoption laws in Canada and the United States were changed because of what happened there. So there was a book written, there was a movie made about Butterbox Babies. I came to the United States, and I became a naturalized citizen, and at the time I was the youngest person in the United States to become naturalized. So yeah, it's a long ; I always, it's interesting because I always knew that I was adopted. My parents told me and my sister was adopted also so I always knew that I was adopted. But it wasn't until a number of years after I was married that my mother presented me with all the information: who my birth mother was and what happened. GE: Were these women, the mothers unwed? Is that how this was-- LH: I would say, probably. Probably most of them were unwed. At the time some of them actually worked at the home, you know, while they were waiting to give birth. So today, where the home was in Canada, has been torn down, but there is a monument there to the babies that died there. SC: Do you know the name of the home and where it was? GE: Yes, it was outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia. LH: And I, boy, why can't I remember that. SC: We can look that up. [NOTE: It's called the Ideal Maternity Home] LH: Yeah, anyway interestingly enough at one point after I had all this information that my mother gave me, one day I had looked through it, and it was really weird because my original passport was in there. and I opened it up there is little picture of me in there. I think I was eight months old when I was adopted and underneath it said, "George Edward Little." And I remember, I turned to my mother and said, "Who's George Edward Little," and she said, "That's you. That was your birth name." So you know what, I waited until after my mother passed away. Cause I know was very hard for her to give me all of this information and eventually I did contact my birth mother, which did not go well. The last time I spoke to her was a few years ago, and she told me never to call her again. What's interesting too is that a lot of the babies were adopted by Jewish families in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. A lot of them came here. GE: I guess that's because that's what they could do. LH: Yeah, I was always grateful to my Aunt Bea because if it wasn't for her as I told her children, if it wasn't for your mother, I wouldn't be here today, you know. SC: Could you talk a little bit about where you have lived, where you went to school, your education and then after your education any places you worked actually from the very beginning, paperboy if you did that, you know anything. LH: I grew up in Allentown. I went through the whole Allentown school system, and I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City - which, back then, was a two-year school. And they had their major course was apparel design, but they had a small course in apparel management and engineering, which is what I took. SC: So if you would talk a little bit about your work history. Anything that you did from before you became a business mogul as an adult. Any steps that you took that will be helpful to us. LH: Well primarily, every summer I worked at the factory doing odd jobs, worked in the cutting room, worked in the shipping department but what's interesting my real interest growing up was art. Then in high school I took art classes, there was an art teacher then his name was Jim Musselman, I don't know if you have ever heard of him? GE: Musselman Advertising? LH: Yes, very well known, not only teacher, but and as an artist himself in the Lehigh Valley, and initially that's really what I wanted to do I wanted to go into commercial art, something like that. But I think when I explored it more I realized that it wouldn't be easy to make a living. Plus, you really had to be exceptionally talented in commercial art, so then I decided well then I'm going to go into business with my father and grandfather, who both of them that's really what they wanted me to do. And that's how I ended up going FIT. SC: And can you talk about your family life from the time that you became an adult and your family? LH: Well, I think certainly growing up as I said earlier I grew up right around the corner from here. SC: What's the address? LH: 414 North Leh St. and as I said, my parents bought the house in 1945, and I still live there. But yeah I had, I think I had a nice childhood growing up. I met my wife at FIT, and we got married. Not long after we got married, she became pregnant. So when I finished with a FIT that's I came back home, and I went into business with my father and grandfather who remained, essentially my grandfather remained active in the business almost up to the day he died. With the exception of because for health reasons he would go ; in later years he would go to Florida during the winter, but when he was here every day he'd come into the factory. SC: How old was he when he passed away? LH: Just shy of 85 years old. SC: Do you have children? LH: Yes, two daughters, Lisa and Lori. I now have five granddaughters, so my whole life has involved women. SC: And so could you talk a little bit about what your daughters do? LH: My younger daughter, who lives in Bethlehem is a nurse at Easton Hospital and has been there for a number of years. My older daughter, who lives in the Plymouth Meeting is now a stay-at-home mom, but she originally worked as an accountant for different firms in Philadelphia and then ended up at Comcast. She was assistant vice president of one of the divisions of Comcast. So then I think it was around the time when they had their first child that she stopped working. SC: Well, I will pass you along to Gail now. GE: Ok. LH: I'll show you this, who do you think that is? GE: Thornburgh in the center and this is you. LH: Yes, that's me. GE: Is that your father? LH: No, his name was Larry Lau. SC: Thornburgh, I haven't thought about him in ages. GE: So Larry, what we're going to do now is just explore a little bit more your own family's history, and maybe if you want to explain first you can say that you know a lot about just the apparel industry. Why don't we first just talk about what you know about local apparel industries. And so go back as far as you're comfortable. I know that you and your father, am I correct, were both presidents of the Association or helped develop the Association. LH: Yes. GE: In fact, why don't you start by telling us about the Association. LH: Well you mentioned earlier the Atlantic Apparel Association, which originally was called the Slate Belt Association, okay, and that Association was a collective group of people that negotiated with the union, with the ILGWU for their contracts. Whereas the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association was born as a self-help organization to help promote the apparel industry and to be able to share ideas. Because for many many years those that were in the garment business [didn't] really talk to each other about who they were working for or how they were doing things. It was this real secretive like you didn't allow anybody else to come into your factory because you didn't want them to see what you're doing. So at one point my father said well this is crazy. We're all in this together. We should be able to help each other and promote the industry. That it had become an industry that was really no longer a sweatshop industry. That many, many of the factories had been modernized, air-conditioned. . . GE: Do you know about what time that was? LH: Starting mostly in the late 50s [early] 60s. People started to really modernize and upgrade. So anyway my father and a few of his friends got together, and they said let's put together an association. I do have the names, I'm trying to remember, but I'll get you the names of the couple people. GE: Like who were the other people that were involved with its start. And just so I understand, you say it was something with instead of competing against each other maybe we can all just grow the industry together with the best practices. LH: Correct, that's correct. So one of my father's, our neighbors, was a gentleman named Jim Chambers. Jim Chambers ran an advertising agency, so my father knew him and sat down with him, and he said we're going to make you Executive Director of the new Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association. . . and it was born. I think at one time we had different number of members at different times. I know, at times we had as many as 30 local apparel firms that were members. GE: And these were the contractors as well as what other types? LH: As well as men we had manufacturers, we had dyeing and finishing firms, knitting firms ; you know anybody who felt that they really could benefit by belonging to an association like what we had. And it really opened doors. It got to the point where, you know what, if you needed a certain type of machinery that you didn't have and instead of going out and buying it you could call somebody up and say, "Hey do you happen to have one of these that you're not using that I could borrow for a while." It's interesting, in this picture ; this is my father, this is a gentleman named Gerson Lazar, he had a factory called Cata Garment. He was one of the original founders. And this is Jim Chambers. This was gentleman named Jerry Katz, his father had a company was called K and M Manufacturing, and I believe this gentleman was from FIT, I think. Anyway, so Mr. Lazar was a tough cookie, but what I loved about him, he loved buying new equipment. The latest thing in the market he'd run out and buy it. And if I wanted to see it, he would welcome me into his plant, and I would see what he's doing. Many times . . . he didn't put a lot of research into buying equipment before he jumped in. So often the equipment he bought didn't work out. But I give him a lot of credit for doing that, and he probably had one of the most modern factories in Allentown, and in the Lehigh Valley at the time, he really did. GE: What did his factory make? LH: Pants, ladies' pants. It was a nice, very nice factory. You know that people don't realize at one time the apparel industry, and I'm not including knitting, dyeing, finishing, in the Lehigh Valley, we were collectively the largest employer in the Lehigh Valley. We were bigger than Bethlehem Steel as many as 24-25,000 people worked in the apparel industry. In the State of Pennsylvania, I believe overall we were the second largest employer next to Bethlehem Steel and US Steel. It's incredible. And a lot of people made a living. It's interesting because back then what I always hated was, we were considered a low-wage industry. Well the problem was they were comparing us to Bethlehem Steel and Mack Truck where people were making $15-$20 an hour, and I'm talking back in the '60s. Whereas, it's interesting, I'd say as long ago as at least 30 years ago we had what we called a shop average of eight or nine dollars an hour. Thirty years ago, that was considered low-wage. We had factories that had shop average is $10 an hour, $14 an hour, but we were still considered low-wage industries. Through the Association we started the Allentown Sewing School because there was a time when everybody was busy. The labor market, virtually nobody existed and what everybody was doing, everybody was trying to steal help from somebody else which was really not good for any of us. So we started a sewing school. GE: This was about what time period? LH: I'm thinking in the late 60s early 70s, I think. I think initially we got funding from the state. GE: And was this something that a woman did or person did after they graduated high school? LH: Yes, yes. GE: How long was the training? LH: It depended-- six weeks, eight weeks maybe a little longer depending. GE: This was obviously to increase your supply of skilled labor. LH: And virtually anybody who graduated from that school had a job. Period. And then that went on for a number of years, and it was quite successful. GE: When you say a number of years, can you give a sense of 5 years, 10 years? LH: Twenty years, maybe. Also, through the Association, we started a class at the Vo-tech School at the Lehigh County Vo-tech School and at the Bethlehem Vo-tech School. Which, again, both very successful courses. In fact, the one in Bethlehem, we had a woman there who was just incredible. And a lot of her students went on to FIT and the Philadelphia Textile. And I was involved in all of that, and it was an exciting time in the '60s, '70s. By then we started... As I said earlier, my father in the 50s was working from men's and boy's companies, and as that started to die off, we ended up getting into the women's. So over the years we worked for... basically you mention the name we work for them. okay Liz Claiborne back then we worked for companies like Bobbie Brooks, I don't know if you remember them. We work for companies called College Town. Who's the big one in Philly that I just heard about his closing?...Jones New York, Sidney Kimmel. Did you ever hear of Sidney Kimmel. The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia ; he was the benefactor of the Kimmel Center. That was his company. Just recently I heard they were (makes a sound). They were one of the giants of the industry. We worked for Ship'n Shore. A lot of these companies we started with them almost in the beginning. Again, it's interesting, a lot of these women's firms were sweater manufacturers who then decided to go into what we called the cut and sewn knitwear. So a lot of them, we were there at the beginning when they first started, but again in Philadelphia you had huge companies Devon's Apparel and Clean Casuals. These were all companies we worked for at different times. GE: So for Devon and Clean, were you doing the cutting and sewing? LH: Yes. GE: Ok, they were the brains? LH: Yeah SC: Was this a factor when you went from manufacturing to coming into contracting? LH: Yeah, well I should back up and tell you one thing. At one point, I don't remember when this was, late 40s maybe in the early 50s. My father decided he wanted to get out of the business. So we sold this factory to a gentleman who had come here from New York, and that company became Allison Manufacturing. His name was Wharton Schneider. So my father, at that point, went to work in my grandfather's furniture store in Northampton. After maybe six months, nine months he decided that's not for him, but he had made a codicil with Mr. Schneider that he would not go back into business for certain period of time, so he went to Mr. Schneider, and he said that he'd like to go back into business. And Mr. Schneider allowed him to do that. As a result, he and Mr. Schneider - I'd say, Mr. Schneider became my father's best friend for the rest of his life. GE: When you say Mr. Schneider is that related to Irwin Schneider? LH: No, they're not related. GE: That's a different family. LH: Yeah, this Allison manufacturing made basically T-shirts that they screen-printed, and their licenses were with like Disney. The one that put them on the map was Daniel Boone, but big. They employ here in Allentown, they employed over 300 people, 350 people here. But there were many real icons in the Lehigh Valley. You had the gentleman that owned Phoenix Clothes, Berkowitz I don't remember his first name. They employed at one time, 1,500 people. I don't necessarily think they all were here because he also had another factory somewhere else in Pennsylvania but big, they made men's suits. Then you had a place like Cross Country Clothes in Northampton employed 900, a thousand people. GE: What family was that? LH: Billera. GE: I think they're still around, right? LH: They're no longer in the industry. There were originally five brothers, five Billera Brothers. They were huge. These were big companies. There was a company called Penn State Mills here in Allentown. GE: What was the family name? LH: Lesavoy family. Big company. They were manufacturers. I'm trying to think of sho some of the other really big, really big ones. There was one in Fountain Hill called Fountain Hill Mills. Their name was Meislin. GE: Was that Ruth Meislin's husband? LH: Could be, could be. There were two. There was father originally, a father and two sons. It was Nate Meislin and can't remember his brother's name. GE: I don't know I just remember her husband died young. LH: But these were big companies, and then you had the knitting companies: Fair Tex Mill that was Berman family. GE: Ok, that was Shirley Berman's husband. LH: I think so. Again, there were two brothers. Then you had the dyeing and finishing. There was a plant here called the Seco Mills. GE: What family was that? LH: Right now, I can't remember his name. There were other large ones that I can't remember. Back then there were primarily two trucking companies that served the garment industry in this area. One was Silver Line and the other one was called Interstate Dress Carriers. GE: Do you know what families ran those? LH: Interstate Dress Carriers was a gentleman named Lieberman, I believe. I mean these people were big. I mean, there was a whole interesting history. GE: Were they from this area? LH: No, New York. These were very different times that some of these people were connected. Do you know what I'm saying when I say connected? GE: We do. Are you saying Mafia? LH: [Larry shrugs]I'll tell you a quick story. When I first was working for my father. . . Back then, and I'm not going to make it a long story. Back then you used either Silver Line or Interstate that was it, period. So one day, I was working in the shipping room, and I had called for Silver Line to come at a certain time to pick up. They didn't show up, so I called Interstate. They came, picked up. I don't know if it was the next day or the day after, my father calls me into the office one day and there two gentlemen sitting there, and he said we heard that you use Interstate instead of Silver Line. One guy's name was Whitey that's all I remember. Whitey had a gun, okay, I don't remember [who] other guy was. You know, my father said to me, "We use Silver Line, we don't use Interstate." and I said, "Okay, okay." I got the message. Yeah, I remember Whitey. GE: Thank you, that was great, it filled in a lot of chunks of the overall industry. What about, let's go back and just share with us the history of your father, your family business. I know you told us a little bit it's called A Town Manufacturing, but that looks like it ended early. And so just tell us a little bit, what factories and-- LH: Well, we had you know at one point my sister got involved with her boyfriend, let's say, and she wanted to marry him. My father felt, well, okay, and he thought, okay, we'll bring him into the business. But first, what he did, his name was David Lily, and he sent David to FIT for a one-year program. David then came back downtown and came into the business with us. So what happened is at one point we had one factory, and we now had four families we had the support. So we decide well the only way we could do that was we have to get bigger, we have to grow so what we did is first we bought another factory that was over on the east side of Allentown. We named that factory Knit Wits. We then bought two other factories, which we combined into one, and that was located more in the west end of Allentown called Hirsch Manufacturing. So collectively at one point we employed at least 250 people between the three factories. GE: This is at what time? LH: I'd say again, late 60s early 70s, and we grew to the point where we were shipping at times between 4 and five thousand dozen a week. GE: And this is women's? LH: Women's, well we then got into . . . . we made pants, shorts, tops. You name it, we were making. GE: This is all cut and sew. LH: Yes, we then, at one point, got into embroidery, doing embroidery through one of our manufacturers we worked for. So that something else that we could offer a customer to do you know besides cutting, sewing, and finishing. GE: Was the embroidering, did it ever become a large part of the business, or was it very specialized. LH: Actually, it was part of the business. Eventually it was separated from the business. It became its own entity. GE: I assume, is that a little bit more of a higher margin. In other words, I assume the other had a lot of competition, had a lower margin, while something like this is more specialized, so there's a higher margin. LH: Yes, yes, yes. SC: Was it for women's clothing, was it embroidery font? LH: Well, initially was started just doing little logos. I don't know if you remember a company called Hang Ten. Hang Ten had like to two feet embroidered on the shirts. That's how we started doing embroidery was for Hang Ten. [some back and forth discussion that is inaudible] At that time it was mostly logos. So as I said we got to the point where we were one of the largest. GE: And that was under Hirsch. LH: Mainly, people knew as his Allentown Manufacturing. We were one of the largest apparel producers in the Lehigh Valley for the type of stuff we produced. Ship'n Shore was one of our big customers. GE: You want to share with us maybe the last 10 years as it started to . . . First of all, how long was your company in business? LH: Well, my father closed up his factory, closed up Allentown Manufacturing, he had been in business for about 50 years, I think it was. So he closed up about, it's now going on 30 years ago. GE: So about 1985. LH: Yeah, he had to close. I mean the business . . . What had happened was that over the years, especially, we were in the women's apparel, most of those companies that we worked for were connected, were union. They belong to the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. So when we work for them, they would pay a lot of the benefits for us to the union. Well, what happened was that percentage that they were paying kept going up and up and up, and the only way they could escape the union . . . Now some tried to go down south, but they still had to pay the union. So that's really, in my opinion, that's really when stuff started going overseas. That they felt the only way they could escape the union is to go overseas. So that started taking the work away from us. So as those union manufacturers started to disappear, we then had to work for companies that were not associated with the union. Therefore, we had to pay these percentages to the union, okay, which at times got to be as much as 20% of our payroll went to the union. I mean, 20%. When you think of 20% on top of Worker's Comp., unemployment compensation, we were paying over 30%. On top of every dollar that somebody earned, we were paying. And then even those companies started going overseas. So eventually the handwriting was on the wall that we just couldn't do it anymore. So my brother-in-law and I at that point decided we kind of set a certain date that we were going to close up, that that was going to be it. Well at the last minute my father changed his mind and decided as he put it he owed it to the people to try and stay in business. And I said to him, "Dad," I said, "I've already started my own factory." I said, "I can't stay here anymore." And he said, "Okay, that's okay." But he had some issues with the union, so we went into New York one day to try and work things out, and the union said, "No. This is what we want, take it or leave it." And he said [makes a sound] that's it. He came home, and the next day he closed the factory. GE: This was about 1985? LH: Yeah GE: And then you said that you were starting your own factory. LH: Yes, I started my own factory not connected to the union. It was nice, it was a nice little factory. It was called The Garment Works. And I took over the building that we had had Knitwits in over on the East Side. I took over that building. GE: What did you make here, and for whom did you make it? LH: Well, again, I was, I primarily was making children's, more children's knitwear and then went along pretty nicely for maybe 10 years. GE: Wow that was one of the last ones. LH: Yeah, maybe a little less than 10 years. Had a nice factory. At one time, maybe I employed as many as 40 people. Then again, some of those people that I was working for started disappearing, going out of business, so then what I did . . . Before I closed the factory, I started doing what we called, we did pressing, finishing, and packaging for companies. Because around that time what became very big was garment-dyed garments, garments that were dyed after they were sewn. And a lot of them needed to be pressed and packaged and what have you. So I started doing that. GE: You kind of got into this particular specialty. LH: Yes, and I had the equipment to do it. SC: Was this a place on the East Side that had really a lot of people who lived there that wanted to work at your factory? I mean, it would seem to me and maybe-- LH: On the East Side? SC: Of Allentown. LH: Yeah, I had a lot of employees that came from the east side as well as other places, but that's not where I did that the packaging and finishing. That I did in the building we had in the West Side, in the West End where again we had had a factory in there, and I took over part of that building, and that's where I did all my-- because to do what I was doing you needed a lot of room. And then you know that was pretty good for a few years. Then one of the big companies I worked for moved to El Salvador. Another big company I worked for they went out of business completely. And then at that point I kinda saw the handwriting on the wall and I said, "Well, this is it." GE: And this was around 93, 94, that type of time period. LH: Yeah, probably, year, maybe . . . No maybe it was later, even later than that. Because that was pretty good. I worked for a company called Wright Knitwear, big company. They were up in Schuylkill Haven, Orwigsburg, Allentown . . . Their main account was Walmart. GE: What was the family name who owned that? LH: You know what I don't remember. GE: But they were not an Allentown family. LH: No, so I did a lot of work for them. I did sewing and the packaging for them. Good company, you know, and they're the ones that moved to El . .. You know Walmart beat them to death and being that over 50% of their business was with Walmart . . .And Walmart said, the guy told me one day, he said Walmart said to us, "You know the 50,000 dozen that you made for us last year. . . Yeah . . . we want to pay you less than we did last year." You know it got to the point of how cheap is cheap. You know. So they moved everything to El Salvador. Just so they could still produce the goods cheap enough for Walmart. You know what, and after that I never set foot in Walmart ever again, ever. And I knew other people that were put out of business also by Walmart, and I said I will never, ever buy anything from them ever again. GE: I rarely do, but I won't say never. LH: You know it's just terrible what they did single-handedly did really to the apparel industry. It was incredible, and people don't really understand that either. GE: Let's see in terms of, I'm sorry, the Lehigh Valley Alliance? LH: The Lehigh Valley Needle Trades? GE: Yes, The Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, so that began in the 60s, and how long did that last? LH: At least I think 25 years. GE: Ok until about 90, around that time period? Is that right? LH: Yeah. GE: And during that time, it sounds like you and your father were very active. Were you employed at the Needle Trades, or were you a volunteer? LH: Yeah the only person that got paid was Jim Chambers. GE: You were just founding members. LH: Yeah, my father was the original president of the Association. GE: Were you a president? LH: Yes. GE: So you were very, very active in it, but you were not actually employed. LH: Yes, I mean, we did, we really some amazing things. One year . . . well here's what we did, this how this came about. The very first year my father and Jim Chambers approached the then governor Scranton. I believe it was through our local state senator you know what I can picture him, but I can't remember his name. He was very helpful to us. The governor declared a certain week as state apparel week, usually in around April. So what we would do every year we go to Harrisburg for the governor to sign the proclamation making it Pennsylvania Apparel Week. We then would have a banquet, every year we would have a banquet. First-year, governor Scranton and his wife came to the banquet. It was really something. One of our member firms made dresses, they made a dress for the first lady, which was modeled at the banquet. I remember it was at the old Americus Hotel and there was this long winding staircase that came down into the banquet room and the model came down this staircase modeling the dress for the first lady. So you know somewhere I have another picture of me with our governor Milton Shapp. Remember, he was our governor. GE: Yes, yes, he was in the late 70s. So your family, you and your father were very, very active in the trade association. LH: Yes. GE: Will you tell us about your father's and your activity in the Jewish community in the broader Lehigh Valley or Allentown Community. LH: That's an interesting point that I have discussed with some people recently in that why weren't more Jewish people active in local politics. Interesting very interesting. I don't know the exact answer of that. I tend to think some of it may have had to do with not wanting to be too visible. You know because when you consider who some of the local industry people were they certainly could become mayor, senators, you name it. But they, for the most part, chose to stay out of politics. GE: How about organizations--Kiwanis, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, any of those things? LH: We were a member of Chamber of Commerce. I at one time, when I was president of the Association, I was also on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, and I was also on the board of directors of what was then called Manpower, which was the state agency that provided funding for training. So one time, the funding for our sewing school was through them, through Manpower. It was interesting how we did that. We couldn't get direct funding, but what they did is they decided we would get funding for the teacher because she was learning to be a teacher, and that's how we got the funding. We always managed, sometimes we would get a grant from the city or the state. But yes, going back to what you said, my father was almost lifelong member of Kiwanis. He was an um-- GE: Rotary? LH: No, not Kiwanis. I can't remember what it's called, but he had a ring. GE: Shriners, Masons? LH: Yes, Mason, he was a Mason. Very active in the synagogue. GE: Which synagogue? LH: Temple Beth El. GE: How about your mom? LH: My mother was active at Temple Beth El one time she was president of the sisterhood. GE: And I'm sorry, tell us what your mother's name is again. LH: Mildred was always very active in B'nai B'rith. GE: How about Hadassah? LH: Hadassah, yeah. GE: Ok, what is your sense of how both the Jewish community as well as the larger community was affected by the disappearance of this industry? LH: I think honestly, in my personal opinion, I think the Lehigh Valley lost its identity, I really do. I mean what are we identified with today? The largest employer in the Lehigh Valley is Lehigh Valley Hospital. Is that what we're identified with today, I don't know. You know, one time it was Mack truck, and it was, of course, in Bethlehem, it was Bethlehem Steel. But it was also the apparel industry. The other thing I think was affected . . . There were a lot of men in the apparel industry that made a lot of money. Some of them made a lot of money while they were in business ; some of them made money when they sold their business. For instance, I mentioned up Wharton Schneider, Allison Manufacturing, he sold his company to Beatrice foods years ago. A lot of the companies that we worked for were bought by larger companies. London Fog . . . So I think Fair-Tex Mills was bought out at one time so a lot of these people were very large contributors to, for instance, the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Day School, UJA. I mean, I'm talking, I can remember, what was it, the Six-Day War, when they had an emergency meeting at the at the Jewish Community Center to raise money, and people got up and pledged $25,000, $10,000 and you know and that's back in, what, 1967. Five thousand--I mean, I was like . . . that was $25,000, and that was a lot. I mean, it's a lot of money today, back then . . . huge, huge! So I don't really know what happened, you know, I think there was a period of time when some of those organizations did start to struggle because they weren't getting the type of contributions that they once were. Whereas today the contributors are doctors and lawyers, no longer businessmen or industrialists. It's the doctors who are making the money today. So that's a big change, big change. GE: And then just any thoughts that you might have in terms of why the Jewish community was certainly over-represented in this industry? LH: In the garment industry? GE: In the garment industry. LH: Oh, I think most of that came from Europe. As I said, my grandfather was trained in Europe. You know in Europe for many, many, many years you basically only went to school up to a certain grade and then in certain cases you took a test. If they didn't feel your aptitude was to go on to higher education you went into learning a trade, which essentially . . . my grandfather always considered himself like the black sheep of the family. So even the names, even the names: Schneider. A Schneider okay is a tailor, so I think that's where a lot of that came from, you know. They came to this country through Ellis Island, a lot of them ended up in New York, New York City and one of the few places they could work or make a living, if you call it that, were in the sweatshops. At one time New York City, I believe, was . . . the largest producer of apparel in the world was New York City. GE: Before I turn it over to Sue, there was a question I wanted to ask you when you got out around 1995 were you able to sell your businesses? LH: No, I just had to close-up. GE: How about the buildings, do you still own the buildings? LH: Well, after I went out of business, I basically took over because now we had empty buildings. GE: How many? LH: Three, so we had to try and rent them, so that became my new job was trying to, in some cases renovate and to rent. GE: How has that worked out? LH: It worked out pretty well for a number of years. I think we were fortunate in that at one point we had a tenant, the building was over there on Madison Street, and tenant came to me and said they wanted to buy the building, so we eventually sold the building to the tenant. Then the building that we had downtown, the same thing we got to the point where I first had one offer to buy the building. That fell through. And then I had another offer to buy the building and my father and I finally said, "Okay it's time, it's time to let it go." GE: So, at this point you don't own any of them. LH: No. SC: And do you know the addresses of the buildings, even if it's just the street? LH: Our main factory was at 315 Linden St. and is now being converted to apartments. GE: It took a long time. LH: When we bought that building and moved in there, there were 500 people working in that building in the apparel business. Just in that building alone. Yeah, that was 315 the other one was 327 North Madison St. And then the other one on the east side was 11 South Dauphin St. You know - just to throw out - you had the companies for instance like to Perlman and Levine who... GE: And Levine is the sewing store? Is that who you mean? LH: Yes, at one time they had sewing store, but their major business was buying and selling fabric. In other words, a manufacturer would design and produce what they wanted for the season, so the end of the season, they'd have fabric leftover so companies like Levine would buy the fabric. And they occupied several buildings in Allentown filled with, I mean, an unbelievable amount of fabric. GE: Because of what I knew is they had fabric stores. They had a big fabric store downtown. LH: Yes, yes, one time they had a few of them. Yeah, nice people. I think the one time there were like 4 brothers involved but what they also did, this was interesting, when I first started with my father, when we would do cutting. . . you know you don't use every inch of fabric you have fallout, clippings whatever you call it, and we would put all of that in these big burlap bags, okay, and sell it to Levine's. GE: Also, is that also Sheftel? LH: Yes, Sheftel also did that. And at one time, I remember my father told me he would get enough money from the clippings to pay for the rent. But it was interesting as the years went by, and we started producing more and more man-made fibers: orlon, nylon, polyester. Initially a lot of that was recycled and remade into polyester thread, but as time went on, it became cheaper to produce it new than to recycle it. So then the value of the clippings went down to nothing. Your money, dollar bills, are made of paper that is made from hundred percent white cotton that comes from clippings. GE: Will shared with us that apparently, that was very much the basis of his success to be the supplier of this paper. LH: But also at one time, years ago, we had what they called linoleum, the backing linoleum was made from recycled clippings. Okay, the head liners in a car were made from recycled material. GE: I wonder if they still are just getting it from a different source. I don't know. LH: So, the apparel industry was very big in recycling. GE: Yes, early. LH: Really. Even early on, even a lot of the machines that we use had a knife on them, so as you sewed, it not only sewed the edge, but it trimmed it. So you'd have these trimmings that would fall on the floor we would sweep those up and put that in burlap bags and Levine's would take it. GE: So Levine's was also just as Sheftel was with the scraps. That's interesting because I do know Ira Levine, that's one of Levine's sons. We'll have to add his name to our list. LH: There was also Perlman, M S Perlman, and Sons [correct name is MS Perlman & ; Co.]. GE: Were they a part of the same, were they in business together or they in two separate ones. LH: You mean, Levine's? It was two separate companies. And that was big business. That was really very big business. GE: And how terrific was it that nothing was wasted. LH: Yeah, we didn't waste anything, we really didn't. SC: Are the Perlmans still around? LH: I know the son, his name is Alan, Alan Perlman. I think he still . . . I don't know. I've heard different things, whether it's true or not, I don't know. I heard that he was maybe doing something in conjunction with the Sheftels. I don't know that for a fact. I don't think Ira is doing much anymore. GE: I don't think so either. But he would be able to share with us a little bit with us about the family because he was in the business at one time. LH: Yeah, in fact, the building, after they tore down my father's building, he moved into a building on Gordon Street downtown, and the building was owned by Levine's. So . . . here's a picture. We used to put out a monthly newsletter. SC: Oh, wow, beautiful. LH: Needlepoint . . . the whole thing. Here's Esther Halperin, Irwin Schneider. GE: Ok, great, and we interviewed both of them. LH: There's my father. You can read the articles in here. SC: May we copy it? LH: Sure. Here's. . . One month, Jim decided he wanted to do a feature article on my family so here's a picture [Larry shows the picture]. This is my grandfather, myself, my brother-in-law and my father. Here's another picture of us in the factory. My grandfather wore, I never saw my grandfather wear anything other than a white shirt, okay, and a suit. I mean he would take the suit coat off, but he always wore a white shirt and a suit. And I'll never forget he always told me, he said, "You never wear shorts in the factory." GE: I wonder if that was for safety. LH: No, he didn't feel he said if you're a manager or whatever, then you dress appropriately. Then this one here's a picture of me. This was the year I became president of the Needle Trades. And that's a picture of me. SC: It's such a good late 70s, 1980s picture with the beard. LH: Yeah, I had that beard for 20 years. GE: You know I wouldn't recognize Esther, and it's just a little picture, but I'm saying I really wouldn't have recognized her. LH: Now, Esther, did you interview Esther? SC: Yes, we did. GE: And that was a wonderful interview. And you know I recognize your father. I just didn't know. But I recognize your father from the synagogue. LH: He was still going to synagogue. Over three years ago, I brought him back up here from Florida, and he was living at Country Meadows, but we had a woman that would take him to synagogue every Saturday morning. GE: Oh, that's nice. SC: Well I have a couple of sorts of theoretical or thought questions. The first one is what do you value most in life? LH: My children and my grandchildren. See, I didn't hesitate. SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or creative or sort of satisfied in life? LH: I think that when I was in a business that I was really good at what I did. I think we, at one time, we had an operation that was, at times when I think back, I wonder how did we do it? How did we produce five thousand dozen a week, how did we do that? You know you have to be doing something right. And I think I've prided myself on producing a quality garment, a real quality garment. We stood behind . . .if we did something wrong, we made it right. I'll tell you a quick story. One year we started work for a new company. I was making ladies tops with a zipper down the back. One day my grandfather comes to me with a garment, and he throws this garment down on the table, and he says, "Tell me what's wrong with that garment." I went over that garment with a fine-tooth comb, and I said, "I don't see anything wrong with this garment." He said, "The zipper's supposed to be in the back." The zipper was in the front. And I went oh my God, oh my God. Now, fortunately, it wasn't every piece okay, but needless to say we didn't do any work for that company after that. It ended up we had to buy the shirts that had the zipper in the front. SC: But now it's style, and they would expose the zipper in the back. GE: It's amazing the difference. LH: My grandfather, he was wonderful. He would go . . . During the winter, in Florida, he was bored. So he would go . . . He didn't have a car and didn't drive in Florida. He would go to department stores in Miami, Miami Beach, and he would walk around and look at garments to see how they were made, trying to get ideas. Sometimes he would buy one and send it up here, and there were many times that he saw something with the way something was done that we then adopted in the factory that saved us money. GE: He either saw things that were time-saving or labor-saving. LH: Yes, yes. GE: You know one thing we did just briefly we want to touch upon. How about your relationship with your employees? You didn't talk about that. LH: I mean personally, I think, overall, I had very good relationships with the employees. At times my father felt I was too tough, but overall, you know what, I never felt that I was better than they were. I never asked anybody to do something that I wouldn't do myself. And that included cleaning the toilets, truthfully. I can tell you how many times I cleaned toilets. I will say that over the years, once in a while, when I would run into somebody who had worked for us . . . In fact, when my father passed away, on one of those websites where you can do-- GE: Oh, like the obituary? SC: That you can leave comments and memories. LH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody wrote in there that he was the most wonderful boss that she ever had, and working for him was an honor. I've come across employees that have said to me that it was the best place they ever worked. GE: And in your business who among you was the one that really dealt with the manufacturing, who was getting that business? LH: Well, initially my father did. My father was not the kind of guy, he was not on the floor, you know, doing the daily tasks. My father loved to schmooze, okay. He'd love to entertain the customers. Take them out to lunch to Hess's Patio, take them out to play golf, take them to lunch. So a lot of that, as time went on, fell to me. Where I would work mostly directly with the accounts. And then I would go into New York regularly. I can't tell you how much time I spent beating the streets of New York, knocking on doors. But what's interesting is as much as I did that the best accounts that we ever got were referrals. Somebody who knew us from someone. One company may have moved to another company and remembered us and then came to us. Or we were recommended by somebody so that I think is really saying a lot for what we did. GE: I'm looking at this, and I see James Hartzell. LH: Yeah. GE: We interviewed him as well. LH: Ok, sure. GE: And I see that you and he together look like when you were president, and he was vice president. SC: And they're still in business. Making pet clothing. LH: What does he do? GE: He does a little bit of custom-made outfits for pets. LH: Oh, really? GE: Yes. SC: Yes, these tiny little things. LH: He was a nice guy. I liked him a lot. And he is one that I saw at the last function that you had. GE: That's right ; he was there. Yes, yes. LH: I hadn't seen him for years! Now Irwin Schneider, when we bought . . . Okay the building we had down on Linden Street we bought from this gentleman Gerson Lazar, he owned the building. We bought it from him, and one of his tenants was Irwin Schneider. GE: May I see that picture? I've heard the name Gerson Lazar, but I think he's gone a long time. LH: Yeah. GE: So I think that's it. And then maybe we can make copies of the pictures, but I am going to have to write on the back of our copies who they are because we won't know. 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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Larry Hirsch, June 23, 2015
Description
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Larry Hirsch talks about how his father got started in the apparel business with his grandfather. Larry’s grandfather was a skilled tailor who would make the patterns from the drawings or sketches of their clients. They started making young girl’s sunsuits, then making men’s and boy’s polo shirts, later making women’s knitwear. The Hirsch family were founding members of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association. The purpose of the association was to have owners work together to promote the industry and share ideas. Larry’s father closed his factory in 1985. Larry and his brother-in-law started their own apparel factory and ran that for another ten years.
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LVTNT-12
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2015-05-23
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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
Oral History
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Interviewer
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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?
 ; 
 ; 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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01:25:15
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James Hartzell and Georgine Banko, March 6, 2012
Description
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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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LVTNT-10
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2012-03-06
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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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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.