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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
Oral History
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mark Stutz
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-22.xml
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5.4 June 27, 2016 Mark Stutz, June 27, 2016 LVTNT-22 1:09:15 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Mark Stutz Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 StutzMark_20160627 1.0:|23(11)|38(17)|55(12)|80(12)|99(14)|124(5)|143(10)|164(12)|185(13)|204(9)|233(5)|250(7)|275(14)|298(12)|323(7)|342(11)|367(3)|396(13)|437(7)|460(5)|465(2)|490(10)|517(20)|536(14)|557(15)|582(4)|607(5)|632(9)|651(12)|686(3)|707(6)|732(2)|757(11)|784(8)|803(13)|824(12)|849(14)|868(3)|887(10)|910(4)|935(6)|956(5)|975(9)|1000(2)|1019(12)|1044(11)|1065(16)|1086(13)|1103(17)|1130(14)|1155(2)|1178(5)|1201(14)|1218(9)|1239(9)|1264(13)|1295(8)|1326(5)|1351(2)|1372(5)|1393(10)|1416(11)|1439(11)|1468(6)|1491(14)|1518(11)|1549(2)|1580(9)|1601(8)|1604(5) 0 https://www.youtube.com/embed/jJpGWlsmyvk?autoplay=0& ; playsinline=0 YouTube video 0 Family History SC: Today is June 27, 2016 and would you give your full name Mark and when you were born and where you were born.
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 ; MS: My name is Mark Stutz, and I am 64 years old. I was born May 18,1952 here in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 
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 ; SC: Could we go back as far as you know with your mother’s and your father's family, any names that you know, where they came from and what they did, and how they made a living or whatever.
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 ; MS: Sure. I’ll start with my mother’s side because it’s a shorter story. I only knew my grandmother and my grandfather. Their last name was Bahoff.
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 ; SC: Would you spell that?
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 ; MS: B-A-H-O-F-F. 0 518 Education and Extra Curriculars SC: And could you, would you talk about, I know you can, would you talk about your education from the beginning all the way through?
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 ; MS: Okay, sure. I went to the Jewish day school. I don't think I ever went to the JCC, but maybe I did for nursery school, I probably did. I went from kindergarten through sixth grade at the Jewish day school. We were members of Sons of Israel back then. I was bar-mitzvahed there. Then went to Raub Junior High, 7th, 8th and 9th. And then William Allen from 10th, 11th and 12th. And was really involved in the JCC at that time. Then I went to University of Bridgeport for my undergraduate degree in liberal arts and as a theater major. And then started to act professionally. Oh, I’m sorry, I went back to grad school at Catholic University for directing. And then I went to, while I was there I got some professional gigs, so I stopped going to school, because I was working, acting in shows, and I had a layoff between shows. 0 723 Connection Between Theatre and Business SC: And this a question I haven’t asked anyone yet, do you see a connection between directing and your work in theatre with being a business person?
 ; 
 ; MS: Well, yeah, a lot. First of all, I think the fact that I always wanted to be a director more than an actor is because I like to be in charge of the result, not boss, although that comes with the territory, but I like to have an endgame plan and be responsible to make that happen. So it's a vision, the same way I had with the factory. I enjoyed the end game of it. I did not, there were things I didn't like about it, certainly the challenge of meeting deadlines and things like that and working with people. And in the factory, it was working with employees, and in the schools it is working with students and as a director it's working with people who you are their boss, they might not be getting paid, but they're acting and you're in charge of what happens so yeah there is a connection. 0 790 Family Moved to Allentown SC: Do you know when your family came to Allentown, what years they came? We can look that up, but it’s easier to ask.
 ; 
 ; MS: Well I know my brother was born here so that was 1950, so I would say around 1948/1949 they came to Allentown. First my parents came, and then my grandparents came. And then they, my grandparents lived, moved into a twin in South Mountain, and my parents were living in Valley View Apartments. And then my parents moved to the same cul-de-sac called Vine Street in South Mountain, near South Mountain Little League, where my grandparents lived. I grew up living two houses away from my grandparents. Then when we moved to the Westend, they had houses next to each other. So I grew up like Something About Raymond [Everybody Loves Raymond] that was what I grew up with. Okay but I was the kid, not the parents. My grandparents lived right next door. 0 849 Childhood Memories SC: Do you have any memories of when you were a child about the business when you weren’t a part of it?
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 ; MS: I do, I remember, I do, I remember being, going to the old factory, the original original factory because we moved three times before we ended up at the place where I was working. And the old factory that was creaky elevators, I remember, and just the very, the smells and you know it was hot or cold and was dusty. My grandfather's office was like a mess, you know. I think I inherited that from him. But I do remember that. I don't remember any conversation about it. My father wasn't working [there], it was too small of a business. My father was with Surefit and he was not working with the business at that time. 0 1030 Details About Family Names GE: Just a quick question, you had mentioned your parents, grandparents, but I don’t have anybody’s names, so could you tell me some of their names?
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 ; MS: So my grandfather on my mother's side, so my maternal grandfather was Jack Bahoff, Jacob Bahoff. Jack Bahoff, I guess it was Jacob.
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 ; GE: It probably was. And Bahoff is…
 ; 
 ; MS: B-A-H-O-F-F. And…
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 ; GE: And his wife?
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 ; MS: Oh, my gosh, my maternal grandmother, what was her name? That’s everyone I think I know. 
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 ; GE: What about your Bubbie? 0 1269 History of the Business GE: So Mark, I want to now go back and just give us the history with the business. How your grandfather got started, when your father came in, and eventually when you came in.
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 ; MS: Sure. So, as I said in the earlier conversation, my grandfather was sort of a ‘Journeyman,’ going around to factories and helping people be more efficient in what they were doing. That industry didn't exist then as consulting, although my grandfather would have been very wealthy having created a consulting business. They never went through any agencies. People would just, he would work for someone long enough and he just couldn’t take it, and they would fight, and he would leave. He had a big-time temper, not violent, just loud. He didn’t mean anything. 
 ; 
 ; So then they opened up the little place in Allentown. He got one client which was a company that made little girls’ bathing suits for what we now call boutiques but then it was just children's stores because there weren't any Walmarts and K-marts in those days. So it was a specialty item and it was little kids’ bathing suits. And they were high-end, and he always felt that if you made for high-end, you could always do a better living because no one was going to nickel or dime you because they could afford it on the other end. 0 3478 What Has Made You Feel Most Creative in Life? SC: Okay, so my crazy questions are first of all, what has made you feel the most creative in life?
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 ; MS: Well, certainly nothing in the garment industry made me, and just so you have this on record, I will say it, I hated the last 12-15 years of the career. Hated it. Hated every . . . I felt like there were so many important things happening in the world, and I was wondering whether or not Macy’s got their bathing suits a day late. And stressing about it and fighting with buyers about it and having real issues about . . . and there were people out in wars and doctors, and people. I understand the reality that it’s not just that bathing suit because that bathing suit then means that the person who sells the bathing suit on the floor of the store loses their job if we don’t make it. And, you know, I understand that there is a certain amount of . . . but it just didn’t seem that important to me to make everyone go crazy about it. So it was very unsatisfying. Now understand I never . . . until I got divorced with my two boys that lived with me, I did theatre all the time. I worked at Civic, I directed before Bill came in as a full time director, I directed at Civic, Pennsylvania Playhouse, Guthsville Playhouse, I directed all the time. I was always doing something theatrically because it’s part of who I am, and I couldn’t get away from that. 0 3710 What Do You Value Most in Life? SC: And what do you value most in life?
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 ; MS: My family. It’s not even a question. They come, they’re, they come before anything. And not just my mother and my wife and my kids, but my step-kids, and their significant others, their boyfriends and girlfriends. Family, I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn't grown up with a family that had great strong family values. My kids have strong family values. And I think that that is, and that’s a challenge for a lot of people who don’t. I raised my kids as a single dad for a while. Their mom was in town, but they wanted to be with me. They were boys, and they wanted to be with their dad. You know, I lived, I never moved out of the house, and that’s where they grew up . . . and that is, that house, that sofa that I tried to get rid of and now I have to put in the living room because the kids say ‘where are we all going to sit when we all come?’ Well you all are going to come? I got two in Denver, one in Baltimore, one in Philly, one in Bethlehem. How are you..well they do, they all show up. And on Father's day, they were either with me or with their dads or one was with my mom down in Florida. So they value family. So that answer is simple, my family. Other than that it is my integrity. My family and my integrity. That’s it. 0 3884 Advantages of Small Factory SC: Do you think there is an advantage to having a smaller factory where it’s easier in and easier out in some ways?
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 ; MS: Well it’s the same way with a cast of a show, like a big cast show or a small cast show. Each one has its own problems. Each one has its own advantages. When I directed Our Town with 35 or 36 people, my director directs Titanic last year and he had 60 people in the cast. Thirty people in the pit, and thirty people on crew, it’s great but there is a lot of people to manage. It is a lot of ins and outs. But there is a big value to it because a lot of people get [some] benefit from it. I’m doing a show this fall with six kids in it, so the advantage is that I can get really close with six kids, bring out something that they’ve never had the opportunity to do. And it’s good for them. So, there is advantages to both. I think the answer quite frankly is, it sounds like a cop-out, but midsize. Family run, 50, 60, 70 operators was when we were ideal because we could control everything, and everyone knew our name, we knew their name, and we knew their kids. It was different. 0 MovingImage Mark Stutz talks about how his grandfather started in the children’s bathing suit sewing business with one customer. That relationship held for a few decades while that company remained in business. Later, Mark’s father and he ran the business. Over time, they got into producing high end women’s bathing suits. During the years Mark worked in the business, he stayed active in local theatre both as an actor and director. Later he was able to pivot and became the Director of Fine Arts at Parkland High School . 
 ; Interview with Mark Stutz, June 27, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 27, 2016 and would you give your full name Mark and when you were born and where you were born. MARK STUTZ: My name is Mark Stutz, and I am 64 years old. I was born May 18,1952 here in Allentown, Pennsylvania. SC: Could we go back as far as you know with your mother's and your father's family, any names that you know, where they came from and what they did, and how they made a living or whatever. MS: Sure. I'll start with my mother's side because it's a shorter story. I only knew my grandmother and my grandfather. Their last name was Bahoff. SC: Would you spell that? MS: B-A-H-O-F-F. And I have, um, they had three kids. My mother is the last surviving child of that family, and I have four cousins from the other brother and sister. I knew my great-grandmother on that side, but very briefly. And then on my father's side I knew my grandmother's mother and my grandfather's father and mother. My great-grandfather was very orthodox. I'm not quite sure whether he was one of the people who wrote the Torahs or if he just studied all day, I'm not sure, but I know he had the long beard and the hat. It was always a little scary to see him the first time when we were little kids. I only met my great-grandmother on that side a couple times before she died. And my grandmother, I only met her mother. I never met her father. Let's see, my grandmother's maiden name was-- hm, it will come to me. I knew it, I just can't think of it right now. My grandfather originally was Stutsky, but my great grandfather got rid of the '-ky' so. I don't know why they did that. Was it because of immigration or he did it himself and it could have been another longer name that was gotten rid of. But my grandfather was a Stutz, and he had, and my grandmother's name, I only knew her as Tilly, I can't tell you what her real name was. I knew her as Nanna. So she had a son, two sons and a daughter. My father passed away seventeen years ago, and my uncle and my aunt are still alive. SC: Where did they come from? MS: Poland. SC: Do you know where? MS: No, I don't. My mother's grandparents were already Americans. My great-grandparents moved here, so my grandfather was first-generation American. He wasn't born in America - my grandfather - he was born in Europe, so I guess really my father's generation is the first generation that was born American. SC: So did they all come from Poland? MS: I know my grandfather and my grandmother did. I don't know about the others. SC: What kind of work did any of the generations do that you know? MS: I know that my grandfather on my mother's side was involved with some weekly newspapers as far as delivery or, he wasn't involved as a writer or anything. They were hand-to-mouth living ; they didn't really have a lot. My grandmother on my mother's side never worked, that I knew of. And they were not extremely religious as far as Judaism was concerned. That's where I first tasted bacon was in my grandmother's apartment from my mother's side. If you walk up the steps to their apartment, you could smell it cooking. But on my father's side, like I said, my great grandfather had something to do with religion, I don't know exactly what. My grandfather entered the garment industry as his very first job. He worked for my grandmother's brother, Dave. And he ended up, the story goes that it was the height of the Depression and there was an argument going on in the office, and my grandfather's brother-in-law, my grandmother's brother, said something about her. And my grandfather slugged him and walked out. And there he was without a job in the Depression. And he wouldn't go home without a job, so he went to a, he saw an ad that they were looking for a foreman at a garment factory. He had never been a foreman at a factory. He had done packing or whatever. He walked in and the guy said, 'what experience do you have?' My grandfather said 'don't worry about it,' he said, 'look, try me out, if I'm as good as the other person who was here [before] then you keep me hired, and if I'm not any good, get rid of me.' And that was how he started in the garment industry. He didn't know he was getting paid, he had no idea. Then when he got his first paycheck or cash in those days, it was pretty good. And then he became what today would be called a consultant. He used to go around to other people's factories and help them do better at their factory. He was, they didn't have a name for it back then. He just got hired. Then my grandparents lived in Cuba for a while when it was, you know, friendly to Americans, and he helped build factories there. He was doing it all over the place. And my father worked for Surefit. Ok, so I don't know if you spoke with anyone from Surefit, but he worked for Surefit. That was Krasnov. He said that he was settling here, and he said to my grandparents, to my grandfather, 'you know you're making money for a lot of other people, why don't you do this yourself?' He said my grandfather had a small factory, down by where the Good Shepherd Home is right now, down there somewhere. They had a small factory on the second floor. And that's what starts. Now that had to be after I was born, because the company is called BruMar. Bruce for my brother, Mark for me. So I would say 1952/53 it was started. SC: As far as any other names or in your family or any business names that you know of? MS: Well, my mother's, my mother's sister-in-law, they were the Nowaks out of Philadelphia, N-O-W-A-K. I know they owned a camp, a summer camp at one time, up in the Poconos. I think Lieberman was my grandmother's family, something like that. And they lived in Coney Island. I used to spend time at their apartment, and that's how I kind of knew them. We didn't have a very large family that, you know, it didn't seem to be extremely large. Because there was only two and three kids from each group. Also, the company that we worked for, that my grandfather contracted for was Little Kids Bathing Suits, and we'll talk about that when we talk about the business. But that owner's name was Paul Yellin. He was from New York, from the Scarsdale area in New York. SC: And could you, would you talk about, I know you can, would you talk about your education from the beginning all the way through? MS: Okay, sure. I went to the Jewish day school. I don't think I ever went to the JCC, but maybe I did for nursery school, I probably did. I went from kindergarten through sixth grade at the Jewish day school. We were members of Sons of Israel back then. I was bar-mitzvahed there. Then went to Raub Junior High, 7th, 8th and 9th. And then William Allen from 10th, 11th and 12th. And was really involved in the JCC at that time. Then I went to University of Bridgeport for my undergraduate degree in liberal arts and as a theater major. And then started to act professionally. Oh, I'm sorry, I went back to grad school at Catholic University for directing. And then I went to, while I was there I got some professional gigs, so I stopped going to school, because I was working, acting in shows, and I had a layoff between shows. I knew I had another show to go to, then I had a layoff of about six/seven in the weeks. I was living in DC and it was needed income. So my mother suggested that I come for a while and help my father out in the factory. At that point my father was involved, because it was the busy season, and he needed any help that he could get even if it was minor help, it would be something. I said, okay, and I never left. Well I didn't leave for 25 years anyway. Because, I thought, 'wow this is interesting' and I can use my people skills with the people and there was income, and I sort of got sucked into having a steady income, so I stayed there. And this says athletics on it, it should say the arts, cause I'm now the arts director for Parkland School District but this shirt matched my outfit today, so. SC: And will you do some of the shows that you were in? MS: That I was in? SC: Yeah, or that you worked with. MS: Yeah, okay, so in acting I played Tevye a bunch of times for The Fiddler on the Roof. I've done Fagin in Oliver. I've been in Neil Simon plays like the Chapter Two, and, what's the one with the two men that fight all of the time, not the Odd Couple. I was in that also. I'm talking about the golden, oh gosh, it was with Art Carney and Walter Matthau, and they fought the whole time. I was in that show. I've done a lot of interesting different shows. Directing wise, I directed 20 or 30 musicals easily and just as many straight shows. So anything from American classics like Our Town and Tennessee Williams plays to Shakespeare to anything that comes around because in a school environment you have to give them all sorts of opportunities. SC: And this a question I haven't asked anyone yet, do you see a connection between directing and your work in theatre with being a business person? MS: Well, yeah, a lot. First of all, I think the fact that I always wanted to be a director more than an actor is because I like to be in charge of the result, not boss, although that comes with the territory, but I like to have an endgame plan and be responsible to make that happen. So it's a vision, the same way I had with the factory. I enjoyed the end game of it. I did not, there were things I didn't like about it, certainly the challenge of meeting deadlines and things like that and working with people. And in the factory, it was working with employees, and in the schools it is working with students and as a director it's working with people who you are their boss, they might not be getting paid, but they're acting and you're in charge of what happens so yeah there is a connection. SC: Do you know when your family came to Allentown, what years they came? We can look that up, but it's easier to ask. MS: Well I know my brother was born here so that was 1950, so I would say around 1948/1949 they came to Allentown. First my parents came, and then my grandparents came. And then they, my grandparents lived, moved into a twin in South Mountain, and my parents were living in Valley View Apartments. And then my parents moved to the same cul-de-sac called Vine Street in South Mountain, near South Mountain Little League, where my grandparents lived. I grew up living two houses away from my grandparents. Then when we moved to the Westend, they had houses next to each other. So I grew up like Something About Raymond [Everybody Loves Raymond] that was what I grew up with. Okay but I was the kid, not the parents. My grandparents lived right next door. SC: Do you have any memories of when you were a child about the business when you weren't a part of it? MS: I do, I remember, I do, I remember being, going to the old factory, the original original factory because we moved three times before we ended up at the place where I was working. And the old factory that was creaky elevators, I remember, and just the very, the smells and you know it was hot or cold and was dusty. My grandfather's office was like a mess, you know. I think I inherited that from him. But I do remember that. I don't remember any conversation about it. My father wasn't working [there], it was too small of a business. My father was with Surefit and he was not working with the business at that time. SC: Any other anecdotes about your youth that you think sort of fit in? MS: Um, well my grandfather, my father was also then in a dry cleaning business. So he was working part-time, he was working for Surefit, and then he wanted to be his own boss, so he and Edward Kahan, Ronald Kahan's father, who's still my best friend, they entered into a business partnership. My father did [Martinizing], the dry cleaning business. So it's sort of garment related. And I remember there is the thing that moved the clothes around. My brother and I hanging on it and pushing the buttons, we would get rides. And then that partnership ended, not in the best way. Partnerships like marriages don't always end great. But so I remember that. I don't really, might we, I do remember when the factory was on North Fourth Street. I remember on Saturday mornings, my grandfather would take my brother and I first to breakfast, then to shul to synagogue on Sixth Street, and then we would go to the factory for an hour, and we would turn garments from inside out to outside in. And we would get paid for that, like two dollars and five dollars or breakfast whatever he had the mood to pay. So that was fun. It was a good memory. GAIL EISENBERG: And that Fourth Street, was that the original? MS: No, the original was the one that I can't remember the name of the street. I want to say Lehigh Street but it wasn't Lehigh Street. It was down right across from, I know exactly where it is because there is a Melner [?] trash/hauling thing right there across the street from it, like the third floor. I remember I used to fight with the landlord all the time, we couldn't have heat, whatever, you know, it was one of those old buildings. GE: Just a quick question, you had mentioned your parents, grandparents, but I don't have anybody's names, so could you tell me some of their names? MS: So my grandfather on my mother's side, so my maternal grandfather was Jack Bahoff, Jacob Bahoff. Jack Bahoff, I guess it was Jacob. GE: It probably was. And Bahoff is-- MS: B-A-H-O-F-F. And-- GE: And his wife? MS: Oh, my gosh, my maternal grandmother, what was her name? That's everyone I think I know. GE: What about your Bubbie? MS: Actually, her name was Nana Honey. My other grandmother's name was Nana because when my brother learned to talk, he would call them both Nana, but my grandmother, my maternal grandmother would always call him honey, so he started to say Nana Honey when he was referring to her. So she became Nana Honey, and I don't, I don't, it's terrible, but I am going to find out for you, I'm going to call. SC: Thank you! MS: Yeah, I'll just call my cousins. GE: And on your father's side, what are their names? MS: So Lou, Louis Stutz was the patriarch. GE: That was your grandfather? MS: Yeah, and Tillie, T-I-L-L-I-E, and again, it is the last name that I am struggling with. GE: And what was your parent's names? MS: Leatrice. My mom's name is L-E-A-T-R-I-C-E. And her name was originally Bahoff. And my father's name is Alan, A-L-A-N. SC: And was Louis L-E-W-I-S? MS: L-O-U-I-S. SC: I was just taking a guess. MS: Yeah, L-O-U-I-S. SC: Cause we've tried both. MS: Yeah, I'm sure. SC: So I think that's it for the early years. GE: So the only other one quick question I have from the early years is what about your father's education? MS: My father went to Temple University, got a degree in math. My mother was a high school graduate. They were married young. They were married in, if I get this wrong I'll be in trouble, March and my brother was born in January. Everyone was counting the months, but it wasn't. It was okay. They were cleared on that. None of my grandparents ever went to college. GE: Do you think they went to high school? MS: My paternal grandfather did. I don't know about anybody else. I just happen to know that he did. SC: And dry cleaning did have some connection for people that they might have started in dry cleaning and then on-- [unintelligible] MS: Saul Kivert. Actually it was my father who started that business and then he ended up at the factory. GE: So Mark, I want to now go back and just give us the history with the business. How your grandfather got started, when your father came in, and eventually when you came in. MS: Sure. So, as I said in the earlier conversation, my grandfather was sort of a 'Journeyman,' going around to factories and helping people be more efficient in what they were doing. That industry didn't exist then as consulting, although my grandfather would have been very wealthy having created a consulting business. They never went through any agencies. People would just, he would work for someone long enough and he just couldn't take it, and they would fight, and he would leave. He had a big-time temper, not violent, just loud. He didn't mean anything. So then they opened up the little place in Allentown. He got one client which was a company that made little girls' bathing suits for what we now call boutiques but then it was just children's stores because there weren't any Walmarts and K-marts in those days. So it was a specialty item and it was little kids' bathing suits. And they were high-end, and he always felt that if you made for high-end, you could always do a better living because no one was going to nickel or dime you because they could afford it on the other end. And he was the, this man, Mr. Paul Yellen, started this business and my grandfather was his contractor. They started together, so he never had another factory [contractor] and my grandfather never had another customer. Later on we did, but not at the beginning. And they did it all with a handshake, no contracts, nothing, it was all done with a handshake. GE: And where was Paul Yellen? MS: He was in New York. He had a small office on 34th St., I want to say 34th St., which got bigger later on in years, but at that point, it was small. And he did, his business was a very good business. They had good designs, they had good marketing, and they had quality production. My grandfather always believed in quality production. So they were outgrowing that space and they found the place at 4th and Green, like Washington, I'm sorry, Greenleaf and Washington, down on 4th St. And it was a low, long, flat building. And what they did was they moved, my grandfather only did Bru-Mar, the company's name, only did assembly and finishing. We didn't do cutting, we didn't do marker making, and we didn't do packing. Dive-ettes owned their own, they were always connected to us, as far as physically, but the spreading of the fabric and the making of the markers and the cutting-- all that was done in the same space, but that space was rented by, or they shared the lease, with Dive-ettes, that was Paul Yellin's company. And he had his own shipping area. So at one time, it wasn't even in the same building and that got very nonproductive. So they were in 4th Street for a while, until they built it bigger, and I would say in those days, my father maybe, my grandfather maybe had 35 to 40 or 50 operators. Then my father started to, my grandfather had a number of heart attacks, and my father started to do both--work at the factory and work at his 'Martinizing'-- his dry cleaning place. But it was mostly, he would mostly do the dry-cleaning place. It sort of ran on its own. But he was there like Thursday nights and Monday nights. Oh, by the way, to go back in history, one time my father was working for Surefit, he also worked at Hess' in the woman's shoe department. I think that's interesting to note because in those days he only worked Thursday nights cause that was the only night Town was open. For those of you who don't know what Town is, its where Hess' was, it was Town, and it was Thursday nights and Saturdays cause they weren't open any of the other nights anyways. So then his part time job, he split his time between the factory and the dry cleaning. The business became, it got to grow and the building at Seventh and Allen Street, which is still there, the building. The Levine's-- Jack Levine and Ben Levine, and another brother, who I never met-- were looking to and that's Ira and Robert and that generation, their fathers and my dad, they were all looking to expand this old building, which has been a Sears building. The building that was on Seventh and Allen that was a Sears building. They were trying to sell it. And it had four floors. And we wanted to have a floor for the cutting and the shipping, I'm sorry, for the shipping upstairs, cutting and sewing on our floor, and then the Levines were going to have the first floor for their fabric store, and the basement for their outlet. They used to do, I don't know if you have spoken to the Levines yet, but Robert would be a great source for you. I'll, and I tell Ira, and I'll mention it to them. So that was a big move because it was a major building. GE: And that was what time period? MS: I'm going to say that was in the, I'm going to say, I graduated high school and we were still at 4th Street. I'm going to say early '70s, '70/'71, I would think. Yeah, I think so. And there were a lot of renovations that happened. There were escalators in the middle of the building that needed to be taken out, closed off, things like that. And Dive-ettes was then signed to do big work for JCPenney and stuff like that but that was before JCPenny started to get really tight. It was, you know, we could do a, we did the Girl Scout bathing suits, you know, I remember that. So then we moved to the new building, and it started to grow again, still only one customer, they still had no other customers. Do you want me to continue on the history of it? GE: No, no, that's fine, that's great, yes. MS: Ok, so around 19--, actually I think we probably had the factory, the new building in the late 60s because I graduated, I finished college in '73, and by 1975 I was very back here, so yeah so I was here on that break and was starting to work it, and my grandfather was spending less and less time up here and more and more time in Florida for his health, and for my father's health, I think. My father was spending less time at the dry-cleaning stores, and more time at the factory, which was a larger income provider than the dry cleaners stores because it used to be very good but then there was more competition and things like that. And as fabrics changed, as synthetics came in, people could wash their own stuff, it changed the dry cleaning business tremendously. Plus fashions changed, people don't wear jackets all the time, so things changed. So I was now pretty much in a year and a half or so, pretty much a part of this business. I knew I was there for the long haul. GE: And at this point, it was you and your dad and-- MS: And my grandfather, and we all shared one big office. It was a real treat. GE: Okay, and now your grandfather, at this point, is not in the business too much. MS: No, but he's a full partner in it. GE: Okay. MS: And my father and him are equal partners, and I'm an employee. GE: Okay, okay. MS: It was smart on their part because I wasn't worth being a partner at that point. I didn't know anything. GE: Okay, and already your father for a while wasn't associated with Surefit. MS: Oh, yeah, he had, once he opened up his dry cleaning store.. GE: That was the end? MS: ...he was done with Surefit. Yeah. And Mr. Krasnov, he really liked Mr. Krasnov. He liked working at Surefit. Surefit taught him a lot. It was good. And anyway, after I realized that I was going to be there and I also realized, in my opinion, you couldn't have one customer. My feeling was if you only had one customer and that customer went out of business, you have no business or if that customer wanted to get it made cheaper, then you had no choice. By the same token my grandfather's line was, well, where is he going to go with all this production. He doesn't know anything about that, and he's never going to know anything about that. So they never did leave us. They eventually went out of business, that was a few years later. It was, I went, I was reading in the Ladies . . . , in the Women's Wear Daily, which was the trade paper for our trade, that this company called Bobby Brooks which you may have heard of but most of the generation doesn't know what it is, was looking for contractors for bathing suits. And that was our specialty and it was a different size area. It was Juniors. So I said to my father, let me look at this, because I said we have to have more customers here. And he was like, okay, we had someone else there, so it was fine. So I contacted them. They sent me, a man came out, Sam, I don't remember his last name, but he was funny. He came out, he checked out the factory, and he brought some garments in, garments that they weren't going to do. I went to the office and I priced them out, my father and I did. And by the way, we were very fancy with pricing. We took out a piece of paper, we said that must cost about, that would cost about and no engineer, no nothing. When it was all done, we made money. And my grandfather said, if I make for a dollar and sell it for two, as long as I make 1%. And I said okay. So we were doing very well, labor was the only thing that we sold, besides thread. And it was before unions, and while we paid a fair wage, you didn't have all of the union stuff to worry about. We never became, I'm getting ona different rant here, we never became a part of the ILGWU. Our operators didn't want it. They had a vote and they still, and they had their own, and my grandfather was smart enough back in the day to offer them the chance to unionize within their own place. So they had a charter, and he paid for it. They hired a lawyer, and they put it together. It was their own charter, and it made them a union house so ILGWU couldn't strike them or picket by us because we were a union house. We just weren't their union. And it worked out well for everybody. We never really had any problems. And we sometimes worked for union shops, we just didn't put a union label on it, it was against the law. And they would know that. They would come up and they would marshall it. Anyway, this Bobby Brooks thing came through, and we started to do work for them. And it was a big education for me and my father now because we had a big company with people in charge of shipping, and people in charge of. . . not us, I mean, Bobby Brooks' a big company that we are working for. They had people in charge of specs., people in charge of quality, so you had a million. . . And we weren't even used to that. We were used to us doing it all and just getting paid. Now we had to bill and get paid and it was different. But it was what saved our business because eventually Dive-ettes went out of business. And then we went from Juniors, to starting to work in Misses, then started to work for Rosemary Reed, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta. They were all part of the same buying group. We became one of their top contractors so now we had gone from little kids bathing suits, no longer doing that, to women's one or two pieces with full blown bras and, you know, stays and the whole bit, which you know, was a whole new world. At this point we were averaging about 85-100 operators all the time and in the busy season we'd have a second shift that would run from like, if our first shift was 7:30 to 3:00, I remember, then at the 4:00 to 9:00 we would have a second shift. Sometimes up to 50 operators, and we, myself, my father, and my foreman would run those. So each of us would take one night a week or two nights a week. I was the young guy so I got two nights a week. And that was a very busy busy time. Those years were really busy and very good for us. GE: And those were what time period? MS: You're talking about mid to late '70s into '96/'97. Around '98 we had already peaked and it had already started to, you could see the writing on the wall. By that point, we had looked at possibly moving our production to Puerto Rico, moved to Virginia. I had traveled to different places looking at places where the labor was more inexpensive. But it all, all said and done, we liked staying where we were. So the business grew, my grandfather was out of it, out of the business years ago before that, and he passed, I don't remember when exactly. And then we finally rebuilt the offices. and I actually have my own office after a while. It was, they were good years. They were tough years-- hard, hard, hard work. Lots of hours. But my whole world was revolved around it. My social events were based around it. And my friends that I went to conventions [with]. We did something very . . . and so did Tama Manufacturing, we invested in technology way before most people in the garment industry did. So one of the first things I wanted was we went from, we were hourly, and I felt that we needed to go piece-rate, and I'm sure you've heard someone talk about piece-rate here. GE: Right, right. But if you want to tell us about it. MS: Yeah, so the difference was you worked at our factory, and you would get an increase every year, let's say it was 25 cents an hour, whatever it was. So at that point, you're making $7 an hour, which may sound like a little bit now, well I shouldn't say that because there are some kids that make that now. But if you are making $7 an hour, it didn't matter if you made one of your operation that day or a thousand, you still got the same money per hour. So we felt that it was unfair to the productive operators, number one. Number two, it was a way, it was getting very costly for us not to go into some sort of a piece-rate system. So we brought on an engineer, I can't think of his name anymore, a young guy who had been at another factory. He was actually from, I don't remember where he was from, up by Pottstown somewhere. And good at what he did, very good. And then along with that computers are just starting to come out. I was very fascinated by them, and IBM was looking to get a foothold in the garment industry. So I had a meeting with some people at IBM, and we decided that we were going to invest in the technology. They were going to give us a programmer to basically live with us, learn what we did, and transfer that somehow to a computer, which would not fit in this room. Literally, well probably it would just fit in this room. And the consols are this big, and they did nothing but payroll. I mean a calculator does more now. So, but it was, at the time, quite a step, and we had this young man, Vince La Salle-- wow, how did I remember that name-- who was really into what we were doing. And we were able to create a piece rate system that didn't have to be hand put in. We actually used a wand, like you use in the grocery store now, we were talking, oh my gosh, I'm out 17 years, if you're talking 35 years ago when this stuff was really not happening. And we were setting up in the same time the Army-Navy store. I don't remember that last name, it'll come to me. They were also putting one in for their purposes, and that was right before they made their move out to Grape Street. They still had a place next to us, or two doors away. So we had an IBM34, which then became a 36, and two terminals, and it worked. It did a good job. It worked well enough that we, Vince and I, went as a dog and pony show to other factories who IBM was trying to sell the machinery. We have proprietary, we owned the program, and we actually sold it half a dozen times to other companies for the purpose of them to do piece-rate on IMB's new equipment. GE: By doing piece rate, did it bring down your operating costs? MS: Very much so. We were very productive. And it brought down, better than it brought down our, it brought up their earnings [the operators], there and more. The operators earned more. I made that a rule: if we are going to go piece-rate, if you worked hard, it was only going to fly, if the operators who worked hard made more than they are making now. So if there was, I wasn't going to-- GE: Some operators made more and some operators didn't I assume. MS: Right. And there was also the, they also couldn't make less than the minimum. That was written into our contract, which was fine. But some tried to make some operators, we called them girls, that's terrible, that's a throwback, what a sexist way the world we lived in. Operators were called girls, anyway. Yeah, so one of the things I was insistent on with my engineer was to make the rate, I'm worried that if they told me that an operation was going to cost 25 cents a garment, that's what I used to make my price. I don't care if it came out to 27 cents, that's not good. If it came to 20 cents or 21 cents, I don't care. Leave it at 25 cents, that's how I'm pricing that, let them make their money. I was happier that way and so were they for a long time. Then things got really interesting because I was not happy with the way the industry ran. The industry was cutting stacks of things this high and then there would be people who would run around and tie them into bundles which had the piece-rate ticket on it. So let's say that you're just making a bikini bottom, make it simple, a front and a back and a crotch piece. So you put a bundle of 24 or 36 together fronts and backs and the crotch pieces, and you tie them up with a little ticket. The operator would then reach into a bin, put it up to a table, have to untie it, put everything in an order, and then start to sew. So all the extraneous time, she wasn't producing for herself or for us. Well at one of the Bobbin Shows, that was the garment world's convention down in Atlanta, I was introduced to unit production. Unit of production meant that instead of an operator working on thirty six garments at a time in one bundle, she worked on one or two garments at a time on just her operation. And to make this easy, they had a system that used a hanger with a little clip on it that the people would feed into one end and would come to me as an operator, and I would just pick it up, line it up, do my operation, put it back on, push a button and it would go. Very revolutionary for the time, but also very smart because now all I had in production was cut work and finished work and a few hundred garments that were on the system. Where before, I could have three to four weeks worth of work piled up because you do all the making of things, all the elastic, all the cover, and then all of the trimming, and this way at the end of the day, you had finished work that you could ship. If you had to rush something to do, it was easy to do. Major, major investment and major, major consideration. It was not something that my father was, my father had a problem with the computer because he was a math guy. He couldn't understand this, what do you mean you do everything 0s and 1s, 0s and 1s. Well that's the way it works. Well, why don't they use 3s and 4, I don't know but it works this way. Binary system. So he was not, but then we took a trip out to Gerber. By the way, Gerber Garment Technology was the one we went into the Gerber Mover. There were other companies, Eton was the one that they had down at the Tama Manufacturing [Fogelman]. Because Mark and I talk about that now. Anyway, my father and I took a trip out to California to one of the customers that made bathing suits with this system. It literally took him [my father] an hour to realize what it was worth. We brought that in over a summer, introduced it to the operators, they were scared to death of it, as were we at first. But I really, I became an outspoken advocate for it, the system, writing articles for trade magazines, being brought down to the Bobbin Show by Gerber to talk to customers, going and doing consulting myself. Not for myself, for Gerber, and you know, the companies that made bathing suits. And I feel it saved our business. This was a major investment, I think it was a couple hundred thousand dollars. But it literally took our prices down and we were able to do them for half of what we could do before. There was no extraneous labor. GE: Right, so you're saying your costs.. MS: Costs dropped, cost of labor dropped. GE: Right, right. MS: In the interim we had a, when I first started, when the business first started, and I don't know what other people have said to you, the garment worker then was almost all Caucasian, and around here Pennsylvania Dutch, German, Slovak, whatever those Eastern European backgrounds were. They were all women with kids and their purpose was to make sure their kids didn't have to be in the factory. They worked so you didn't have to, you could go to college. And it worked. So there were no natural, there were no heir apparent to those positions. So for us, what happened was the next wave of immigration that came in, and that was the first time we had Hispanics and Asians coming to work for us. And it was not an easy transition for a lot of the people who worked for us. And one thing that made unit production work is that you weren't dependent on anybody else for your work. It goes through that system and there was always something feeding, so people didn't get into squabbles. But it was interesting because now we had a language situation, which we weren't prepared for. So at first it was Hispanics, mostly Puerto Rican, I think, I don't know that for fact because I never bothered. Now I would try to find out their country of origin because I'm more attune to that. Back then it was, you just assume that they are from Puerto Rico. And then our Koreans, that was our Asian immigrants and then Vietnamese. And it was interesting what happened was a lot of the Asians . . . again the Hispanics did the same exact thing that the Pennsylvania Dutch had done before. I say that generically, they worked so that their kids didn't have to. Not that they didn't have to work, but that they could go to college and do better for themselves. And we had a small amount of Syrian/Lebanese workers but that was not, not a lot of Atiyahs or that, it was mostly Hispanic. And then when the Asians came in, they had a different attitude. They wanted to learn the business because they were going to, they thought the business made sense. So the change was we still needed as many operators but now we had to go to different places to get them. And it was tough to get operators. I mean there were battles in town. GE: There was a real dearth. MS: Yeah. There were not enough sewing operators and more jobs to go and what was really interesting, and this goes back to one of my few real bad moments in the business, we had a quarter page ad running in the Morning Call about needing operators and you know benefits and anything else, right in the Morning Call. And the company . . . Al . . .he was was married to Dorney Park's, the girl who married Dorney Park's owner-- GE: Was that Weinstein? MS: Yes, Weinstein. Harris's son-in-law. Yeah, Harris' son in law, Al Simmons, Albert Simmons, came in and was running a factory in downtown Allentown. And somehow or other he got the Morning Call to run an article saying that it's unbelievable that there are actually sewing jobs available at this place. I'm running an ad that in those days are costing me a couple hundred dollars a week, and they're running an article . . . I lost it on the Morning Call, I just went nuts, and he and I did not get to be friends. But there was a friendly competition for the labor. We subcontracted once a while. Oh, one of the things that saved us, our industry, us as a company, was that we were the first to work with spandex. When we first started making bathing suits, everything was cotton. It was a cotton poly-blend. When Lycra first came out, no one knew how far it was going to stretch. So everything had to be changed because the same setting of stitches that you would use for cotton, which only went so far, would snap if you, because spandex went forever. I mean we were, we made, and I guess Tama did at one point too, because of the stretch pants. We made the leotard, the top leotard for Danskin because we would just make hundreds and hundreds of dozens in pure white that they would dye the color they wanted. Because we knew how to work, what saved us was knowing how to work with that fabric. That is when athletic gear became big, in Jane Fonda years, before she bankrupted the industry. That was where we came in, 'oh you need something done with stretch, go to Bru-Mar, go to Bru-mar.' We started to become, we were still higher end, but those companies started to go out. Rosemary-Reed closed up, Oscar de la Renta went overseas, Bill Blass not so much. And then what happened with the industry, it's interesting because it started off in boutiques then it went to mainstream and it's still mainstream but that's not produced domestically, most of that's produced overseas, so that your Walmarts and Targets, those are not made domestically. But the domestic shops are making now, if they are around, are making it for the real top designers, the ones that make very small lots. And you can't make, you can't have a big factory going. Yeah so in around, by around 1998 or1999, you can start to see, I mean most of the people were closing all over the place. The things that were staying open were small shops. Jick had come and gone by then, that was one of the big companies in town. GE: Who was that? MS: Jick. That was John Klein and, that was where the name came from, and Joe Jaffe and, oh my gosh-- GE: Were they also bathing suits? MS: No, no, they were a big company that did, they were just big in town, used a lot of contractors. And that was a, that company was big, and they closed, and suddenly they were gone. And all that work dried up is all I'm saying. So now all of a sudden there were a lot of operators who worked for them. And we were starting to lay off, we always laid-off in the summer, but we were starting to lay off already in late spring. Night shift wasn't running. It was getting tougher and tougher for us to get paid. We were, you know, we were doing okay, we were used to having, I would just transfer money over to the payroll account, and now we sort of had to wait for checks to come in. It's no way to run a business, you can't work that way. And so we started to look at.. GE: And this is what? MS: Late 1990s. And in 1999, Jill and I got married in September, and by the end of that year, by the winter of 2000, I was already closed. It was a gradual thing and then I saw the writing on the wall, and I knew I would end up owing somebody something. And basically it had to do with the, I would have stayed open for a little while longer but the owners, we had at one time sold the building to some people who neglected it and didn't. . . We ended up doing our own heat and air conditioning. Anyway, we knew that they were trying to sell the building. So we kind of got out of Dodge, sold our machinery off, our inventory, what was there, and yeah, it was a closed door. I had already started in the fall, in the winter of 2000, like January 2000, I had already been asked to help out directing the play at the new high school-- the high school had just opened. And the woman directing it, up to then was used to a very small stage, and she just wanted some help. She felt a little overwhelmed. And David Klasko actually said 'oh, you should talk to Mark Stutz, he's my neighbor, he knows everything about--' Anyway she called me, and I came up, I came to the school. I always say, I'm like the man who came to dinner. I came to the school to direct that show, which came out in the spring of 2000. I fell in love with the kids, I fell in love with the process. I had never experienced anything like it. I was lucky enough that the woman who had been directing the shows until then retired that summer. They brought me back in, just as a play director for two shows, just a couple thousand dollars, not even worth talking about. I was lucky enough to have just gotten remarried to a woman who understood, and all four kids lived with us, understood that that was my passion and was willing to be there for four kids instead of just her two daughters in the evenings, because I never came home again, because you know it's lots of work. And I did that for about two and a half years with the school, helped build up that program. Then they realized that they needed somebody to manage their arts program, and I was fortunate enough to get that job. And I've been doing that now for thirteen and a half years, fourteen year. GE: Wow, so you had, that really worked out beautifully from one to the other. MS: Yeah, it did. There were a couple of years, a couple of lean years there but, you know, I did other things, you know, I did some other jobs in between. There was still some money left from closing the business for myself and my secretary, for about a year closing up business. GE: So up until the end you were at the building on Seventh Street? MS: Yes. GE: Okay. And, um, you no longer owned it initially? MS: No, we did not own it anymore. Levines had moved back over to Tilghman Street. They were trying to build where the movie theater is. Tilghman Square, whichever that is, I don't know. And they were, the builder was trying actually to build the center around Levines to make them the focal point. So they moved there and they have been there. And they worked for a while. That home sewing business is not what it was either. SC: Did they also have franchises in-- MS: Yup, they have franchises in a bunch of places. I don't know what happened to them. GE: Right, right. I think, Mark, you did a great job. I think that's really...\ MS: Thank you. Thank you, it was fun to reminisce. SC: Now we just have a couple of other questions. MS: Uh oh, thought questions. What I'm thinking about is that my phone's buzzed about a hundred times in my pocket, and I can't imagine what I've got going on there. GE: You gave us a very good story though. SC: Oh, yeah. GE: You gave a lot of good information. I didn't know that you were, that the Levines. I didn't know that you had that association with them. And we did an interview last week with Marty Krasnov. SC: Right. MS: Oh, did you? Oh wow. SC: Okay, so my crazy questions are first of all, what has made you feel the most creative in life? MS: Well, certainly nothing in the garment industry made me, and just so you have this on record, I will say it, I hated the last 12-15 years of the career. Hated it. Hated every . . . I felt like there were so many important things happening in the world, and I was wondering whether or not Macy's got their bathing suits a day late. And stressing about it and fighting with buyers about it and having real issues about . . . and there were people out in wars and doctors, and people. I understand the reality that it's not just that bathing suit because that bathing suit then means that the person who sells the bathing suit on the floor of the store loses their job if we don't make it. And, you know, I understand that there is a certain amount of . . . but it just didn't seem that important to me to make everyone go crazy about it. So it was very unsatisfying. Now understand I never . . . until I got divorced with my two boys that lived with me, I did theatre all the time. I worked at Civic, I directed before Bill came in as a full time director, I directed at Civic, Pennsylvania Playhouse, Guthsville Playhouse, I directed all the time. I was always doing something theatrically because it's part of who I am, and I couldn't get away from that. But I think the most satisfying thing I've done creatively has been make sure, making sure that the arts, music and theatre and dance and visual arts are never going to leave the Parkland School District. That was done by educating not just the kids, but the parents, and not just the people who come to the spring musical, but the kids who paint and draw and dance, creating a dance team, creating a festival of the arts. Things that we've done to ensure that that is now one of the three pillars of our superintendent's stance on education. Because that's, I don't have a legacy from the garment industry. No one, well I don't want to say no one does, obviously people do, but I don't. My kids sort of kind of remember the unit production system. That's probably it. And that's okay. The legacy that I'm leaving, or I hope to leave, is all about public education and the arts. That's what I keep doing and going to . . . and I'm learning more about diversity. I didn't know how to handle the diversity that I had in my factory because I didn't know the language. I'm now dealing with that at the school district because our demographics are changing. And I'm speaking at a conference in Dallas in October and it's a discussion panel about how do you bring in diversity when you have got such a standard already set-- kids taking private lessons, private dance, private voice. How does a kid who's, you know, on the border line of that, get involved because if they are competing against it, and it could be sports too.But if they are competing against that trained person, when do they get their chance. So, it's an exciting time, and I hope to do it for about another five years, and I don't know what I'll do after that, we'll see. SC: And what do you value most in life? MS: My family. It's not even a question. They come, they're, they come before anything. And not just my mother and my wife and my kids, but my step-kids, and their significant others, their boyfriends and girlfriends. Family, I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't grown up with a family that had great strong family values. My kids have strong family values. And I think that that is, and that's a challenge for a lot of people who don't. I raised my kids as a single dad for a while. Their mom was in town, but they wanted to be with me. They were boys, and they wanted to be with their dad. You know, I lived, I never moved out of the house, and that's where they grew up . . . and that is, that house, that sofa that I tried to get rid of and now I have to put in the living room because the kids say 'where are we all going to sit when we all come?' Well you all are going to come? I got two in Denver, one in Baltimore, one in Philly, one in Bethlehem. How are you..well they do, they all show up. And on Father's day, they were either with me or with their dads or one was with my mom down in Florida. So they value family. So that answer is simple, my family. Other than that it is my integrity. My family and my integrity. That's it. SC: Is there anything else that you would like to say, just for the record? MS: I think this is a great project that you are doing. I think that it is a shame that we didn't do this when we were all younger when we had more memory cells left because there are names that I know I have, and I'll find them, and I'll write them down, and I'll call you with them. But it's something that our, that this generation, doesn't understand. The silk mills were the start of it, and we always called them silk mills, but we weren't silk mills, we were factories. The fabric companies that were in town, the Schneiders. GE: [unintelligible]..we interviewed him MS: No, they were a factory. Howie Schneider, and I don't remember his company's name. They made fabric. GE: Only fabric maker that we spoke to was Finkelstein. MS: Well Fabknit was one, but they're not in town, there's only one. And there were other bathing suits people around . . . Bobby [Feinberg] . . . there was another, it was big, they were a big factory compared to us [Sea Nymph]. There were like 250 people. And then in Easton there was A& ; H, Pembrook Swimsuits. So there we had a lot of swimsuit factories in the area. So yeah. SC: Do you think there is an advantage to having a smaller factory where it's easier in and easier out in some ways? MS: Well it's the same way with a cast of a show, like a big cast show or a small cast show. Each one has its own problems. Each one has its own advantages. When I directed Our Town with 35 or 36 people, my director directs Titanic last year and he had 60 people in the cast. Thirty people in the pit, and thirty people on crew, it's great but there is a lot of people to manage. It is a lot of ins and outs. But there is a big value to it because a lot of people get [some] benefit from it. I'm doing a show this fall with six kids in it, so the advantage is that I can get really close with six kids, bring out something that they've never had the opportunity to do. And it's good for them. So, there is advantages to both. I think the answer quite frankly is, it sounds like a cop-out, but midsize. Family run, 50, 60, 70 operators was when we were ideal because we could control everything, and everyone knew our name, we knew their name, and we knew their kids. It was different. GE: Mark, Mark, just a couple of quick little questions for refining. So I know at the beginning when you were working with that Dive-ettess company, you just did sewing. How about with the others? MS: Well then we started to do cutting-- GE: So then you were doing cutting and sewing. MS: Cutting and sewing, and then we were . . . we became cutting, sewing, finishing, which we actually tagged it, folded it, bagged it. We had a bagger, the whole thing. GE: Okay, okay. Right, so then you did the whole thing. Okay, got it. SC: And would you spell that company, just for the future? MS: D-I-V-E- [hyphen] -E-T-T-E-S. Dive-ettes. GE: And, um, just one last...what do you, why do you think that the Jewish community was over-represented in this industry? As owners. MS: Over represented? GE: Yeah. In other words, they had a substantial... MS: Um, well I think it's the same mentality that why there's so many, and not to be, I don't mean this in the wrong way, the Korean Market mentality. That everyone wanted to have their own piece of the American Dream, not work for someone else. But they all did at first, and then they went into their own businesses, and then the families started to depend on those businesses, so the second generation came in. I don't know how many went past a third generation. I think you'd find very few. GE: Right. MS: Not just because of the attrition of the industry, but in the interest of the industry. I mean in Paris Neckwear, Nate Braunstein, have you spoken to him? GE: Mhm. MS: I mean, that was a huge business at one time. The manufacturing is all somewhere else now. The Mendelsohns . . . You know, and that was third, it's the last generation of that company, you know, family wise. And I think that's what happens. I think either they don't care or can't maintain. . . Different generations, they just get bigger and bigger because there's, it's just that growth, you know .. .it's like network marketing. And you know . . . now there are twelve families that you're trying to feed out of one factory. I think it's hard. I think that it's over-represented in the sense that they understood the value of property. It's been drummed into them, us, forever of you know you can't kick me out of my country if I am important. You know, they've kicked, you know, Tevya's been kicked, moved around a lot, and that's why we still wear our hats. But, it's, I think it is the fear of someone else trying to control you, or the fact that you wanted to be self-reliant. The same reason I think they become doctors and lawyers. You could say we were over-represented in that at one time or in the world of musical theatre, the same thing, it comes from the traditions and family is a big part of it. GE: Okay, 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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Mark Stutz, June 27, 2016
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Mark Stutz talks about how his grandfather started in the children’s bathing suit sewing business with one customer. That relationship held for a few decades while that company remained in business. Later, Mark’s father and he ran the business. Over time, they got into producing high end women’s bathing suits. During the years Mark worked in the business, he stayed active in local theatre both as an actor and director. Later he was able to pivot and became the Director of Fine Arts at Parkland High School .
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LVTNT-22
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2016-06-27
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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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Marty Spiro
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5.4 June 23, 2016 Marty Spiro, June 23, 2016 LVTNT-34 00:46:51 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Marty Spiro Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SpiroMarty_20160623.mp4 1.0:|11(2)|30(2)|45(8)|64(12)|81(2)|96(9)|115(5)|134(2)|153(6)|172(2)|191(13)|212(8)|231(3)|252(5)|269(13)|286(7)|303(10)|322(10)|341(7)|360(5)|377(14)|398(11)|419(8)|438(17)|453(12)|470(14)|489(4)|506(6)|521(13)|540(3)|557(11)|576(8)|591(8)|612(5)|627(14)|642(8)|665(6)|690(15)|725(13)|746(12)|765(9)|804(2)|825(5)|848(8)|881(9)|896(5)|911(6) 0 https://youtu.be/bWPHZ8lGbjQ YouTube video 0 Introduction—Marty Spiro's Family History SC: Today is June 23, 2016. An interview with Marty Spiro. Could you tell me your full name, and when you were born and where you were born first.
 ; 
 ; MS: Martin Fred Spiro. Born in Brooklyn, New York, 1933.
 ; 
 ; SC: And could you talk about your early life as far back as you know, and in doing so then perhaps start with your parents, grandparents, as many as you know, where they were from, when they came to this country, and then anything that you know about them: their education, what they did in life.
 ; 
 ; MS: Okay. Well, in 1905, my paternal grandfather came to New York, couldn't speak English. Came from Lodz, Poland, and became a peddler. and I asked him years later, I said, ‘Grandpa, you couldn’t speak English. How could you be a peddler and sell clothing?’ And he smiled and said ‘I went to the new Italian district in New York where they couldn’t speak English, and they thought I was the American.’ So in a few years he started a business, a knitting mill business, with his two brothers-in-law and became very successful. My maternal grandfather came from Munkacs, Hungary, about the same time, as a kid, he was 10 years old and was going to visit his uncle for the summer in New York, decided he never wanted to go back. 0 285 The 60s: Early Business Ventures MS: And after college, I worked at Otis Elevator for years and decided it wasn't for me ; I was an industrial engineer but I saw that in a large corporation, I didn't have the personality or the social skills to advance in the huge corporation like that. So around 1960, the opportunity came in Allentown with my brother-in-law, and I started a T-shirt factory, a small T-shirt factory. My brother-in-law is Dave Sussman. And we started about 1960 and struggled because we really didn’t know too much about the business. Everything we made we lost in mistakes. But about two years later, we started making money and became very profitable, and we did very well. And about 17 years later, we decided to split. My brother-in-law wanted to go into more styled goods - higher risk, higher profit. I was more conservative. I was content to be in the basic, simple, sportswear business where it never went out of style, and you didn’t have as much risk, didn’t have as much profit - that’s fine with me. So we each went our separate ways, and then I bought one of our contractor’s factories, called Hy Litwak, so I bought his factory, and it turned out, we found out early, Dave and I, he was very good on the outside. He was good at selling ; I was worse than terrible at selling, awful. I was very good at running the factory, where that was his shortcoming. So it was a good partnership: he was on the outside, and I was on the inside. 0 456 A Lucky Break—Meeting and Forging a Friendship with Department Store Buyer, Candy Seward MS: And about a year later, after I went on my own, I got a call out of the blue. And this is relevant to the book The Outliers by...
 ; 
 ; SC: Malcolm Gladwell.
 ; 
 ; MS: That’s right, Malcolm Gladwell, where his thesis is that people who really have made it, all have gotten help of one kind or another, either from people, or from situations, or from just luck. Well I had luck. A year after I went on my own, I got a phone call. The lady said that ‘my name is Candy Seward. I’m the buyer for Tallhimers. I've been trying to find out where your new place was.’ So I said, I know who you are. I’ve seen your name on orders for many years. She said ‘I’d like to see you in New York next week. I'll be in New York for Market Week, and I have an office at the AMC building,’ the Associated Merchandise Corporation. They were New York buyers for major department stores around the country. The largest being Federated Department Stores. So she said ‘my office is on the 11th floor, and I'd like to see you at whatever time.’ And I said sure. So I went in and met her, and she showed me what she wanted and writes out an order for about 400 dozen, a very large order. And I said ‘do you want a sample before I make it?’ She said ‘no, just ship me the same thing you’ve been shipping for years, it’ll be fine.’ So I did, and I had no illusions that I had sold her, that I became a salesman. She bought from me, but I didn't sell to her. So I never went after the other Federated on the 7th ave, seventh floor or any of the other department stores. Because I still felt after 17 years, you know, I’m not going to fool myself, I don’t know how to sell, so I never went after anybody else. 0 1054 Selling to Donna Mateer SC: Okay, would you go back and talk about your anecdote about Philadelphia?
 ; 
 ; MS: In Philadelphia, Mike Miller, my Pennsylvania salesman, said ‘I’m going next week to see Donna Matier at Strawbridge and Clothier there. She's a very good buyer, she's never bought from me. I go every year, she's very polite, looks at the line and gives me time and never buys, but I never give up. So she never buys, I never give up, so someday I'll get it when she needs me.’ So I said ‘okay Mike. So if she turned you down again, go through this ritual: ask her if she's going next week to the Omni Hotel in Florida for the import show, and she will say yes because all the AMC buyers are going to Florida, and after she says yes, say do you know Candy? You don't need a last name. It's like Madonna or Cher, you know no last name needed, do you know Candy? And she will say yes. Then the third thing is, ask Candy about our company.’ And he came back, and I said what happened? She didn't buy, and I said, did you go through the questions? He said ‘yes’ I did. And I said why don’t we see what happens. Two weeks later I get a call: ‘My name is Donna Mateer, I’m the buyer from Strawbridge and Clothier. I'll be in New York at the AMC building. I forgot what floor she was on and I’d like to see you.’ So I go, and she gives me a large order, and then I went back, I show it to Mike, and I said it is your account, you get the commissions, but she said she'd rather deal with the owner of the factory than the salesman. So he said great. So as long as I stayed in business, she became a very large customer and got to know her and her husband. 0 1214 "Marty the Knockoff Man" MS: And then a few years later, I had what some people would call an epiphany. I was in New York, Candy wanted me to make some new styles for her. So I made it, I made a sample, I brought it in, and I'm showing it to her, and I said this garment that was knitted was on a thirty-six gauge interlock machine with thirty singles comb cotton. And she said, look, I know what you're saying, don't tell anybody else that. I said ‘why not? Aren’t they interested in what they’re buying?’ She said ‘no,’ she said ‘I’ll tell you what they’re interested in. They're interested in good reviews from the merchandise manager every six months, promotions, bonuses, and raises. They don't care what machine made this garment.’ I said ‘oh my God, this is, why didn’t I know this 20 years ago, I could have been a salesman.’ So she said ‘your job is not selling garments, your job is to make the buyer look like a star in her department store. If you do that, the business will come. You make her look good where she can get good reviews, promotions, raises, and bonuses and you'll do well.’ 0 1606 From Sportswear to Banking—Becoming the Director of the American Bank MS: It lasted for a long time, and 1982 I discovered I had a gift for analyzing bank stocks, financial statements. And I started investing in that. And without this one lady, leveraging Candy, I could analyze all I wanted, I wouldn’t have any money to buy. So I was able to buy bank stocks, and in the five years, I was doing better investing than I was in the factory, so I sold my factory in 1987, and got out of that business. And then went into bank investing and went on the boards of a couple of banks. Then about nineteen or twenty years ago, Mark Jaindl, who was doing the same thing as I, as well as being in the turkey business, he was investing in bank stocks-- Mort Levy had introduced us a few years ago. We hit it off. He would analyze a financial statement, I would make notes, and then we’d compare, and we worked together very well for five years. Then Mark left the family business. He went to work as an investment banker in New Jersey for a large firm and they bought other companies. And one of the companies they bought was a company in Texas that had a contract with the federal government to rationalize all these threats that they closed down and that meltdown when the thrifts were borrowing short and lending long and the interest rates rose, and they were losing money and some of them were seized by the government. 0 1807 Family History (cont'd) SC: Could we go back beginning to tell names of your parents, grandparents, etc. If you know actually when they came, you did say that, where they came from, if you didn't say it.
 ; 
 ; MS: Yeah, I told you that my paternal grandfather came from Lodz, Poland. My maternal grandfather came from Munkacs, Hungary.
 ; 
 ; SC: What were their names?
 ; 
 ; MS: My maternal grandfather was Max Weinberger, and my grandfather, my father's father, was Harry Spiro, and went by his Yiddish name, Yicheel, so my father and my Uncle Manny used to call him ‘Cheel.’
 ; 
 ; SC: Do you know their wives’ names?
 ; 
 ; MS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SC: Their maiden names?
 ; 
 ; MS: My grandmother's, my mother's mother's maiden name was Goodfriend, and my father's, my grandmother, my father's mother was the Throap or Trop. 0 2212 Jack Spiro's Knitting Mill in Lowell, MA GE: So now this is actually about your, really more about your dad, I had a couple of questions. I thought that was really interesting that you mentioned that there were incentives that you went to Lowell, your family and do you know anything about the incentives-- was that from, who that was . . . how that was structured . . . how that worked that your dad set this knitting mill up in Lowell, Massachusetts because that's obviously the big textile area before Brooklyn. 
 ; 
 ; MS: There might have been tax incentives in Massachusetts for them to come up. I'm sure there must have been tax incentives. And I think the state paid to move the factory up there.
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, okay, and so your family was there it sounded like for about 15 years?
 ; 
 ; MS: 1936 to 1950.
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, so about 14 years, and then you said they came here and they opened a knitting mill, is that correct? T-shirt?
 ; 
 ; MS: Well they opened...my uncle opened a knitting mill as part of his business...
 ; 
 ; GE: Right, right.
 ; 
 ; MS: ...and my father worked for him.
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, so it was a knitting mill, not a T-shirt company.
 ; 
 ; MS: No, it was part of the T-shirt company. 0 2321 1960: Starting the Business with Closeout Cloth GE: And what you and your brother-in-law started was that similar to that T-shirt business?
 ; 
 ; MS: No, no. What we did, we bought closeout cloth. Somebody made a mistake. The shade of blue was a slight different from what the buyer wanted, they wouldn’t take it, so we went to dealers who bought that, and there was a big one in Allentown, S. Levine and Sons. We did business with Levines and New York fabric companies that bought closeout cloth, so we had a big break on the cloth. The labor we had to pay the same as anybody else, but a big [cost] break was the cloth. And on the main floor, budget sportswear if the shade of blue was a little bit off, it didn’t matter. Blue was blue. So we just make sure that if there were 30 stores, one shade of blue would go to one store and another, so you wouldn’t have twenty different shades of blue in the same rack- - it looks awful. So that was our big edge on cloth. So when the lady brought me that skirt to make, it was like the cost was like 90% cloth was our big…
 ; 
 ; GE: Competitive advantage.
 ; 
 ; MS: ...advantage. And the sewing was practically nothing, so we had a tremendous profit item on that one. That was great. 0 2464 Business Timeline GE: Okay, and so just to get a little bit of a timetable then you were in business with your brother-in-law from 1960 to 1977.
 ; 
 ; MS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: And then on your own from 1977 to 1987?
 ; 
 ; MS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: And then at that point you sold your business, and I'm assuming that was early enough that your business was able to sell at a good price?
 ; 
 ; MS: Yes. And I had no idea, but it wasn't too long after that, three years after that, that all that business moved to the Orient… 0 2511 Marty Spiro's Contractors GE: Right, so some of the contractors that you worked with, some of the sewing contractors that you were giving them business in the area, who were some of those names?
 ; 
 ; MS: One was, let’s see, I know one was Reilly [?], but I know some went to Gerson Lazar, who needed some business, and then a fella named Mickey Stupak in Allentown. And there was a place in Egypt, Pennsylvania. I forgot the fella’s name, but we used him, and we used Hy Litwak before his factory and then Shirley Israelite had a factory, a contracting factory, we used her. And those are the ones that come to mind.
 ; 
 ; GE: Right, okay, okay, good so you kept, you became their customer for a while.
 ; 
 ; MS: Yes. 0 2686 Marty Spiro's Creative Inspirations and Values SC: So the last two questions, first of all, what has made you feel the most creative in your life? 
 ; 
 ; MS: Creative? Well I guess in the business you’re supposed to say I guess being financially successful, it gives you a sense of self-worth. It isn’t the money, it's just knowing that you’ve accomplished something with your life, been creative. If I had made less money, I would have had the same satisfaction. But knowing that I succeeded in what I did, that's what gives me some pleasure.
 ; 
 ; SC: And the last one is what you value most in life?
 ; 
 ; MS: I always say seeing that my children and my grandson have grown up to be wonderful people, and my daughter-in-law is a wonderful person. 0 MovingImage Marty Spiro talks about being a manufacturer in women’s popular priced sportswear. After about twenty years in business, Marty serendipitously developed a close business relationship with Candy Seward, top buyer at Thalhimers Department Store, based in Richmond, VA. Candy had a national reputation for being the number one buyer in the country. So when Candy endorsed Marty and his product line, buyers from other department stores listened. Marty’s business grew tremendously. Interview with Marty Spiro, June 23, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 23, 2016. An interview with Marty Spiro. Could you tell me your full name, and when you were born and where you were born first. MARTY SPIRO: Martin Fred Spiro. Born in Brooklyn, New York, 1933. SC: And could you talk about your early life as far back as you know, and in doing so then perhaps start with your parents, grandparents, as many as you know, where they were from, when they came to this country, and then anything that you know about them: their education, what they did in life. MS: Okay. Well, in 1905, my paternal grandfather came to New York, couldn't speak English. Came from Lodz, Poland, and became a peddler. and I asked him years later, I said, 'Grandpa, you couldn't speak English. How could you be a peddler and sell clothing?' And he smiled and said 'I went to the new Italian district in New York where they couldn't speak English, and they thought I was the American.' So in a few years he started a business, a knitting mill business, with his two brothers-in-law and became very successful. My maternal grandfather came from Munkacs, Hungary, about the same time, as a kid, he was 10 years old and was going to visit his uncle for the summer in New York, decided he never wanted to go back. So he stayed here, and my mother was born here. My father was born in Lodz. A year after my grandfather came here, my grandfather had enough money to send for my grandmother and my father, so they came over, and they had three more children born in this country. And the knitting mill was very successful. In 1936, they were given a lot of incentives to move to Massachusetts. So when I was three years old, we moved to Lowell, Massachusetts. And in New York, the name was Spiro {saying the "I" as a long E sound}, and in Lowell, everybody said Spiro saying the "I" as a long I sound }. So my father said okay sounds okay, but I have relatives who were Spiro {long E}, my sons went back to Spiro {long E}, and I have relatives in France who were Spira, S-P-I-R-A. What happened was three brothers left Lodz around the same time in the early 1900s. One went to France, one went to Canada, and my grandfather went to New York. So I have relations in Canada and in France who I've met. And I grew up in Lowell, went to Lowell High School, and around the time I was 17, the knitting business failed, and my father, his end was running the factory so he could get jobs running factories, which he did. And then a year later, my uncle had a T-shirt factory in Allentown where they bought cloth, cut it, and sewed it. And when my father became available, they asked him to come down. They bought knitting machines, and my father ran the knitting mill. And about that time, I went off to college. And after college, I worked at Otis Elevator for years and decided it wasn't for me ; I was an industrial engineer but I saw that in a large corporation, I didn't have the personality or the social skills to advance in the huge corporation like that. So around 1960, the opportunity came in Allentown with my brother-in-law, and I started a T-shirt factory, a small T-shirt factory. My brother-in-law is Dave Sussman. And we started about 1960 and struggled because we really didn't know too much about the business. Everything we made we lost in mistakes. But about two years later, we started making money and became very profitable, and we did very well. And about 17 years later, we decided to split. My brother-in-law wanted to go into more styled goods - higher risk, higher profit. I was more conservative. I was content to be in the basic, simple, sportswear business where it never went out of style, and you didn't have as much risk, didn't have as much profit - that's fine with me. So we each went our separate ways, and then I bought one of our contractor's factories, called Hy Litwak, so I bought his factory, and it turned out, we found out early, Dave and I, he was very good on the outside. He was good at selling ; I was worse than terrible at selling, awful. I was very good at running the factory, where that was his shortcoming. So it was a good partnership: he was on the outside, and I was on the inside. It worked very well. And when we decided to split, he found somebody to run the factory and I hired salesmen. And it was going along very well. He was probably doing better than we did before. I was doing as well as I did before. I was happy. And then I had enough business to keep the factory going. And about a year later, after I went on my own, I got a call out of the blue. And this is relevant to the book The Outliers by... SC: Malcolm Gladwell. MS: That's right, Malcolm Gladwell, where his thesis is that people who really have made it, all have gotten help of one kind or another, either from people, or from situations, or from just luck. Well I had luck. A year after I went on my own, I got a phone call. The lady said that 'my name is Candy Seward. I'm the buyer for Tallhimers. I've been trying to find out where your new place was.' So I said, I know who you are. I've seen your name on orders for many years. She said 'I'd like to see you in New York next week. I'll be in New York for Market Week, and I have an office at the AMC building,' the Associated Merchandise Corporation. They were New York buyers for major department stores around the country. The largest being Federated Department Stores. So she said 'my office is on the 11th floor, and I'd like to see you at whatever time.' And I said sure. So I went in and met her, and she showed me what she wanted and writes out an order for about 400 dozen, a very large order. And I said 'do you want a sample before I make it?' She said 'no, just ship me the same thing you've been shipping for years, it'll be fine.' So I did, and I had no illusions that I had sold her, that I became a salesman. She bought from me, but I didn't sell to her. So I never went after the other Federated on the 7th ave, seventh floor or any of the other department stores. Because I still felt after 17 years, you know, I'm not going to fool myself, I don't know how to sell, so I never went after anybody else. So I shipped her the goods, went very well, she gave me reorders, she gave me orders for other styles, and I had to put on a night shift. And that was fine. And then we're going along like that, maybe another year later, two years later, my Pennsylvania salesman, a fella named Mike Miller, was in the factory, and he said 'next week I'm going to Pittsburgh and there's a show, a knit goods show in an armory, and I'm taking a booth. It's very interesting, there are hundreds of vendors there and you might find it interesting.' So I said all right, so I flew out in the morning, came back in the evening. And I talked to Mike in his booth, and I walked up and down the aisle looking at the different competitors. Some of them were competitors, and I was very pleased to see that most of my competitors were higher-priced than I was, so I wasn't worried about them. And then I saw one company that had a very extensive line, larger than mine with very very competitive prices. So I said, I congratulated the salesman on his line. I said this is a terrific line. I said I'm very impressed, and he said 'my company does something different from other companies. Instead of our designer' - they had a designer - 'instead of our designer coming up with a line, we fly out the best buyer in the country once a year, and together, the two of them develop a line.' I said 'well that's interesting - who is this buyer?' And he said 'well I don't know her last name, but she's from Virginia and her name is Candy.' And I said oh that's nice. So I thought oh my God, I'm doing business with the best buyer in the country, and I don't know it because I had nobody to compare her with. So she was my only customer. So the next time Candy called to meet her in New York on the 11th floor, I said - and by this time I got familiar with the building, and I knew that Federated had an office, one of their offices on the seventh floor was somebody who arranged hotel accommodations at some hotel in New York where they had a deal with large a supply of tenants. And the 12th floor was a cafeteria, where the buyers came in the morning, got to meet each other from around the country and go over things and go out into the market. So I said 'Candy, can we meet on the 12th floor in a cafeteria at 8 o'clock?' And she said sure. So I said 'you know why I am asking, don't you?' And she said yes, but it's alright. So 8 o'clock in the morning, the two of us met. We were the only ones in the cafeteria. We took a long table for ten people. We sat at the end, I took out some shirts, and one by one the buyers are coming in, and they see Candy and me at this table. They come over [and say] 'hi Candy, what are you doing?' 'I'm looking at Marty's fall line.' 'Oh, do you have room for me at the table?' And in twenty minutes the table was full. So they're all watching and they're asking questions ; 'oh I do very well with him.' So these are ladies, they happen to all be lady buyers, and all of them were getting calls from vendors around Broadway and that area. 'Please come into my showroom. I want you to see the new things.' 'Well I don't have time this trip ; I'll try to do it next trip.' These people are coming to me. 'Well I have some time at 3 o'clock ; I'm on the eighth floor, can you meet me?' So I'm booking appointments, and I'm booking appointments for the next day. So I call my wife. I say 'I'm staying over' because I have appointments for both days. So I sold everyone who was at the table. So now I had, it was too much for my plant day and night. I had to give out work to contractors, so I bought a Ford Econoline Truck, hired a driver, we cut the goods and we sent them out to the various contractors, so it became a very large business. And all from this one person. I felt 'well I'm selling them, but I'm leveraging her' her reputation. And I asked her years later cause we're still friends, and I stay over, they retired in the West Coast of Florida, and coming back on the auto train, I stay overnight with Candy and her husband, and we have dinner and then go to the auto train in Sanford the next morning. So I asked a few years ago why she shared cause she was very generous with the other buyers telling who she bought from, what she bought, what she paid. And she still came out with the best numbers of any buyer in the whole AMC clientele, always, no matter, she could tell everybody everything, and she still came out with the best sales figures. So she was like the goddess of retailing, so I said maybe three years ago, I said 'did any other vendor leverage your reputation as much as I did?' She said, 'no, nobody did.' And I think the reason for that was everybody else who sold was a good salesman. They didn't need help, or they felt they didn't need help. I knew I stunk at that, so I was looking for help, so I leveraged her reputation and did very well with that. And then one time Mike was in the factory saying 'next week I'm going to Philadelphia and then I'm going to see the buyer there, Donna Mateer, I've been calling on it for years-- SC: Okay, would you go back and talk about your anecdote about Philadelphia? MS: In Philadelphia, Mike Miller, my Pennsylvania salesman, said 'I'm going next week to see Donna Matier at Strawbridge and Clothier there. She's a very good buyer, she's never bought from me. I go every year, she's very polite, looks at the line and gives me time and never buys, but I never give up. So she never buys, I never give up, so someday I'll get it when she needs me.' So I said 'okay Mike. So if she turned you down again, go through this ritual: ask her if she's going next week to the Omni Hotel in Florida for the import show, and she will say yes because all the AMC buyers are going to Florida, and after she says yes, say do you know Candy? You don't need a last name. It's like Madonna or Cher, you know no last name needed, do you know Candy? And she will say yes. Then the third thing is, ask Candy about our company.' And he came back, and I said what happened? She didn't buy, and I said, did you go through the questions? He said 'yes' I did. And I said why don't we see what happens. Two weeks later I get a call: 'My name is Donna Mateer, I'm the buyer from Strawbridge and Clothier. I'll be in New York at the AMC building. I forgot what floor she was on and I'd like to see you.' So I go, and she gives me a large order, and then I went back, I show it to Mike, and I said it is your account, you get the commissions, but she said she'd rather deal with the owner of the factory than the salesman. So he said great. So as long as I stayed in business, she became a very large customer and got to know her and her husband. Very nice people and did a big business with Strawbridge and only because she asked Candy, and Candy said yes, you can do very well with him. And my business probably doubled and became quite successful. And then a few years later, I had what some people would call an epiphany. I was in New York, Candy wanted me to make some new styles for her. So I made it, I made a sample, I brought it in, and I'm showing it to her, and I said this garment that was knitted was on a thirty-six gauge interlock machine with thirty singles comb cotton. And she said, look, I know what you're saying, don't tell anybody else that. I said 'why not? Aren't they interested in what they're buying?' She said 'no,' she said 'I'll tell you what they're interested in. They're interested in good reviews from the merchandise manager every six months, promotions, bonuses, and raises. They don't care what machine made this garment.' I said 'oh my God, this is, why didn't I know this 20 years ago, I could have been a salesman.' So she said 'your job is not selling garments, your job is to make the buyer look like a star in her department store. If you do that, the business will come. You make her look good where she can get good reviews, promotions, raises, and bonuses and you'll do well.' I said, oh my, it's so simple, why didn't I, I never had thought of it. So I said, 'how do you suggest how to go about doing this?' She said 'well, for instance, quite often a vendor will short ship.' He doesn't have the right, he doesn't have all of the colors, so the buyer orders red, white, navy, pink, blue, maze, and the factory is short on maze and it's going to be two weeks late. Meanwhile the buyer puts an ad in the paper with the six colors and the merchandise manager sees there is only five colors on the racks. Where's the other color? Aw the damn vendor, he's going to be two weeks later on that. Well lady, you're supposed to be in a rapport with the vendors. You're supposed to know this before it happens. And she's thinking there goes my bonus, there goes my review. So Candy said 'the minute you know you're going to be late on something, you call the buyer and say 'look I don't have the yellow, I've got lilac, I've got fuchsia, I've got mint. You can substitute or just cancel the color because I don't have it.'' So they do accordingly and that way the buyer can go to the merchandise manager and say the vendor is going to be late on the yellow, I substituted lilac. Now the merchandise [manager] knows this buyer is on top of the business, you know, good reviews and the other things will follow. So the buyer is connected to me now. This guy is making me look good, I better stick with them. And so that worked out, I remember one time the Shillito buyer. The Shillito is big, was big, I'm not sure whether they still are in business in Cincinnati, Ohio. And the buyer there called up one day: 'I'm coming to New York next week, I'm going to bring you a crystal pleated skirt I'd like you to make.' I'd never made skirts. I said 'what's a crystal pleated skirt?' 'I'll bring one in and I'll show you.' So it was a polyester skirt, and it was sent out to a contractor with an oven or an oast that they folded these things up into an accordion type thing, and they put it in the oven and the synthetic melted a little bit and put the permanent pleat in the garment. So you had to cut it and put a hem in it cause it wouldn't pleat right, you couldn't put a hem in it after it was pleated, so we hemmed it and I found a contractor in New York, we shipped and came back, and it was a simple garment to make. And it was just white and navy. She said that's the only colors that would sell. So I started making that for her and showed it to the other buyers, and they started buying also. And then one of the buyers came to me, they came to me with velour. Nobody will know what that is anymore, but it was a fabric. It was very hot for a few years, and they put me into that business. So the buyers were coming to me. And then one time I was meeting with a bunch of buyers, some bought from me, some hadn't. And I bought a style that I concocted. I design something, so I'm showing it to them. The Shillito buyer starts laughing and she says 'baldheaded designer,' she said 'we do not need you to tell us what to buy ; you're Marty the knockoff man.' That's what they call me. 'What's selling good on the second floor in Branded Goods, we're on the Main floor in budget sportswear. What's hot on the branded good upstairs, we want you to make for less money on the main floor. That's what you do. So don't bring us any designs.' So the buyers who hadn't bought from me see that she's on such good terms with me that she can laugh at me and call me 'baldheaded designer.' So they started buying. I developed a tremendous business. It lasted for a long time, and 1982 I discovered I had a gift for analyzing bank stocks, financial statements. And I started investing in that. And without this one lady, leveraging Candy, I could analyze all I wanted, I wouldn't have any money to buy. So I was able to buy bank stocks, and in the five years, I was doing better investing than I was in the factory, so I sold my factory in 1987, and got out of that business. And then went into bank investing and went on the boards of a couple of banks. Then about nineteen or twenty years ago, Mark Jaindl, who was doing the same thing as I, as well as being in the turkey business, he was investing in bank stocks-- Mort Levy had introduced us a few years ago. We hit it off. He would analyze a financial statement, I would make notes, and then we'd compare, and we worked together very well for five years. Then Mark left the family business. He went to work as an investment banker in New Jersey for a large firm and they bought other companies. And one of the companies they bought was a company in Texas that had a contract with the federal government to rationalize all these threats that they closed down and that meltdown when the thrifts were borrowing short and lending long and the interest rates rose, and they were losing money and some of them were seized by the government. And there were lots of loans that the government didn't know what to do with, loans and foreclosed property, and they hired this firm in Texas to sell it for what they could. Sell these bad loans and the property, get the most out of it on the commission basis. So Mark got to see every kind of loan imaginable. It was a four and a half billion-dollar virtual bank. And then his father came to him a few years later to try to get him back, and Mark said 'to start a bank, I'll come back.' And Mark and Fred - Fred was a terrific guy, I miss him - and they asked me to go on the board of American Bank, where I'm still a director. And that's where I am today. SC: Could we go back beginning to tell names of your parents, grandparents, etc. If you know actually when they came, you did say that, where they came from, if you didn't say it. MS: Yeah, I told you that my paternal grandfather came from Lodz, Poland. My maternal grandfather came from Munkacs, Hungary. SC: What were their names? MS: My maternal grandfather was Max Weinberger, and my grandfather, my father's father, was Harry Spiro, and went by his Yiddish name, Yicheel, so my father and my Uncle Manny used to call him 'Cheel.' SC: Do you know their wives' names? MS: Yes. SC: Their maiden names? MS: My grandmother's, my mother's mother's maiden name was Goodfriend, and my father's, my grandmother, my father's mother was the Throap or Trop. I've seen it spelled both ways. But in this country, it was Throap. In Europe--and some moved to Israel-- it was T-R-O-P, so her name was Chaya Rivka, or Anna. Oh, no, no, no, Ida was her name ; Ida Spiro. It was Harry and Ida. And Chaya Rivka was her Hebrew name. And she could speak Polish for the rest of her life. She told me my father, who came here at 3, spoke Polish but lost it all and was fluent in Yiddish and English. And that my parents, like a lot of parents, they didn't want the children to speak Yiddish - you're in America now, speak English. So Yiddish was their secret language, so I never learned, my sister never learned. SC: Did they come from the same regions as their husbands? Do you know anything? MS: No. I don't know how my parents met. I think it was probably at one of these social clubs. I'm not sure. My father lived in Brooklyn, and my mother lived in East Side, New York. My father had graduated, my grandfather he, after he started making money, he moved to Brooklyn. SC: And so the social clubs, were they promoted in the Jewish community? MS: Yes. By then it was, by that time they were insulated. They kept to themselves. It's not that way anymore. Thank Goodness. SC: Do you know anything about their education, the people back from their parents? MS: My mother did not go to college. When she graduated high school she went to work for, I think, the phone company. And my grandfather went to, my father went to Brooklyn Polytech and he loved machinery and wasn't a good businessman, but wonderful with machinery. And [he] taught me how to wire up factories. I did the electrical work in our factories and a lot of the mechanical work. I learned how to fix machines. So I was good at that. But that was it for their education. SC: And back, in where they came from, do you know anything about those people, where they were, their education? MS: Well the, no, the ones in Hungary were destroyed in the Holocaust, and the ones who didn't get out in Lodz are gone. So my cousin in Paris, who is an eye surgeon, his father, Jacques, what his name was Poland but it became Jacques in France-- he wrote a page for each of the seven relatives who were killed in Poland in the Holocaust, so there is a page for each of them in the Yad Vashem, which my cousin Kathy from Canada, who is the family researcher, she can find anything, including the manifests of the ship that brought my grandfather into the country. And it's all on the Internet, so I have the statements that my cousin's father had submitted to Yad Vashem. So anybody who didn't get out is gone, and as I say, the ones that we know about are on my father's side: the US, Canada, and France. And my French cousin comes over a couple times a year. He's going to retire eventually from surgery and bought a place in Miami Beach. He's got the penthouse of someplace near the ocean. But he comes over once a year, nice fella. GAIL EISENBERG: Okay so Marty, you did a really fine job, but there's just a few questions, I just wanted to go back.... MS: Go ahead. GE: ...and see if you could fill in a little bit. So now this is actually about your, really more about your dad, I had a couple of questions. I thought that was really interesting that you mentioned that there were incentives that you went to Lowell, your family and do you know anything about the incentives-- was that from, who that was . . . how that was structured . . . how that worked that your dad set this knitting mill up in Lowell, Massachusetts because that's obviously the big textile area before Brooklyn. MS: There might have been tax incentives in Massachusetts for them to come up. I'm sure there must have been tax incentives. And I think the state paid to move the factory up there. GE: Okay, okay, and so your family was there it sounded like for about 15 years? MS: 1936 to 1950. GE: Okay, so about 14 years, and then you said they came here and they opened a knitting mill, is that correct? T-shirt? MS: Well they opened...my uncle opened a knitting mill as part of his business... GE: Right, right. MS: ...and my father worked for him. GE: Okay, so it was a knitting mill, not a T-shirt company. MS: No, it was part of the T-shirt company. GE: Okay. MS: So they needed the cloth, instead of my uncle buying the cloth, they knitted it themselves. GE: Okay, and so how is that business . . . then did they close the business before you and your brother-in-law went into it or? MS: They moved it, they moved their business to Reading. GE: Okay, and that became a separate business from-- MS: It became a separate business. GE: Okay. MS: They moved to Reading, and my father retired, so it was a separate business. GE: Okay. And what you and your brother-in-law started was that similar to that T-shirt business? MS: No, no. What we did, we bought closeout cloth. Somebody made a mistake. The shade of blue was a slight different from what the buyer wanted, they wouldn't take it, so we went to dealers who bought that, and there was a big one in Allentown, S. Levine and Sons. We did business with Levines and New York fabric companies that bought closeout cloth, so we had a big break on the cloth. The labor we had to pay the same as anybody else, but a big [cost] break was the cloth. And on the main floor, budget sportswear if the shade of blue was a little bit off, it didn't matter. Blue was blue. So we just make sure that if there were 30 stores, one shade of blue would go to one store and another, so you wouldn't have twenty different shades of blue in the same rack- - it looks awful. So that was our big edge on cloth. So when the lady brought me that skirt to make, it was like the cost was like 90% cloth was our big-- GE: Competitive advantage. MS: ...advantage. And the sewing was practically nothing, so we had a tremendous profit item on that one. That was great. And then I saw Levines. I saw one of the brands had orlon, wool pleated skirts and some of the same patterns that Levine had. And so I thought I'll make up some of those, I'll show them to my skirt buyers. And we bought those and sold those garments also. That was also a big number for me. GE: And so your competitive advantage or what you felt was your advantage was really that you had much lower material cost-- MS: Yes. GE: ...in producing. MS: That is correct. GE: Okay, and so just to get a little bit of a timetable then you were in business with your brother-in-law from 1960 to 1977. MS: Yes. GE: And then on your own from 1977 to 1987? MS: Yes. GE: And then at that point you sold your business, and I'm assuming that was early enough that your business was able to sell at a good price? MS: Yes. And I had no idea, but it wasn't too long after that, three years after that, that all that business moved to the Orient-- GE: Right. MS: ...and there was no more knitting here so you couldn't buy off-price cloth because there was no cloth. It was all done overseas. GE: Right, exactly. MS: And I had no knowledge of that at the time. GE: Right, so some of the contractors that you worked with, some of the sewing contractors that you were giving them business in the area, who were some of those names? MS: One was, let's see, I know one was Reilly [?], but I know some went to Gerson Lazar, who needed some business, and then a fella named Mickey Stupak in Allentown. And there was a place in Egypt, Pennsylvania. I forgot the fella's name, but we used him, and we used Hy Litwak before his factory and then Shirley Israelite had a factory, a contracting factory, we used her. And those are the ones that come to mind. GE: Right, okay, okay, good so you kept, you became their customer for a while. MS: Yes. GE: Okay. And I guess the last thing is that I was told from actually from Ivan that you had an interesting story in terms of the velour. I don't remember, I'm trying to remember, he said to ask Marty, I don't remember, it was a mistake you made, like either you were short in a color and you did a black back, and he said that it ended up becoming a very successful product. MS: He remembers that, I don't. GE: Okay. MS: I don't remember that. GE: Oh, okay. MS: But I'm sure it happened. But that lasted for a few years. It was a very good item. GE: Right, I do remember. Okay, I don't think, so we'll just ask you the couple last questions. And I'll just ask you. So you didn't make the material-- MS: No. GE: Where it was your uncle's business too-- MS: My business was buying the cloth. GE: You bought the cloth, and it's just that you bought overruns which were damaged or whatever. MS: Well it wasn't damaged. GE: But overruns, or whatever. MS: Maybe it was finished too wide. It was supposed to be finished thirty one inches but they finished it thirty inches wide. GE: Right, right. SC: That's very appropriate today, it's recycling. MS: It's what? SC: It's environmental. It's recycling. Rather than if it were, it's perfect. So the last two questions, first of all, what has made you feel the most creative in your life? MS: Creative? Well I guess in the business you're supposed to say I guess being financially successful, it gives you a sense of self-worth. It isn't the money, it's just knowing that you've accomplished something with your life, been creative. If I had made less money, I would have had the same satisfaction. But knowing that I succeeded in what I did, that's what gives me some pleasure. SC: And the last one is what you value most in life? MS: I always say seeing that my children and my grandson have grown up to be wonderful people, and my daughter-in-law is a wonderful person. To see them grow up to be fine people gives me the most, well there's not too much satisfaction when you're 82, to see that, to see my two kids, my two boys and my grandson and my daughter-in-law. My younger son married a girl from Taiwan, so, she taught him Mandarin Chinese which he won't admit to, but he speaks Mandarin and is bilingual and is eight years old, and very bright, very nice kid, so he'll do well. So that gives me my most pleasure. 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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00:46:51
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Marty Spiro, June 23, 2016
Description
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Marty Spiro talks about being a manufacturer in women’s popular priced sportswear. After about twenty years in business, Marty serendipitously developed a close business relationship with Candy Seward, top buyer at Thalhimers Department Store, based in Richmond, VA. Candy had a national reputation for being the number one buyer in the country. So when Candy endorsed Marty and his product line, buyers from other department stores listened. Marty’s business grew tremendously.
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LVTNT-34
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2016-06-23
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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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90cff8079fc53c047f22c031ee8aa158
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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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Marshall Silverstein
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-09.xml
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5.4 July 30, 2013 Marshall Silverstein, July 30, 2013 LVTNT-09 1:35:47 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Marshall Silverstein Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SilversteinMarshall_20130730.mp4 1.0:|11(7)|26(15)|37(13)|56(2)|67(11)|82(3)|95(9)|108(11)|123(3)|138(19)|151(3)|166(12)|181(3)|196(14)|211(12)|226(12)|245(4)|264(2)|279(4)|290(7)|303(17)|318(2)|341(7)|358(2)|367(10)|380(4)|391(9)|406(2)|413(15)|432(3)|449(14)|460(12)|465(10)|478(16)|491(15)|502(8)|519(16)|532(6)|549(11)|562(14)|575(15)|584(5)|593(13)|614(3)|627(14)|650(9)|669(2)|680(6)|691(11)|700(12)|715(5)|728(2)|741(11)|756(13)|775(12)|804(10)|827(5)|840(5)|863(9)|882(10)|897(14)|916(2)|935(7)|946(6)|959(10)|974(2)|989(4)|1000(14)|1009(8)|1024(7)|1045(5)|1058(12)|1071(13)|1084(9)|1101(5)|1118(8)|1139(13)|1158(15)|1181(8)|1192(3)|1203(2)|1218(7)|1237(4)|1252(5)|1269(11)|1286(12)|1309(15)|1328(8)|1343(2)|1354(11)|1367(13)|1384(6)|1397(4)|1412(12)|1427(5)|1442(5) 0 https://youtu.be/9qeV-YaV90s YouTube video 0 Introduction—Marshall Silverstein's Childhood in Brooklyn, NY SC: What is your full name? 
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 ; MS: The name is Marshall Silverstein. I have a question. You talk about family, and you’re here about business. My family was not in business, but my wife’s family was in business. So we’ll have to differentiate. 
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 ; SC: We’ll talk about both. But, still, to see the family histories, this is a “life history” type of oral history also.
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 ; MS: I was born in Brooklyn on August 18, 1931. Lived in Brooklyn with my parents and my sister and many family members. Whoever didn’t have a home or didn’t know what to do with their lives came to my mother, and she solved all their problems. At one time we had thirteen people living there and one bathroom! 
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 ; SC: Do you remember the address in Brooklyn? 0 156 Education and Work Experience MS: I studied at the Hebrew Institute of Boro Park - which was a Modern Orthodox school. From there I went to Brooklyn Technical High School, which was one of the three most premier schools in the whole five boroughs. Unfortunately, I got sick during the second year and couldn’t travel downtown any longer. So I went to New Utrecht High School. I finished up in the New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn. You want to know about jobs? During the time I went to New Utrecht High School, I delivered orders for the local vegetable man, during the week -- on a bicycle with a basket.
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 ; GE: During high school?
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 ; MS: Yes, and also worked in New York City, my junior year in high school, delivering laces throughout NYC by hand-truck. At the end of my senior year, I worked at the Pioneer Country Club in the Catskills as a busboy and a waiter. 0 461 North American Aviation Industrial MS: After graduating from school, I got a job in Los Angeles with North American Aviation in industrial engineering, which I had studied at Columbia. I was there a year when once again, my ego was pumped up by the leader of the department said he was leaving, and he asked me to come with him. We both went to Atomics International, where we manufactured atomic reactors for school and experimental purposes. An interesting thing was that I had to get a clearance for atomic energy, which is even higher than top secret. They invaded my block in Brooklyn, knocking on every door to find out, “Who was this guy? What has he done?” 0 538 The Pennsburg Handbag Factory MS: I was there for about a year, and I got a letter from my father-in-law, who manufactured handbags, saying his brother was retiring, and he would very much like for me to work with him. I had told him years before that I would. But after I was out on my own. I knew that I could make a living for my family without any help from anyone else. I would consider it - if he would. He said if you want to do it, this is the time to do it. I need the help now. 0 630 Transitioning from Manufacturer to Consultant MS: When I was 50, my partner and I had a disagreement – we were the best partners there could be, but he wanted to expand, and I just didn’t feel it was worthwhile. We had two factories and six contractors – and enough is enough. So we said, “Let’s ask our kids if they have any interest.” He had four kids, and four kids were interested. I had three kids and no kids were interested. I did the fair thing and said that he should be able to buy it from me, and he did. We closed the deal on a Friday afternoon, and I said, “I’m free now, I could be semi-retired. I could read books now“. At two o’clock on Thursday afternoon, the next week, I was lying on that couch over there – reading my book, and I got a call from First Valley Bank in Bethlehem. “Marshall, since you have nothing to do with your time, would you like to do some consulting for us?” I said, “Jim, I don’t know what you are talking about.” So he said, “Come on over, “ and we talked. They had some small business loans that weren’t performing. All they had were numbers to look at. They wanted to know why they weren’t performing. I agreed with them, and I took my first assignment. From there on, I was a consultant – no more lying on the couch, reading books. 0 794 Handbags & ; Luggage MS: While we were in the manufacturing business, we started an outlet store and then multiplied those outlet stores by thirteen. It was a very successful business.
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 ; SC: What was the name of the outlet store and the pocketbook business?
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 ; MS: The name of the outlet stores was “Handbags and Luggage.” We had a store here in Allentown. The major store was in Reading in the outlet stores. And, you’re looking at the guy who talked them into opening that big outlet. They had that store there, and I tried to get into that store. It was all their own merchandise, and they wouldn’t let me in. The CEO there was a very nice guy, Manfred O. Lee (nothing to do with the jeans that they produced.) I met him for breakfast once every couple of weeks, they had a cafeteria there. I tried to outline to him why it would be profitable with all the empty buildings that he had there because they sent their work down South to manufacture. He turned me down all the time. I got a call, he said, “Marshall, we will have a handbag store here before Christmas. Do you want to come in?” Sure, and that evolved from a handbag store to-- not mine, the handbag store was mine – to furniture, everything you could think of, tools, whatever . . . very successful. 0 988 Connections with Samsung, Macy's, Gimbels, Korvette, and Marshalls MS: The handbag business - we were bought out by Samsung. I had never heard the word before. They called me up ; they wanted me to sell the handbags. I said we were manufacturers, not salespeople. I would introduce them to whatever salespeople he wanted. When I first met him, I said, “Hello, Mr. Sung.” He looked at me and said, “My name is not Sung. I represent Samsung.” “Who is Samsung?” We all know who Samsung is today. 
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 ; GE: Although I didn’t know about that type of product.
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 ; MS: They were manufacturing handbags, but were unable to produce – sell them where they wanted. They had heard about my sales ability – not the mom and pop stores, but the shoe chains and major department stores – that’s where they wanted to go.
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 ; SC: What major department stores?
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 ; MS: Macy’s, Gimbels, Korvette, everyone that you know of, we sold to. 0 1126 Silverstein Family History MS: My father was born in Austria and came here when he was a kid. My mother was born in NYC. I’ll give you a little background. My grandfather, my father’s father, must have been wealthy in Europe. They sent him to the United States to study, back in the early 1900s. After he finished studying, he went back to Europe. They financed him in a candy store. He ate the store broke! He ate up all the products! They came here – my father was about ten years old, or something like that. My grandfather was in the piece goods business, selling remnants.
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 ; GE: Material?
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 ; MS: Yes. My father eventually did the same thing. He would go into one factory and see what they had leftover and go to another factory and tell them this is what I got? Do you want it? This is the price. So he’d go from one factory to another. My father’s name was Herman, and my mother’s name was Anna. His parents were Sam and Goldie. 0 1572 Bruch Family History SC: Can you talk about your wife’s family, her background now, her family – what you know about the family business?
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 ; MS: Let’s take her father, his name was William. He had a brother - they both worked in the handbag factory. Nina’s mother – her [last] name was Agaschevitz, shortened to Agus. A whole bunch of extremely intelligent people – book-wise. [Nina’s mother’s family] One of them wasn’t so smart on the streets. One was a doctor in Brooklyn. He was the smartest one of all. He studied the Tanakh and everything, all the books. He was a brilliant man. Another brother was a professor at Yeshiva University.
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 ; GE: I’m sorry. These are Nina’s siblings or Nina’s parents’ siblings? 
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 ; MS: Nina’s mother’s siblings. 0 1794 Marshall Silverstein's Wife—Nina (Pauline) Silverstein nee Bruch SC: What’s your wife’s full name? What is Nina’s full name? 
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 ; MS: Her birth name or current? 
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 ; SC: Birth name.
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 ; MS: Nina Silverstein.
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 ; GE: Her name now is Silverstein, what was her birth name? 
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 ; MS: Bruch. But it wasn’t Nina. It was Pauline.
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 ; GE: So Nina is a nickname.
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 ; MS: Yes, when she was born, one of her uncles – the one afflicted with Agent Orange – started calling her Nina or Ninya. Nina went to Shulamith School in Brooklyn. That’s the same kind of school that I went to, only it was for girls, mine was for boys. Then she went to Ramaz in NYC for High School, and also college was City College of the City of New York, etc, etc. 0 2196 Involvement in the Allentown and Jewish Communities SC: [Y]ou talked a little bit about the Jewish community and her work in it, a little bit about your work in it, was there anything else that the two of you did within the community of Allentown and in the Jewish community?
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 ; MS: Yes, most of our work, but not all of it, was in the Jewish community, as we were a minority, a very low percentage of the population, so any help you could do, you did. I, myself, was involved in many organizations, including B'nai B'rith, the Jewish War Veterans and most of all, the Jewish Day School. In fact, I was President of the Jewish Day School in the late 70’s – I don’t remember the exact year. We were members of Temple Beth El. At Temple Beth El they asked me to be the President of the Cemetery Association, which I did for twenty-five to thirty years. It was a thankless job, everyone said, but for me, it gave me great pleasure because I didn’t have to go to meetings or anything like that. I did the work, raised a lot of money. We had lot sales [burial plots]. 0 2451 Development of the Lehigh Valley SC: [H]ow do you think the Lehigh Valley has changed in these years?
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 ; MS: When I came to Allentown, it was a sleepy little town. You could virtually cross Tilghman Street with your eyes closed. There were no cars coming from either way. Today, it ain’t so baby! At one time, I would say that I knew every Jewish person in town. We were members of three Synagogues. Ultimately, we broke it down to one. It was a wonderful, wonderful community. Everybody was for each other. Now I don’t know, maybe it’s because of our age. I know very few people as compared to that time. But Nina and I were involved in all the Crosses: the Blue Cross, the Green Cross, the Red Cross, whatever. 0 2578 Affiliations with Community Synagogues SC: What were the names of the Synagogues that you belonged to? Which Synagogue did you join?
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 ; MS: The main one was Temple Beth El, also Sons of Israel and Knesseth Israel (KI as it’s currently known.) We were very much involved with the Jewish community. We had a daughter, and when she graduated from college, she toured Europe and went to Israel and liked it there and settled there. We have been to Israel numerous times before. Between my daughter and whatever we were, we have been to Israel about thirty times. 0 2628 Diminishing Opportunities in Allentown, PA SC: Do you think there is a reason that the next generation isn’t staying in Allentown? At least that's what we've been hearing over and over again, that people have moved away, your children’s generation.
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 ; MS: Let’s take a look, what was the leading industry? When we moved here, one of the leading industries - I’m not talking about Air Products, Bethlehem Steel, or whatever. The industries that I knew were the garment trade industry. All those people that you talked about at the meeting at the JCC I know or knew all of them intimately…it’s not so anymore. When the kids grew up, like my kids, this one is a mathematician, this one is a business person. I guess they don’t have the opportunity in Allentown like they have in Washington, DC – where one of them is. 0 2711 Marshall Silverstein's Children SC: What is that child’s name in Washington?
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 ; MS: Elissa Drucker. Another one in Palo Alto, California, in the midst of – what do you call that industry?
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 ; GE: High Tech?
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 ; MS: High Tech Industry. You walk down the street, and there is the head of Microsoft - shopping in the same store and drugstores. You don’t have that anymore. The last one of them was Bell Labs, part of Western Electric. It’s a different kind of town.
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 ; SC: Is that a son or daughter in California?
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 ; MS: That’s a daughter.
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 ; SC: What’s her name?
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 ; MS: Lori Blum. And then I have a son, Ronald, who is with Amtrak for about twenty-five years. 0 2985 Origins of the Family Business MS: My father-in-law, I can’t tell you why he started the business, but I can imagine. These garment trades – it didn’t take too much money. You bought a couple of sewing machines and put them in the basement and got your wife to sew. He was manufacturing in Connecticut. He had a problem with the Union there. He had a contractor who was making handbags for him in Pennsburg. He was manufacturing in Connecticut, and he might have had one of two other contractors. The plant in Pennsburg – the company- went bankrupt. He got permission from the Referee in Bankruptcy to go into the [Pennsburg] factory and finish off all the bags that they had there.
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 ; GE: So they were in Chapter 11? 
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 ; MS: Yeah the ones in Pennsburg….no maybe Chapter 7 or 13 -Going out of business. He went in there and finished off the bags, and he liked the setup – the life in Pennsburg very much. Between that and the Union in Connecticut, he decided to close in Connecticut and made a deal with the Referee in Bankruptcy and bought all the machines and equipment in Pennsburg, and rented the building in Pennsburg, where he manufactured handbags. 0 3363 Charisma la Sac GE: So you made pocketbooks. Were they under store labels?
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 ; MS: It was under the name we named them, which was “Charisma la Sac.”
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 ; GE: Is that two words?
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 ; MS: Three words.
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 ; GE: Charisma la Sac. When I see the name today, I see the name La Sac.
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 ; MS: In that industry, everybody copied from everybody else. It wasn’t patented or copyrighted.
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 ; GE: So it was under your own brand name, not a store brand.
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 ; MS: No, No, No.
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 ; GE: You made pocketbooks. Were there other related products that you made? 0 3454 Employees MS: We had a line of bags and umbrellas where we personalized it with your name.
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 ; GE: Was it personalized by an embroiderer? Or some sort of marker?
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 ; MS: Yes. A girl with beautiful handwriting.
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 ; GE: Like a calligrapher. You were a manufacturer, so did you have your own sales force?
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 ; MS: Absolutely! When you say a sales force, we had a couple salesmen on our payroll, but most of the salespeople were on commission. 
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 ; GE: They were reps, sales reps?
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 ; MS: Yes, all over the country.
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 ; GE: And they represented your merchandise as well as others.
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 ; MS: Correct.
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 ; GE: How large were you? How many people worked there?
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 ; MS: In the factory in Red Hill?
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 ; GE: About?
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 ; MS: I’m just trying to picture it….70. For a while, we had another factory in Wilkes-Barre. But we really depended on contractors to fill what we couldn’t produce. 0 3734 Make Well Leather Goods Company GE: So, therefore, what you're telling me is that you didn’t just do fashion bags. You also did bags that would be used by companies? Businesses.
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 ; MS: No, they were fashion bags. They chose them out of a line. For instance, Mack Trucks, we didn’t make anything special for them other than fasten the bulldog on. They had to let us know beforehand because when we manufactured it, you didn’t want to put it through the lining on the inside, so we would put it through and then fill in the lining. So, it was just for them.
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 ; GE: But they were fashion bags? The materials that you were using, was it leather?
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 ; MS: Initially, we used the highest grade of vinyl, but expanded vinyl. I would defy anyone – without smelling – to tell if it’s leather or vinyl. The only way they can tell is if there happens to have a scratch on it then, it’s an animal. 0 3914 Silverstein's Partner—Izzy Bruch GE: So Marshall, you’re saying that the part of the business that you oversaw more was the financial and also the sales side. How about your brother-in-law?
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 ; MS: My brother-in-law took care of the manufacturing, and also he designed some bags, and he cut samples to make the bags. We had a high-class designer in New York, called Magda McKay. We had a line of Magda McKay bags.
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 ; SC: Is that Magda McKay?
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 ; MS: The name just came out. Do you know what they asked me, “What address was I born at.” And you know, I named it just like that.
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 ; GE: When your brother-in-law bought you out, did they stay in business for a long time?
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 ; MS: Not very long. They went bankrupt. 0 4050 Transitioning from Manufacturing to Sales/The End of the Business GE: When did you stop manufacturing, and why did you stop manufacturing?
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 ; MS: About thirty-five years ago – 1975/1980 – somewhere in that vicinity is when we stopped manufacturing. We were of the belief – we wanted to be “made in USA.” We went to that for years and found competition very, very strong because they [overseas] had it made for half price. Then one year JCPenney – these kinds of stores order six months in advance – not like Macy’s who wants it next week. JCPenney would ordinarily buy from me two, maximum three styles, because they couldn’t put all their eggs in one basket because they bought from many people. So if somebody failed to deliver, they are not out of business. This particular year, JCPenney walked in and loved everything we had and bought thirteen styles. Thirteen styles to us was overwhelming if we are going to continue to produce for Macy’s and Gimbels – so we had to go overseas. We went overseas, and we had these thirteen bags made by a factory, and the next year is when Samsung came to us. Why? Because they have company spies. They knew every style we made there, how many of each color, and they felt if I could sell ours then I could sell theirs. 0 4488 Handbags & ; Luggage (cont'd) GE: Tell us a little bit about the Outlet Stores? When did you start that? I know you said that actually became the largest part.
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 ; MS: Yes, and by the way, in the contract that I had with Samsung, it said that I would devote my prime hours to Samsung, and I’m the one who decides what the prime hours are. I devote my attention to it, but I could run this outlet store business. And the contract was drawn up legally, so the verbiage was good. Now, what was your question?
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 ; GE: With the outlet stores, I was wondering when that started, what did that trajectory look like?
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 ; MS: I would say it started about 1965/1970.
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 ; GE: Did there seem to be any conflict? In other words, did the other stores have a problem?
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 ; MS: No. I didn’t sell my merchandise or very little of my merchandise. I went into New York and just like Marshall’s did – buying excess inventory. I bought their inventory. 0 4804 End of the VF Anchor Store MS: I will tell you the story of the demise of our business. My partner wanted to expand and expand. I told him we don't have the wherewithal to do it and it's a wrong move. I told him that I would sell off the twelve stores other than VF and work VF, what do they call it today, 24-7. And, well that didn't happen, and so when I left, he started paying attention to new stores to open and he forgot about and didn't pay much attention to VF. And like I said before, VF was the bread and butter and the other ones were little cookies. VF was very proud of what they had. I remember walking in there with Nina about five months later, and I stood in the middle of the store, and I cried. And Nina said what's wrong. I said they are going to kick him out of here any day, and that's what happened. And that's what really triggered the demise of losing that anchor store. 0 4928 Impact of the Disappearance of the Textile Industry on the Lehigh Valley's Communities GE: Yeah, how do you think the broader community, not just the Lehigh Valley, has been affected by, but even maybe the broader area has been affected by the disappearance of this industry?
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 ; MS: I think it's been affected tremendously and when I say tremendously, I am thinking tremendously. There are no more businesses like we knew back then. Mom and pop factories. There were dozens of contractors around here. They weren't handbag contractors around here, but there were blouse contractors and blouse manufacturers and bathing suit manufacturers. There was a company called Neat-Knits who manufactured women's blouses. I forget the name of the other one, the bathing suits, and Mark Stutz's father was in that business and It's a whole different atmosphere now. There we counted on our fingers, we wrote numbers on a piece of paper and we added them up. Now, if you don't have an iPad and a computer, you can't do anything. 0 5181 Jewish Involvement in the Textile & ; Needle-Trade Industries GE: Why do you think the Jews tended to be overrepresented in this industry? Why do you think they were maybe overrepresented in this industry as opposed to any other industry? What do you think?
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 ; MS: I mentioned something before, and I'll say it again. To get into the garment trade you didn't have to have a lot of money comparatively to start a business. You couldn't start a steel mill if you didn't have money and you couldn't start a department store like Hudson's, if you didn't have money. But you could buy a table, and a pair of shears, and six sewing machines, and some thread and sew up. . . sew up blouses, sew up pocketbooks, sew up anything. And Jews tend to be entrepreneurs, and not many of them had money when they came out from the other country or whatever. And this gave them an opportunity to start their own business. 0 5268 Silverstein's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: I have a couple other questions, and one of them is, what has your family valued in life most and what do you value in life most?
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 ; MS: In one word it is FAMILY. I came from Los Angeles because I told you about my father-in-law asking me, but also our first child was born, and I felt children deserve grandparents and grandparents deserve grandchildren. And to this day, my family is everything. Oh, certainly, friends are very important, but family is primary.
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 ; SC: And what has made you feel the most creative, artistic in a metaphoric sense, but creative in life?
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 ; MS: Slightly focused, not slightly . . . I'm very focused on numbers. I can manipulate numbers. For my benefit, meaning, for instance, having thirteen stores. These thirteen stores, when you go in stores, people used to pay cash. Yeah, some credit card, some check, most paid cash. Now, there's a store in Texas, there's a store in Florida. You're not there, and I could tell you, I believe, every dollar that hit a cash register went into our till. 0 MovingImage Marshall Silverstein talks about how he and his brother-in-law joined Marshall’s father-in-law’s business making handbags in Pennsburg, PA. Marshall stayed in that business for 22 years. While running the factory, Marshall and his partner started an outlet handbag and luggage business in Reading, PA. They expanded to thirteen outlet stores. It was a very successful business. After retiring at age fifty, Marshall began doing financial consulting, first with First Valley Bank in Bethlehem, then with other customers. He did financial consulting for another twenty years. Interview with Marshall Silverstein, July 30, 2013 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: What is your full name? MARSHALL SILVERSTEIN: The name is Marshall Silverstein. I have a question. You talk about family, and you're here about business. My family was not in business, but my wife's family was in business. So we'll have to differentiate. SC: We'll talk about both. But, still, to see the family histories, this is a "life history" type of oral history also. MS: I was born in Brooklyn on August 18, 1931. Lived in Brooklyn with my parents and my sister and many family members. Whoever didn't have a home or didn't know what to do with their lives came to my mother, and she solved all their problems. At one time we had thirteen people living there and one bathroom! SC: Do you remember the address in Brooklyn? MS: The first one was 1256 56th Street -- amazing! Yes-- In Brooklyn Borough. Then we moved to 57th Street, 14th and 15th Avenue, I don't remember the address. Then we moved to 55th Street ; that address was 1341 55th Street. SC: Could you talk a little bit about your education and background-- going through until you came to Allentown and beyond? MS: I studied at the Hebrew Institute of Boro Park - which was a Modern Orthodox school. From there I went to Brooklyn Technical High School, which was one of the three most premier schools in the whole five boroughs. Unfortunately, I got sick during the second year and couldn't travel downtown any longer. So I went to New Utrecht High School. I finished up in the New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn. You want to know about jobs? During the time I went to New Utrecht High School, I delivered orders for the local vegetable man, during the week -- on a bicycle with a basket. GAIL EISENBERG: During high school? MS: Yes, and also worked in New York City, my junior year in high school, delivering laces throughout NYC by hand-truck. At the end of my senior year, I worked at the Pioneer Country Club in the Catskills as a busboy and a waiter. I worked there for about five years during the holidays and summers. From there -- the New Utrecht High School - I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology, which was located on one floor of a Central Needle Trade H.S. in NYC, and now occupies a whole square block in New York and is well known. When I graduated from there, I studied management for the needle trades. When I was in my senior term, it was a two year school, I got a call from the Dean of the engineering of the school, who had left the term before and went to York, PA to manage a women's clothing manufacturing facility, and he asked me if I would join him out there, and I did. I was there for six months and was drafted into the service. Notice I said drafted, not volunteered. That was the time of the Korean War. While I was over in Korea, I thought about my future life and thought a four-year degree might be helpful in the future, and I got a long life to live. So, I wrote a letter to Columbia University and told them I would like to study engineering, and they got back to me and said you have to send your files, grades, whatever information. I asked my mother to send them. Lo and behold they wrote back that I was accepted. This was for the February 1954 semester, because I left the service in December of 1953. Speaking of working, I wanted to make some money while I had off -- a month or so - I taught at a driving school -- automobile driving for a month -- it was very hazardous. I studied engineering, and after two years, Nina and I married, and we lived in Manhattan -- -within walking distance to the school. After graduating from school, I got a job in Los Angeles with North American Aviation in industrial engineering, which I had studied at Columbia. I was there a year when once again, my ego was pumped up by the leader of the department said he was leaving, and he asked me to come with him. We both went to Atomics International, where we manufactured atomic reactors for school and experimental purposes. An interesting thing was that I had to get a clearance for atomic energy, which is even higher than top secret. They invaded my block in Brooklyn, knocking on every door to find out, "Who was this guy? What has he done?" I was there for about a year, and I got a letter from my father-in-law, who manufactured handbags, saying his brother was retiring, and he would very much like for me to work with him. I had told him years before that I would. But after I was out on my own. I knew that I could make a living for my family without any help from anyone else. I would consider it - if he would. He said if you want to do it, this is the time to do it. I need the help now. GE: What year is this about? MS: The end of 1958. So, at the end of 1958, Nina and I had our first child. We packed up and moved to Allentown. My father-in-law had a handbag factory in Pennsburg. That is through my first 50 years of life -- working. When I was 50, my partner and I had a disagreement -- we were the best partners there could be, but he wanted to expand, and I just didn't feel it was worthwhile. We had two factories and six contractors -- and enough is enough. So we said, "Let's ask our kids if they have any interest." He had four kids, and four kids were interested. I had three kids and no kids were interested. I did the fair thing and said that he should be able to buy it from me, and he did. We closed the deal on a Friday afternoon, and I said, "I'm free now, I could be semi-retired. I could read books now". At two o'clock on Thursday afternoon, the next week, I was lying on that couch over there -- reading my book, and I got a call from First Valley Bank in Bethlehem. "Marshall, since you have nothing to do with your time, would you like to do some consulting for us?" I said, "Jim, I don't know what you are talking about." So he said, "Come on over, " and we talked. They had some small business loans that weren't performing. All they had were numbers to look at. They wanted to know why they weren't performing. I agreed with them, and I took my first assignment. From there on, I was a consultant -- no more lying on the couch, reading books. Then I met someone who was also a consultant. We became partners in a consulting business. I did that until the age of 70 --- it was good. There is something I left out -- from the manufacturing business. While we were in the manufacturing business, we started an outlet store and then multiplied those outlet stores by thirteen. It was a very successful business. SC: What was the name of the outlet store and the pocketbook business? MS: The name of the outlet stores was "Handbags and Luggage." We had a store here in Allentown. The major store was in Reading in the outlet stores. And, you're looking at the guy who talked them into opening that big outlet. They had that store there, and I tried to get into that store. It was all their own merchandise, and they wouldn't let me in. The CEO there was a very nice guy, Manfred O. Lee (nothing to do with the jeans that they produced.) I met him for breakfast once every couple of weeks, they had a cafeteria there. I tried to outline to him why it would be profitable with all the empty buildings that he had there because they sent their work down South to manufacture. He turned me down all the time. I got a call, he said, "Marshall, we will have a handbag store here before Christmas. Do you want to come in?" Sure, and that evolved from a handbag store to-- not mine, the handbag store was mine -- to furniture, everything you could think of, tools, whatever . . . very successful. One of the first outlet stores in the country, and I think it might have been the biggest at the time. As I said, consulting was my last hurrah. During all this that I told you about, I had my hands in about fifteen other businesses. When people needed money or advice, they asked me to become a partner. I became a partner-- not a working partner-- but with capital or input. It was very, very enjoyable getting along with all the people. SC: Could you also talk about your family background? And we'll go back to business then. Gail will go back to business. MS: Let me just finish off the business. The handbag business - we were bought out by Samsung. I had never heard the word before. They called me up ; they wanted me to sell the handbags. I said we were manufacturers, not salespeople. I would introduce them to whatever salespeople he wanted. When I first met him, I said, "Hello, Mr. Sung." He looked at me and said, "My name is not Sung. I represent Samsung." "Who is Samsung?" We all know who Samsung is today. GE: Although I didn't know about that type of product. MS: They were manufacturing handbags, but were unable to produce -- sell them where they wanted. They had heard about my sales ability -- not the mom and pop stores, but the shoe chains and major department stores -- that's where they wanted to go. SC: What major department stores? MS: Macy's, Gimbels, Korvette, everyone that you know of, we sold to. The best one was Marshalls. They made an agreement with me. They would buy all my leftovers when the season was over. This enabled me to produce to inventory for people like Macy's who placed an order and wanted the stuff the next week. SC: Could you talk a little about your family background? Your parents, grandparents, and names back as far as you know--and what they did and how they were educated. MS: My father was born in Austria and came here when he was a kid. My mother was born in NYC. I'll give you a little background. My grandfather, my father's father, must have been wealthy in Europe. They sent him to the United States to study, back in the early 1900s. After he finished studying, he went back to Europe. They financed him in a candy store. He ate the store broke! He ate up all the products! They came here -- my father was about ten years old, or something like that. My grandfather was in the piece goods business, selling remnants. GE: Material? MS: Yes. My father eventually did the same thing. He would go into one factory and see what they had leftover and go to another factory and tell them this is what I got? Do you want it? This is the price. So he'd go from one factory to another. My father's name was Herman, and my mother's name was Anna. His parents were Sam and Goldie. My mother's parents -- I do not know where they were born. My grandmother's name was Rifka Rachel. My grandfather's name -- I don't remember. I did not know what he did for a living. I know the first I knew of them, my grandmother was living in my house with us. SC: Were they from Austria? MS: I don't know. I have one sister named Doris. You don't want me to go into aunts and uncles? SC: So this was your mother's family? MS: Which? SC: That you've just been talking about. SC: How about your dad's side? MS: I told you about him, his name was Sam. SC: Do you know anything about your father's side? So, you don't know as much about your mother's side. MS: I do know something. They had a restaurant in lower NYC. That's the only thing I know. SC: So all that was your father's side of the family? MS: At first, I talked about my father's parents, who were Sam and Goldie. He was a piece goods guy. SC: So it's in your blood? Textiles and garment industry. MS: Not really, it was a means to make a living. I had no love for it or anything like that. Sure I liked it, but no love, nothing like that. SC: So, as far as any of the jobs, do you know any businesses or employment that any of your aunts and uncles worked in? Is there any connection with what we are looking at in the rest of the family? MS: In my father's family -- one of his brothers sold zippers. Another brother sold insurance, and.. he had two sisters. One sister was a housewife. The other sister had infantile paralysis when she was a kid, and she couldn't get around too much. She had to move to Arizona because of the weather. She remained single. My mother, on the other hand, had a sister. She was a housewife. She had a brother who was a customer peddler who sold house to house -- underwear and whatever have you. I'm trying to think of anybody else in my mother's family. My mother had a brother who was in the garment trade and made blouses. Another brother, who moved out to California, had a completely different life than we have here. I forget the relationship. One was a professor, another one was an attorney for all the stars out in Hollywood. He was a very handsome man. He was the youngest Colonel in the Air Force during WWII. He led one of Doolittle's wings over Tokyo. Really, that's about all I can think of. SC: It seems like a very high achieving family -- both sides. Can you talk about your wife's family, her background now, her family -- what you know about the family business? MS: Let's take her father, his name was William. He had a brother - they both worked in the handbag factory. Nina's mother -- her [last] name was Agaschevitz, shortened to Agus. A whole bunch of extremely intelligent people -- book-wise. [Nina's mother's family] One of them wasn't so smart on the streets. One was a doctor in Brooklyn. He was the smartest one of all. He studied the Tanakh and everything, all the books. He was a brilliant man. Another brother was a professor at Yeshiva University. GE: I'm sorry. These are Nina's siblings or Nina's parents' siblings? MS: Nina's mother's siblings. Another one was Jacob, who was a very well known and respected Rabbi in Baltimore. Another one was Paul. Unfortunately, he contracted Agent Orange in the service. He was an accountant, but he got affected by Agent Orange. She had another sister who was a housewife. Her name was Jean Bruch. Father's name was William Bruch. SC: Can you spell that? For the future, it's good to have names spelled. MS: Are you recording this whole thing? SC: Yes. MS: This is not to be shown to everybody for anything? It's for reference? SC: It's for our reference. It wouldn't be for many years that it will be used. To have it archived. These are histories that need to be preserved. What's your wife's full name? What is Nina's full name? MS: Her birth name or current? SC: Birth name. MS: Nina Silverstein. GE: Her name now is Silverstein, what was her birth name? MS: Bruch. But it wasn't Nina. It was Pauline. GE: So Nina is a nickname. MS: Yes, when she was born, one of her uncles -- the one afflicted with Agent Orange -- started calling her Nina or Ninya. Nina went to Shulamith School in Brooklyn. That's the same kind of school that I went to, only it was for girls, mine was for boys. Then she went to Ramaz in NYC for High School, and also college was City College of the City of New York, etc, etc. Nina did bookkeeping when she graduated school and while we were in California. She was a housewife until my youngest daughter was around eight years old. She was a leader of many organizations around town. She was going to lead a group of [Jewish] Federation people to Israel, but the plans fell through, much to her disliking. She came home and was crying. She had all these plans. SC: Can we talk about Nina and her background or what she did, and your children? MS: As I said, Nina was the leader of many organizations. In fact, she won the George Feldman Award. The George Feldman Award is for a leader under forty. She was supposed to win the first one, but they asked her to take the second one because Arnie Rapapport was turning forty, and he was second in line, and they wanted to get him in. With this trip that I told you about, she came home crying because this agency was not agreeing with her -- trying to think of his name-- head of the Federation at that time. GE: Ivan Schonfeld. MS: No, I'm talking about a volunteer. A lawyer, CPA, and a tax attorney -- I forget. They went into New York City to talk about it, and there was no cooperation. He told her to forget about the trip. He told the travel bureau (it was a wholesale travel bureau.) She came home and was crying because of all the work she had done. I said, "Do you still want to do it?" She said certainly. I said I'll fix it up for you. I called some man in New York -- he was the head of a wholesale travel agency. I sent her in, and she went in, and they had a wonderful trip. She wanted to go into the travel business. She went to school to study travel. She opened a travel agency with Sandy Zales. This goes back almost forty years. She was in business until ten years ago. SC: What was the name of the business? MS: Travel Team. We all had imaginations for naming. I named it Handbags and Luggage. She named it Travel Team. She did this for a long time. A lot of people were very happy with her service, and it was a successful agency. SC: A couple of questions - you talked a little bit about the Jewish community and her work in it, a little bit about your work in it, was there anything else that the two of you did within the community of Allentown and in the Jewish community? MS: Yes, most of our work, but not all of it, was in the Jewish community, as we were a minority, a very low percentage of the population, so any help you could do, you did. I, myself, was involved in many organizations, including B'nai B'rith, the Jewish War Veterans and most of all, the Jewish Day School. In fact, I was President of the Jewish Day School in the late 70's -- I don't remember the exact year. We were members of Temple Beth El. At Temple Beth El they asked me to be the President of the Cemetery Association, which I did for twenty-five to thirty years. It was a thankless job, everyone said, but for me, it gave me great pleasure because I didn't have to go to meetings or anything like that. I did the work, raised a lot of money. We had lot sales [burial plots]. Were you around at that time? GE: No -- or I don't know--.. MS: Lot Sales -- I had a map of the cemetery in my office, downstairs. People came in and picked a cemetery lot. Do you want a funny story? This girl comes in -- we won't mention names -- she looks at the map, and she says, "Let me get my father." Her father was out in the car. So, she shows dad a cemetery lot and says, "What about over here for you and mom." He says, "I think I'd like it over there." This went back and forth. "Pop. What goes here? A pinochle player, a cigar smoker, whatever, I think this would be good for you." He finally said okay.. . but I have to show it to mom. Mom was out in the car. Mom came down and agreed with him and everything. "It's fine--.but she would rather be where the daughter said." After a while mom died, he called me up, "remember the side that I wanted? Let's put her over there." And I'm telling you, if I knew what was going to happen with all these stories down there, I'd have had a tape recorder. We would never have a problem with the budget in Temple Beth El because it would be a hit Broadway show! SC: Since you've come to Allentown, and of course you were married when you came to Allentown, how do you think the Lehigh Valley has changed in these years? MS: When I came to Allentown, it was a sleepy little town. You could virtually cross Tilghman Street with your eyes closed. There were no cars coming from either way. Today, it ain't so baby! At one time, I would say that I knew every Jewish person in town. We were members of three Synagogues. Ultimately, we broke it down to one. It was a wonderful, wonderful community. Everybody was for each other. Now I don't know, maybe it's because of our age. I know very few people as compared to that time. But Nina and I were involved in all the Crosses: the Blue Cross, the Green Cross, the Red Cross, whatever. SC: What were the names of the Synagogues that you belonged to? Which Synagogue did you join? MS: The main one was Temple Beth El, also Sons of Israel and Knesseth Israel (KI as it's currently known.) We were very much involved with the Jewish community. We had a daughter, and when she graduated from college, she toured Europe and went to Israel and liked it there and settled there. We have been to Israel numerous times before. Between my daughter and whatever we were, we have been to Israel about thirty times. SC: Do you think there is a reason that the next generation isn't staying in Allentown? At least that's what we've been hearing over and over again, that people have moved away, your children's generation. MS: Let's take a look, what was the leading industry? When we moved here, one of the leading industries - I'm not talking about Air Products, Bethlehem Steel, or whatever. The industries that I knew were the garment trade industry. All those people that you talked about at the meeting at the JCC I know or knew all of them intimately--it's not so anymore. When the kids grew up, like my kids, this one is a mathematician, this one is a business person. I guess they don't have the opportunity in Allentown like they have in Washington, DC -- where one of them is. SC: What is that child's name in Washington? MS: Elissa Drucker. Another one in Palo Alto, California, in the midst of -- what do you call that industry? GE: High Tech? MS: High Tech Industry. You walk down the street, and there is the head of Microsoft - shopping in the same store and drugstores. You don't have that anymore. The last one of them was Bell Labs, part of Western Electric. It's a different kind of town. SC: Is that a son or daughter in California? MS: That's a daughter. SC: What's her name? MS: Lori Blum. And then I have a son, Ronald, who is with Amtrak for about twenty-five years. Each one of them has been in their job and never changed. GE: Which one lives in Israel? MS: Lori. About ten years ago, she and her family moved to Palo Alto because her husband felt, and rightfully so, that the education was better here -- more opportunities. GE: So they originally lived in Israel and then moved to California? MS: Yes. Take a look at Hamilton Street. You used to go down to Hess's and go shopping there. They had sales--you stood at the door at 4:00 am. You ran to the refrigerator and wrapped your arms around it until the clerk came. There's no such thing anymore. There's no strawberry pie like we had at Hess's downstairs. The other stores were Zollinger and Leh's. Now we go out to the concrete malls with the fountains--no more chandeliers. To me, it's just a different atmosphere. Look where I live. I live at 22nd and Highland. I've lived here almost fifty years now. We had neighbors, they all picked up and (I won't say it) moved to the other side of Cedar Crest Boulevard. Instead of a 2,000 foot house, they have a 4,000-foot house. Instead of a Ford, they have a Lexus and whatever have you. This didn't interest me or Nina. And it's different. GE: I just want to ask some more questions about the business. You said this was your father-in-law - do you want to tell me about the origins of the business? MS: My father-in-law, I can't tell you why he started the business, but I can imagine. These garment trades -- it didn't take too much money. You bought a couple of sewing machines and put them in the basement and got your wife to sew. He was manufacturing in Connecticut. He had a problem with the Union there. He had a contractor who was making handbags for him in Pennsburg. He was manufacturing in Connecticut, and he might have had one of two other contractors. The plant in Pennsburg -- the company- went bankrupt. He got permission from the Referee in Bankruptcy to go into the [Pennsburg] factory and finish off all the bags that they had there. GE: So they were in Chapter 11? MS: Yeah the ones in Pennsburg--.no maybe Chapter 7 or 13 -Going out of business. He went in there and finished off the bags, and he liked the setup -- the life in Pennsburg very much. Between that and the Union in Connecticut, he decided to close in Connecticut and made a deal with the Referee in Bankruptcy and bought all the machines and equipment in Pennsburg, and rented the building in Pennsburg, where he manufactured handbags. What happened in 1958, he wrote me a letter--. GE: Right, that's when you entered. MS: I was in Pennsburg, we were there five or ten years of my time. There became a building available in Red Hill. We bought it at auction, and we owned our own building in Red Hill. That's where we manufactured most of our years of the business. Unfortunately, while we were there, my older daughter (who was about ten years old) was in a Hanukkah play at the Jewish Day School. My father-in-law went to see it, then he left for Brooklyn where his wife lived. I didn't mention, his wife lived in Brooklyn all the time. He stayed in Pennsburg during the week, and she came out for the summertime. So he would go home for the weekends. Hanukkah (is in December), so this is the winter, and unfortunately, he was killed in a car accident on the way home. So we kept the plant going --in Red Hill -- until we sold out to Samsung. GE: I've heard the name Pennsburg, but where is that? MS: Route 29 towards the end. There was a big difference between the two people. One was an entrepreneur, and one was a worker. My father-in-law was an entrepreneur and a very hard worker. GE: And his brother worked for him? MS: Yes. GE: Did you mention that you had a partner? MS: Yes, that is Nina's brother. He was at the factory when I got there. He had been working several years before I got there. GE: Your father-in-law was the originator, and then his brother worked for him. Did you become a partner or owner? MS: Not while my father-in-law was alive. We were workers there, and after he died, obviously, we became the owners. GE: That was you and Nina's brother. MS: Yes, Izzy Bruch. GE: Were there any other family members in the business? MS: No. GE: Did your brother-in-law also live in the area? MS: Yes. GE: Does he still live here in the area? MS: No, he moved to Florida a few years ago. GE: But up until that time, he lived here. So you made pocketbooks. Were they under store labels? MS: It was under the name we named them, which was "Charisma la Sac." GE: Is that two words? MS: Three words. GE: Charisma la Sac. When I see the name today, I see the name La Sac. MS: In that industry, everybody copied from everybody else. It wasn't patented or copyrighted. GE: So it was under your own brand name, not a store brand. MS: No, No, No. GE: You made pocketbooks. Were there other related products that you made? MS: Amy, can you show her the double umbrella? Do we have it hanging there? We had these things made for us, not that we made it. This is the first one. GE: Oh my goodness, I have never seen one. It's interesting. MS: We had a line of bags and umbrellas where we personalized it with your name. GE: Was it personalized by an embroiderer? Or some sort of marker? MS: Yes. A girl with beautiful handwriting. GE: Like a calligrapher. You were a manufacturer, so did you have your own sales force? MS: Absolutely! When you say a sales force, we had a couple salesmen on our payroll, but most of the salespeople were on commission. GE: They were reps, sales reps? MS: Yes, all over the country. GE: And they represented your merchandise as well as others. MS: Correct. GE: How large were you? How many people worked there? MS: In the factory in Red Hill? GE: About? MS: I'm just trying to picture it--.70. For a while, we had another factory in Wilkes-Barre. But we really depended on contractors to fill what we couldn't produce. GE: Like load-leveling? I guess it's called. MS: Right. GE: About how many contractors did you use? MS: We had six. GE: What part of the business did you oversee? MS: I oversaw the business end of the business. GE: Are you saying the financials? MS: Yes, the financials. The sales to large companies, for instance. I had an entry into Macy's warehouse. At Macy's warehouse I would see the inventories they had, and I would write up orders to six to eight stores. At that time they were all over the country. I sold to bigger accounts. GE: Was that you and a couple of salespeople? Did you do the bigger accounts, and the salespeople do the smaller ones? MS: And they did bigger accounts, too. The ones in New York -- I did most of them. They had their cronies that they sold to ..and all over. They did good jobs. You know these golf tournaments that they have? We made bags for Bob Hope Golf Tournaments and things like that. GE: Do you mean golf bags? MS: No, I mean pocketbooks. They have volunteers at the tournament -- so if you are a volunteer, they might give you a t-shirt and a handbag as thanks. We did a lot of bags for Mack Trucks -- we put Bulldogs all over the place. We had Mr. Hanson drive out to Red Hill in his limousine and pick up bags because they were hurting at that moment. GE: And who is Mr. Hanson? MS: The Chairman of Mack Trucks. It was very strange to see a limousine pull up to a shipping dock. GE: So, therefore, what you're telling me is that you didn't just do fashion bags. You also did bags that would be used by companies? Businesses. MS: No, they were fashion bags. They chose them out of a line. For instance, Mack Trucks, we didn't make anything special for them other than fasten the bulldog on. They had to let us know beforehand because when we manufactured it, you didn't want to put it through the lining on the inside, so we would put it through and then fill in the lining. So, it was just for them. GE: But they were fashion bags? The materials that you were using, was it leather? MS: Initially, we used the highest grade of vinyl, but expanded vinyl. I would defy anyone -- without smelling -- to tell if it's leather or vinyl. The only way they can tell is if there happens to have a scratch on it then, it's an animal. And we also made bags of leather. We made both. We also made bags that sold for three dollars a long time ago. Fabric and cheaper vinyl. GE: And all with the same name? MS: Initially, before we got fancy. It was Make Well Leather Goods Company. And then when we got fancy, we changed it to Charisma La Sac. We even had some designers. GE: But, whether it was the three-dollar bag or fifty dollar bag -- it all was the same brand name? MS: The three dollar bag went out of the business. We stuck to the higher priced ones. GE: So Marshall, you're saying that the part of the business that you oversaw more was the financial and also the sales side. How about your brother-in-law? MS: My brother-in-law took care of the manufacturing, and also he designed some bags, and he cut samples to make the bags. We had a high-class designer in New York, called Magda McKay. We had a line of Magda McKay bags. SC: Is that Magda McKay? MS: The name just came out. Do you know what they asked me, "What address was I born at." And you know, I named it just like that. GE: When your brother-in-law bought you out, did they stay in business for a long time? MS: Not very long. They went bankrupt. GE: About how many years later? MS: About three quarters of a year. It was our difference in philosophy that he wanted, and I said we couldn't do it. He wanted to be the King -- at this point, we were not manufacturing any longer. We had the retail stores -- the discount stores. He wanted to be "King of the Discount Stores." We didn't have the foundation to support it. GE: When did you stop manufacturing, and why did you stop manufacturing? MS: About thirty-five years ago -- 1975/1980 -- somewhere in that vicinity is when we stopped manufacturing. We were of the belief -- we wanted to be "made in USA." We went to that for years and found competition very, very strong because they [overseas] had it made for half price. Then one year JCPenney -- these kinds of stores order six months in advance -- not like Macy's who wants it next week. JCPenney would ordinarily buy from me two, maximum three styles, because they couldn't put all their eggs in one basket because they bought from many people. So if somebody failed to deliver, they are not out of business. This particular year, JCPenney walked in and loved everything we had and bought thirteen styles. Thirteen styles to us was overwhelming if we are going to continue to produce for Macy's and Gimbels -- so we had to go overseas. We went overseas, and we had these thirteen bags made by a factory, and the next year is when Samsung came to us. Why? Because they have company spies. They knew every style we made there, how many of each color, and they felt if I could sell ours then I could sell theirs. GE: So If I understand correctly, Samsung then became the manufacturer, and you really became the distribution channel for them? MS: No, No, No, Samsung was a manufacturer. They couldn't sell anything. They had this idle production, they made bags for us. We still sold it on the "Charisma la Sac" -- that was it. GE: After that, you basically gave them entry into those stores. And, they provided the merchandise for you. MS: What they did was they bought our factory so we couldn't produce anymore. They bought our name, and they bought me. They wouldn't even buy my partner. But I said I wouldn't go without my partner. They said, "You sign a contract with us, and we have to send it to Korea, and if approved, you can do anything you want here -- you can hire your partner." So I had a three-year contract. After about a year and a half, I was called to their office in New Jersey -- located right before the George Washington Bridge. The President of Samsung America and his wife and family attended one of our Seder's here -- that's how close we were. But, an outfit like that is all business. Not necessarily smart. They called me in, and I got there maybe ten o'clock in the morning. The secretary said your partner is on the phone. He said, "Guess what? We got security here with canine dogs. Samsung has taken over the warehouse." I said, " yeah?" "What should I do?" he says. I told him to go to our lawyer, who is around the corner. I told him to get a "Cease and desist." I went into the meeting, and they told me very politely, "Your services are no longer necessary." So I was literally fired. Why? Well, you got us into Irving Shoes, got us into Sears, we're in J.C. Penney's, we're here, we're there, we're everywhere. Why do we need you? And they were right, providing they had inventory. But, I was dealing now with six months in advance orders. What they found out was they weren't buying Samsung, they were buying me -- on my word. In other words, they had explicit faith [in me], that over all these years, I delivered what and when I said I would deliver! They couldn't take the chance to find out about these guys, and they were out of business in the handbag business. The rest of the business should be mine - the sugar mines, the salt mines, they manufacture trains, everything! They were out of business. They couldn't get the business. GE: Tell us a little bit about the Outlet Stores? When did you start that? I know you said that actually became the largest part. MS: Yes, and by the way, in the contract that I had with Samsung, it said that I would devote my prime hours to Samsung, and I'm the one who decides what the prime hours are. I devote my attention to it, but I could run this outlet store business. And the contract was drawn up legally, so the verbiage was good. Now, what was your question? GE: With the outlet stores, I was wondering when that started, what did that trajectory look like? MS: I would say it started about 1965/1970. GE: Did there seem to be any conflict? In other words, did the other stores have a problem? MS: No. I didn't sell my merchandise or very little of my merchandise. I went into New York and just like Marshall's did -- buying excess inventory. I bought their inventory. GE: I thought it was for your product. It wasn't for your product? MS: Well we had some of our products there. GE: That wasn't the bulk. MS: We had a vast store in Reading, and we also sold luggage. We didn't manufacture the luggage, but we sold almost as much luggage as we did handbags. Better names. SC: Was that the hey-day of Reading as an outlet center? MS: When I started there, it was the one store. After I started there, they added stores - then it became their hey-day. And believe me - I got plenty of thanks from them. It was quite an accomplishment! GE: So you were there before Lee? MS: NO, NO, NO, Lee is VF. They had their store - a big, tremendous store. Then they put stores in all the buildings that they had. GE: This is in the other buildings. I know that there still is a luggage store. That's the store you started. MS: Right now, the President of VF there is also the President of Samsonite. GE: Basically, you're saying that the business model was that you bought inventory -- the leftover inventory from some of the different manufacturers at the end of their season. MS: Not necessarily at the end of their season. Whenever I walked in, they had plenty to sell. GE: But you were able to get them at a better price. MS: Oh, a much better price. Most of it was for cash. I used to go to Merchant's bank -- every Monday afternoon, I got $25,000.00 in cash. That's when a dollar was something. I went into New York and bought what I could. On Wednesday, I went back and deposited into the account what I didn't spend. GE: Are there any other stories? Interesting stories, whether it's about the outlets or the handbag manufacturer -- that you want to share with us? MS: Some stuff I don't want to talk about. I'll talk about... I told you the story of Samsung. I will tell you the story of the demise of our business. My partner wanted to expand and expand. I told him we don't have the wherewithal to do it and it's a wrong move. I told him that I would sell off the twelve stores other than VF and work VF, what do they call it today, 24-7. And, well that didn't happen, and so when I left, he started paying attention to new stores to open and he forgot about and didn't pay much attention to VF. And like I said before, VF was the bread and butter and the other ones were little cookies. VF was very proud of what they had. I remember walking in there with Nina about five months later, and I stood in the middle of the store, and I cried. And Nina said what's wrong. I said they are going to kick him out of here any day, and that's what happened. And that's what really triggered the demise of losing that anchor store. But the only thing I could think of . . . nothing from him-- I'm a very even person. GE: Yeah, how do you think the broader community, not just the Lehigh Valley, has been affected by, but even maybe the broader area has been affected by the disappearance of this industry? MS: I think it's been affected tremendously and when I say tremendously, I am thinking tremendously. There are no more businesses like we knew back then. Mom and pop factories. There were dozens of contractors around here. They weren't handbag contractors around here, but there were blouse contractors and blouse manufacturers and bathing suit manufacturers. There was a company called Neat-Knits who manufactured women's blouses. I forget the name of the other one, the bathing suits, and Mark Stutz's father was in that business and It's a whole different atmosphere now. There we counted on our fingers, we wrote numbers on a piece of paper and we added them up. Now, if you don't have an iPad and a computer, you can't do anything. Yeah. And I'll tell you, we will have one of the first manufacturers that had a computer. And I respect that. But you can't rely on that to do everything for you. GE: How about even just the economic well-being of this community? Do you think it's been altered or things move on. MS: It's hard for me to say because I'm on one side of town, and I'm not affected too much about the economy over here. Not too much affected, but I've seen the other side of town, the people starving. They're on welfare, they're on food stamps, they're on unemployment. And we didn't have that back then. We sure had some minor stuff, but not the overwhelming majority. Because I know some guy is now completing his third year of unemployment, not because there isn't a job available. He makes more money on unemployment than he would make working. The economy. Look what happened to downtown Allentown. When . . . it went to Hell. Starting with the Americus Hotel, which used to be a beautiful hotel. It gave me an opportunity. I did a lot of real estate, I bought buildings for a song downtown. When I say a song, I mean a song. Maybe it's going to pick up now with the new arena, the rebuilding of Allentown. But it's now which mall am I going to go to. GE: Are you still involved in the real estate down there? MS: No, I sold everything when Nina got dementia, severe dementia. I felt it's time to forget about that and pay attention to my wife. SC: So were you an investor in the Americus Hotel? MS: No, no, no, no, no. I had a building right across the street. SC: Oh, OK. MS: That's why that came to mind. GE: Why do you think the Jews tended to be overrepresented in this industry? GE: Why do you think they were maybe overrepresented in this industry as opposed to any other industry? What do you think? MS: I mentioned something before, and I'll say it again. To get into the garment trade you didn't have to have a lot of money comparatively to start a business. You couldn't start a steel mill if you didn't have money and you couldn't start a department store like Hudson's, if you didn't have money. But you could buy a table, and a pair of shears, and six sewing machines, and some thread and sew up. . . sew up blouses, sew up pocketbooks, sew up anything. And Jews tend to be entrepreneurs, and not many of them had money when they came out from the other country or whatever. And this gave them an opportunity to start their own business. GE: Good. Good. SC: I have a couple other questions, and one of them is, what has your family valued in life most and what do you value in life most? MS: In one word it is FAMILY. I came from Los Angeles because I told you about my father-in-law asking me, but also our first child was born, and I felt children deserve grandparents and grandparents deserve grandchildren. And to this day, my family is everything. Oh, certainly, friends are very important, but family is primary. SC: And what has made you feel the most creative, artistic in a metaphoric sense, but creative in life? MS: Slightly focused, not slightly . . . I'm very focused on numbers. I can manipulate numbers. For my benefit, meaning, for instance, having thirteen stores. These thirteen stores, when you go in stores, people used to pay cash. Yeah, some credit card, some check, most paid cash. Now, there's a store in Texas, there's a store in Florida. You're not there, and I could tell you, I believe, every dollar that hit a cash register went into our till. I don't know how many dollars didn't hit the cash register because you know employee theft is higher than customer theft. What I did was I had detectives come in to try and steal something and see how observant people were. I had-- what do they call it-- subliminal music in the stores, made and created for us. GE: Wait a minute, for what purpose was the music? MS: The subliminal part said stealing wins you a trip to jail. Are you by any chance chewing gum, and that's for the employees. Are there any bulbs out in the store? Anything I wanted to get to them that was important. GE: Interesting. MS: Just like when you go to the movie theater, they may blow the popcorn your way and don't they sell the Coke subliminally? Yes, they do. But I was able to maneuver money. When I need money, people wanted to invest. I wouldn't have any of it. I would go to the bank. Work with banks. I did very well with them. In fact, the Temple that we built, they asked me to get the money to build it. I got a deal for the Temple, the bankers didn't believe existed. One of our members owns part of a bank, he wouldn't believe the contract that we got. I said I'll show it to you in writing when I have it. And then the Temple asked me to monitor the spending of the money and keep track of it, etc. I said, only if you let me set up my system with the. . . I wouldn't do it without it. Oh, certainly,what's the big deal? The big deal is you have people working for you that are going to protest. Sure enough, they did, because the checks and balances that were in there were unbelievable, and it was after, just after, two outfits,a synagogue and a JCC, I think,in Philadelphia were hit by their executive director and where a lot of money was stolen. This money that we took in, it was virtually impossible for anybody to get away with it. They might get away with it for a month until you got your statement saying you owe one hundred dollars. Well, I gave you fifty last time. Well, we don't have the 50. That just couldn't happen. I'm very happy that we went through this over, what, a five year period or something. Nobody said, hey, you intermingled money, where's this hundred dollars from there? So I'm good with money. In fact, my consulting business was mainly getting money for businesses from banks-- not insurance companies, not loan sharks, from banks. And when I walked in, I said,they are good for the money. I'm not saying they didn't check, you know, but they felt confident. Other times I said the bank could beware, but you're on your own. You know, I'm just bringing them to you. GE: And so, in a sense, your comparative advantage or your strength that way is that you're really savvy and you really understand the inner-workings of the financial statements in a way and really understanding the money flows. SC: And that is artistic. Yeah. Oh, that is artistic. GE: Yeah, it is. 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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Marshall Silverstein, July 30, 2013
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Marshall Silverstein talks about how he and his brother-in-law joined Marshall’s father-in-law’s business making handbags in Pennsburg, PA. Marshall stayed in that business for 22 years. While running the factory, Marshall and his partner started an outlet handbag and luggage business in Reading, PA. They expanded to thirteen outlet stores. It was a very successful business. After retiring at age fifty, Marshall began doing financial consulting, first with First Valley Bank in Bethlehem, then with other customers. He did financial consulting for another twenty years.
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2013-07-30
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archies
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
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Bruce Sheftel
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5.4 May 31st, 2017 Bruce Sheftel, May 31st, 2017 LVTNT-15 1:52:28 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Bruce Sheftel Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SheftelBruce_20170531 1.0:|27(2)|44(7)|63(3)|82(2)|133(12)|148(13)|167(2)|184(12)|207(3)|226(2)|249(3)|268(8)|289(2)|306(3)|323(4)|342(3)|361(2)|376(15)|393(4)|412(4)|429(17)|448(7)|467(2)|482(8)|499(8)|516(4)|535(5)|556(7)|575(2)|600(2)|623(7)|640(13)|663(3)|682(5)|705(5)|728(8)|753(2)|776(4)|803(2)|824(13)|841(4)|852(13)|873(3)|892(16)|911(13)|932(7)|953(2)|970(11)|989(12)|1010(16)|1031(8)|1050(11)|1071(15)|1090(9)|1107(16)|1124(14)|1147(7)|1162(15)|1181(14)|1202(14)|1227(3)|1242(7)|1263(2)|1282(6)|1301(4)|1322(15)|1341(7)|1360(10)|1383(11)|1402(16)|1425(7)|1448(7)|1469(2)|1496(16)|1513(12)|1530(6)|1541(17)|1558(11)|1581(5)|1602(4)|1623(12)|1642(14)|1665(15)|1686(18)|1707(6)|1726(15)|1753(2)|1778(4)|1807(3)|1826(3)|1849(14)|1870(3)|1891(2)|1904(12)|1919(13)|1938(13)|1953(14)|1968(15)|1987(8)|2006(14)|2027(6)|2040(3)|2051(15)|2068(11)|2087(3)|2104(7)|2127(2)|2138(12)|2157(10)|2174(13)|2197(9)|2216(11)|2233(7) 0 https://youtu.be/Gt_KrnwLhJ0 YouTube video 21 Introduction—Bruce Sheftel SC: Today is May 31st, 2017, an interview with Bruce Sheftel. And Bruce, I'm going to start by asking you your information, then go back to your family history. So what is your full name? Where were you born and where do you live?
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 ; BS: My full name is Bruce Howard Sheftel. I was born in Allentown and I've lived now in- outside of Philadelphia and in- I have a small apartment in New York. And yeah.
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 ; SC: What town outside of Philadelphia? 
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 ; BS: BlueBell — BlueBell, Pennsylvania. 0 64 Education SC: What is your education history? 
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 ; BS: I started in Allentown with elementary school at the Jewish Community Center and then Muhlenberg Elementary School and the Wright School, which was a nursery school. And my- I think my education was sort of like a woodier sampler. I went from there to the Jewish Day School for six years and on to Raub Junior High School. In Raub Junior High School, I was hit by a car in my ninth year, the beginning of my ninth year, and spent that year at home with a broken leg. So in the year of what would have been my- the end of my ninth grade, I went to summer school at Hun School in Princeton, New Jersey. They conditionally accepted me, and I went there for ninth grade again and left after a year, which- came back to Allentown, went to Moravian Prep and made sure we closed that school down. And I was in the last graduating class, but I didn't have two credits, had a disagreement with the school about what classes I was permitted to take, so I then went to Philadelphia and got my high school degree from- with two credits from Penn Charter School, I think it was, at 13th and Arch. So I was a little independent. I didn't go to college in the traditional way. I think, ten or fifteen years later, I went to, first, Harvard Business School — [they] had a special program. And while I was there, I enrolled- found myself accepted at Antioch College in an extension program. And I was- I graduated in the last year that they operated. So I have sort of a history of closing schools or at least attending the last year that they- they operate. So I graduated with a degree in business from Antioch — Business Administration. Then the Harvard experience was not degreed, it was predicated on experience and it was called the OPM Program--Owner/ President Management, which was an extension of their School of Advanced Management. 0 302 1969-72: Pursuing an Experiential Education by Traveling Through the U.S. and Abroad SC: [C]ould you talk now about where you have work — you were talking a little bit about your education and if you have more, go on — but then where you have worked and the type of work that you did and do?
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 ; BS: Yeah. When I was finishing high school, the world that we lived in had a war in Vietnam that I had no real interest in visiting. I liked traveling, but the accommodations and the body bag coming back seemed a little cramped for me. So I left high school in the summer of I think it was 1969 and traveled across the country. I took my parents’ car, left them mine, and traveled across the country. And when I came back I met a psychiatrist I had been seeing through most of my senior year of school who told me about a square rig sailing ship, which was equivalent to the Coast Guard Eagle. This was a large training vessel for Merchant Marines. And what I didn't know was that he had put his two children on this boat, two of his three- four children. And I didn't know they were having lots of trouble — and the kinds of trouble, I mean, really almost mimicked what was going on in the country in 1970. 0 526 1972-1978: From Carpentry to Photography—Learning from Lisette Model BS: I came back to the United States in 1972 and I was looking for work. I was very concerned with connecting my head to my hands, and I had become a carpenter in the meantime and started building furniture. And long- this is probably ‘72, ‘74, I kind of wandered around the country and worked in various jobs, built furniture, as I said, built houses, but mostly moving towards art. And sometime in the- around ‘73, ‘74, after staying a year in New Hampshire building furniture, I revisited an old interest, which was photography, and found myself in New York City, 1974, an apartment on the Bowery — not an apartment, a loft — and spent the next- well, until today, photographing. But I was the town photographer for Huntington, Long Island, and studied with a woman who — for those people in the photography industry would know her, she was Diane Arbus’s mentor, teacher, friend — and that was Lisette Model. And Lisette had a master class I knew very little about, and when I went to show her my pictures, I didn't realize I was like number 19 in line, and there were two-hundred forty people outside that I didn't realize. And she- I was the first person she chose to join her class and that really set the stage for me. This is the first person who recognized that there was something I was- I was about that was of interest to them. 0 646 1978: Returning to Work for the Family Business BS: And when she heard that my family had a business, she encouraged me to return to that business, but to continue photographing ; and the way she constructed that was that commercial photography would sap the creative juice from you, and if you could prevent that from happening, by working elsewhere and not depending on working as a photographer, but photographing life as a photographer — we would call that being an artist today — that was the better trip. And she didn't know my family, she didn't know what she was telling me to do, and I followed her advice, much to my own chagrin at various times. So by around about 1978 or ‘79, I believe I began working for my family in an office they had in New York City, came back to Allentown really over my objections, but now as part of the family, so I did what the business in the end did. I came back, worked in the factory in Allentown, understood what was going on. 0 918 Early 2000s: Decline of the Textile Waste Industry in the U.S. BS: That continued until my father sold his half of the business to my cousins in around 2005. And since that time I continued as a photographer, mostly an art photographer, portrait photographer. And the industry of wiping clothes, textile waste really left the United States ; our manufacturing, which was the source of the material, left the United States. Papermaking that used that kind of process had already dwindled to almost only two factories. And they became- they came under pressure to bring some of the security elements that they were already selling in other countries to the American currency. So those things all kind of came together in about 2005. My cousins operated the- parts of the business individually, and I believe the trading of fiber pretty much came to an end in 2012. There is still a portion of the business that my cousin conducts, but ironically, there's no American presence. He has employees in Honduras and sells from Honduras to- whether it's Italy or Spain or- and- I'm not quite sure at this point how that all has migrated, but we really don't have that industry here any longer.
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 ; SC: Is that because some European countries want better quality paper, value ink? Rag-based?
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 ; BS: No. 0 1035 "Turning Rages into Riches into Rages"—History of Textile Waste in the U.S. BS: When we call paper “rag-based paper”, they're really talking about cellulose fibers, so whether it comes from- our understanding of what cotton was went something along the lines that if you grow cotton, the best of it goes to the manufacture of thread and yarn, and what's left, the thrums and the portion of the cotton plant that has seeds and little pieces of dirt motes, that's what they were called, they were second grade and third grade fibers. And the paper companies used to buy this, clean it, and then process it as cotton- cotton rag paper. Our — I don't think it was Sheftel & ; Sons particularly — but the concept that we came to was- for many years, people used used clothing to make paper because all clothing was made from cotton. But as that became more complex, there were buttons which was great, you snip them off and you had a rag that was all cotton, put it in a big vat of caustic and it would come apart and the fibers would float and there you had the beginning of your paper. But as clothing became more complicated, the zippers replaced simple buttons, and sometime in the ‘60s and ‘70s — I mean, already we had moved away from using used clothes — but the company that made cotton-based social papers and our currency was Crane & ; Company, and Elias Crane went to the Congress and said no- no confederation can be a true country without their own control of currency, and sold them the idea that they should make paper. The Crane and- Crane & ; Company has made the currency for the United States ever since — since 1873. 0 2347 Origins of the Family Business—Abraham Sheftel GE: So, let's just go to the beginning, the origins of the business as far back as you know. And I don't know if that starts with your father- grandfather, but if you just want to tell us a little bit the origins of the business and how that progressed, and then we'll talk more about the business as it was, the later incarnation of the business.
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 ; BS: You know in our family, we did not really speak about my grandfather's family, where he came from — the interest in our historical origins is probably typical of other families? But what I understood was that my grandfather, who was born on the Russian border or Polish border, never quite clear, as a 16-17 year old was pursued by the Red or the White Army and essentially was a draft dodger who had some brothers and sisters who had come to the United States. And as I understood it, he had some relatives in upstate New York around where the Concord Hotel used to be, and they were in the egg business. I don't know what the family business was, I am told that it may have been beef, but I- whether they had 10 cows or two steers in the front yard, I have never been able to clarify. But my grandfather came to this country in probably 1914 or 1917, and went to Chicago and worked as a butcher, and had some relatives who had a restaurant in New York called the Black Angus and somehow settled back in Allentown. 0 2740 Recycling of Cotton Fibers BS: There's another side of the story which I'm very curious about and don't know the answer to, which is why the New York Jews came to the Lehigh Valley to establish the underwear companies, for instance, that the Lesavoys or other families did. Whether it was the labor pool or what, but my father was in a cycle of business that they created waste, he took the waste away, and there was a use for that waste — it [was] truly recycling. Ironically, when people spoke about recycling in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, my father had very little respect for the conversation because we're talking about a hundred million dollar companies where they were recycling scrap or steel, and rags were never mentioned — fiber recycling, I don't think was ever mentioned in the- in the fiber industry news and some of these other publications. It was recycling of steel mostly. So it's kind of ironic that my father was truly in a recycling business that had a product, the client, purpose. But really no- no- no presence, even during a national recognition of this as being something valuable. 0 2826 History of the Family Business (cont'd) BS: So my grandfather simply found a need — people needed to have this waste taken away and, on the other side, people had a raw material requirement, fiber, that was the waste of these other people. So, you know, it always was interesting when we filled out tax returns, were we manufacturers or were we distributors? And of course we answered the question in a way that was advantageous to us. If there was more tax to be paid for a manufacturer, we were distributors. If there were less taxes to be paid for manufacturer, then we manufactured. But the actual process was visualizing how the product that was waste from one industry could be used as the raw material in another. 
 ; 
 ; And there are several stories that float through the family about fabric that we just had no idea what to do with, and many of these ideas precede me, although I did in my own time make use of this story. But a- it's a story of during the Second World War, when nylon was first produced, and my family had 30 truckloads of this material that no one knew what to do with, and they began taking it to the dump, which my grandfather started in 1917. This- we're talking about 1946. He already had a Cadillac. He had a- a building that he bought in 1931 during the Depression on 15th and Sumner Avenue. I suppose my grandfather thought of himself as quite a success, and the idea of taking something to the dump and paying to have it take- taken away was just antithetical. 0 3027 Milton Sheftel—Expanding Operations to Greenville, SC BS: And as I say, my grandfather got his truck probably in 1919. They had a building, I believe it was on Front Street in Allentown, by 1940- by 1931, they bought out of bankruptcy the Bear Manufacturing, which was a furniture company, at 15th and Sumner Avenue, and operated that until they bought a- a ribbon mill, which I think was operated by Haines, in Catasauqua —they bought that I think in 1951 or- they may have bought in Catasauqua before that, I'm not really quite sure, but in 1951 or ‘52, my father — already seeing that the textile industry was leaving the Northeast — traveled to South Carolina. He had been traveling to the South since he got out of the army in ‘46. And by ’51 he hired a young man who was traveling in the South and he hired him to go to the mills and make an introduction into- now this was a pretty established business in the South because they were doing this with cotton waste, not clothing rags, but cotton waste, it was a very developed business — people had minters and motes, a whole language and a whole process, and much of that went to papermaking or to other kinds of stuffing for pillows. So in a certain way they were Jewish and they were Yankees and they were coming into the South, and it wasn't a friendly time. It was difficult. And my father saw that there was a young Jewish man from Chattanooga who was living in Greenville, South Carolina, and he would give him cash, three thousand dollars, and he'd go out and buy rags. And eventually that man opened the facility with my dad there. 0 3236 The Sheftel and Malenovsky Family Business BS: So my grandfather married Sarah Malenovsky. Her brother went to work with her husband. And I don't know if there ever was a peaceful time. Stories don’t- family stories don't speak of a peaceful time. They speak of Abraham wanting to get ahead, he was more aggressive than Jacob. Jacob had two brothers in the business that I didn't know about until I was in my twenties. And another strange, ironic twist is that in 2012- 2012, I came to Allentown to sit with my parents who were looking for a new home and… Next door neighbor who I had gone to elementary school with, showed them a house just catty-corner from their home on Main Street, which they had been in 50 years. So I was 12 when they bought that house. While we were in this house just across the street, I kept hearing something about “Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake.” And I said, “What is- what’s Uncle Jake got to do with the house?” And they said, “Well Uncle Jake lived here.” And I'm not sure if I'm putting this together for you, but my father and his uncle, Jake, separated in business in probably 1960- No. My father came into the business in ‘46 and I believe they separated from Malenovsky in ‘51 or ‘52. 0 3660 "Inside & ; Outside Guys"—the Partnership of Harold & ; Milton Sheftel BS: My father and his father were in business after ‘46. You know, my grandfather, according to my father, would regale him with stories of how unfair the other side of the family was and, you know, how he had been alone and had been fighting this battle. It almost sounds like my grandfather confused the- the battles of the First and Second World War with his business history, but now- now my grandfather had his son and his brother, and now it was a fair fight. My father led on one time that he thought it wasn't so very fair and that he was selfish and that he had not only been used as a tool with his father, but that he was happy to have been the blade. We never got back to that conversation. And when I defended him and said, “Well, Dad, you know, I mean, it was-” he really cut me off and, you know, it was a part of the history I wasn't really going to ever really get to.
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 ; And what I did learn from the Malenovskys is that Jake's son was eight years old, went into a new business, really didn't know anything about the business, and probably my understanding was more emotionally laden than his. I don't know about the sister of Jake, who maybe — I guess that was Rose — who thought it was unfair. 0 4222 "Perfect Timing"—Milton Sheftel's Business Success BS: But the irony is that my father, in addition to not knowing exactly what to call him — a salesman isn't really enough, entrepreneur is not really accurate ; owner operator, well, he was a partner also — and, you know, he was a bit of- I think he had a bit of a Napoleonic complex, which I think to some degree was necessary. But I don't know what the word was for all that and it was- it was, it was fascinating to watch it when it worked, it was. And the irony is that as my father, I looked at this man and was amazed at his sense of timing, which he never spoke with me about, no matter how many times I tried to create a conversation ; he seemed not to be aware of it, but I found that to be really quite impossible to believe. And ironically, here we are at the end of an industry. Perfect timing. And he seemed to be one of these entrepreneurs, and again, there must have been many of them who just found themselves- this is not what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a raconteur — I'm not sure he knew what that word meant, but what he thought it meant was he wanted to stay in Hollywood and produce talent. This is a guy who I never saw read a book or really go out to the movies unless he was asked to. And yet this is what he claimed that he- he really wanted to have done. And had he done it, he would have probably made hundreds of millions of dollars because of residuals that we didn't have in the rag business, you know? But he left the business in 2005, and there was really no business left. He- he really rode the horse... I mean, you know, he didn't know what business cycles were, didn't really care. But the irony is that he- his timing in life was perfect. 0 4474 Differences in the Textile Waste Industry in the U.S. and Europe BS: In the United States, we manufactured at a scale that the Europeans didn't recognize was much grander, and the advantage to that was if you were purchasing something that was waste, the volume of that waste was on a scale that Europe didn't operate at. In Europe, if somebody bought twenty-six bales of something, twenty six thousand pounds of something, [it] would be a big order. Their trucks were smaller. And, you know, in this period of time, we went from trucks that were thirty-six feet up to fifty — fifty feet. Fifty-two feet. But in Europe, you found that there were many more manufacturers, users of textile, and after the war my speculation is that capital was less important than labor. So you had cities- towns- Prato, which was just north of Florence. You had Bella, which was just south of Lake Como in the north. And these cities- towns became specialty centers. So in Biella, they use cotton thread, cotton fiber. And they made a finer denier yarn. 0 4696 Sorting to Color for Europe—the Process of Making Color from Textile Waste BS: And when we saw them doing that in 1960, we had the idea of doing that on a much larger scale and began separating to color — and not only separating to color, but separating to fiber. So we would- and then, they got- if that wasn't complicated enough, they got the idea that if they sold it to the paper company and the color was bleachable, instead of paying a premium — thirty five cents for a piece of cotton that was all white — they could pay twenty-two cents, put six cents of bleaching into it, and have a two cent discount. But that meant that Sheftel & ; Sons would have to be able to identify and sell bleachable colors in a packet- in a pack, packing. And then what would happen with the non-bleachable? Well, there's the beginning of the story of sorting to color for Europe. They didn't care about bleachability. They were looking to make yarn. So the dark blue that didn't bleach went to a blue that was not bleachable and was then sold by a salesman of ours who traveled to Europe twice a year to Bella, to Prato, called on these factories with a card of colors, with different shades. Why? Because different manufacturers had different shades of color and we were known for blending them. And we would make bales of one color, but we would pack them all into the same number. And these people were really quite genius and this is an opportunity to tell a story that won't get lost to history. 0 5032 Seeing Hues Without Color—the Artistry of Harold Sheftel BS: I want to add one other story. I say that he stood in front of this wall of color that he had received from- it was only at this point two or three other providers like us. And we would be in America, someone would send us a truck of waste, we’d open the truck, take out a bag, thirty five pounds, and we put it on a pallet, put it on- the next one was yellow, we put that on a pallet. But there may be three or four shades of t-shirts being made. How did you know where it went? Now, I don't think anybody really cared about this, but I said that I was a photographer living in New York and I was a color photographer. And that was- my teacher said to me, “Sweetheart, I'm not-” I’m sorry. She said, “Darling, nobody ever makes serious pictures in color.” And well, that was that. I nevertheless had this passion for color. And when I came to work in the company, I simply looked at the rags and thought about it through my curiosity. And I wondered how my uncle, who separated the colors and organized them on the charts, how he did that, because when I’d go to Europe, they’d say of all the four people that we get color cards from, yours are the best. Really? It's a commodity item, what are we doing? It couldn't possibly be because my uncle is colorblind. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. 0 5313 More Products of Sheftel & ; Sons—Wiping Rags BS: So I told some anecdotes about one portion of the business, but when that truck would arrive and the door would open and we began to separate out what the cloth was, some went for fiber recycling that we just described ; but the larger pieces, they went for wiping cloths, and that was an entirely different industry in America. You know, there was- there's a wiping rag association called I Whack ‘Em [?]. We never were quite sure who they whacked, but... 
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 ; GE: And so that would be the rags that you’d buy at Home Depot?
 ; 
 ; BS: Yes. Now they- now they're buying basically cloth made in Pakistan, but- you still can see a bag of rags, especially at the paint stores, is where you'll see them. Yeah. 0 5421 Paternal Family History SC: So what do you know about your father's family as far back- You talked a little bit about that, but as far back as you know?
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 ; BS: As I said that my father did not dwell in the land of reminiscence, I didn't- I was young when my grandfather died, I was about eight or ten, so I didn't have that opportunity to question them ; and when I did question them, my father wasn't especially interested. What I learned was that they came from Vilna, I believe, or in a town near Vilna. And my grandfather had left to follow his older cousin- older sister and maybe her husband. And he did that because he was avoiding inscription in the- either the White or the Red Army. So that would have been around, I’m assuming, 1917 [or] 1914 during the revolution. I heard that they were in the cattle business, but as I said, I don't know whether that meant they had a cow in the front yard of the shtetl or whether they had ten cows. I have a side of my family that went to Rhodesia and then eventually back to the United States, and they were in the cattle business. They were cousins in New York who owned the Black Angus Restaurant in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and is that an accident or did they know something about beef? I know he didn't know much about women because he gave one prospective date a piece of beef, couldn't understand why she wouldn't answer his calls. He said, “It was a nice piece of meat!” Yeah, so I don't know. 0 5964 Changes in Allentown and Its Community BS: And I think if we look at the city today, which will not resemble the city I grew up in, all the West End and what appeared to be very modest homes are the homes of people who ran businesses, employed a hundred people or two hundred people, and I think the modesty belies some kind of- these people operated their businesses, they- they weren't looking to sell out and be bought out, they- they operated them. And the complexion of the city is quite different, unrecognizable really, to the days that I grew up when the sign said, “ Allentown, 1960, All American City.” You know, it was a city of people making things, doing- having people working for them. And we- what did we do? We made rags. I mean- it's very- it's a peculiar transition for someone like- like myself who's thoughtful about it because we- we don't seem to be making anything. And it's ironic how the industry that I caught the tail end of would really- well, you know, what was it? And yet it was really quite fascinating, all the different things that people made from fiber. 0 6052 Maternal Family History SC: How about your mother's past? Do you have anything to add about your mother's background? Not really?
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 ; BS: My mother, you know, grew up in- my mother grew up in Brooklyn. She was the daughter and sister of Jack Lobell, who was also a merchant. He had his own business, he sold Pearl buttons and apparently was quite a character, you know — he had- his first wife and two children died in the 1914, 1917 flu epidemic. And then he began dating my mother's mother and she died in 1945, leaving Gene and Ronnie, who was 17 — my mother was 17. And then he remarried about six weeks later… my mother's mother's brother's wife, so her aunt. And my mother resented that for a good part of her life and not quite sure why, but he- you know she- she loved him very much, and he apparently was quite a character. He was a salesman on the road, but a businessman, independent. And he- there's a story that they called him in Chicago and told him that Hilda was quite ill and he should come as quickly as he could. And he was home that evening and no one seemed to notice because, you know, she recovered from whatever it was and- It was a long- apparently, it was a long and not very nice illness. She was in the house for quite a few years with some caretakers, and he tried to have a- as my mother says, a “quack doctor” take care of her in a rented hotel room. 0 6413 Bruce Sheftel's Values and Creative Inspirations SC: That's perfect. So I have two questions for you. The first one is, what do you value most in life?
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 ; BS: Me personally? I think probably honesty. Trustfulness. Telling- Telling what’s honest, but in the context that it was- I can understand that your- your truth may be different, but tell me it, unadorned, and you'll have my respect.
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 ; SC: And secondly, what has made you feel the most creative in life? 
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 ; BS: It's an interesting question because I've been in situations where I didn't understand that I was creative — which really is kind of silly when you look back over- I was a drummer in a band here in Allentown, photographer — I photographed Queen Elizabeth, I think I was twelve, I was the youngest photographer to commercially do that. But I never thought of myself, per se, as creative ; I never been given that permission. 0 MovingImage Bruce Sheftel talks about how his grandfather (Abe), a young immigrant, started as a junkman with his brother-in-law. Later, when Abe’s sons (Milt and Harold) were in the business, they bought textile waste from the many mills that existed up and down the Lehigh river. Harold focused inside the factory/warehouse and Milt (Bruce’s father) focused outside the factory selling the processed textile waste to customers. Their main customer was Crane & ; Company who used cotton rags to make US currency. The final generation in this business (sons of Milt and Harold) witnessed the disappearance of the U.S. textile waste industry as the textile and needle trade industry moved overseas. Interview with Bruce Sheftel, May 31st, 2017 BRUCE SHEFTEL: Hello, we're testing to see if the air conditioning can be heard. SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Yes, it can be heard. Just keep turning it up to 90 and we'll deal with it. There you go. BS: Is that better? SC: Yes, it is. That's fine. Okay. Today is May 31st, 2017, an interview with Bruce Sheftel. And Bruce, I'm going to start by asking you your information, then go back to your family history. So what is your full name? Where were you born and where do you live? BS: My full name is Bruce Howard Sheftel. I was born in Allentown and I've lived now in- outside of Philadelphia and in- I have a small apartment in New York. And yeah. SC: What town outside of Philadelphia? BS: BlueBell -- BlueBell, Pennsylvania. SC: What is your education history? BS: I started in Allentown with elementary school at the Jewish Community Center and then Muhlenberg Elementary School and the Wright School, which was a nursery school. And my- I think my education was sort of like a woodier sampler. I went from there to the Jewish Day School for six years and on to Raub Junior High School. In Raub Junior High School, I was hit by a car in my ninth year, the beginning of my ninth year, and spent that year at home with a broken leg. So in the year of what would have been my- the end of my ninth grade, I went to summer school at Hun School in Princeton, New Jersey. They conditionally accepted me, and I went there for ninth grade again and left after a year, which- came back to Allentown, went to Moravian Prep and made sure we closed that school down. And I was in the last graduating class, but I didn't have two credits, had a disagreement with the school about what classes I was permitted to take, so I then went to Philadelphia and got my high school degree from- with two credits from Penn Charter School, I think it was, at 13th and Arch. So I was a little independent. I didn't go to college in the traditional way. I think, ten or fifteen years later, I went to, first, Harvard Business School -- [they] had a special program. And while I was there, I enrolled- found myself accepted at Antioch College in an extension program. And I was- I graduated in the last year that they operated. So I have sort of a history of closing schools or at least attending the last year that they- they operate. So I graduated with a degree in business from Antioch -- Business Administration. Then the Harvard experience was not degreed, it was predicated on experience and it was called the OPM Program--Owner/ President Management, which was an extension of their School of Advanced Management. SC: Testing, testing, talking. BS: You want me to talk? I don't really... SC: Let me just say-- Let me just try- a red dot came up. GAIL EISENBERG: No, that's what we want. That's for record. SC: That's what we want -- okay. I get so frightened of this thing anymore. GE: So the earlier part, that had the red dot, right? SC: It did, yes, it did. BS: Did you want to listen to it? SC: No, that's okay. BS: This is the time to re-do it. SC: Yeah, but we'd have to go back. GE: Yeah, I don't know [how]. BS: Should we call Marcus in here? GE: Jeff. SC: Jeff. BS: Jeff. GE: We have a new camera, we're not- we haven't done it for years so we're not as familiar. SC: Yeah, I think we're okay. BS: Marcus! GE: As long as it was on. SC: It was on, I just all of a sudden got-. GE: We understand. SC: I always get- BS: We understand your reason. SC: Because I turned it off and he turned it on. So, could you talk now about where you have work -- you were talking a little bit about your education and if you have more, go on -- but then where you have worked and the type of work that you did and do? BS: Yeah. When I was finishing high school, the world that we lived in had a war in Vietnam that I had no real interest in visiting. I liked traveling, but the accommodations and the body bag coming back seemed a little cramped for me. So I left high school in the summer of I think it was 1969 and traveled across the country. I took my parents' car, left them mine, and traveled across the country. And when I came back I met a psychiatrist I had been seeing through most of my senior year of school who told me about a square rig sailing ship, which was equivalent to the Coast Guard Eagle. This was a large training vessel for Merchant Marines. And what I didn't know was that he had put his two children on this boat, two of his three- four children. And I didn't know they were having lots of trouble -- and the kinds of trouble, I mean, really almost mimicked what was going on in the country in 1970. And he had me meet the director who encouraged me to join the program as a paraprofessional. And I agreed, only to discover -- and these were all large issues in those years about independence -- that they were actually soliciting my father for three thousand dollar contribution to the program, which I had been led to believe was not the case. The case was I would be selected on my own. This economy was really a large deal for us in those years. So I started my engagement with them by confronting the director. I created a telephone call where my father said he wasn't going to give any money, and I asked her, so am I still coming? And she said, yes, of course. And then somewhere between Madrid and Dakar, I met her in the- near the head of the 747 and she grabbed my lapel and said, "You know, you're a little [expletive]." And I said, "Hey, you told me I was coming for me." So that was the start of that trip, and that was about two years -- I was on the program with the Norwegians about a year after, sailed to Senegal and generally had the kind of education that if you go back and read the popular magazines of the 1970s, people were talking about. I didn't go to college at the time, and I went and experienced the world, and I didn't do it with the military, which, looking back on it, was pretty, pretty interesting. I came back to the United States in 1972 and I was looking for work. I was very concerned with connecting my head to my hands, and I had become a carpenter in the meantime and started building furniture. And long- this is probably '72, '74, I kind of wandered around the country and worked in various jobs, built furniture, as I said, built houses, but mostly moving towards art. And sometime in the- around '73, '74, after staying a year in New Hampshire building furniture, I revisited an old interest, which was photography, and found myself in New York City, 1974, an apartment on the Bowery -- not an apartment, a loft -- and spent the next- well, until today, photographing. But I was the town photographer for Huntington, Long Island, and studied with a woman who -- for those people in the photography industry would know her, she was Diane Arbus's mentor, teacher, friend -- and that was Lisette Model. And Lisette had a master class I knew very little about, and when I went to show her my pictures, I didn't realize I was like number 19 in line, and there were two-hundred forty people outside that I didn't realize. And she- I was the first person she chose to join her class and that really set the stage for me. This is the first person who recognized that there was something I was- I was about that was of interest to them. And I studied with her for a year or two, and when she- in her own history and career, she really did not get along with authority figures. And when she heard that my family had a business, she encouraged me to return to that business, but to continue photographing ; and the way she constructed that was that commercial photography would sap the creative juice from you, and if you could prevent that from happening, by working elsewhere and not depending on working as a photographer, but photographing life as a photographer -- we would call that being an artist today -- that was the better trip. And she didn't know my family, she didn't know what she was telling me to do, and I followed her advice, much to my own chagrin at various times. So by around about 1978 or '79, I believe I began working for my family in an office they had in New York City, came back to Allentown really over my objections, but now as part of the family, so I did what the business in the end did. I came back, worked in the factory in Allentown, understood what was going on. And I did understand that I was a creative and I don't- and I always thought that my family was creative, which- we had a reputation in the business, which I didn't understand, but it sounded to me like we were creative. And so that's what I saw. And in 1981, we expanded a collection facility that we had in South Carolina to become a full production facility, and I went to South Carolina to make that happen. The man who had been there was reaching retirement age, and I went from Allentown, left my cousin's father, uncle here and began to operate this South Carolina factory and did that until -- that was 1980 or '81 -- I did that until sometime at the end of the- beginning of the '90s. SC: And from there? BS: I worked in the business until my father and his nephews -- his partner, his brother died in 1990 and my father, at that point, was probably in his 60s or 70s and really had no interest in retiring, really wasn't able to. We went through a series of consultations with outside people who were familiar with transitions and family businesses. I became actually quite interested in that. And I was accepted sometime in around 1987 or '88 into a program at Harvard University's Business School and actually had become interested in consulting to businesses. So we are an example of a family who took no advice from any of these people. And at the same time I was at Harvard, I was encouraged to go and get my undergraduate degree, which I had not done, because, as I said, in the '70s there was an idea that experiential education was far more enriching than sitting in a classroom. So I ironically went back and graduated in the last graduating class of Antioch University, continuing my-- well, whatever it is, I closed three high schools and now a college, so I suppose I thought I was progressing. And Harvard, Business School at Harvard, which brought quite a different perspective to operating family business in an industry that was, as my professor called it, an immigrant business. No, no barriers to entry and run basically on rat-like cunning. That continued until my father sold his half of the business to my cousins in around 2005. And since that time I continued as a photographer, mostly an art photographer, portrait photographer. And the industry of wiping clothes, textile waste really left the United States ; our manufacturing, which was the source of the material, left the United States. Papermaking that used that kind of process had already dwindled to almost only two factories. And they became- they came under pressure to bring some of the security elements that they were already selling in other countries to the American currency. So those things all kind of came together in about 2005. My cousins operated the- parts of the business individually, and I believe the trading of fiber pretty much came to an end in 2012. There is still a portion of the business that my cousin conducts, but ironically, there's no American presence. He has employees in Honduras and sells from Honduras to- whether it's Italy or Spain or- and- I'm not quite sure at this point how that all has migrated, but we really don't have that industry here any longer. SC: Is that because some European countries want better quality paper, value ink? Rag-based? BS: No. When we call paper "rag-based paper", they're really talking about cellulose fibers, so whether it comes from- our understanding of what cotton was went something along the lines that if you grow cotton, the best of it goes to the manufacture of thread and yarn, and what's left, the thrums and the portion of the cotton plant that has seeds and little pieces of dirt motes, that's what they were called, they were second grade and third grade fibers. And the paper companies used to buy this, clean it, and then process it as cotton- cotton rag paper. Our -- I don't think it was Sheftel & ; Sons particularly -- but the concept that we came to was- for many years, people used used clothing to make paper because all clothing was made from cotton. But as that became more complex, there were buttons which was great, you snip them off and you had a rag that was all cotton, put it in a big vat of caustic and it would come apart and the fibers would float and there you had the beginning of your paper. But as clothing became more complicated, the zippers replaced simple buttons, and sometime in the '60s and '70s -- I mean, already we had moved away from using used clothes -- but the company that made cotton-based social papers and our currency was Crane & ; Company, and Elias Crane went to the Congress and said no- no confederation can be a true country without their own control of currency, and sold them the idea that they should make paper. The Crane and- Crane & ; Comapny has made the currency for the United States ever since -- since 1873. They made it with used clothing, until I would think sometime in the '30s, I'm not really quite sure. I'm talking about, not historians, but people who made their living selling rags and many of them had no real interest in answering questions of a curious child who was under foot. I'm talking about myself in my 30s. I was sort of, you know, "what are you asking, why do you care?" So I don't know specifically, but at some point, my father began to understand that there was an edge, as they would say at Harvard, in selling the waste of the manufacturing process of underwear, which was all cotton, undershirts, which were all cotton, and that he could eliminate the difficulty that the paper companies would have with the plastic refuse or scraps of just unidentified waste in the process of making paper- you know, vatting the old rags and having, you know, a vat of fiber. If there was a button in there- or later on synthetic became quite a complex problem again and scared the paper makers, because you put what appeared to be a piece of cotton rag into the vat but the polyester would melt and float to the surface and ruin ten thousand pounds of what was perfectly good cotton fiber. So in this- in the early '70s, there was a great deal of fear that Sheftel Company would actually go out of business, and I think we got to about 11 days of cash, and miraculously there was some understanding that you could control the buying, you could identify where you were buying the waste from, you could separate out. They began to understand what was causing the problem, they didn't realize that they had been commingling cotton rag from nineteen different suppliers with one supplier who had started using this new wonderful wrinkle-free underwear, which was in fact polycotton and supposed to make your butt look nice. While doing that, it contaminated the after process that no one really cared about. So that, you know, that- and ironically, the company became very strong after that and sort of found its footing in the early '70s after what was, really, they were very close to bankruptcy after 30 years of my father's involvement. So it shifted around and they- as I say, we operated until about 2005. And your question was, why did it shut down? In part, as I understand, they were forty seven mills making paper with rags, when my father came out of the army in 1946. Today was maybe one, depending on how you count. There is a company that will make, from rags, the fiber- the fiber product that the paper company can then put back into a vat. So if you say there's two, you know, you're sort of- they only work for the one, for Crane & ; Company. So most of the paper companies have moved on to using cellulose fiber from trees, where we get Weyerhaeuser and they kind of consider that a hundred percent cellulose product. And you will see cotton rag used for art papers and social papers, which was part of Crane & ; Company, but the appreciation of the tooth of the paper, how it feels, has been replaced by convenience. So the idea of something feeling wonderful in your hand, that you give to people on the anniversary or the invitation to a wedding, has changed dramatically. And it's not quite what it was in 1947, or 1950, or 1960. So on one hand, as Harvard taught, find a need and fill it. Paper companies had a need for this product, cotton, and our family was one of maybe a dozen companies in the United States that filled that need -- that need had been filled since 1787, but I believe Elias Crane asked the population of Massachusetts to contribute their used clothing to that need in the beginning. And by the time we, you know, were- were ramped up in the '70s and '80s, '80s and '90s, we were supplying rags to Spain, Italy, and they were using various kinds of rags as raw material and re-spinning yarn. So you'd have a factory with a two-million dollar machine and a father and a son, and they would make sock yarn in yellow from rags that we had separated into cotton or polycotton rags of one color. And- But as labor costs rose after the Second World War, and that probably tracked from '46 to the '80s, those companies began moving towards cheaper labor. So Spain and Italy, which have been centers for textile manufacturing, began to find that they could operate their factories cheaper in Guatemala or Honduras, and capital, not labor, became the organizing fundamental in the companies that we were selling to. So where we provided a supply- a supply of raw material in the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s ; we also provided a service of removing the waste from the manufacturing companies that ran along the New York State Thruway up to Massachusetts, where they were producing underwear. We- Allentown was a center of underwear production and probably in the history, you'll see the Royale and a number of other manufacturers who made a living here in Allentown, quite a good living, that migrated into J.C. Penney and other companies. There were large underwear companies here and we received a great deal of- our company in particular tended to move out of Allentown and collect waste from upstate New York all the way down to South Carolina, and then we moved our main collection to South Carolina as the manufacturing companies moved out of the Hudson Valley and moved to South Carolina and North Carolina. We moved along with them. Our headquarters remained here, but we transferred merchandise into the Lehigh Valley for separating and sorting and preparation for use as a raw material and then shipped it north to Massachusetts, which is where most of the paper was being made. And when those textile factories closed in South Carolina and moved to Guatemala in the '80s and '90s, we tried to follow them. And of course, you know the story of the immigrant grandfather who would take a hip bottle of whiskey to some guy in Hamburg, and spend the afternoon drinking that bottle with him, and he came home and the contract --" what contract? Did you get the contract? Contract? He's selling us the rags. Well, yeah I'll go back with another bottle." That process, which I am old enough to have watched, probably moved to Guatemala, moved to Honduras, and it's very difficult to fly to Honduras to meet a guy. My father used to receive a phone call- my father used to get into his car at five o'clock in the morning and leave on a two-day business trip and drive to as many of those forty-seven paper mills as he possibly could. Later on, he began to fly in a single engine airplane in weather that really terrorized his son, who he thought it would be nice to take along on these trips. All I can say is I never threw up. I'm not sure what kind of accomplishment that was. I did get my pilot's license eventually, probably because I was scared to death and thought, "I should be able to fly myself out of this." But nothing really stopped him, and if he got a phone call at nine o'clock in the morning- I think today people could understand what I'm saying. The call came from school and it was a teacher. No matter what the mother or father did, they'd be at the school within a half an hour. If you can understand that construct, but simply apply it to your business -- if my father got a call from the school, he'd call my mom. If he got a call from a paper-making company in Massachusetts, he rented the airplane and was there by two o'clock to take the guy to lunch. And eventually, you know, he had his own airplane and used it almost not at all for personal use, used it to go and visit these clients that he could be [with] two or three clients in a day and then be home for- well he didn't come home for dinner, but he was home by seven o'clock. And when the mills began to move away, there was no longer a need to process their waste, and the basis of the company, the basis of the business changed. And I think that by the time my father sold the business, the- the- the company would have had to have morphed into some new business and recognize- I mean, the company would have had to change into a new business and would have had to have recognized that the cycle of business had come and called, and however long we had managed to extend and be the last standing provider, we did a good job at that. But, as the ashtray on my father's desk said, from "rags to riches to rags" -- in three generations, which used to scare the crap out of me, turned out to be quite prescient. And that- the answer to your question is that business changes, as does life, and companies that change and use the advantage of some business that they were in, continue. And people who identify, also from Harvard, you know, the bus companies never thought of themselves as transportation companies, they thought of themselves as bus companies. So when the airplane came, they found themselves quite empty when they could have been the ones to buy all the airlines. And in our business, that- that to some degree happened as well. I'm not sure that there is a-- a business that followed the use of the waste from the manufacturer of clothing and then went to something like- believe it or not, I mean, some of the products that we went to was not only paper, we sold and continue today to sell- the remnants of the company sells rags for making flock wallpaper, so every prostitute in America who works or worked in a- an office space or boudoir with the red flop wallpaper, you know, those are rags. If you look in the back of your car, there was a time when there'd be a pad, and if you look closely, you could see, you know, Uncle James' old t-shirt or John's shirt in there because those were rags pulled apart and made into a product that- I can't think of right now, but it's basically glue on top of rag fiber that soundproofed the inside of your car. So our rags- high quality is [how] we thought of it. Cotton products was not the only thing that rags were used for. Many of these other companies as- in a sense, they were falloffs from the most expensive use of the rag. And as the fiber companies left, as the rag- I mean, there are no rag companies, there are no fiber- I mean, there are fiber companies, but nobody makes rags, you know. When we used to, not joke, but lament that when you found a good use for a rag, you better be looking for the next use for the rag, because when the manufacturer- you can't call them up and say, "Continue making that waste!" And it was a very interesting business that you didn't really control the manufacturer of your raw material and you didn't control the person that you were selling it to. You are always working the angles to see- and I could share with you this little story quickly about- to conceptualize what this meant. A railroad truck- track- a railroad car had sixty-thousand pounds that you could load into it. That's quite a- thousand pound bales, if you imagine those pictures from South Carolina [of] people shipping cotton, those were eight hundred pound bales. So we made a thousand pounds. Eventually we used a compressor so, so tight that we could put twelve hundred pounds in a-- in a fifty-four by twenty-four inch bale. And one of the companies that we bought waste from made athletic shirts, this nylon. We were a company that you wipe things up with cotton. Who knew anything about wiping rags made out of polyester? This was not possible. So what did all good rag dealers do was they piled it up. And I remember looking at a row and- you know, you're paying to take up space. I mean, it would be like somebody bringing plates into your kitchen, three, four plates a day, and keeping them there. I mean, after six or seven months, you know, you couldn't find anybody in the kitchen, though they were right next to you. I mean, they'd be behind all the plates, you're trying to deal with it. And that's what was fairly routine. You know, you wouldn't know what to do with it. And I had been a furniture builder, and I got a call one day, the guy wanted cotton rags. And I had this idea and I said, "I've got something that you might find useful. You're just spreading stain on wood, right?" "Yeah." "So I got an idea for you. Let me send you something and you tell me what you think." He called me back and said, "Wow, that's great! How much is it?" And now, we sold rags for maybe thirty-five cents, I mean there were lots of prices, thirty-five to a dollar thirty-five, and I said, "Well, I'd be happy to sell that to you for sixty-four cents." Now everybody had been trying to give this away, because the alternative was paying six cents to put it- and he said, "Well I can buy this other stuff for thirty-five cents, why would I pay sixty-five for this?" And I said, "Well do you have it in front of you?" He says, "Yeah." I said, "Well okay, cut off 12 inches and what- you know, by 6. Cut that in half, now you got like a six by six piece." "Yeah." "So I'll sell you small pieces." He says, "Why? Why is that better?" I said, "Well if you look at your garbage can, you're going to pull out a rag that one of the guys in your factory used, and one corner is going to be used and the rest you paid for but is perfectly good. So I'm going to limit your loss to that six inch piece." He goes, "But why sixty-five cents? That's twice as much." I said, "Yeah. Well, you know, all those holes? You're not paying for those." So I wound up selling all sixty-five thousand pounds of that for twice the price of white cotton wiping rags. All was well. It's a family business, so no one thought I was a genius. And then the day came when he said, "I need more." And we said, "Well, we don't buy from that- That company doesn't make athletic shirts anymore, Russell, Lee or for Nike, they lost the contract, so I can't order you that waste." And he goes, "But that was great!" I said, "Well then, the show closed and it was a great show, but book another play because I don't have anymore." And that was really typical. And I remember my father telling me at one point -- because we did some very, very large contracts for people -- that, you know, as soon as you find something that you can make a living on, start looking because it's not going to last. And that was really true. SC: Great. Thank you. BS: You're welcome. SC: Do you want some water? BS: Are you thirsty? GE: In the right there -- yeah, yeah. SC: I think you're doing a great job. GE: So, let's just go to the beginning, the origins of the business as far back as you know. And I don't know if that starts with your father- grandfather, but if you just want to tell us a little bit the origins of the business and how that progressed, and then we'll talk more about the business as it was, the later incarnation of the business. BS: You know in our family, we did not really speak about my grandfather's family, where he came from -- the interest in our historical origins is probably typical of other families? But what I understood was that my grandfather, who was born on the Russian border or Polish border, never quite clear, as a 16-17 year old was pursued by the Red or the White Army and essentially was a draft dodger who had some brothers and sisters who had come to the United States. And as I understood it, he had some relatives in upstate New York around where the Concord Hotel used to be, and they were in the egg business. I don't know what the family business was, I am told that it may have been beef, but I- whether they had 10 cows or two steers in the front yard, I have never been able to clarify. But my grandfather came to this country in probably 1914 or 1917, and went to Chicago and worked as a butcher, and had some relatives who had a restaurant in New York called the Black Angus and somehow settled back in Allentown. And when he settled back in Allentown, he met a- or he was set up with a young woman, my grandmother and- who was born in the United States and- on 2nd Street. They met, and I'm not sure of how their engagement went, but they became married in Allentown. And the father-in-law, Mr. Malenovsky had a son, and as probably is typical, my grandfather and his brother-in-law formed a company with a horse and a buggy, and began peddling anything that they could find -- metal, fiber from textile mills, who knows. They were junkmen, from what I understand, and somewhere along the line, this is on 2nd Street in Allentown, somewhere- and there were other places on that street, scrap dealers, it was a fairly common Jewish occupation. What I've always thought was ironic was my grandfather didn't speak English. I don't know, at this point, how much English he had learned. But when I think about what made the family successful, it's ironic that, because my grandfather couldn't find work or there was a prejudice against Jews or whatever the circumstance was that caused him to start his own business, that was the magic key in America to being eventually financially successful or independent, I should say. And so it's always been fascinating to me that all of the negative- I mean, if you were in a WASP family with your great-aunt having come across the channel, you know, three generations before you were established and you were looking down at the rest of the people coming to America at the end of the 1800s, the irony is that the next generation would replace you because of all the things that these people looked at and thought, "Oh, how horrible!" And it's quite a lesson, I think that- wondered always about how brave my grandfather was. There was no talk of this in our family. But to come to a country where you didn't speak English -- now, he did have some relatives -- but it's really fascinating to me. And he- he began with- the family story and, you know, there's two sides to it. I only know the one, and I'm quite sure the other is interesting. But the side is- that I came from said that the Malenovsky side of the family, that Jake Malenovsky was not as adventurous as my grandfather, and he- he didn't want a horse. I don't know how that makes any sense, but that's the story. But my grandfather insisted on the horse. I think it's the same story, I'm not sure, they just replaced the horse with the Hahn Truck -- H-A-H-N, I think it was. So the story of the family is that 1919 -- that dollar bill that's on the wall in the frame in the office with the title, that was for a Hahn Truck that Abraham insisted he was going to buy. And somewhere in all of this, they began to concentrate on taking the textile waste from the many, many, many mills that existed in Allentown, the textile mills that ran up and down that little Lehigh up through Shamokin, Hamburg. And these were- there were hundreds, if not tens of thousands of employees making all kinds of garments. There's another side of the story which I'm very curious about and don't know the answer to, which is why the New York Jews came to the Lehigh Valley to establish the underwear companies, for instance, that the Lesavoys or other families did. Whether it was the labor pool or what, but my father was in a cycle of business that they created waste, he took the waste away, and there was a use for that waste -- it [was] truly recycling. Ironically, when people spoke about recycling in the '50s, '60s, '70s, my father had very little respect for the conversation because we're talking about a hundred million dollar companies where they were recycling scrap or steel, and rags were never mentioned -- fiber recycling, I don't think was ever mentioned in the- in the fiber industry news and some of these other publications. It was recycling of steel mostly. So it's kind of ironic that my father was truly in a recycling business that had a product, the client, purpose. But really no- no- no presence, even during a national recognition of this as being something valuable. So my grandfather simply found a need -- people needed to have this waste taken away and, on the other side, people had a raw material requirement, fiber, that was the waste of these other people. So, you know, it always was interesting when we filled out tax returns, were we manufacturers or were we distributors? And of course we answered the question in a way that was advantageous to us. If there was more tax to be paid for a manufacturer, we were distributors. If there were less taxes to be paid for manufacturer, then we manufactured. But the actual process was visualizing how the product that was waste from one industry could be used as the raw material in another. And there are several stories that float through the family about fabric that we just had no idea what to do with, and many of these ideas precede me, although I did in my own time make use of this story. But a- it's a story of during the Second World War, when nylon was first produced, and my family had 30 truckloads of this material that no one knew what to do with, and they began taking it to the dump, which my grandfather started in 1917. This- we're talking about 1946. He already had a Cadillac. He had a- a building that he bought in 1931 during the Depression on 15th and Sumner Avenue. I suppose my grandfather thought of himself as quite a success, and the idea of taking something to the dump and paying to have it take- taken away was just antithetical. And the story goes that he began to delay and delay and delay, and my- my uncle who came into the business in 1946 -- this probably was around '47 or '48 -- said, "You know, I don't have any room here. I need to throw some of this into the dump." Finally after several months, he won the permission to do that, and after taking two or three truckloads to the dump, a man with a funny accent came to the business, saw this material, magic material, and offered- he asked how much we had. And in the typical peddler's way, you know, my father said, "I have three, maybe two, two and a half loads of this." And in actuality they probably had 40, but you don't say that, do you? So the man buys it and then comes again two weeks later and puts another order and they keep escalating the price. When they tell my grandfather, the story I heard is that he literally pulled hair out of his head. So who knows what- it was that it was a business that you ran by the seat of your pants. And as I say, my grandfather got his truck probably in 1919. They had a building, I believe it was on Front Street in Allentown, by 1940- by 1931, they bought out of bankruptcy the Bear Manufacturing, which was a furniture company, at 15th and Sumner Avenue, and operated that until they bought a- a ribbon mill, which I think was operated by Haines, in Catasauqua --they bought that I think in 1951 or- they may have bought in Catasauqua before that, I'm not really quite sure, but in 1951 or '52, my father -- already seeing that the textile industry was leaving the Northeast -- traveled to South Carolina. He had been traveling to the South since he got out of the army in '46. And by '51 he hired a young man who was traveling in the South and he hired him to go to the mills and make an introduction into- now this was a pretty established business in the South because they were doing this with cotton waste, not clothing rags, but cotton waste, it was a very developed business -- people had minters and motes, a whole language and a whole process, and much of that went to papermaking or to other kinds of stuffing for pillows. So in a certain way they were Jewish and they were Yankees and they were coming into the South, and it wasn't a friendly time. It was difficult. And my father saw that there was a young Jewish man from Chattanooga who was living in Greenville, South Carolina, and he would give him cash, three thousand dollars, and he'd go out and buy rags. And eventually that man opened the facility with my dad there. After a year, that man said, "I can't take the pressure, buy me out." And that man worked for my father for another 40 years, and I think he resented that choice that he made there, but that was the southern operation that in 1981 I went down and expanded and replaced what we had built here in the East, essentially by move- we were twenty-five years late, but we moved our actual processing of the rags to the site of the waste. So we moved from Allentown. We still maintained a facility here, but we enlarged- I had at one point almost four-hundred people in that facility in South Carolina. We probably never had more than one hundred, one hundred twenty-five here. GE: Okay. You want to tell us a little bit about the family in terms that it sounds like it started with your grandfather and the Malenovsky, his brother-in-law, then at some point it became just your grandfather and his sons. Right? And what kinds of roles did the different family members have in these businesses, you know, then your uncles, and you and your cousins and whatever? BS: So my grandfather married Sarah Malenovsky. Her brother went to work with her husband. And I don't know if there ever was a peaceful time. Stories don't- family stories don't speak of a peaceful time. They speak of Abraham wanting to get ahead, he was more aggressive than Jacob. Jacob had two brothers in the business that I didn't know about until I was in my twenties. And another strange, ironic twist is that in 2012- 2012, I came to Allentown to sit with my parents who were looking for a new home and-- Next door neighbor who I had gone to elementary school with, showed them a house just catty-corner from their home on Main Street, which they had been in 50 years. So I was 12 when they bought that house. While we were in this house just across the street, I kept hearing something about "Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake." And I said, "What is- what's Uncle Jake got to do with the house?" And they said, "Well Uncle Jake lived here." And I'm not sure if I'm putting this together for you, but my father and his uncle, Jake, separated in business in probably 1960- No. My father came into the business in '46 and I believe they separated from Malenovsky in '51 or '52. So the uncle that they were speaking about was my father's uncle. I mean, the strange part of the story for me is that my relative, who I never got to know, didn't get to know that side of the family, lived one house away from me and I never knew it. And I mean, this is Allentown. It's not Manhattan. Just- So there's a flair in that story- tale of how these families united and then separated and what the ramifications in the community were. You know, in the synagogue that my grandfather helped to build at 17th and Hamilton, he had a row of seats with his name on it and his business partner had a row of seats with his name on it just across the aisle. Every holiday we would walk up that aisle and my father would graciously smile at the people on the other side. The people on the other side were my relatives who I never got to know because in the family, the business had separated. I was sure- I tried to find various stories from that side of the family, but they- they started the business, I believe, in 1914, in 1917, bought the truck in 1919, bought the big building on Sumner Avenue in 1931. And my father and his brother, came out of the army in '46 and during that whole period there apparently were two other Malenovskys in the business -- uncles to my father and his brother who I really heard very little about, Uncle Abe and-- would have been Jake's brother and the other man, I'm not sure I know his name. So in 1946, when my father and his brother came into the company, the stories are that my grandfather and his brother-in-law routinely -- that would be daily -- would have yelling and screaming matches with each other. And my father would tell stories about how uncomfortable it was to take sides with his mother because his mother's brother was the partner and he was working in the company with his father and his father's partner. And how could he not take sides with his father? But then he was taking sides against his uncle, who he said he loved. So I'm sure it was very complicated for them. I'm sure this was an immigrant story repeated over and over and over again. But it did happen in our family. And by 1951, I believe, and I heard the story in several ways, Uncle Jake was sick in the hospital and my father went in and gave him a letter and sounds like it wasn't all that touchy feely. I don't know. I really don't. But there was a separation, and I know that it was obviously not amicable because we- they never spoke to us again. Now, my father would graciously introduce me to my uncle and aunt in the synagogue aisle. Turn to me and always say this is my Aunt Rose, but they never really acknowledge that. And, you know, funny thing about my father was that it took me until I was in my forties to realize that, of course they didn't talk to him. You know, he stole their livelihood from them. Now, did he steal it? I don't know. But my father was pretty good at this representation that, until I was in my forties, I really never even questioned why they weren't speaking to him. Now, I went back and looked at the papers, and they paid them the equivalent of a million, one-hundred and forty-thousand or a million, one-hundred and sixty-thousand dollars from 1917 to 1951. What is that, you know, twenty to thirty, forty... little over twenty-five years to walk away with a paycheck in 1940- '51 of a million, one-hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Doesn't sound like it was really a rip off so I don't really know. But there is the tale. GE: How- how about now, if you want to share with us a little bit about the Sheftel, that it was your father and his brother. What did each do in the business? How did that progress with the next generation? BS: My father and his father were in business after '46. You know, my grandfather, according to my father, would regale him with stories of how unfair the other side of the family was and, you know, how he had been alone and had been fighting this battle. It almost sounds like my grandfather confused the- the battles of the First and Second World War with his business history, but now- now my grandfather had his son and his brother, and now it was a fair fight. My father led on one time that he thought it wasn't so very fair and that he was selfish and that he had not only been used as a tool with his father, but that he was happy to have been the blade. We never got back to that conversation. And when I defended him and said, "Well, Dad, you know, I mean, it was-" he really cut me off and, you know, it was a part of the history I wasn't really going to ever really get to. And what I did learn from the Malenovskys is that Jake's son was eight years old, went into a new business, really didn't know anything about the business, and probably my understanding was more emotionally laden than his. I don't know about the sister of Jake, who maybe -- I guess that was Rose -- who thought it was unfair. But when they separated in '51, my father was they- appear to be the rainmaker and he came in as a salesman primarily. They at that point, as I understood it, already had the facility in- on 15th and Sumner Avenue, and they bought a building in Catasauqua, and they were- my father had obviously aspirations of a much greater size. He would tell me that his father would constantly say to him, you know, if you hear- something about if you reach for the clouds, you'll wind up sleeping with the roaches. And I don't think that they got along so very well either. And I do remember my coming into the Catasauqua offices, which were really established, you know, you come up the steps, there's the woman sitting at the- at the switchboard with the cords and hallway of offices and bar. Looked pretty business-like, these guys were working hard. And my grandfather's office was at the very end of the hall. I do remember it had a little safe in it, but I also felt as a very young boy that there was some tragedy, some- something here that was unclear to me. And I think it was my father's probably unrelenting drive to succeed that I was experiencing. So he took the helm of the business as a salesman, and I don't know if we really have a name for what he did. At Harvard, a salesman is not a very important role. They, you know, think that accountants are smarter and all of... But in my father's world, the salesman was the driving wheel. What my father didn't appreciate probably was that he was more than just the salesman, most salesmen he couldn't really- when we would hire people, he really didn't seem to understand that they didn't think like he did. They didn't really know how to make a dollar from- from 40 cents. He did, and I don't know whether he figured out that he had something else, and that's what built the business, that side of him. And I don't really- he wasn't an entrepreneur because he didn't start one business after another. But he kept, you know, this is a relatively small industry. I mean, the entire industry was probably less than- I mean, I remember used to looking was under a billion dollars when McDonald's was six billion, so that was the entire industry. Anything you could pull in that was regarded as recycling textiles. So he thought of himself as the man who provided white cotton rags to the papermakers in America- in America, and specifically, to Crane & ; Company for currency. And if you went into a factory that sold white underwear rags, you were going to have to deal with him. If he didn't own or if he didn't buy those rags, he was going to, and you were going to sell them to him. He always smiled, but that was his basic- that was the edge, as Harvard would have described it, that he- he carried. And he carried it in a way that, you know, I don't really see very often unless it's someone's own business, that the certain feeling that people have. And it's not a feeling about fairness, it's a feeling about-- you're divinely chosen to buy these rags and how dare anybody else not know that? So that was my father's role. And in the beginning, the story was that he came home from a very successful selling trip and separated a pile of twenty thousand dollars between his brother and himself. And that was the story in the business, that they were equal, even though clearly my uncle was not a driving wheel. When in 1968 they moved out of Catasauqua and built their first- built their own facility, they built seventy two thousand square feet on 24th and Lehigh Street, and then a year or two later added a hundred- It had eventually a hundred and two thousand square feet there behind the Giant. My uncle enjoyed driving truck and working in the factory, and didn't really seem to- he wanted to be an architect, and really didn't see himself, as I understood it from him, as a manager. And yet that's what the business needed. And so my uncle became the manager, the "inside guy", just the way it was terminology- the terminology that people in those days used. "Who's the inside guy?" Was a guy who knew how the sewing machines worked and where to buy thread. Then there was the guy who went to the department stores and sold the bras or underwear or whatever it was. The inside guy and the outside guy -- and Harold was the inside guy, everybody loved him, he- and Milton was the outside guy. And that those roles persisted until 1991. My- there were already signs that there were issues, but my uncle seemed to have accepted his role and the difficulty came when the- the sons, now the third generation, came into the business and were approaching their 40s and looked at their father and said, "Well why does he have to take this crap from our uncle?" And there was a very interesting dynamic because the uncles didn't really necessarily want to question it. It was in balance for them. And what tended to throw that out of balance was the family side of business and became quite, quite interesting, and in a funny way, probably was retelling a story that had existed before any of these children were in the business -- because, remember, the uncle was bought out! So how that got transferred into the next generation for me has been a- has been- has been very interesting to me. But I could see it happening, and I wrote in my journal what I thought would 10 years, 20 years down the line occur. I was quite accurate, much to my own disappointment and chagrin, because it was not what I would have wanted to happen. But the irony is that my father, in addition to not knowing exactly what to call him -- a salesman isn't really enough, entrepreneur is not really accurate ; owner operator, well, he was a partner also -- and, you know, he was a bit of- I think he had a bit of a Napoleonic complex, which I think to some degree was necessary. But I don't know what the word was for all that and it was- it was, it was fascinating to watch it when it worked, it was. And the irony is that as my father, I looked at this man and was amazed at his sense of timing, which he never spoke with me about, no matter how many times I tried to create a conversation ; he seemed not to be aware of it, but I found that to be really quite impossible to believe. And ironically, here we are at the end of an industry. Perfect timing. And he seemed to be one of these entrepreneurs, and again, there must have been many of them who just found themselves- this is not what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a raconteur -- I'm not sure he knew what that word meant, but what he thought it meant was he wanted to stay in Hollywood and produce talent. This is a guy who I never saw read a book or really go out to the movies unless he was asked to. And yet this is what he claimed that he- he really wanted to have done. And had he done it, he would have probably made hundreds of millions of dollars because of residuals that we didn't have in the rag business, you know? But he left the business in 2005, and there was really no business left. He- he really rode the horse... I mean, you know, he didn't know what business cycles were, didn't really care. But the irony is that he- his timing in life was perfect. There were no rag dealers in Allentown, there were no places to sell rags in Allentown, there were no places to sell rags in the United States -- except the one that he kept closer to himself and his children. The irony of that is fascinating. And- GE: And now, when you described him as a "salesman", are you saying that at both ends that he was the one who really had the relationship with the textile factories as well as the relationship with Crane or whoever else was buying the product? BS: Yeah. He purchased and sold. GE: And he had both relationships? BS: Both relationships. So maybe, more accurately, he was the relationship man and the other guy was the packing guy. I don't know. But it requires relationships on both sides. GE: Right. And he did- And he was the person who really maintained and developed those relationships on both sides. BS: Yeah. And as the business grew those relationships- you know, I remember that he came and said, "I took my first million dollar order." That was like a huge thing. GE: Sure. So, Bruce, in terms of the industries that they sold to, we certainly have heard about Crane and paper -- who were some of the other major industries that they sold to? And then if you could explain a little bit, you were beginning- you did hit it somewhat, I'm not sure if I have it fully crystallized. In Europe, it sounded like it was a little bit different there ; there they were separating the fibers. So if you wanted to just share with us, are there any other industries that use this as their raw material? And then also to just tell us a little bit about the difference with the European... BS: So in the United States, we- there was, there was a- In the United States, we manufactured at a scale that the Europeans didn't recognize was much grander, and the advantage to that was if you were purchasing something that was waste, the volume of that waste was on a scale that Europe didn't operate at. In Europe, if somebody bought twenty-six bales of something, twenty six thousand pounds of something, [it] would be a big order. Their trucks were smaller. And, you know, in this period of time, we went from trucks that were thirty-six feet up to fifty -- fifty feet. Fifty-two feet. But in Europe, you found that there were many more manufacturers, users of textile, and after the war my speculation is that capital was less important than labor. So you had cities- towns- Prato, which was just north of Florence. You had Bella, which was just south of Lake Como in the north. And these cities- towns became specialty centers. So in Biella, they use cotton thread, cotton fiber. And they made a finer denier yarn. In... in Prato they used- made yarn that was heavier, like- and what would be the difference? So, for instance, the Germans were using this respun textile for making athletic socks or sweatshirts, where the refined nature of the yarn was not as important as the bulk, and you can hide in the bulk the impurities or inconsistencies that you might not have in a first quality yarn, which would be three times the price. So they're developed an industry. And I remember going to Prato, which was outside of Florence, north of Florence, and I would see a little two passenger truck with a flatbed and big potato sack on the back, like two-hundred pound sack. And they pull into a driveway of a residential area, the door would slide open, and what looked like the front of the house was, in fact, a concrete industrial space about the size of two or three garages. And I had the occasion to be invited, and what you saw was a family sitting on the floor, and what had happened was they had gone to the local rag dealer, bought a wholesale bag of rags, which was mixed t-shirt material, and then they would separate those colors into different colors and they would get different prices for it. And when we saw them doing that in 1960, we had the idea of doing that on a much larger scale and began separating to color -- and not only separating to color, but separating to fiber. So we would- and then, they got- if that wasn't complicated enough, they got the idea that if they sold it to the paper company and the color was bleachable, instead of paying a premium -- thirty five cents for a piece of cotton that was all white -- they could pay twenty-two cents, put six cents of bleaching into it, and have a two cent discount. But that meant that Sheftel & ; Sons would have to be able to identify and sell bleachable colors in a packet- in a pack, packing. And then what would happen with the non-bleachable? Well, there's the beginning of the story of sorting to color for Europe. They didn't care about bleachability. They were looking to make yarn. So the dark blue that didn't bleach went to a blue that was not bleachable and was then sold by a salesman of ours who traveled to Europe twice a year to Bella, to Prato, called on these factories with a card of colors, with different shades. Why? Because different manufacturers had different shades of color and we were known for blending them. And we would make bales of one color, but we would pack them all into the same number. And these people were really quite genius and this is an opportunity to tell a story that won't get lost to history. Many years into this process, towards the end, we had a salesman, a German, a man who had come from Germany and was- would never ask a question of a- a client. And I couldn't understand, you know, how do you learn what your client does? How do you know? I'm sure- I'm sure he had his ways, but you certainly didn't ask them. And I was naive and I would ask anybody anything, basically. So I asked one day about this. And this is now in Spain, in a company of maybe four people, maybe two and a half million dollars of borrowed money to buy- maybe not borrowed money, but they had a machine. And if you imagine walking into a- into an industrial facility that was so clean that you could have had lunch on the- on the concrete, they had a fork truck driver, five silos, and an area that had these cards that we would ship to them with different colors on them, and other people too. And I wanted to know how he made color- colored yarn. He'd get an order from Spain- he was in Spain. He'd get an order from Germany for blue socks and it would have a color swatch. And we went in, he asked me, I still remember, I said purple and he said, "Oh, purple's difficult." And he has this, you know, it looked like they took this out of his first I don't know what- factory or maybe he put this together when he was six years old. I don't know. It was cubby holes -- and the whole factory is absolutely modern, with no people in it. This is 1980s, so there's no robots yet, but-- spotless. And here's this old wooden thing nailed together, I don't know what, with a place for a set of hammers, and in this cloth stuck in each of these cubby holes -- yellows, reds, oranges -- he begins picking it out and putting it down on the table in front of him. I'm standing right there. And then he grabs two- I don't have the name for them, but everybody in America has probably seen this as a demonstration for how they shear sheep. It's these two kind of things that would- and it pulls open- it opens up the yarn, and he pulls it open, he's got now four piles of thread and he's talking in Italian. I don't understand a word he's telling me, but he thinks I understand him perfectly and he is pulling the support, and I'm thinking, "This is Picasso. I'm standing with Picasso." And then he starts picking it up and rolling it into it like a ball and twisting it. And right there in front of me, more miraculous than a perfect egg, he was [like], "Is that the right shade of purple?" Yoo! And I had actually come to ask him if he thought that we could do this with a computer. And you know, he said, "No, it would never happen." Now, he might have been right that it never would happen, because the industry vanished. But he wasn't right that a computer couldn't have taken the readings of all the different colors, blended them and told you what it was. I was right about that. But he couldn't even imagine this because this man was an artist. I mean, there's no real other question about his skills. And, you know, fascinatingly, I want to add one other story. I say that he stood in front of this wall of color that he had received from- it was only at this point two or three other providers like us. And we would be in America, someone would send us a truck of waste, we'd open the truck, take out a bag, thirty five pounds, and we put it on a pallet, put it on- the next one was yellow, we put that on a pallet. But there may be three or four shades of t-shirts being made. How did you know where it went? Now, I don't think anybody really cared about this, but I said that I was a photographer living in New York and I was a color photographer. And that was- my teacher said to me, "Sweetheart, I'm not-" I'm sorry. She said, "Darling, nobody ever makes serious pictures in color." And well, that was that. I nevertheless had this passion for color. And when I came to work in the company, I simply looked at the rags and thought about it through my curiosity. And I wondered how my uncle, who separated the colors and organized them on the charts, how he did that, because when I'd go to Europe, they'd say of all the four people that we get color cards from, yours are the best. Really? It's a commodity item, what are we doing? It couldn't possibly be because my uncle is colorblind. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. And I thought about this for a long time, and I took a Kodak Rattin 12 filter, which allows you to see color the way black and white film sees it. So if you see something red, it's much lighter than something that's blue because the film sees it that way. And I began looking at the colors in the factory that we would store in bins like they would have in the post office or in a commercial laundry. Two hundred pounds at a time until we got a thousand pounds and then we put it together. Now sometimes my uncle would call me out into the factory and say, do these two colors go together? Now there's four people around them and everybody's keeping their mouth shut because he's looking at a yellow bin of two hundred pounds with green. But to him, in his color blindness, they look the same. And he'd look at me and smile and I'd sort of smile and he'd say, "Okay, well, we don't want to put these together." But there was something going on that I sort of was touching on that he couldn't have cared less about. And what I realized was that what my uncle was seeing was color without hue. He was seeing the structure underneath. So when the textile guys in Europe would blend the colors that- they didn't see the color yellow or red or green, they saw the value. They wanted it to be consistent. Without knowing it, my uncle had become a star because he was colorblind and couldn't see the distraction of the color. He actually saw the hue. And I tried to congratulate him to no avail, but I found it fascinating and hope sometime someone else will. GE: Okay. All right, so let me turn this- BS: And the employees who work for that guy are in the factory that's producing the t-shirts, but they're now assigned to just the waist part, and it's as big an operation, I think, as we had over in our hundred and two thousand square feet. But it's- GE: And he still sells it to Crane or whoever? BS: Well, he doesn't sell to Crane anymore. Crane is no longer buying- GE: It's hardly a paper business. BS: Right. So it's not going for paper. It's going, ironically, I think for the fiber content for yarn manufacture. GE: So it's going back to thread. BS: To what we were talking about this, yes. SC: I turned it on and I got a little nervous about that. Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit about your family's [history], as far back as you know. BS: Did we get the products? Did I- we didn't talk about wiping rags and all that sort of stuff. I may have missed that. GE: Tell me what you mean about the products. BS: You were asking about where did this stuff go and... you know. So I told some anecdotes about one portion of the business, but when that truck would arrive and the door would open and we began to separate out what the cloth was, some went for fiber recycling that we just described ; but the larger pieces, they went for wiping cloths, and that was an entirely different industry in America. You know, there was- there's a wiping rag association called I Whack 'Em [?]. We never were quite sure who they whacked, but... GE: And so that would be the rags that you'd buy at Home Depot? BS: Yes. Now they- now they're buying basically cloth made in Pakistan, but- you still can see a bag of rags, especially at the paint stores, is where you'll see them. Yeah. And so that's- that's a business that's probably seventy to a hundred million dollars, probably dominated by one or two guys. So that's where that would come from. So in other words, you're separating by- by color, by fiber content, by size. And, you know, you're doing this with people who didn't graduate junior high school -- and weren't appreciated, I don't think, except that they came to work. SC: Yeah, okay. Should we start with the history? BS: Ah, you wanna- Are we going back to the history? SC: Yeah, let's go back, just go back to your- you've talked about your father's history to a certain extent, so we should start with him and then go to your mother's family. So what do you know about your father's family as far back- You talked a little bit about that, but as far back as you know? BS: As I said that my father did not dwell in the land of reminiscence, I didn't- I was young when my grandfather died, I was about eight or ten, so I didn't have that opportunity to question them ; and when I did question them, my father wasn't especially interested. What I learned was that they came from Vilna, I believe, or in a town near Vilna. And my grandfather had left to follow his older cousin- older sister and maybe her husband. And he did that because he was avoiding inscription in the- either the White or the Red Army. So that would have been around, I'm assuming, 1917 [or] 1914 during the revolution. I heard that they were in the cattle business, but as I said, I don't know whether that meant they had a cow in the front yard of the shtetl or whether they had ten cows. I have a side of my family that went to Rhodesia and then eventually back to the United States, and they were in the cattle business. They were cousins in New York who owned the Black Angus Restaurant in the '40s and '50s, and is that an accident or did they know something about beef? I know he didn't know much about women because he gave one prospective date a piece of beef, couldn't understand why she wouldn't answer his calls. He said, "It was a nice piece of meat!" Yeah, so I don't know. My uncles or whoever they were on the West Coast were really kind of interesting, wild kind of guys. They owned a lot of cattle, they had large herds, and they were just sort of fun guys. I don't know. I didn't know them very well. My father had gone during the war to California and then Seattle to train to become a mechanic on B-29s. And he had not finished college, he'd gone to Temple for a year, and then they conscripted him in some kind of military program where he did mechanics, learned how to become a- an engine mechanic, and then he was selected for B-29 training. So he didn't see action which was very, very okay with him. I wouldn't say he was unpatriotic, but I don't think he was a man who wanted to die in the war. He wanted to live. And he became very close to- I don't know if she was his cousin or whatever, but a- to- to a relative on the West Coast, and they remained lifelong friends. So she was- her maiden name was Sheftel, and these were her two brothers, and I believe that they came to the United States from South Africa, obviously before the war, because she was married and a little older than my dad. So he came back to the- to the East Coast to go to work with his father --I think he wanted to stay in Hollywood -- and met my mother. And he met my mother on a blind date, I believe that a local Allentownian- Max Stettner had a date with my mother, but somehow or another Max Stettner and the real estate developer, good- Goodman, I can't remember Mr. Goodman's first name, but I know his father was quite successful during the Prohibition with the Bermans. And so Bernie Berman and Max Stettner and- that's not Jerry- Murray Goodman! Were all kind of buddies and they met someone in New York and one thing led to another, my mother was invited to a date and Max Stettner- he didn't stand her up, but he couldn't make the date. And, somehow or another, my father's name was injected in there and she was sick and couldn't make the date. And I don't know, I think it was- the Kobrovskys She met somebody who invited her to come back to Allentown, that there were a lot of single men, and somehow or another in the story my father came up and one thing led to the next, and they did go on this date. I think they were in- in New York. My father told my mother he was going to marry her, and six months later they got engaged and were married very soon after that. So, you know, it's kind of another one of these mythical tales that actually are not mythical. And they lived together for their entire adult life. My mother is 89, still alive. My father... it's 2017, is 93. He has dementia, but lives in the same facility as my mother and doesn't- it's peculiar to speak with him because he- he- he's not- he doesn't- he doesn't remember. Anybody who's lived with someone with dementia, you know, it's a jumbled up, mess of scraps. And it's odd to look at him -- but he continues to talk. My mother says it's gibberish, but he chats away, he's in good health. He had a hip replaced just as he slipped into a deeper dementia -- in that would have been four years ago, May 22nd, 2013. And he's still alive and has no clue why you want to ask him about his leg and he's still fascinating. You know he- he is some kind of weird charmer. And that's- I think that was part of his business success, is that he- he had a temper, he had a personality and a temperament, I know that he wanted to succeed, and whatever else you might say about how he lived his life, there was a magic to how he ran his business. You know, right now we're living through a- administration with Donald Trump as our president, and there are certain traits which Donald Trump seems to have on exhibition. And my mother and I often talk about my father maybe having similar traits, magic thinking or whatever. In my father's case, they were linked to- you may have had some magic thoughts, but more of his thoughts were actually completed and created. And how he got there, maybe it shared a certain resemblance, but seems universally to have been thought of as "charming". But now I find that a lot of people think he was something other than that. But you could still compress it under the title, you know, "determined". So my mother lived in Allentown, participated in Hadassah, she was president of Hadassah. And I think if we look at the city today, which will not resemble the city I grew up in, all the West End and what appeared to be very modest homes are the homes of people who ran businesses, employed a hundred people or two hundred people, and I think the modesty belies some kind of- these people operated their businesses, they- they weren't looking to sell out and be bought out, they- they operated them. And the complexion of the city is quite different, unrecognizable really, to the days that I grew up when the sign said, " Allentown, 1960, All American City." You know, it was a city of people making things, doing- having people working for them. And we- what did we do? We made rags. I mean- it's very- it's a peculiar transition for someone like- like myself who's thoughtful about it because we- we don't seem to be making anything. And it's ironic how the industry that I caught the tail end of would really- well, you know, what was it? And yet it was really quite fascinating, all the different things that people made from fiber. SC: How about your mother's past? Do you have anything to add about your mother's background? Not really? BS: My mother, you know, grew up in- my mother grew up in Brooklyn. She was the daughter and sister of Jack Lobell, who was also a merchant. He had his own business, he sold Pearl buttons and apparently was quite a character, you know -- he had- his first wife and two children died in the 1914, 1917 flu epidemic. And then he began dating my mother's mother and she died in 1945, leaving Gene and Ronnie, who was 17 -- my mother was 17. And then he remarried about six weeks later-- my mother's mother's brother's wife, so her aunt. And my mother resented that for a good part of her life and not quite sure why, but he- you know she- she loved him very much, and he apparently was quite a character. He was a salesman on the road, but a businessman, independent. And he- there's a story that they called him in Chicago and told him that Hilda was quite ill and he should come as quickly as he could. And he was home that evening and no one seemed to notice because, you know, she recovered from whatever it was and- It was a long- apparently, it was a long and not very nice illness. She was in the house for quite a few years with some caretakers, and he tried to have a- as my mother says, a "quack doctor" take care of her in a rented hotel room. So when the end came, my grandfather took my mother and her sisters to Atlantic City the day that her mother died. And he said, "Look, you know, I want to live." Now, remember, it was after the war, 1945, and- and so him marrying this woman -- who he knew, her husband had died -- probably is not so awful, but for some reason it was devastating for my mother. And I think my mother set her sights on a man who would provide security for her. And when she met my father in 1950 he loaned her or left his car with her the first night. And the story that she tells is that her brother leaned out the window in Brooklyn, saw the Cadillac or Buick convertible and said, "What did you do for that?" And that sort of started their relationship. I mean, looking at the pictures, they had a great time. So I think that she brought with her a certain sense of tenacity, of you know," I'm going to do what I need to do to get this done." And I think she provided a balance to him that maybe looking back, we could miss, but that during the time I think they thought they were doing quite well. In the pictures of where they went, you know 1954 they took a 17 hour trip -- for my father it was business, but my mother was excitement. They went to Italy, to Spain. When I went back in 1980- something, I met with a man who, when he recognized the name and put my father together with my name, began patting me on the back and laughing and remembering a trip they took through the Alpine- Alpine Mountains between Bella and Florence. That apparently was a bit of a rip roaring trip. Apparently a lot of grappa was drunk on that trip, and I don't mean on the side of the road. So, you know, it was- they did business, but they also seem to be living a life that was really quite exciting. I hear they were in Europe and I don't know how many people travel to Europe. I remember my father and mother taking me to- in- in Milan, to the opera house, to the- I remember the opera house, I don't have to remember the name. But yeah, it was pretty- I think quite an interesting life for a man who was selling rags, you know. That's kind of the inside joke. SC: So- BS: Textile Reclamation Engineer, I think, was the title. SC: That's perfect. So I have two questions for you. The first one is, what do you value most in life? BS: Me personally? I think probably honesty. Trustfulness. Telling- Telling what's honest, but in the context that it was- I can understand that your- your truth may be different, but tell me it, unadorned, and you'll have my respect. SC: And secondly, what has made you feel the most creative in life? BS: It's an interesting question because I've been in situations where I didn't understand that I was creative -- which really is kind of silly when you look back over- I was a drummer in a band here in Allentown, photographer -- I photographed Queen Elizabeth, I think I was twelve, I was the youngest photographer to commercially do that. But I never thought of myself, per se, as creative ; I never been given that permission. I thought that was a- an exalted role that I wasn't worthy of. So it's interesting that you would ask me that. And I- I must say that having worked with photographers in New York and not working as a photographer in the- at the local level, but, you know, with a connection to Richard Avedon and Lisette Model, people who are in museums at this point, the story of understanding how my uncle saw color is very gratifying for me, to understand that creativity is in the person and we bring it to anything and everywhere that people go, and that creative people are not necessarily creative no matter what they do -- or the opposite, that they are in fact creative no matter what they're doing. And I've lived pretty much without this idea that if you- you know what, you remind me of a story. When I was in South Carolina running the factory in the '80s, I met a young woman who was working for the television station and she explained to me that she was working in a very creative field. And I said to her, "What field is that?" She said, "Television!" I looked at her and I said, "You know, you sort of surprised me." She goes, "Why? Everybody knows television's creative." I said, "Really? I don't know a lot about electronics. I'm fascinated by how we found brass and copper in the mountains. I mean, some men have a vision of a big cooking pot. I don't know how that happened, but I always thought of television as electrons running through a wire and that- not really seeming too creative." And she said, "What, are you kidding?" I said, "Actually, I'm not kidding at all. I don't think what- television by itself is creative. It's- It's who's using it and how they're doing it." And she said, "Well, that's just silly." I said, "Really?" And then I think I told her the story of my uncle. So, yeah, I think creativity and what made me feel accomplished was recognizing the creativity that my uncle brought to his work without any- And you know, I have a hard time with the artists of New York with describing pictures. It seems to me that the picture should be able to speak for itself, and that's why we use the camera to communicate that way. We seem now to be explaining why the photographer's picture is interesting. My uncle had no consciousness about what he was doing as creative, but it was. And my uncle was celebrated in that he could sit at a piano and play a tune by ear. So clearly the man had a creative consciousness. He didn't get the encouragement in his life. He didn't live what we would call a creative life. But clearly he was, and I think recognizing that was a really big deal for me. SC: Yes. And this is the history that speaks for itself, what we're doing. Yes. Thank you so much. BS: All the questions answered? SC: Yes. GE: Thank you. It's a good story, and that's what it's all about. SC: So I'm just going to wait for about 10 seconds. GE: First did you stop recording. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:52:28
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Bruce Sheftel, May 31st, 2017
Description
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Bruce Sheftel talks about how his grandfather (Abe), a young immigrant, started as a junkman with his brother-in-law. Later, when Abe’s sons (Milt and Harold) were in the business, they bought textile waste from the many mills that existed up and down the Lehigh river. Harold focused inside the factory/warehouse and Milt (Bruce’s father) focused outside the factory selling the processed textile waste to customers. Their main customer was Crane & Company who used cotton rags to make US currency. The final generation in this business (sons of Milt and Harold) witnessed the disappearance of the U.S. textile waste industry as the textile and needle trade industry moved overseas.
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LVTNT-15
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2017-05-31
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://textile.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/e29e89e6104d9dccdc5fe5779bdef956.png
81fbd6d93df5edf86c1ba2f32717389f
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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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Ronnie Sheftel
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Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-33.xml
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5.4 May 11, 2016 Ronnie Sheftel, May 11, 2016 LVTNT-33 38:12 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Ronnie Sheftel Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SheftelRonnie_20160511.mp4 1.0:|21(9)|38(5)|57(14)|76(17)|93(11)|112(2)|133(4)|156(10)|181(8)|200(15)|221(3)|238(10)|261(2)|278(15)|293(13)|310(9)|331(14)|352(11)|379(7)|396(14)|415(3)|436(5)|455(5)|472(14)|493(9)|512(6)|531(4)|548(17)|569(15)|586(6)|607(8)|628(2)|645(2)|660(9)|679(9)|696(16)|715(8)|732(15)|737(4) 0 https://youtu.be/WF2LCKSnJ5o YouTube video 0 Introduction—Ronnie Sheftel SC: Today is-
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 ; RS: May 11th
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 ; SC: May 11th, thank you, Ronnie. May 11th, 2016, interview with Ronnie Sheftel. Could you state your full name one more time, and where you were born, and where you live right now?
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 ; RS: Ronnie Sheftel. It’s May 11th, 2016. I have lived in Allentown from 1950, and I came from Brooklyn, New York. I was born in- on November 12th, a long time ago. 0 44 Early Volunteer Work for Temple Beth El SC: And really the question today is, could you talk about your role as wife and mother and volunteer and any- any work that you did?
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 ; RS: It's a long time to go back. But when I first came to Allentown as a young bride, I was included in, I think, three or four boards, something I had never done before. And my first experience was being- to collect raffle- to sell raffle tickets to a dinner dance at Temple Beth El. And as time came closer, of course, I had to go away with my husband. When he said let's go, I went. And coming back, I had given it to a friend of mine to collect and I came back to find out how the dinner dance went and how we did with the collection. And I found out that half the people that were there had gotten ptomaine poisoning because whoever had cooked the dinner had left it out too long. And it was very sensitive and nobody was talking about the dinner, so I had never knew if the tickets were ever sold. That was my first experience with being on a board. 0 150 Ronnie's Husband & ; Children RS: I had three children, a boy, Bruce, and two girls, Hildy, and then six years later, Abby. And they are now far distant from here. Hildy lives in Seattle. Abbey lives in South Carolina and has for a long, long time. And I have no grandchildren, but Bruce lives here in Allentown, is taking care of my house. He normally lives in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. And right now I have moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania. My husband, Milton, is in the dementia unit. He has dementia and he's fine. He smiles. He is happy and has had two girlfriends there, unlike me, although I do have two admirers. One is- will be one hundred in October- in August. Delightful old man, but very cute. The other one scares me. He's a friend of mine's husband. Never happened before, but it's fun. 0 235 Volunteering at the Jewish Day School RS: No. I then, when my children became school age, I was on board at the Jewish Day School and was the gift shop’s chairman for many, many years, and would- the kids would have dinner- have lunch and they would have gift shop on Thursday. So I was there and I learned how to say the prayers after lunch.
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 ; GE: Birkat Hamazon. 
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 ; RS: Birkat Hamazon. I learned it by hearing it, I didn't ever learn the words 0 278 Chairman for the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley/President of Hadassah RS: As far as the big deals in my life, I was one year, I was chairman for the Federation — Jewish Federation of Allentown, of the Lehigh Valley. And we raised a lot of money for the Women's Division. It was a lot of money at that time. And then shortly after that, I became president, very proudly, of Hadassah, which at the time I became president in 1980, it was seven hundred members. And it was a wonderful organization, and at that time, I think we raised over fifty thousand dollars, which was enormous. And I sat down and realized I'm now the one head of a fifty thousand dollar business, which I guess in the 1980s was pretty good. And we did very well. And subsequently I was on the board of Jewish Federation and as I said- oh before, before Abby was born, I was a great lady at the Allentown Hospital, which was really very satisfying. 0 372 Milton Sheftel's Business & ; Volunteer Work RS: Milton was always busy. He was either head of the — what was it? B'nai B’rith boy?
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 ; GE: Yes, B'nai B’rith. 
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 ; RS: And that was before we were married. After we were married, he's the head of- he became the chairman of the- of his organization. It had many names at various times, but it was the textile and secondary material, the waste, because his business was collecting the cuttings of all the textile dealers in the Lehigh Valley, South and North. And the- it was a very good business at that time. Of course, it's not an existing, non-existent almost, in these days. Everything has gone overseas. And- but last night I heard on the radio they were talking- this morning, actually, that they were doing recycling and that recycling only collects 16 percent of what’s delivered... 0 513 Impact of Hadassah on Jewish Lives GE: So all those different, you know, organizations of a different leadership that you mentioned, which of those was the most that you felt that you were the most impactful? And if you want to just tell us a little bit about that.
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 ; RS: Hadassah I thought was. 
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 ; GE: So tell us what Hadassah was about then and what it meant to you to be a part of that? And…
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 ; RS: Hadassah is the largest women's Zionist organization. It was started in 1900-something, by Henrietta Szold, with two nurses that she sent to- was able to send to Israel, to Palestine at the time, and I was always very proud of it, being- it's an international organization. At the time that I was very active, they had three hundred thousand women all around the world. And it's, it’s still growing, but it's shifted. There's very little of it in the Lehigh Valley. It's still there. It never has gone away and hopefully never will. But in the Philadelphia area, it's quite active. And in Florida it's very active. But I get the bulletin with the- magazines every year, and boy, they are there all over the world. And it raises money and it has saved children from World War II. And it's- to me it was, you know, something really big. I had wanted to go on the regional board. 0 801 Ronnie's Daughters—Abby & ; Hildy Sheftel RS: And the three kids, I thought they grew up very nicely. And they went to- Abby and Bruce went to the Jewish Day School. And when Abby graduated in sixth grade, she went to what's- what's the school on Walnut Street? Raub — Raub Junior High. And it was very strange for a child her age to say to me, “Mom, I think I learned much more at the Day School.” ‘Cause they were a little bit ahead, considering that they had like twelve, ten kids in class. And when she went to Raub, she was dealing with a whole different group of people, but to her advantage, a whole group of Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Black people had taken a liking to her. And at one point she was thrown into the bramble bushes alongside Raub, and — it was a little anti-Semitic — and all her friends took over and they yeah, she really did, you know, she was really very good with that. I guess she was preparing herself for living in the South, which she did eventually when she was- when she was- graduated from Allen High, she actually moved to Atlanta and was selling apartments, you know, apartment residents. And then she moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where Milton had a- a plant. 0 1074 Diminishing Community Involvement in Hadassah SC: Yeah, I have a question about Hadassah.
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 ; RS: Sure.
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 ; SC: Do you think that Hadassah began to sort of…?
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 ; RS: Diminish?
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 ; RS: Diminish. Yeah, I- I- yeah, I was going to say “go downhill”, diminish is much better. And because the children have moved away and because many people have moved to Florida. So is it that-
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 ; GE: And also the women work.
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 ; SC: What?
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 ; GE: My generation, the women work.
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 ; SC: Yeah, the women work, that’s true. 
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 ; RS: Well actually in 1980, when I became president, I noticed that half of the women were going back to school, another half were starting to go to work, getting teach- people who had been teachers, and getting teachers certificates, were working as teachers. 0 1200 Attending a Berkshire Hathaway Stockholders' Meeting with Bruce Sheftel RS: Now can I talk about Omaha, Nebraska? 
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 ; SC: Sure.
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 ; RS: That was an experience. My son, Bruce has taken over my entertainment, I think, because he has introduced me to things I really had never done before. And he asked me- he's also taken over some of the money problems, and has been dealing in investments and he's doing beautifully. And he- his father never thought it was important, but he did go to a school at Harvard that was called “SOB: Sons of Bosses”. It was a program that they were- they, they're still running it. And they went three weeks from, I guess, 9:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night for three- but three weeks, they went for three years. And at the end of it, they actually got a Master's Degree, which was- they were told, he says to me that they were told that it's beyond a Masters, beyond an MBA, that the things that they were teaching them were way past that. So he’s took- put it to very good use at this point. And a few weeks ago, he said to me, would you like to go to Omaha? And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And we went to Omaha on a Friday afternoon and went to a Berkshire Hathaway stockholders meeting, because I found out we had stock, we are the stockholders, and it was an experience that forty four thousand others shared with me. 0 1739 Ronnie Sheftel's Values SC: What do you value most in life? 
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 ; RS: My kids. I think that was the best thing, and I have you know, it's fun learning to live with your adult children. Right now, my son is taking care of me and his father. And Milton was an interesting character to live with. And even today, he's- even though he's really not in great mental shape, he's the same Milton. Walks over to everybody, says — if it's a woman — “You are the prettiest woman in the room” ; and the men, “You're great.” And they love him, I mean, they think he's wonderful. 0 1832 Creativity—Ronnie Sheftel's Autobiographical Writing SC: So what made you feel the most creative? This is my last question, I promise. 
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 ; RS: Creative?
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 ; SC: Yes. 
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 ; RS: Well right now I'm writing stories for a writer’s group. Most of the people in the group, of course, are residents of the quadrangle. They are all, I mean I feel like I'm uneducated because I only have a B.A. Degree, but they have Master's and two or three PhDs, and they're writing their autobiographies. Just last year, unfortunately, he died shortly after he finished his second book on his life work. And he was 94. He was a psychiatrist. And I'm telling you it's wonderful because I'm thinking, I'm remembering every time somebody tells a story, it sparks something in your head, and you say, “Oh, I remember that!” That's fun. I really find it fun. Physically, I can't do that great because I'm very off-balance. But that I like, I enjoy that. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Tell us about the stories you’re writing. 0 MovingImage Ronnie Sheftel talks about how when she came from Brooklyn to Allentown as Milt Sheftel’s wife, she was quickly given opportunities to get involved in the small, tight-knit Jewish community. This was foreign to her life growing up in Brooklyn. Later Ronnie proudly describes her stint as president of the local Women’s Hadassah chapter, which was quite dominant at that time in the Lehigh Valley. Interview with Ronnie Sheftel, May 11th, 2016 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is- RONNIE SHEFTEL: May 11th SC: May 11th, thank you, Ronnie. May 11th, 2016, interview with Ronnie Sheftel. Could you state your full name one more time, and where you were born, and where you live right now? RS: Ronnie Sheftel. It's May 11th, 2016. I have lived in Allentown from 1950, and I came from Brooklyn, New York. I was born in- on November 12th, a long time ago. SC: Okay, thank you. And really the question today is, could you talk about your role as wife and mother and volunteer and any- any work that you did? RS: It's a long time to go back. But when I first came to Allentown as a young bride, I was included in, I think, three or four boards, something I had never done before. And my first experience was being- to collect raffle- to sell raffle tickets to a dinner dance at Temple Beth El. And as time came closer, of course, I had to go away with my husband. When he said let's go, I went. And coming back, I had given it to a friend of mine to collect and I came back to find out how the dinner dance went and how we did with the collection. And I found out that half the people that were there had gotten ptomaine poisoning because whoever had cooked the dinner had left it out too long. And it was very sensitive and nobody was talking about the dinner, so I had never knew if the tickets were ever sold. That was my first experience with being on a board. The rest of them... SC: So if you would talk a little bit more about after that, after you were at that first board meeting. RS: No, things got much better. I had three children, a boy, Bruce, and two girls, Hildy, and then six years later, Abby. And they are now far distant from here. Hildy lives in Seattle. Abbey lives in South Carolina and has for a long, long time. And I have no grandchildren, but Bruce lives here in Allentown, is taking care of my house. He normally lives in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. And right now I have moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania. My husband, Milton, is in the dementia unit. He has dementia and he's fine. He smiles. He is happy and has had two girlfriends there, unlike me, although I do have two admirers. One is- will be one hundred in October- in August. Delightful old man, but very cute. The other one scares me. He's a friend of mine's husband. Never happened before, but it's fun. SC: So could you talk about- Oh, go ahead. RS: No. I then, when my children became school age, I was on board at the Jewish Day School and was the gift shop's chairman for many, many years, and would- the kids would have dinner- have lunch and they would have gift shop on Thursday. So I was there and I learned how to say the prayers after lunch. GAIL EISENBERG: Birkat Hamazon. RS: Birkat Hamazon. I learned it by hearing it, I didn't ever learn the words. But that's okay. As far as the big deals in my life, I was one year, I was chairman for the Federation -- Jewish Federation of Allentown, of the Lehigh Valley. And we raised a lot of money for the Women's Division. It was a lot of money at that time. And then shortly after that, I became president, very proudly, of Hadassah, which at the time I became president in 1980, it was seven hundred members. And it was a wonderful organization, and at that time, I think we raised over fifty thousand dollars, which was enormous. And I sat down and realized I'm now the one head of a fifty thousand dollar business, which I guess in the 1980s was pretty good. And we did very well. And subsequently I was on the board of Jewish Federation and as I said- oh before, before Abby was born, I was a great lady at the Allentown Hospital, which was really very satisfying. But when I became pregnant with her, I decided it's not a good time to be in a hospital. So those are really the main things that I did. Milton was always busy. He was either head of the -- what was it? B'nai B'rith boy? GE: Yes, B'nai B'rith. RS: And that was before we were married. After we were married, he's the head of- he became the chairman of the- of his organization. It had many names at various times, but it was the textile and secondary material, the waste, because his business was collecting the cuttings of all the textile dealers in the Lehigh Valley, South and North. And the- it was a very good business at that time. Of course, it's not an existing, non-existent almost, in these days. Everything has gone overseas. And- but last night I heard on the radio they were talking- this morning, actually, that they were doing recycling and that recycling only collects 16 percent of what's delivered and things that you give to various charities rarely get on, you know, to the- the floors when you give it to the -- what do you call them? Can you cut this out? GE: Yes. RS: Is this- The consignment stores and the various charities that, you know, drop in the box. SB: The Salvation Army. RS: The Salvation Army, the whatever, you know, those barrels. And Milton always used to say that he never recycled anything. And I kept saying you're in the recycling business. How come you don't recycle? We have two bins right in our kitchen, you know, garbage and recycling. And he says it's crazy, don't do it. But I do it. GE: But the interesting part is, in a sense he was the recycler. A reuser. RS: I said that you are a recycler. Absolutely! Yes, he really was. And he never recycled anything but- I think it's becoming, they're becoming aware that it is important. GE: So all those different, you know, organizations of a different leadership that you mentioned, which of those was the most that you felt that you were the most impactful? And if you want to just tell us a little bit about that. RS: Hadassah I thought was. GE: So tell us what Hadassah was about then and what it meant to you to be a part of that? And-- RS: Hadassah is the largest women's Zionist organization. It was started in 1900-something, by Henrietta Szold, with two nurses that she sent to- was able to send to Israel, to Palestine at the time, and I was always very proud of it, being- it's an international organization. At the time that I was very active, they had three hundred thousand women all around the world. And it's, it's still growing, but it's shifted. There's very little of it in the Lehigh Valley. It's still there. It never has gone away and hopefully never will. But in the Philadelphia area, it's quite active. And in Florida it's very active. But I get the bulletin with the- magazines every year, and boy, they are there all over the world. And it raises money and it has saved children from World War II. And it's- to me it was, you know, something really big. I had wanted to go on the regional board. I had many friends on the national board. And as I see their names, it's- I'm very proud of it. But- GE: What were some of the programs that you were, some of the programs that you were involved with here, that you brought here, that you were- RS: Oh what started it was the- we had study groups, and the study groups were wonderful because it taught you a lot about things, like one of the things that I -- I think I was vice-president at the time, but I made a-What happened was you're given a topic and one person will be the leader of it. Once I had I think it was mothers and sons, or why, you know, eating was very important. And I found out a little clue: Eating was very important to the immigrants in the- in the United States in the early years of the 19th, 20th century, because when you got very thin, they thought you had tuberculosis. So people would say, "Eat!" It wasn't the Jewish mother's attitude. It was a necessary thing because tuberculosis was very prevalent in those days and living conditions were quite horrible. But it's- it was really- I was very busy. I was also on the board of the Day School, as I said, and I'm trying to think of what else. God, I was always busy, till I picked up tennis and then I played tennis three times a week until I was past eighty. GE: Wonderful. Well what did, what did these things mean to you? How did you feel in terms of both what you were able to contribute or how they helped you as a person, as-? RS: They did help me very much. I mean, when I started making speeches, I would shake -- and then I realized, you know what? These are my friends. They don't want me to fail. And I hoped I didn't. And it was very important, and as I said, when Milton became very active in his industry organization, I was there, and we would have things to do. You know, they have- which, whatever city we had the convention. And usually there was a guest, not a guest, but a resident host and hostess. And they would set up programs for the ladies because most of the men- there were very few women in the textile waste. There were a few, but very few. I don't know what it would be like now, but, but it's been a long time. But it was- it was an active life. And the three kids, I thought they grew up very nicely. And they went to- Abby and Bruce went to the Jewish Day School. And when Abby graduated in sixth grade, she went to what's- what's the school on Walnut Street? Raub -- Raub Junior High. And it was very strange for a child her age to say to me, "Mom, I think I learned much more at the Day School." 'Cause they were a little bit ahead, considering that they had like twelve, ten kids in class. And when she went to Raub, she was dealing with a whole different group of people, but to her advantage, a whole group of Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Black people had taken a liking to her. And at one point she was thrown into the bramble bushes alongside Raub, and -- it was a little anti-Semitic -- and all her friends took over and they yeah, she really did, you know, she was really very good with that. I guess she was preparing herself for living in the South, which she did eventually when she was- when she was- graduated from Allen High, she actually moved to Atlanta and was selling apartments, you know, apartment residents. And then she moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where Milton had a- a plant. And she had set up- they set up for her a linen, you know, bedding plant- store. She had at one time, she had three stores, and she was doing very nicely until the companies themselves, she would get, you know, seconds and handouts. And when we first moved, when she first moved into the business, the former owner had big baskets and the sheets, you know, were all mixed up together. They came from all the plants, Laura Ashley, Ralph Lauren, and she managed to rearrange it where she got the print, the twins together, and the kings and the queens, and then the- she would package them together. And she did a good job until, as I said, the industry- the manufacturers themselves realized that they were, you know, getting rid of things by the pound when they could get they could get rid- they could make a good profit on selling them in seconds if they just packaged them. So that business went away, too. So she then decided to go into real estate and she's been there for- God, almost 20 years. SC: In Atlanta? RS: No, she's in Greenville. Yeah. She, well she got married and she- six months after she got married, she lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. But in this day and day, I want to tell you that she is number one in the paint horse show ring. So, with a one leg, she has done very well. And my other daughter is in Seattle. She works in a vegan restaurant. My two daughters are vegan, gluten-free vegans, and it's very difficult to listen to them because all they talk about is food. I think it's a loss on their part because I still eat meat and all the bad things that they say I shouldn't eat. And I survived, believe me better than some of the people at the quadrangle because every night they have ice cream. SC: Yeah, I have a question about Hadassah. RS: Sure. SC: Do you think that Hadassah began to sort of--? RS: Diminish? RS: Diminish. Yeah, I- I- yeah, I was going to say "go downhill", diminish is much better. And because the children have moved away and because many people have moved to Florida. So is it that- GE: And also the women work. SC: What? GE: My generation, the women work. SC: Yeah, the women work, that's true. RS: Well actually in 1980, when I became president, I noticed that half of the women were going back to school, another half were starting to go to work, getting teach- people who had been teachers, and getting teachers certificates, were working as teachers. And yes, I had a lot of trouble -- as a matter of fact, my board, which was I think forty strong, had its three top off positions I couldn't even get anybody to do. I finally asked the executive board to help me, and we managed to get everything done pretty well. But, yes, of course, I think all women's organizations are, you know, much less -- I mean, everybody calls it your grandma's business, so we're now into the great-grandmas and past. But listen, I have great, great nieces, I have two great, great nieces, but even the great-nieces and nephews are old! SC: But you don't look it, so it's fine. RS: Thank you. But other than that, no, it was fun. It really was. But it's a different life now. I'm pretty much on my own. Now can I talk about Omaha, Nebraska? SC: Sure. RS: That was an experience. My son, Bruce has taken over my entertainment, I think, because he has introduced me to things I really had never done before. And he asked me- he's also taken over some of the money problems, and has been dealing in investments and he's doing beautifully. And he- his father never thought it was important, but he did go to a school at Harvard that was called "SOB: Sons of Bosses". It was a program that they were- they, they're still running it. And they went three weeks from, I guess, 9:00 in the morning till 9:00 at night for three- but three weeks, they went for three years. And at the end of it, they actually got a Master's Degree, which was- they were told, he says to me that they were told that it's beyond a Masters, beyond an MBA, that the things that they were teaching them were way past that. So he's took- put it to very good use at this point. And a few weeks ago, he said to me, would you like to go to Omaha? And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And we went to Omaha on a Friday afternoon and went to a Berkshire Hathaway stockholders meeting, because I found out we had stock, we are the stockholders, and it was an experience that forty four thousand others shared with me. GE: That's how many people were there? RS: Yes, we don't know exactly, but they- they said that forty four thousand were registered to go, and Bruce said he had dealings with them. He wanted to take his camera and get, you know, a slip for press. And he said they called him, and he said if you- anything he wanted, if you called them, they called you back. And it's like Warren Buffett himself. We got up at five o'clock in the morning to get into the auditorium by 7:00 a.m. Because it was raining, they opened up the auditorium before 7:00 a.m. So there were lines everywhere, but Bruce got us a seat and he was taking pictures of Warren Buffett from 8:30 in the morning until 4 o'clock that afternoon. Warren Buffett is eighty-five years old. He talked and answered questions from- there were six people asking questions, one of which was Andrew Sorkin from The Times. He was there, among others. And there were- oh, Bill Gates was also there with his wife. We have big pictures of him and of Warren Buffett and his- his- I don't know if Charlie Munger is his partner or what, but they were sitting at the table together, munching on their See's Candy, peanut brittle, which is very good. He was talking about he- he was questioned, and then he would answer, and then he would talk a little bit more, and then in the afternoon, there was a break at noon and he came back, we came back at 1 o'clock and there were questions that the audience had submitted, and he would answer, he'd say, "Platform four," and a spotlight would go on and someone would be standing in the spotlight and asking a question, and he would answer the question. I mean, he never- never fumbled, never did anything that was- he just calmly answered every single question. I mean, he was amazing. It really was amazing. And he'd always say, after he spoke for a while, very nicely, he would say, "And Charlie, what do you think about that?" Charlie would say four words. He's 92, but very sharp. I mean, he- some of the answers he gave were very sharp. And it was really a delightful show. It- amazing. He was down on, after the- they had an hour, I think, over half an hour to buy the goods. Friday, I understand, was all buying. You didn't have any meetings or anything, but they did have a dinner and a brunch, and- but they were- he was down, not on the arena floor, but on the selling floor. And I see this big crowd and I saw a guy six foot four or so and I said, "You're tall enough. Who is there? Is it Warren?" And he looks and he says, "Yeah, it's him." And he's surrounded by people who- very, very nice man. And then we had an Uber driver take us around on Sunday. Oh Sunday morning was a brunch at a jewelry store that is the largest in the United States. And I don't think anybody has ever heard the name. It's Borsheims. Gorgeous, sixty-five thousand square foot jewelry store, beautiful and gorgeous stuff. I mean not only jewelry, but dishes and flatware and a Swarovski -- I mean, you name it, it was there. Paintings and tiles, beautiful things, really. Actually, I sent my great nieces, my great, greats, little dishes of you know, like from three to five, nine years old dish sets, cup, plates, fork, and spoon. And on my cell phone, I have one of them saying thank you in taking it apart, and saying, "Oh, a cup for drinking!" And they said it was perfect because she was growing out of her little infant bowls. And she's adorable anyway. But it was, it was really quite an experience. And I said we got an Uber driver to take us around and she took us all around and she says, "Oh, you have to see Warren's house, don't you?" So we said, okay, you want to take us? "Oh," she says, "Everybody goes there!" And if you didn't see the yellow cord around the house because people didn't want them to come in, it's a very nice house in a very wonderful neighborhood. Nothing extravagant. I live on Main Street in Allentown, and I lived, and the houses are very similar and nothing extravagant or elaborate. He is a very simple man, and Bruce was able to take a picture of him getting into his car, going to dinner with the stockholders, and a very simple place, an old fashioned steak house in Omaha. And that was- And then the next day we went to Lauritzen Gardens, I think it was called, the most gorgeous greenhouses you ever want to see, almost bigger than the New York's Botanical Gardens. It was- it was really an eye opener to see this. It was really nice. We missed the tornadoes. There was one last night and one just before we got there. So that's a minus, but we weren't there for. But it was an experience that really- And then we stopped, that week ended by seeing John Williams conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center with Star Wars music. It was an amazing week. Weekend, really. So, and that's my life now. SC: Yes. May I ask a question? RS: But it was very interesting. Go ahead. SC: What do you- I have two more questions. What do you value most in life? RS: My kids. I think that was the best thing, and I have you know, it's fun learning to live with your adult children. Right now, my son is taking care of me and his father. And Milton was an interesting character to live with. And even today, he's- even though he's really not in great mental shape, he's the same Milton. Walks over to everybody, says -- if it's a woman -- "You are the prettiest woman in the room" ; and the men, "You're great." And they love him, I mean, they think he's wonderful. And it was funny, I went to a Cinco de Mayo festival that they had in this unit, and the director of it is about twenty-four years old, very beautiful, and was wearing a very short skirt, and she was dancing around, and every time she would come by us, we were sitting there, he would say, "She's a very pretty lady." But that was fun, it was. Everybody was dancing and laughing and singing. And it was, it was cute. Very good. SC: So what made you feel the most creative? This is my last question, I promise. RS: Creative? SC: Yes. RS: Well right now I'm writing stories for a writer's group. Most of the people in the group, of course, are residents of the quadrangle. They are all, I mean I feel like I'm uneducated because I only have a B.A. Degree, but they have Master's and two or three PhDs, and they're writing their autobiographies. Just last year, unfortunately, he died shortly after he finished his second book on his life work. And he was 94. He was a psychiatrist. And I'm telling you it's wonderful because I'm thinking, I'm remembering every time somebody tells a story, it sparks something in your head, and you say, "Oh, I remember that!" That's fun. I really find it fun. Physically, I can't do that great because I'm very off-balance. But that I like, I enjoy that. GE: Tell us about the stories you're writing. RS: Well, I've written a story about when my father and mother and sister went down to- up- we were going to a convention in my father's- my father's convention in Atlanta. In 1945? No, it couldn't have been, it was '48. My mother was still alive. And we went- we drove down to the- down south and we were meeting a couple who were leaving Greenville, who- he had- he was a shirt manufacturer in Greenville and was moving to Manhattan. And we were going to meet his family, and we went to a place called Tybee Beach in South Carolina. And nobody I know has ever heard of it except my daughter, when I- who lives in South Carolina said, "Oh yeah, it's a nice beach." So we went there and Eugene Talmadge was at the hotel. He was just leaving the hotel. And at that time, he was a famous or infamous politician in South Carolina. And my- How old was I? I don't remember. Maybe 12, 11? Eleven, I guess. It was, I said, "He looked like just a little corn pone." There was nothing very important about him, he didn't look like a hayseed -- that's the word. And I was not impressed, but I was impressed with the going down and seeing the chain gangs on the road. That was impressive- not impressive, but scary. And how we- when we left, when we actually left the hotel to go to Atlanta, we got into an accident and our car was smashed, so we had to take a bus to Atlanta and left the car there to be repaired. And the children- my mother got hysterical because she was wearing pants. It was a beautiful pair of the patio pants, but in 1948 you did not drive a- in a- you know, you didn't get on a bus with a pair of slacks, more or less. And I said today we would think it's formalwear. And then the night drive through rural South Carolina was something because in the middle of nowhere with no lights, no nothing, they would stop and somebody would get off. So it was quite, that was an adventure. And then the next one was when? In 1954 or '52, something like that. We were in a blizzard and we had gone out to dinner at the Gourmet Inn, and we had some visitors from Italy in. And when it was snowing, I kept saying, I'll take a brisket out and I'll put- and have dinner here. We had invited two more couples for dinner and Milton said, "No, we'll go out to the Gourmet Inn." I said, "Can't we stay in town?" "Nah!" And this Italian is saying, "This is no snow!" He comes from the Alps. They had six feet the week before. And we went there on Saturday night. And we left the- at about 10:00 that night, we left the Gourmet Inn and got about half a mile down the road when we had to stop because the car wouldn't move. The wind was blowing and the snow was blowing and it was five degrees, and we stayed four days. We were very lucky when we saw light out in a bleak, dark night. And Milt and his brother got out of the car and the snow was up to their waist, and they opened the hood and snow was packed all the way into the- to the engine. So we had Vera Shiff with us, too. And Morty was in Cincinnati and he kept saying, "What do you mean you're stuck near the Gourmet Inn? Can't you go home? Kids are home," and everybody's kids were home with the babysitters. And we stayed there because we couldn't get out. And we realized Amelio Falco, who is this outside- The Italian kept saying, "We had six feet of snow!" And after I wrote the story, I looked up in the- on the dates at how much snow we had -- we had 15.4 inches. And last winter, we had- you had 32 inches here in Allentown. So I apologize for saying it was a blizzard, but that was- it was an amazing- Listen, we got through that. But I have another one. We were caught in- We went to Acapulco, and we went out fishing and the boat burned underneath us. So that's another one I'm writing but I don't want them to know that I was in catastrophic situations all my life. I had some very happy, calm ones. So that's an interesting- that's what I'm doing now. And meeting a hundred new people. And getting along very nicely. SC: Thank you so much. RS: My pleasure. 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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Ronnie Sheftel, May 11, 2016
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Ronnie Sheftel talks about how when she came from Brooklyn to Allentown as Milt Sheftel’s wife, she was quickly given opportunities to get involved in the small, tight-knit Jewish community. This was foreign to her life growing up in Brooklyn. Later Ronnie proudly describes her stint as president of the local Women’s Hadassah chapter, which was quite dominant at that time in the Lehigh Valley.
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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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Irwin Schneider
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5.4 August 10, 2011 Irwin and Ellen Schneider, August 10, 2011 LVTNT-11 1:46:00 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Irwin Schneider Ellen Schneider Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SchneiderIrwin_Ellen_20110810.mp4 1.0:|27(10)|42(18)|63(8)|86(4)|127(2)|158(9)|185(5)|216(6)|241(9)|268(2)|307(7)|328(14)|367(2)|396(6)|415(3)|446(8)|469(17)|492(13)|513(14)|532(16)|557(6)|590(18)|613(11)|636(11)|661(10)|688(2)|717(2)|742(13)|777(15)|804(11)|829(13)|852(3)|879(13)|908(3)|927(9)|952(3)|975(9)|996(6)|1021(8)|1050(11)|1083(2)|1102(16)|1125(7)|1146(12)|1171(12)|1198(5)|1229(12)|1260(9)|1289(11)|1316(11)|1345(8)|1368(5)|1393(8)|1416(3)|1449(5)|1478(5)|1505(14)|1538(3)|1561(6)|1582(12)|1607(2)|1632(6)|1651(12)|1668(16)|1697(14)|1718(12)|1753(17)|1780(2)|1799(13)|1826(3)|1853(16)|1880(5)|1903(8)|1938(5)|1963(2)|1994(2)|2017(17)|2046(16)|2069(12)|2090(8)|2111(6)|2132(10)|2159(8)|2182(8)|2209(13)|2232(2)|2263(4)|2286(13)|2313(14)|2340(8)|2363(12)|2404(2)|2431(4)|2464(4)|2497(7)|2518(8)|2545(10)|2566(5)|2595(4)|2614(15)|2629(7)|2654(3)|2689(4)|2706(3)|2727(2)|2744(17) 0 https://youtu.be/OEE5o7n_Wfc YouTube video 0 Introduction—Irwin Schneider SCB: Today is August 10th, 2011, an interview with Irwin Schneider. And we’ll start, if you will, with all of your information, your name, where you live currently, and your birthdate.
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 ; IS: My name is Irwin Schneider. I live in Macungie, PA, during the summer months, and I live in Florida for seven months during the winter months.
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 ; SCB: Where were you born?
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 ; IS: I was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1931. 0 36 Irwin's Family History SCB: Can we talk a little about your family background, and then we will get back to you again. Where, what do you know about your parents, your grandparents, great-grandparents, where they came from, where they lived, and their education?
 ; 
 ; IS: Alright, my family, everyone came from Poland. My parents were born in Poland and my parents came to the United States in the early 1920s. Both came from Poland, and my parents immigrated to the United States, and they moved to Brooklyn. They met in Brooklyn, and they married in January of 1930. And they met and lived in Brooklyn and worked very, very hard. And my father decided to get into the garment business. He worked in NY as a foreman in a sewing factory. And in 1931, the factory that he was working for decided to move to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to get away from the union. And he was working as a foreman, and he was making $35 a week, which was a very nice salary at that time. He decided to come to Allentown to test it out, and he came to Allentown, and he didn’t know where to go so, he went to Friday night services at Sons of Israel which was located at 6th and Tilghman Street. And he met a man with a beard, and my father was only 28 years old at the time, and I was six months old. And he introduced himself, said my name is Sam Schneider. The Factory I am working for is moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I am thinking of coming to Allentown. I do not know a single soul. I do not know where to go. I am thinking of coming to Allentown, and I am at a loss at what to do and where to go. The man said you look like a nice young Jewish man. What I am going to do for you is I’ll let you stay at my place. I will give you room and board. I will give you breakfast and dinner and a clean bed for five dollars a week. 0 693 Irwin's Education SCB: So can you talk a little bit more about your childhood? What you did? Maybe where you worked? Where you went to school?
 ; 
 ; IS: I went to Penn State University. I got a degree in commerce and finance. And during the summer years, I worked at the factory at Schneider Manufacturing. And after the graduation, I went into the Army. I was in the medical corps, and after I graduated from the Army, I went into the business.
 ; 
 ; GE: And that’s already the ’50s?
 ; 
 ; IS: I graduated from Penn State University in 1953. And then I went into the Army for two years. I got out in 1955. And then I went into the business.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Did you go to Allentown High School?
 ; 
 ; IS: I went to Allentown High School.
 ; 
 ; SCB: How about Elementary School?
 ; 
 ; IS: I went to Raub. I went to Raub for nine years. 0 768 Growing up in Allentown, PA GE: And where did you live? Where did you grow up? Where in Allentown? What neighborhood?
 ; 
 ; IS: We lived in, we grew up in the West End of Allentown.
 ; 
 ; GE: What street?
 ; 
 ; IS: We first lived on South St. Cloud Street.
 ; 
 ; GE: OK. That is between the 17th and 18th.
 ; 
 ; IS: Between 17th and 18th, and then we moved to South West Street.
 ; 
 ; GE: Ok, and South West Street, that is off of Walnut.
 ; 
 ; IS: South West Street is between 16th and 17th Street.
 ; 
 ; GE: OK, right by Temple Beth El.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: And what do you remember as a child, maybe some of your friends you want to name for us or? At that time, your father was still working. While you were a small child, he was still working.
 ; 
 ; IS: No, he was in business already because he went into business in 1941. 0 934 Family's Involvement in the Jewish and Allentown Communities SCB: As far as being connected with the Jewish community, were you connected with the synagogue, was your family connected?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh, yes. We have been members of Beth El since we moved into Allentown.
 ; 
 ; GE: So all the way back since 1931?
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes. I think the Temple Beth El was started around 1928, sometime around there.
 ; 
 ; GE: Probably.
 ; 
 ; IS: And we have been members since 1931, since we moved into Allentown. So we are long-time members of Beth El.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Was your father involved in the community at all? Did he have any connection to community organizations? Or was he mostly working in the business?
 ; 
 ; IS: He was an active member of Beth El. He was on the Board of Directors of Beth El. And he was an active member of the Locust Valley Country Club. He was one of the original charter members. 0 1039 Irwin's Work Experiences SCB: So can you talk about the jobs you’ve had in your life? From the very first place that you made a little bit of money all the way through to the business?
 ; 
 ; IS: The only job I had prior was one year as a counselor in a camp, and then being in the Army and then going right to Schneider Manufacturing.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And what camp was that?
 ; 
 ; IS: It was a camp in, it was Blue Mountain Camp, one summer.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Was that specifically connected to the synagogue, or was it a general camp?
 ; 
 ; IS: No, it was a summer camp in the Pocono Mountains. So basically, I have had no other employers besides the U.S. Army and Schneider Manufacturing. 0 1098 1941: The Origins of Schneider Manufacturing GE: Do you want to share with us a little bit about how the business got started?
 ; 
 ; IS: Alright. How the business got started. My father, my father, actually in 1941 borrowed five hundred dollars to start the business and buy six sewing machines. And he started it in Pearl Harbor week. He started with six employees, and he took one of the employees from the business that he had been working for, a teenager named Valeria Lukish, who was a very promising girl, who had a lot of potential. She was a combination sewing machine operator and a floor girl, and she eventually rose to the position of plant manager. And this woman today is 97 years old. She is still alive. And I visit her occasionally, she’s sort of in dementia and is very feeble, and she barely recognizes me, and I still get to see her once in a while. But anyway, the business started in 1941 during Pearl Harbor week, and my father started with six sewing machines. He borrowed the five hundred dollars to start the business. 0 1273 Early Business Practices Under Samuel Schneider SCB: And what kind of clothing did they make when your dad owned it?
 ; 
 ; IS: They were making knitwear.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So knitwear for women?
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, for women.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Were there certain labels they were making the knitwear for? Specifically, or was it more general?
 ; 
 ; IS: More general.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And so they would be shipped up to New York.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Could you talk a little bit about the process that your dad had. Do you know anything about the processes that he used, the way he organized the business and the manufacturing?
 ; 
 ; IS: In what respect?
 ; 
 ; SCB: So how did he go about it, did he have certain people as cutters? Did he have people, women, probably. Did he hire men? What was the factory like under him?
 ; 
 ; IS: In the beginning, he just had sewers and sewing equipment. As he got a little larger, he opened up a cutting room, and he hired cutters and spreaders. And he would get piece goods in and get a cutting department in. 0 1418 1955: Expansion Under Irwin Schneider SCB: How did it change when, or did it change when you took over the business?
 ; 
 ; IS: When I came into the business, he already had a full-fledged operation going on, a full-fledged from cutting, shipping, and packing, the full operation going.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So it did not expand at all after you took over?
 ; 
 ; IS: It expanded in volume, the number of people, the number of employees. When I came into the organization, we expanded, and we gradually built it up, and when I came into the business in 1955 we kept expanding and getting larger and larger. 0 1465 1957: Samuel Schneider's Retirement IS: And a couple years later in 1957 my father said, “Irwin, you are doing such a great job in here, in two year you already know everything, I do not even have to be here anymore,” he said. “I am going to retire to Florida. I am going to move to Florida. I will remain the president of the corporation, and you are going to take over the everyday duties of running the factory. What I’m going to do is, I am going to call you every Friday afternoon, you are going to tell me everything you shipped, how many dozens went out, what the volume was and what you are going to do is send me my paycheck for the week. And I will speak to you every week. Once a quarter I will come up for a couple days and walk around the factory, check and see what you are doing. Then I will fly back to Florida, and that is the way we will do it.”
 ; 
 ; SCB: Sounds like a nice business relationship, too. 0 1622 Learning the Business—Summer Work at Schneider Manufacturing SCB: And during those summers then, did you work at specific machines or did you just learn - and I shouldn’t say “just” - learn the management of the business without being involved in the various processes to understand what people were doing?
 ; 
 ; IS: Actually I spent a little time in the office, a little time on the sewing floor, a little time in the cutting room, a little time in every area of the business. Trying to pick up a little bit.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So you were managing mostly?
 ; 
 ; IS: Not actually management, my father had me in every single department trying to pick up.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So did you actually operate, go through the process in the department? And the reason I am asking this is because in some of the textile industries in Philadelphia in the 19th century the son would be brought in and would have to go through every process and learn every process so he would learn how to do everything.
 ; 
 ; GE: So he would actually work on a press.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Right, do everything, and learn all the skills.
 ; 
 ; IS: I did not. Actually, I did not actually sit on a sewing machine, I did not actually go to the cutting room and use any of the cutting equipment. 0 1713 Employees of Schneider Manufacturing IS: I had a very good relationship with the employees. They loved me. I worked very good with them. I had a nice relationship with them. I treated them very, very well.
 ; 
 ; ES: Can I interject something?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Certainly!
 ; 
 ; ES: He still does to this day. There is a group, now these are elderly ladies by now, but there is a group of them who still meet once a month for lunch, they go to the City View Diner.
 ; 
 ; IS: On Seventh Street.
 ; 
 ; ES: And in the summertime when Irwin is home, he comes there and joins them once or twice.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Wonderful.
 ; 
 ; ES: They love it. 0 1944 Letter from Rance Block, President of Temple Beth El, to Employees of Schneider Manufacturing, 1988 IS: This is something from Rance Block who was President of Beth El in March of 1988:
 ; 
 ; Dear Employees of Irwin Schneider,
 ; 
 ; The officers and Congregation at Temple Beth El acknowledges with gratitude your generous donation made in honor of Irwin Schneider. The funds will be placed in the Samuel Schneider Philanthropic fund. This contribution shows the esteem in which Irwin Schneider is held by all his former employees. I am sure that Mr. Schneider is deeply touched and appreciative of this gesture. Once again, thanks for your generosity.
 ; 
 ; Sincerely,
 ; 
 ; Rance Block
 ; 
 ; President 0 2024 Letter from Irwin Schneider to Schneider Manufacturing Retirees, 1977 IS: This is something I did February 1, 1977. I wrote this letter, and each and every one of the girls who retired got a letter like this. I will read the letter that I wrote:
 ; 
 ; Dear So and So,
 ; 
 ; The bicentennial year of 1976 was a very important milestone in our nation’s history, it was the 200th birthday celebration of the United States. The year 1976 was also a very important one for the Schneider Manufacturing Corporation, as this marked the 35th anniversary of our being in business. These 35 years of continued growth would not have been possible without the loyal and dedicated support of our many hundreds of employees throughout the years. In tribute to the service of our most recent retirees, we are backtracking to our celebration year of 1976 and to this year of 1977 and presenting each of you with a fifty dollar retirement savings bond which will set a precedent for all union employees retiring in the future. This savings bond is in addition to the monthly retirement check you are presently receiving from the ILGWU. These checks are the result of retirement contributions that we have sent to ILGWU throughout the years based upon your payroll earnings. Our very best wishes for your continued good health, and please feel free to visit us at any time.
 ; 
 ; Very Truly Yours,
 ; 
 ; Schneider Manufacturing Corporation
 ; 
 ; Irwin J. Schneider
 ; 0 2146 Press Release Covering the Selling of Schneider Manufacturing to Robert Marzano, 1988 IS: I also want to read the press release. This is the press release sent out by Chambers Association Advertising Public Relations Company on Linden Street in Allentown. The press release that was going to be sent out to the Allentown Morning Call.
 ; 
 ; A 47-year-old Allentown apparel manufacturing firm has a new name and a new owner, assuring the continued employment of more than a hundred and twenty-five men and women. Schneider Manufacturing Company, 315 Linden Street, has been purchased from Irwin J. Schneider by Robert Marzano of Whitehall, and is now Linden Apparel Company. Marzano, who is also President of JoMar Manufacturing in Alburtis, stated that ownership of the Schneider Firm increases his ability to continue to make a better line of ladies knits sportswear, and to expand both the Linden and JoeMar operations. JoeMar, with its 50 employees, is too small to compete alone in the better knits field, he said, so Linden will reinforce our Alburtis plant’s production. Schneider pointed out that the sale of his firm involved two second-generation apparel makers. 0 2449 Long-time Contractor for Beeline Fashions GE: Can you tell us both about that business, Beeline Business, as well as were you their sole supplier?
 ; 
 ; IS: No, I was not their sole supplier.
 ; 
 ; GE: But they were your sole customer.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: But if you could share with us if you could tell us about the Beeline Business and then also what were the years you were saying you had that contract for 25 years and how that really helped your whole business?
 ; 
 ; IS: Well, we were starting to do some business with Beeline starting in the late 1950s, and the relationship started to work out very, very nicely. They started growing very, very fast, very, very quickly and we got a nice relationship with them, and we saw that they were increasing their business so fast and so quickly. It was the era of stay-at-home moms. 0 2856 Samuel Schneider's Contributions to the War Industry SCB: Can we go back and could you talk for a minute about what your dad produced during World War II for the war effort? What kind of garments did he produce, the t-shirts?
 ; 
 ; IS: I know he made a lot of t-shirts for one company that had a contract with the army, plus he made work for other jobbers too, but I am not sure too much because I was only a youngster. I was not really familiar. But he had other contracts.
 ; 
 ; SCB: But he was a war industry then.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes. And it is sad to say that he had to have the war to expand his business.
 ; 
 ; GE: That is the reality.
 ; 
 ; IS: But he got in at the right time and for a man who did not have any education.
 ; 
 ; GE: He was obviously business savvy. 0 2920 Unions SCB: Can you talk a little bit about how the union came into your business, so going back to women how as you mentioned off-camera, were happy with the business and they were getting union wages, but the truckers pushed that, pushed the union, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union?
 ; 
 ; GE: Were really aggressive. Do you want to just share that with us again? We just didn’t capture it. 
 ; 
 ; IS: From what I understand, the union was actually going to the girls' houses at night and saying that the Schneider Manufacturing should go union because a very large majority of the factories in Allentown are all unionized, and you would be better off with the union. A lot of the girls were saying we do not need the union because Sam and Irwin Schneider are good employers, they are paying us basically the same wages as union shops are paying, and they are also paying us vacations, they’re also paying us holidays, so there is no need for us to join the union. So you ought to leave. We don’t have to join the union. 0 3064 Beeline (cont'd)—How the Relationship was Formed GE: I was wondering, excuse me, were you finished? I was wondering with Beeline, how was that original association formed? How was that developed?
 ; 
 ; IS: Okay, we were working with a jobber in New York under the name of the Golder Company, Golder Company and Climax Specialties. This jobber had two names, Golder and Climax Specialties, and they had the contact with Beeline Fashions, and we got the initial contact with this Golder Climax Company, and they were involved with Beeline, and they got the work for us.
 ; 
 ; GE: Beeline did well?
 ; 
 ; IS: And when Beeline got busy, and we were given the opportunity to work for them full time, we gave up the other two accounts we had. It was the start, the best thing that ever happened to us. 0 3148 Creating a Positive Work Environment for Employees SCB: So did the women ever ask for flex time, for instance if they had families? Did they ever ask to have time off during their workday? Was there flexibility about the hours that the women worked?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh yes, we would give, we worked along with them. Our regular hours were from seven to two-thirty, and overtime was usually from two-thirty to four-thirty. If they had problems we let them come in at eight or eight-thirty. We worked with them. And another thing, we were like a savings and loan association, in other words we, my bookkeeper was not too happy about it, it made extra work for her, but we would lend the employees money with no interest and have a payroll deduction plan of five dollars a week for fifty weeks or. . . it was unbelievable I was so good to the employees. 0 3290 Modernized Machinery at Schneider Manufacturing SCB: Did the technology change over the years when you were the sole owner of the business? So did you get more sophisticated machinery?
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, newer equipment, newer equipment, faster equipment, new different types of equipment.
 ; 
 ; GE: Were you constantly updating?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh, yes, sure. I always had top-notch mechanics on my payroll. I was always buying new equipment, new machinery that came out. I was always on top of everything.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So the mechanics would fix the machinery…
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh yeah.
 ; 
 ; SCB: But then if they knew something or you knew something was going to speed up the production and make it more…
 ; 
 ; IS: We always went to trade shows. My mechanics went to trade shows. We had good equipment, the best equipment. We always had modern equipment too. 0 3340 Membership in Trade Organizations SCB: And you were a member, you were an officer in the Needle Trades Workers Organization…
 ; 
 ; IS: The Lehigh Valley, I was a member of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, which was formed in the late 1950s. This was an association that was strictly for public relations, and I was also a member of the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association, with Arnold Delin. You interview Arnold Delin?
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes.
 ; 
 ; IS: By the way, he is very sick.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Oh, no.
 ; 
 ; IS: Arnold Delin, he looked very thin when you saw him?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yes, he did.
 ; 
 ; IS: He’s had a lot of health problems, a lot of health issues. Arnold Delin, when I joined the association in our peak years the association had about 450 members. And we had a headquarters in Wind Gap, a regular building and Arnold Delin would do the negotiations for the contracts for our association. It was a powerful association, and we had wonderful conventions overseas, in Italy, in Hawaii. 0 3468 1988: The Manufacturing Business in China ES: And after the business was sold, we were taking a trip to the Orient for a number of weeks, and we went through the state department.
 ; 
 ; IS: In Washington.
 ; 
 ; ES: Yes, this was in 1988.
 ; 
 ; IS: And Arnold Delin worked for us.
 ; 
 ; ES: And got us permission to visit a Chinese garment factory, and we did.
 ; 
 ; IS: Arnold Delin had to ask permission from the State Department in Washington because, in 1988, China was not so liberal.
 ; 
 ; ES: And we went in, and there was a whole delegation there that was meeting us. They took us around to their factory, and we were immediately struck by the youth of their employees. They were women, and they were all young. And then they took us downstairs and they showed us their daycare center, right on the premises. Infants, they had them all lined up, all bundled up, it was nap time when we were there. But we were immediately struck by the differences between the Oriental manufacturing and the United States.
 ; 
 ; GE: Tell us, describe to us some of the differences.
 ; 
 ; ES: Well, first of all, the age of the employees was far younger than ours. Ours were middle-aged and-
 ; 
 ; IS: Older. 0 3780 Irwin and Ellen's Involvement in the Jewish Community SCB: If we could go back and if you could talk a little bit about your involvement with the community and with the synagogue and the Jewish community and the greater Allentown community, are there organizations other than what you showed us here that you belonged to and connected you to the community?
 ; 
 ; IS: Ok as far as the organizations, I have been on the board of directors of the Temple Beth El. I have also served on the endowment foundation of the Temple Beth El. I have been on the six-man investment committee of the Endowment Foundation of the Temple Beth El. Now those are all in the past already. And also I have been on the committee . . . Board of Directors of the Jewish Family Service. I was also the Treasurer of the Jewish Family Service. I was also on the Russian Resettlement committee and I was very active with Jewish Family Services. This goes back a number of years ago. Also, I was on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Federation of Allentown. And also a solicitor for many, many years. So I was very involved with those three organizations. 0 4096 Evolution of Allentown and Its Communities SCB: How has the wider community of Allentown changed over the years? And how has the Jewish Community changed over the years in Allentown?
 ; 
 ; IS: How has it changed over the years, well definitely it has, the Jewish community over the years, it was more…
 ; 
 ; ES: Cohesive.
 ; 
 ; IS: Cohesive. One section was actually down in the 6th Street area, 6th Street, 5th Street, 4th Street, 3rd Street, and another section was strictly down 6th Street and Fulton Street, and that was called the ghetto, and basically nobody was out in the West End area. And then, after the war years the Jewish community started to filter out towards the West End of Allentown, toward 24th Street, 25th Street, 26th [and] 27th Street. Of course all of the Jewish community were living inside the city limits of Allentown. It wasn’t until I would say until the last 15 to 20 years that they started to move outside of the city limits of Allentown. And during the early years all of the Jewish kids went to Allentown High School, now you do not see a single Jewish student going to Allentown High School. 0 4324 Irwin and Ellen's Values SCB: So, what do you value the most in life?
 ; 
 ; IS: Value most in life, my family, the fact that I have a nice family that I am proud of how we raised our children. I mean we have wonderful children. They are well-educated. We have grandchildren, they’ve been raised so wonderful. They do not have tattoos, rings in their ears. They are well-educated. They are loving children. They call us often, they are just so wonderful. Our kids are just such great kids. We have good family values with our children, we raised them well, and our grandchildren are just super kids in general.
 ; 
 ; ES: I would say one of the nicest things I can see is, you spoke of the family values, watching our children passing those same family values on to their children. 0 4409 Irwin's Inspiration SCB: And what has made you feel the most creative in life, the most artistic in life and this can be more metaphoric, it doesn’t have to be concrete but giving you a sense of connectedness in life?
 ; 
 ; GE: Have you felt you have been artistic or made a difference, productive?
 ; 
 ; IS: I do not know how to answer that.
 ; 
 ; ES: Artistic talent kinda doesn’t run in our family.
 ; 
 ; GE: Doesn’t have to be literally.
 ; 
 ; SCB: But a sense of completion is another way to say it. It doesn’t have to be art, but just a sense of completion. 
 ; 
 ; IS: The fact that I have done well in life, that I have had a successful life.
 ; 
 ; ES: That you have been respected. 0 4519 Introduction—Ellen Schneider nee Ross SCB: So could you tell your full name, including your maiden name, when you were born, and where you were born?
 ; 
 ; ES: Alright. My name is Ellen Schneider, Ellen Ross Schneider.
 ; 
 ; GE: I’m sorry, was that Ross, R-O-S-S?
 ; 
 ; ES: R-O-S-S. Yes, Ross was my maiden name. I was born in New York, and at the age of ten, my family moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which is a very small town in the middle of Pennsylvania.
 ; 
 ; GE: I am sorry, when were you born?
 ; 
 ; ES: In 1936, I am 75 years old. I will help you out with your math. And I was raised in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
 ; 
 ; GE: Why did the family move there?
 ; 
 ; ES: My father opened a business in Williamsport. 0 4631 Meeting Irwin Schneider ES: When I was at Penn State, my mother and my brother moved back to New York. And then I met Irwin.
 ; 
 ; SCB: At Penn State?
 ; 
 ; ES: No, we both went to Penn State but did not meet there was no overlap.
 ; 
 ; IS: She graduated, no I graduated in June of ‘53, she started in September of ‘53.
 ; 
 ; ES: We never were there at the same time.
 ; 
 ; IS: And when she started in ‘53, I was already going into the Army.
 ; 
 ; ES: We met on a blind date here in Allentown, actually.
 ; 
 ; GE: Who fixed you up?
 ; 
 ; IS: Irwin Greenberg.
 ; 
 ; ES: Irwin Greenberg. My Aunt lived across the street. 0 4690 Seeking Family History in Poland SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your family as much as you know about your family, work, education, where they came from?
 ; 
 ; ES: Alright. Both my mother and father were born in the United States. My grandparents came from Poland. And the area of Poland that they came from was in- had been Austria. And as I mentioned, we took a trip back to Poland. We took my mother for her 80th birthday. And we went to visit the small village where her parents came from which was outside of Krakow and then we went to the area which was outside of Warsaw where Irwin’s father came from. And in the area where my grandparents came from we found evidence of our family being there. We went into the hall of records, and I had said to my mother, “What do you think you are going to find, my grandparents came out of there in 1899, what do you think you are going to find?”, “Maybe I can find my parent’s marriage certificate.” So we went into the hall of records with the guide, and the women asked could we find a marriage certificate, and she said, “Yes,” and my mother gave her a date, and she turned to the shelf behind her and pulled a raggedy old book and she was going through the pages, and she stopped, said something in Polish and it was translated to there was had been a fire there in 1910 and everything burned down. 0 5193 Ellen's Family History IS: Tell them the rest of your history. Ask her more questions.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Let me ask you one question, do you know if any extended family, is there any extended family left?
 ; 
 ; ES: In Poland?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yes?
 ; 
 ; ES: If there are, we have no contact, we do not know. As I said my grandparents came here with-
 ; 
 ; SCB: Which is a long time ago.
 ; 
 ; ES: Yes, 1899. And my grandmother came here with four children, one of whom was an infant, and had four more children including my mother here. My father, his parents, were from Hungary. They met in the United States and married in the United States. So all of their children were born in the United States. If my father were alive today he would be a hundred and something years old, so they went back a very long time. 0 5364 Ellen's College Education SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your college years and also after you met Irwin, how you came here?
 ; 
 ; ES: Well, actually my college years actually came in two parts. I had two years of college when I met Irwin and we’re talking the ‘50s, and it was very common to leave school.
 ; 
 ; IS: And get married.
 ; 
 ; ES: And get married, it was called getting an MRS degree, which I got. After my children were grown, and they were in high school and had started college themselves, I went back to college here, and I went to Cedar Crest and finished, and I got a degree in social work, and I worked for the Jewish Community Center. 0 5446 Children and Grandchildren SCB: Can you talk about your family, your children, and your life?
 ; 
 ; ES: You want me to talk about my grandchildren, you will have to put another one of those things in there. We have two children. Our daughter, Janet, our children both live in the New York area.
 ; 
 ; IS: Wonderful children, we raised them wonderfully, and they have great values.
 ; 
 ; ES: She is married to a very, very lovely man who is on television, he is a sports broadcaster, and you can see him here.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Is he Allentown?
 ; 
 ; ES: No, no, no, he is in New York.
 ; 
 ; SCB: He is on a New York station?
 ; 
 ; IS: Do you get Service Electric?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes.
 ; 
 ; ES: You can see him, Channel 7- Channel 17.
 ; 
 ; GE: What is his name?
 ; 
 ; ES: Bruce Beck. 0 5693 Ellen's Admiration for Samuel Schneider SCB: So you were talking about that your father-in-law was just 11 years out of Poland when he came here.
 ; 
 ; ES: 1931-1932, he was 11 years out of Poland, and he had ambition, he did not have an education, he could not read and write English, but his job was as a foreman, and it was a good job. Thirty-five dollars a week in 1931 at the depths of the depression was a good job. He had a wife and a very young child, and he had the courage to leave the familiar, which was his whole family, whatever family he had, which came out of Poland, were all living in the same area of Brooklyn. And against his parent’s wishes. “Please, Sam, don’t go, don’t go.” You know they were shtetl [small Eastern European villages where Jews lived] people.
 ; 
 ; IS: They begged him to stay in Brooklyn.
 ; 
 ; ES: To go out into the wide world, it took courage.
 ; 
 ; IS: “Sam, you’re going to get lost in Allentown, don’t go, don’t go.”
 ; 
 ; ES: Right, but he had the courage, he had the ambition. And thank God he did because all of us have had a wonderful life from the beginnings that he gave us. And we are very grateful to him. He was a wonderful man. I loved him, I did. 0 5786 Ellen's Dedication to the Jewish Community Center SCB: Can you talk about your role in the Synagogue and the community, the wider Allentown community and the Jewish community.
 ; 
 ; ES: My role was not much in the synagogue, that was Irwin’s area. I devoted my energies to the Jewish Community Center. I devoted a lot of time and a lot of effort and I served in many capacities.
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 ; SCB: Can you talk about that?
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 ; ES: Yes, I was President of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center, which in the days that I was there had a membership of 600 and it had a Board of 60 ladies. And after I got finished with that, after having been President of…
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 ; GE: And you were President, this is about what decade?
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 ; ES: Late ‘60s, early ‘70s. And I served on the Board of the Jewish Community Center for 15 years. 0 5927 Ellen's Perspective on the Changes in Allentown and Its Communities SCB: And can you talk a little bit about how you think that the community has changed, and the Jewish community has changed? You talked some about that, but is there more?
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 ; ES: The community of Allentown, the wider community, has changed vastly as I think all of us realize. The ethnicity has changed completely. We were just driving through the old neighborhoods a week or two ago, and we were saying that this Allentown traditionally had been pretty much a blue-collar community.
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 ; IS: All white.
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 ; ES: White and the factory owners who employed the blue-collar people. That has changed a great deal. It was a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch. I do not think there are even too many Pennsylvania Dutch even around anymore. Very, very mixed ethnicities here, for the good, for the bad, I don’t really know, but it has changed. The Jewish community, as I mentioned before, I think one of the biggest changes has been the death of the family-run businesses. 0 6174 Ties to the Jewish Community Center GE: You mentioned with the JCC that Irwin was more involved with Beth El, what do you think attracted you? In other words, what from the JCC or about the JCC?
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 ; ES: What attracted me to the JCC was growing up without a JCC and realizing what this did for my peers who are still here and they grew up in Allentown, they went to the JCC. That is why I gave my time and talents to that organization. Irwin grew up at Temple Beth El, he has never belonged to another synagogue in his life. Never. People have asked, “Are you going to go to children’s for the holidays?” And I say, “No we go to the Temple Beth El.” I think even when you were in college, I think you used to come home to go to Temple Beth El for the holidays. No, that is what we do. 0 6276 Ellen's Values and Inspirations SCB: What do you value in life?
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 ; ES: I value my family, whom I love. I value good health. I value my husband.
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 ; GE: What has made you feel creative?
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 ; ES: What has made me feel creative? My goodness. I would have to say that the years I spent working with the elderly. I discovered I had a rapport with the elderly that I never knew that I had. When I started taking social work and intended to work in the field, I thought I would work with children. And just happenstance got me working with the elderly and discovered that I liked them. Now I am one of them. 0 MovingImage Irwin Schneider talks about his father’s journey from being a sixteen year old immigrant textile factory worker, to foreman, to owner of a contract sewing factory. The Schneider business prospered due to hard work and good timing. Irwin joined the family business in the 1950s and further grew the business by producing for Beeline Fashions through the early 1980s. 
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 ; Ellen Schneider talks about meeting Irwin, leaving college to get married and start a family, and then returning to college many years later after her children grow up. With her degree in social work, Ellen enjoyed a fulfilling career working with the local Jewish senior population.
 ; Interview with Irwin Schneider, August 10, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is August 10th, 2011, an interview with Irwin Schneider. And we'll start, if you will, with all of your information, your name, where you live currently, and your birthdate. IRWIN SCHNEIDER: My name is Irwin Schneider. I live in Macungie, PA, during the summer months, and I live in Florida for seven months during the winter months. SCB: Where were you born? IS: I was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1931. SCB: Can we talk a little about your family background, and then we will get back to you again. Where, what do you know about your parents, your grandparents, great-grandparents, where they came from, where they lived, and their education? IS: Alright, my family, everyone came from Poland. My parents were born in Poland and my parents came to the United States in the early 1920s. Both came from Poland, and my parents immigrated to the United States, and they moved to Brooklyn. They met in Brooklyn, and they married in January of 1930. And they met and lived in Brooklyn and worked very, very hard. And my father decided to get into the garment business. He worked in NY as a foreman in a sewing factory. And in 1931, the factory that he was working for decided to move to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to get away from the union. And he was working as a foreman, and he was making $35 a week, which was a very nice salary at that time. He decided to come to Allentown to test it out, and he came to Allentown, and he didn't know where to go so, he went to Friday night services at Sons of Israel which was located at 6th and Tilghman Street. And he met a man with a beard, and my father was only 28 years old at the time, and I was six months old. And he introduced himself, said my name is Sam Schneider. The Factory I am working for is moving to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and I am thinking of coming to Allentown. I do not know a single soul. I do not know where to go. I am thinking of coming to Allentown, and I am at a loss at what to do and where to go. The man said you look like a nice young Jewish man. What I am going to do for you is I'll let you stay at my place. I will give you room and board. I will give you breakfast and dinner and a clean bed for five dollars a week. My father said, "Thank you so much." Then he took that opportunity, and that is what he did. And he stayed at this place, and he stayed there, and he worked for six days a week, and he took the train back to Brooklyn. He spent Saturday night and Sunday in New York, and then he came back to Allentown and worked six days a week. And then went back to New York for the weekends and after two months he decided this is what he is going to do. He is going to move my mother and me to Allentown. And this he did against his family's wishes. His parents and all of his relatives still were in Brooklyn, and they said, "Sam, Sam," his Jewish name was Shimon, "Shimon, Shimon, do not do this. All of your family members are in New York and Brooklyn. You are going to Allentown, and there are probably no Jewish people. There is nothing but goyim, goyim [Yiddish word for gentile]." My father said there is a synagogue there, and there are Jewish people there. I got to do this, I got to start, and I got to try and go there and make a living for myself. And that is what he did. And we, and he moved my mother and me down to Allentown. That is how we came to Allentown. SCB: Do you know what his mother and father's full names were? IS: My mother's name? ELLEN SCHNEIDER: Your father's family. SCB: Your father's family. What your father's mother and father's full names. GAIL EISENBERG: Your grandparents. ES: Your grandparents. SCB: Yes, that would be another way to say it. IS: My father's father's name was Avram. ES: Or Abe. IS: Abraham and mother's name was Lottie. GE: And how about your parents' name? IS: Samuel and Florence. GE: And you said they were from Poland, do you know where in Poland? Ellen Schneider: Not only do we know, but we visited. GE: Oh, OK. Where? ES: Lomza. They pronounce it womja. IS: He was Lomza, Poland. And what town was she from, Ellen? ES: That I don't know. IS: That we don't know. SCB: And you visited it? ES: Yes, we did. We visited it. GE: And I am also wondering, you said that "their parents were here", is that correct? In other words, when your father came here and your mother came, do you know what their experience was? Did they come by themselves or with their parents? IS: No, when my father came here his- ES: His sister and your grandfather were already here. IS: That's right. ES: They came first. GE: Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Do you know anything about that, when your grandfather came and your aunt? IS: My father's father came first, and his one sister came also, and they worked to save some money up, so that they could later send money over so my father and his mother could come over later after the war years. SCB: So they came before WWI. IS: Yes, so my father's father and my father's sister came over ahead of time and then after the war. ES: And then the war intervened, which is why there was a number of years that they did not come. SCB: What part of Poland is that ; where is that located in Poland? Was it passed between Russia and Poland, Germany, or is it in an area that was pretty much the territory of Poland, do you know? GE: Because the borders keep changing, that's why we are wondering where that is. ES: It was an hour outside of Warsaw. An hour east of Warsaw. GE: OK. That is probably Poland. ES: Oh, yes, it was definitely Poland. GE: The reason we were asking this is because the border changed so some areas. . . GE: My father was part of an area of Poland that before WWI was part of Russia and then after WWI is Poland and now is part of Lithuania. ES: My mother's family, it was Austria, and then it became Poland. IS: And when my father came over, he was a sixteen-year-old boy. Within three days, he was already working in a pocketbook factory. And there were tough days. SCB: Did he meet, did your father's father meet his wife here in the United States? GE: His father did but not his grandfather. SCB: But not his grandfather. So was married when he came to the United States, your grandfather? IS: Yes, he was. GE: Right, right, they brought the mother right. SCB: So, as far as your mother's family? Do you know more about your mother's family? IS: My mother came over as a fourteen-year-old girl. My mother's family, her oldest sister, came over first and all of her sisters, her other sisters, she was one of eight sisters and all of her other sisters except for her oldest remained in Europe and they all were killed by the Germans. SCB: Do you know your mother's maiden name? Your grandmother's maiden name, excuse me? And your mother's maiden name? ES: I do not think you know your grandmother's maiden name. Your mother's maiden name was Schillis. IS: Schillis. SCB: How do you spell that, just for the future. IS: S-C-H-I-L-L-I-S. SCB: Do you know any stories about your family in Poland or in the United States? Any anecdotes that you think would help to make them come alive more? GE: For your children and their children. And what kind of work did they do in Poland? IS: I have no idea what kind of work they did in Poland. But when my grandfather came here, he was a presser in a garment factory. GE: Did they leave, do you know what prompted them to leave Poland, specifically? IS: To come over here and get a better life. GE: OK. IS: That was the main reason that most of the Jewish refugees came over here. SCB: So if you can talk a little bit more about, do you have any more questions about the family's past? GE: Do you know what kind of education your father had? IS: He did not have any education at all. GE: Not even a couple years in Cheder [basic Jewish education in Hebrew and prayer] to learn to pray. IS: I guess he went to Hebrew School. SCB: Any of the other people in your family, do you know what their education level was? GE: The generation above you. IS: They did not have any education at all, none. My mother came here as a fourteen-year-old child, she went to a couple years of grade school, and then after that, she went to work as a sewing machine operator. GE: So your father was- IS: My father came here at age sixteen, he didn't go to school at all, he went to work immediately. GE: So your father was a presser, and your mom was- IS: No, my grandfather was a presser. GE: I'm sorry, your Grandfather was a presser, right, right. Your father- SCB: In a pocketbook factory. IS: My father when he eventually went into the garment industry, he worked his way up to become a foreman. GE: What did he start out as? IS: He started out work as a laborer in the garment factory and in 1931 when the factory left Brooklyn to come to Allentown he had gotten up to the position of a foreman making $35 dollar a week, and that was very good money, and he did not want to give that up, so he decided to try it out. GE: Come to the Netherlands. SCB: Cause that was in the real depths of the depression. IS: Absolutely. SCB: So can you talk a little bit more about your childhood? What you did? Maybe where you worked? Where you went to school? IS: I went to Penn State University. I got a degree in commerce and finance. And during the summer years, I worked at the factory at Schneider Manufacturing. And after the graduation, I went into the Army. I was in the medical corps, and after I graduated from the Army, I went into the business. GE: And that's already the '50s? IS: I graduated from Penn State University in 1953. And then I went into the Army for two years. I got out in 1955. And then I went into the business. SCB: Did you go to Allentown High School? IS: I went to Allentown High School. SCB: How about Elementary School? IS: I went to Raub. I went to Raub for nine years. ES: Oh, at that time, it was K to eight. IS: Yes. GE: Ok. IS: It was nine years. GE: Right, right, right. IS: Nine years at Raub and then the tenth, eleventh and twelfth at Allentown High School. GE: And where did you live? Where did you grow up? Where in Allentown? What neighborhood? IS: We lived in, we grew up in the West End of Allentown. GE: What street? IS: We first lived on South St. Cloud Street. GE: OK. That is between the 17th and 18th. IS: Between 17th and 18th, and then we moved to South West Street. GE: Ok, and South West Street, that is off of Walnut. IS: South West Street is between 16th and 17th Street. GE: OK, right by Temple Beth El. IS: Yes. GE: And what do you remember as a child, maybe some of your friends you want to name for us or? At that time, your father was still working. While you were a small child, he was still working. IS: No, he was in business already because he went into business in 1941. GE: In 1941, okay. So from 31 to 41, up until that time, then what was he doing, was he just a foreman? IS: Yes. GE: So for ten years, during those ten years, your first ten years of life. Do you want to share anything? Do you have any friends from that time that are still people we would know in Allentown? For example. Did you go to the JCC? IS: During those years, I spent time, spent time. Actually, we started going to the JCC in the early, in the early 1940s at 6th and Chew Street. GE: Is that when that was built, the 1940s? IS: Yeah, well, it was built way before the 1940s, but the JCC then were at 6th and Chew. And some of the friends that are still around-- Irwin Greenberg. GE: And tell me Irwin Greenberg, who was his wife? ES: He was the President of Hess's. IS: The President of Hess's. GE: Okay, alright. So he grew up here. IS: He grew up here. GE: Ok, ok. Interesting. IS: And another one of my closest friends was Sherwood Zilinsky, who passed away. He was the other brother of Irwin Zilinsky. GE: Okay. SCB: And Mr. Greenberg was on the documentary about Hess's. He spoke on Hess's. As far as being connected with the Jewish community, were you connected with the synagogue, was your family connected? IS: Oh, yes. We have been members of Beth El since we moved into Allentown. GE: So all the way back since 1931? IS: Yes. I think the Temple Beth El was started around 1928, sometime around there. GE: Probably. IS: And we have been members since 1931, since we moved into Allentown. So we are long-time members of Beth El. SCB: Was your father involved in the community at all? Did he have any connection to community organizations? Or was he mostly working in the business? IS: He was an active member of Beth El. He was on the Board of Directors of Beth El. And he was an active member of the Locust Valley Country Club. He was one of the original charter members. GE: Where is that? I am not familiar with that. IS: It is not in existence anymore. It was a country club that was formed in the early 1950s, in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. GE: I am just wondering because this came up in another community where we spoke to people. Was there, I don't know if he was interested in becoming a member of any other country clubs, but were there any issues, did he find any social discrimination because he was Jewish in trying to join any country club? IS: Not that I know. He did not try to join any other country clubs. He was very involved in the business. GE: Okay. SCB: So can you talk about the jobs you've had in your life? From the very first place that you made a little bit of money all the way through to the business? IS: The only job I had prior was one year as a counselor in a camp, and then being in the Army and then going right to Schneider Manufacturing. SCB: And what camp was that? IS: It was a camp in, it was Blue Mountain Camp, one summer. SCB: Was that specifically connected to the synagogue, or was it a general camp? IS: No, it was a summer camp in the Pocono Mountains. So basically, I have had no other employers besides the U.S. Army and Schneider Manufacturing. GE: Schneider Manufacturing began when you were like ten years old. IS: Yes. GE: Do you want to share with us a little bit about how the business got started? IS: Alright. How the business got started. My father, my father, actually in 1941 borrowed five hundred dollars to start the business and buy six sewing machines. And he started it in Pearl Harbor week. He started with six employees, and he took one of the employees from the business that he had been working for, a teenager named Valeria Lukish, who was a very promising girl, who had a lot of potential. She was a combination sewing machine operator and a floor girl, and she eventually rose to the position of plant manager. And this woman today is 97 years old. She is still alive. And I visit her occasionally, she's sort of in dementia and is very feeble, and she barely recognizes me, and I still get to see her once in a while. But anyway, the business started in 1941 during Pearl Harbor week, and my father started with six sewing machines. He borrowed the five hundred dollars to start the business. And the first manufacturer that gave him work was Bob Sussman. His son is Fred Sussman, who lives here in Allentown. He is a member of Temple Beth El, Fred and Barbara Sussman. And my father started with Bob Sussman and luckily he got started at the right time. He prospered, and each year, he got more and more work in with various manufacturers, and each year got more and more equipment, machinery. And did very, very well. And by the time I came into the business in 1955, he had about a hundred and ten machines already. He was doing quite well. And my father was a hustler and a pusher, and this girl, Valeria Lukish, wound up as a plant manager. SCB: The Sussmans, were they manufacturers? IS: They were manufacturers. SCB: And were they out of Allentown or New York? IS: Their main office was in New York, but they were giving work to contractors in Allentown. SCB: And they lived in Allentown? IS: Yes, the Sussmans lived in Allentown. SCB: Wow. That is unusual. IS: Yes, Bob Sussman lived in Allentown on South 16th Street. SCB: And what kind of clothing did they make when your dad owned it? IS: They were making knitwear. SCB: So knitwear for women? IS: Yes, for women. SCB: Were there certain labels they were making the knitwear for? Specifically, or was it more general? IS: More general. SCB: And so they would be shipped up to New York. IS: Yes. SCB: Could you talk a little bit about the process that your dad had. Do you know anything about the processes that he used, the way he organized the business and the manufacturing? IS: In what respect? SCB: So how did he go about it, did he have certain people as cutters? Did he have people, women, probably. Did he hire men? What was the factory like under him? IS: In the beginning, he just had sewers and sewing equipment. As he got a little larger, he opened up a cutting room, and he hired cutters and spreaders. And he would get piece goods in and get a cutting department in. Then cutting and sewing and then opened up a finishing department with pressers and finishers and shippers and so on. And then, we made the complete product from cutting up to finishing and packing and shipping. GE: Now, I am curious when you said that happened when he got more business. You said initially they just did sewing. IS: Right. GE: If they just did the sewing, did they partner, did they have to then provide, did they then get, whatever has to occur for you to sew, there's something that happens before- IS: The work would come in already cut. SCB: Did the person that provided that, was it a manufacturer? Was it the Sussmans? Another factory or another organization that did the cutting? IS: Yes. SCB: Do you know any of the names of the cutters? That was when you were a kid. IS: I have no idea. SCB: Of course not, but I thought I would ask anyway. How did it change when, or did it change when you took over the business? IS: When I came into the business, he already had a full-fledged operation going on, a full-fledged from cutting, shipping, and packing, the full operation going. SCB: So it did not expand at all after you took over? IS: It expanded in volume, the number of people, the number of employees. When I came into the organization, we expanded, and we gradually built it up, and when I came into the business in 1955 we kept expanding and getting larger and larger. And a couple years later in 1957 my father said, "Irwin, you are doing such a great job in here, in two year you already know everything, I do not even have to be here anymore," he said. "I am going to retire to Florida. I am going to move to Florida. I will remain the president of the corporation, and you are going to take over the everyday duties of running the factory. What I'm going to do is, I am going to call you every Friday afternoon, you are going to tell me everything you shipped, how many dozens went out, what the volume was and what you are going to do is send me my paycheck for the week. And I will speak to you every week. Once a quarter I will come up for a couple days and walk around the factory, check and see what you are doing. Then I will fly back to Florida, and that is the way we will do it." SCB: Sounds like a nice business relationship, too. IS: I ran the factory, and he was very, very pleased. And this woman, Valeria Lukish, who we talked about who was a teenager back in 1941 who he felt would eventually be a plant manager, he saw that she was very talented as a seventeen-year-old teenager. Anyway, so the factory actually grew in size and numbers while I was there, and we eventually grew to about 230 to 240 people at its peak. GE: About when is that - 1960? IS: 1960s and 1970s. SCB: As far as your learning the business, where did you start, and how did you go through that until your father got to the point that you knew everything I am going to retire? IS: Well, when I went in in 1955, I started to grasp everything pretty quickly within the two year period. GE: But you were, tell us about your involvement prior to that. I think you said you worked there during the summers. IS: Yes, during the summers, I would work for him. GE: Actually one thing I was curious, how about the 1930s? I realize your Dad didn't open his own factory until 1941. But during the 1930s how was the garment industry? There was the Depression, but was the garment industry in depression, or was that still a thriving industry? IS: I do not think it was thriving. It was struggling, it was growing, but it was struggling. SCB: And during those summers then, did you work at specific machines or did you just learn - and I shouldn't say "just" - learn the management of the business without being involved in the various processes to understand what people were doing? IS: Actually I spent a little time in the office, a little time on the sewing floor, a little time in the cutting room, a little time in every area of the business. Trying to pick up a little bit. SCB: So you were managing mostly? IS: Not actually management, my father had me in every single department trying to pick up. SCB: So did you actually operate, go through the process in the department? And the reason I am asking this is because in some of the textile industries in Philadelphia in the 19th century the son would be brought in and would have to go through every process and learn every process so he would learn how to do everything. GE: So he would actually work on a press. SCB: Right, do everything, and learn all the skills. IS: I did not. Actually, I did not actually sit on a sewing machine, I did not actually go to the cutting room and use any of the cutting equipment. SCB: So it was more observation and watching. IS: Observation, right. SCB: Watching what worked and what didn't. IS: Right, right. SCB: Do you have any memories of those times and stories? GE: And even the interactions with the employees? IS: I had a very good relationship with the employees. They loved me. I worked very good with them. I had a nice relationship with them. I treated them very, very well. ES: Can I interject something? SCB: Certainly! ES: He still does to this day. There is a group, now these are elderly ladies by now, but there is a group of them who still meet once a month for lunch, they go to the City View Diner. IS: On Seventh Street. ES: And in the summertime when Irwin is home, he comes there and joins them once or twice. SCB: Wonderful. ES: They love it. SCB: Was there a specific ethnic group that were the workers in the factory or was it the diversity of ethnicity in Allentown? IS: Diversity, a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch. And I would say the last several years in business we had quite a few Vietnamese girls, quite a few Vietnamese girls, and they were the best sewing machine operators we've ever had. They were so wonderful. And I was the only one in town that had any Jewish sewing machine operators. There were a total of three Jewish sewing machine operators in Allentown, and I had all three of them. GE: Now this, when you say Jewish sewing machine operators, what that in the '40s? IS: No, No, they were the last 10 years I was in business. GE: Ok, ok. So 60s and 70s, I was just curious. SCB: So the Vietnamese women, when did they come? Did they come after 1973, mostly? IS: The Vietnamese operators were there in the last 15 years I was in business. SCB: When did you actually stop? IS: 1988, I sold the business. The Vietnamese operators I had were the best. They used to beg me for so much overtime. When we were very, very busy, they would work every single hour that I would give them, and they would say they would call me "Mr. Bossman." "Mr. Bossman, give me more overtime, more overtime, more overtime." Sometimes when we very busy, I would have to beg the American girls to work overtime, and the Vietnamese girls they would work all the overtime and then some. They would beg me and beg me. GE: That is why this industry exists so well in China. SCB: So, in those years with managing and owning the business or managing for your Dad, how long did your Dad live by the way? IS: He lived until 1978. SCB: So those last years that this was your business, you owned the business solely. So do you have any memories of times there were struggles? Or times that were absolutely wonderful where you had lots of contracts and were really thriving? SCB: Today is August 10, 2011, interview with Irwin Schneider. Susan Clemens, and Gail Eisenberg attending. GE: Sue, we did not get this little bit. Is that correct? SCB: Yes. GE: So I am going to let you read the whole thing. So just as you did, you did it so beautifully, if you will go back, so we have the opportunity for your family to have this and for us to have this. Yes, read these same things again because we just did not capture it. IS: This is something from Rance Block who was President of Beth El in March of 1988: Dear Employees of Irwin Schneider, The officers and Congregation at Temple Beth El acknowledges with gratitude your generous donation made in honor of Irwin Schneider. The funds will be placed in the Samuel Schneider Philanthropic fund. This contribution shows the esteem in which Irwin Schneider is held by all his former employees. I am sure that Mr. Schneider is deeply touched and appreciative of this gesture. Once again, thanks for your generosity. Sincerely, Rance Block President Here's also in the Temple Beth El bulletin of March of 1988: Donation made to the Samuel Schneider Philanthropic fund of Temple Beth El in honor of Irwin Schneider for all the years of love and understanding he has given to us, his employees, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Geiger, bookkeeper, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Kein, production manager, the girls in his office, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Lukish, general manager. This is something I did February 1, 1977. I wrote this letter, and each and every one of the girls who retired got a letter like this. I will read the letter that I wrote: Dear So and So, The bicentennial year of 1976 was a very important milestone in our nation's history, it was the 200th birthday celebration of the United States. The year 1976 was also a very important one for the Schneider Manufacturing Corporation, as this marked the 35th anniversary of our being in business. These 35 years of continued growth would not have been possible without the loyal and dedicated support of our many hundreds of employees throughout the years. In tribute to the service of our most recent retirees, we are backtracking to our celebration year of 1976 and to this year of 1977 and presenting each of you with a fifty dollar retirement savings bond which will set a precedent for all union employees retiring in the future. This savings bond is in addition to the monthly retirement check you are presently receiving from the ILGWU. These checks are the result of retirement contributions that we have sent to ILGWU throughout the years based upon your payroll earnings. Our very best wishes for your continued good health, and please feel free to visit us at any time. Very Truly Yours, Schneider Manufacturing Corporation Irwin J. Schneider SCB: That is very nice. IS: I also want to read the press release. This is the press release sent out by Chambers Association Advertising Public Relations Company on Linden Street in Allentown. The press release that was going to be sent out to the Allentown Morning Call. A 47-year-old Allentown apparel manufacturing firm has a new name and a new owner, assuring the continued employment of more than a hundred and twenty-five men and women. Schneider Manufacturing Company, 315 Linden Street, has been purchased from Irwin J. Schneider by Robert Marzano of Whitehall, and is now Linden Apparel Company. Marzano, who is also President of JoMar Manufacturing in Alburtis, stated that ownership of the Schneider Firm increases his ability to continue to make a better line of ladies knits sportswear, and to expand both the Linden and JoeMar operations. JoeMar, with its 50 employees, is too small to compete alone in the better knits field, he said, so Linden will reinforce our Alburtis plant's production. Schneider pointed out that the sale of his firm involved two second-generation apparel makers. His father, the late Sam Schneider, founded the company at 8th and Pittston Streets in Allentown in 1941, with six employees. Marzano's father, Joseph, who is now retired, founded JoMar in 1957 on North 8th Street in Allentown. Schneider Manufacturing moved to 315 Linden Street in 1942 and grew to 230 employees at its peak in the late 1970s, making it Lehigh Valley's largest contract manufacturing. Irwin Schneider joined his father in 1955 after serving with the US Army medical corp. A native of New York City, he earned a bachelor's degree in commerce and finance at Penn State University. He is a former vice-president and treasurer of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association and served on the Executive Committee of the Allentown Lehigh County Chamber of Commerce Manufacturing Division. JoMar moved to North Wall Street Allentown, a location that was closed when the Alburtis plant was opened in 1974. Marzano is a native of New York City and graduate of Parkland High School. He served in the US Navy for two years before joining his father in 1960. Past president of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association in Allentown, also the Optimist's District Lieutenant Governor. Schneider stated that he decided to sell his company, which makes ladies knit and woven sportswear, because he wanted to pursue other business interests. "I wanted to make sure the company would be a going concern that would preserve the jobs of our people. I searched for a buyer who was experienced in the industry and who shared with me a commitment to the needle trades." Schneider added that it was through working together as board members of Needle Trades Association that he developed a rapport with Bob Marzano. A mutual respect for each other's business abilities followed. He stated, "It was fortuitous that my search for a buyer coincided with Bob's desire to expand his operations." Schneider emphasized that, in his opinion, tighter quotas and shorter cycle times have given the domestic apparel industry a new lease on life. He know that smaller lots is a definite advantage over plants in the Orient and other offshore areas. SCB: Because you were more flexible? IS: Yes. GE: Or willing to do a niche. SCB: Right. IS: So I had a successful run in the garment industry. I was very happy with the years I was in the industry. I did very, very well, and I feel that it was time to move on to other areas, so I was happy I had a good run, and I moved on. GE: What did happen? Do you know with the company that bought this, how have they fared? I am just wondering that... IS: Well he was able to keep the company going for ten years. I was happy that my employees had jobs for a while, but he struggled for a while. It was not that he was not a good businessman, it was a condition of the times. A lot of work was being funneled overseas. He did struggle a bit, and he did have to keep on shrinking the company, keep on making it smaller and smaller, as I had to do the last couple years that I was in business. I also had to shrink the business down, this was just a condition of the times. There was not enough work that was available, the company that I worked for exclusively for a number of years, Beeline Fashions, on the house party plan. I'd worked for them exclusively for well over 25 years, and they kept me busy going day and night time, full time. And they kept me as busy as I could be. GE: Can you tell us both about that business, Beeline Business, as well as were you their sole supplier? IS: No, I was not their sole supplier. GE: But they were your sole customer. IS: Yes. GE: But if you could share with us if you could tell us about the Beeline Business and then also what were the years you were saying you had that contract for 25 years and how that really helped your whole business? IS: Well, we were starting to do some business with Beeline starting in the late 1950s, and the relationship started to work out very, very nicely. They started growing very, very fast, very, very quickly and we got a nice relationship with them, and we saw that they were increasing their business so fast and so quickly. It was the era of stay-at-home moms. Mothers were not going to work at that time, they were having house party plans. They were selling garments. They would have a house party, coffee clutch. They would invite maybe 15 to 18 women at a house, and they would have catalogs and garments on display, and they would order garments through catalogs and through sample garments on display. And their business was mushrooming like crazy, and Beeline was expanding so quickly. We had about two or three other accounts, and we dropped them because Beeline was after us for our entire production, and they said give us your entire production, and we will keep you busy. We will keep you busy going day and night. We expanded our night shift, we started working our employees full time, overtime, Saturday mornings. We gave our employees as much time as they could handle. And we even went into a real-estate partnership with Beeline, we bought another building in order to expand our operations. We worked exclusively with them for well over 25 years, so we didn't have to go into New York looking for other work, they came to us. They just piled us up with so much work ; it was just mind-boggling. It was an unbelievable setup that we had with them, they were pushing us and pushing us, "Please give us more production, please add more operators, please give." And they were giving us the bulk of the work that they were giving us the most difficult styles because our quality was top notch. It was a nice little gravy train. So it worked out very, very well for us. GE: When did it end? Like how long did that go until? IS: It is hard to end. I would say in the early 1980s when their business started to go downhill, and they eventually went out of business. And then in the early 1980s, after they went out of business, I had to start going into New York looking for other work. At one point in the early 1980s I was probably working for six or seven different manufacturers at one time, and that started to make it a little bit rough at that point. SCB: The organization changes, doesn't it? IS: At that point, business was getting a little bit tougher, and more and more stuff was going overseas, and I found out going to New York, it was tougher finding work. And then when I would get the work, I would find that prices were tougher, and margins were very, very tight, profits were getting smaller and smaller. My organization was getting smaller, and I was not hiring any new people. As my employees were retiring, I was not replacing them, and my organization was shrinking, and my employee base was getting smaller and smaller. By the time I did sell out to Bob Marzano, I did not have the 230 people I did once. I had, I was probably down to 130 people or 120 people at that point. SCB: Did you have to lay anyone off or did you just downsize. IS: Just downsize-- SCB: Downsize by attrition. IS: Yes, by attrition. I saw the handwriting on the wall, but thankfully I had enough good years that I was thankful I was in the garment business, but I did see the handwriting on the wall. You know my son during his college years would spend the summers in the factory learning the business the same way that I did, and he was willing, he wanted to come into the business, but after a couple summers in the business, Ellen and I steered him away. We said you know if you would come into the business, we feel that by the time you were in the business about seven or eight years, you would maybe be 28 or 29 years old, we feel the business would not be a viable business for you, and you will be out in the street looking for something else. And we coaxed him and told him it is not a good idea to come into the business. GE: How lucky he was. IS: Yes. And Ellen and I-- ES: He listened to parents. IS: Ellen and I said we ought to shift your interests elsewhere, and we coaxed him into going on for a Master's Degree in business. He went to George Washington University and got a Master's degree and eventually went into New York and became a stockbroker for several years and then got another job with another organization, and he is doing very well. He is a head trader with a financial institution. That worked out well. GE: Right. SCB: To go back to Beeline, did they like Tupperware and other organizations that were based on a party system, did they give you orders that were based on the orders they got or did they have you producing on projected orders? IS: They were based on orders that they had. They had a large volume. GE: Were they doing this door to door all over the country? Were these house parties all over the country? IS: Pretty much so. GE: And what kind of clothing were they, were they knit? IS: Yes. GE: So they were like women's pants suits? ES: That is exactly right. GE: I remember that type of thing, I just do not remember the house parties. IS: Such volume it was unbelievable. SCB: Can we go back and could you talk for a minute about what your dad produced during World War II for the war effort? What kind of garments did he produce, the t-shirts? IS: I know he made a lot of t-shirts for one company that had a contract with the army, plus he made work for other jobbers too, but I am not sure too much because I was only a youngster. I was not really familiar. But he had other contracts. SCB: But he was a war industry then. IS: Yes. And it is sad to say that he had to have the war to expand his business. GE: That is the reality. IS: But he got in at the right time and for a man who did not have any education. GE: He was obviously business savvy. IS: Business savvy, yes. GE: He was at the right time and he knew how to make an opportunity work. ES: He had street smarts. GE: Yeah. ES: He did. SCB: Can you talk a little bit about how the union came into your business, so going back to women how as you mentioned off-camera, were happy with the business and they were getting union wages, but the truckers pushed that, pushed the union, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union? GE: Were really aggressive. Do you want to just share that with us again? We just didn't capture it. IS: From what I understand, the union was actually going to the girls' houses at night and saying that the Schneider Manufacturing should go union because a very large majority of the factories in Allentown are all unionized, and you would be better off with the union. A lot of the girls were saying we do not need the union because Sam and Irwin Schneider are good employers, they are paying us basically the same wages as union shops are paying, and they are also paying us vacations, they're also paying us holidays, so there is no need for us to join the union. So you ought to leave. We don't have to join the union. And the union was flabbergasted by the employees saying no to them when they were going to the employees' houses. So what the union did they got the whole of the truckers, like Arrow Trucking Company and Silverline Trucking Company company just to name two of the truckers and said look you have to work along with us and just prevent the trucks from coming in to deliver piece goods and prevent the trucks from coming in and delivering the cutwork and stop work from coming in to Schneider Manufacturing factory. If the trucks don't come in, Schneider Manufacturing can't exist, and they will be forced to join the union, and that is what happened. After a week or two or three of this happening we were forced to join the union. And the girls said why are you joining the union, and we said, "we are forced to," we told them. SCB: Did any of them try to infiltrate the factory? That sounds like a very negative terminology. Did any of the union organizers or people interested in the union try to come into the factory and work in the factory? Or was it only at night? IS: They tried to come into the factory too, but it didn't help. GE: I was wondering, excuse me, were you finished? I was wondering with Beeline, how was that original association formed? How was that developed? IS: Okay, we were working with a jobber in New York under the name of the Golder Company, Golder Company and Climax Specialties. This jobber had two names, Golder and Climax Specialties, and they had the contact with Beeline Fashions, and we got the initial contact with this Golder Climax Company, and they were involved with Beeline, and they got the work for us. GE: BeeLine did well? IS: And when Beeline got busy, and we were given the opportunity to work for them full time, we gave up the other two accounts we had. It was the start, the best thing that ever happened to us. As Beeline grew, we grew. The faster Beeline grew, the faster we grew. And Beeline eventually became a public corporation. They went on the NASDAQ. We also bought shares of Beeline, and we made a fortune with the shares that we bought, we got in on the initial public offering too. GE: That is wonderful. SCB: So did the women ever ask for flex time, for instance if they had families? Did they ever ask to have time off during their workday? Was there flexibility about the hours that the women worked? IS: Oh yes, we would give, we worked along with them. Our regular hours were from seven to two-thirty, and overtime was usually from two-thirty to four-thirty. If they had problems we let them come in at eight or eight-thirty. We worked with them. And another thing, we were like a savings and loan association, in other words we, my bookkeeper was not too happy about it, it made extra work for her, but we would lend the employees money with no interest and have a payroll deduction plan of five dollars a week for fifty weeks or. . . it was unbelievable I was so good to the employees. I mean, I had such a good rapport with the employees. In fact as Ellen said to this day there are a number of employees that are in their eighties and nineties, a lot of them, and they have these weekly lunches, excuse me monthly lunches at the City View diner on North 7th Street, the third Thursday of every month and during the summer I go to one or two of these lunches, and needless to say, I pick up the tab for the whole group. They just love me, I come there, and they hug me and kiss me. It is a nice unbelievable situation. GE: Irwin, what would you say are the reasons that you offered and provided your employees, tried to have that better working environment for them? In other words, what were the convictions you have that you think brought about that you did treat your employees well? That made sure they had decent wages-- IS: To keep them in tow, to keep them from leaving me. GE: Okay. IS: I mean, I mean-- GE: So you are saying it was a good business decision? IS: Yes, a good business decision-- GE: Happy employees. IS: Happy employees, have a low turnover because if you have a low turnover-- GE: You do not have to keep retraining-- IS: No training expenses. SCB: Did the technology change over the years when you were the sole owner of the business? So did you get more sophisticated machinery? IS: Yes, newer equipment, newer equipment, faster equipment, new different types of equipment. GE: Were you constantly updating? IS: Oh, yes, sure. I always had top-notch mechanics on my payroll. I was always buying new equipment, new machinery that came out. I was always on top of everything. SCB: So the mechanics would fix the machinery-- IS: Oh yeah. SCB: But then if they knew something or you knew something was going to speed up the production and make it more-- IS: We always went to trade shows. My mechanics went to trade shows. We had good equipment, the best equipment. We always had modern equipment too. SCB: And you were a member, you were an officer in the Needle Trades Workers Organization-- IS: The Lehigh Valley, I was a member of the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, which was formed in the late 1950s. This was an association that was strictly for public relations, and I was also a member of the Atlantic Apparel Contractors Association, with Arnold Delin. You interview Arnold Delin? GE: Yes. IS: By the way, he is very sick. SCB: Oh, no. IS: Arnold Delin, he looked very thin when you saw him? SCB: Yes, he did. IS: He's had a lot of health problems, a lot of health issues. Arnold Delin, when I joined the association in our peak years the association had about 450 members. And we had a headquarters in Wind Gap, a regular building and Arnold Delin would do the negotiations for the contracts for our association. It was a powerful association, and we had wonderful conventions overseas, in Italy, in Hawaii. We had great trips that used to be charged off to the business. Arnold Delin was quite a guy. Also with the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association we took some good trips, too. One year we went to, we went to Europe-- ES: It was a trade mission. IS: Describe the trade mission, Ellen. ES: It was a trade mission. And they-- IS: Why don't you come here so you can be televised. ES: I will sit next to you. IS: OK. ES: It was a trade mission where we went to Europe, and they were all from the Lehigh Valley, and we visited, how many? IS: Five countries and seven apparel factories. ES: Right. And it ended up in Basel, Switzerland, which was-- The latest machinery. IS: Tradeshow. ES: Yes, the tradeshow. ES: And after the business was sold, we were taking a trip to the Orient for a number of weeks, and we went through the state department. IS: In Washington. ES: Yes, this was in 1988. IS: And Arnold Delin worked for us. ES: And got us permission to visit a Chinese garment factory, and we did. IS: Arnold Delin had to ask permission from the State Department in Washington because, in 1988, China was not so liberal. ES: And we went in, and there was a whole delegation there that was meeting us. They took us around to their factory, and we were immediately struck by the youth of their employees. They were women, and they were all young. And then they took us downstairs and they showed us their daycare center, right on the premises. Infants, they had them all lined up, all bundled up, it was nap time when we were there. But we were immediately struck by the differences between the Oriental manufacturing and the United States. GE: Tell us, describe to us some of the differences. ES: Well, first of all, the age of the employees was far younger than ours. Ours were middle-aged and- IS: Older. ES: And older workers, these were all young twenty-something, thirty-something women. The quality of the goods was excellent, and they were very speedy, they were working very quickly. We also made note of the fact that the factory floor looked very clean because we also went to an acupuncture place where it was the dirtiest thing I ever saw in my life. And I said the factory was cleaner than the acupuncture place. GE: At that time the women in the factories were already older, but how about when you were a child looking at your father's business or when you first went into the business was it typically young women, or was it more middle-aged? IS: I think it was more middle-aged. ES: It was not a young person's business. While I was listening to him talk about Beeline and the fact that Beeline did eventually go out of business, and you have to wonder if that didn't reflect a change in the workforce of women. When they started that business, he said they were stay-at-home at mothers back in the fifties and the sixties, by the time the seventies and the eighties came around- IS: The mothers were all working. ES: They were all working. IS: The house plan part fell apart. ES: Right. So there was a lot of tenor of the times kind of thing. GE: It had a business model that worked well for the '50s and '60s, but as time went on, less and less. ES: For a while, but it didn't change. Or their business model didn't change with the time, they kept it as it was, and as a result, they went out of business. SCB: And so in the '70s did you have a sense that the sort of stagflation of the '70s, the economic woes of the '70s, did that affect you at all? Or because of the Beeline products, did that keep you going? IS: The Beeline kept me going, but I saw on the outside, I saw that if I ever lost the Beeline account that I would start to be in a little bit of trouble. I saw what other contractors were facing. I saw other contractors in Allentown that were struggling. And I thought if I ever lose the Beeline account would I be in the same position as some of the others. Well Beeline was still fairly busy yet in the '70s, but by the very late seventies Beeline was starting to struggle. They went out of business in the very late seventies. And so by 1980 or '81 or '82, then Beeline was out of business, and I started to have to run to New York looking for work for the first time in twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. Which was something new for me to do. SCB: Today is August 10th, 2011, tape three, interview with Irwin Schneider, and Susan Clemens-Bruder and Gail Eisenberg interviewing and attending. If we could go back and if you could talk a little bit about your involvement with the community and with the synagogue and the Jewish community and the greater Allentown community, are there organizations other than what you showed us here that you belonged to and connected you to the community? IS: Ok as far as the organizations, I have been on the board of directors of the Temple Beth El. I have also served on the endowment foundation of the Temple Beth El. I have been on the six-man investment committee of the Endowment Foundation of the Temple Beth El. Now those are all in the past already. And also I have been on the committee . . . Board of Directors of the Jewish Family Service. I was also the Treasurer of the Jewish Family Service. I was also on the Russian Resettlement committee and I was very active with Jewish Family Services. This goes back a number of years ago. Also, I was on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Federation of Allentown. And also a solicitor for many, many years. So I was very involved with those three organizations. SCB: When you say solicitor, can you explain that a little bit more? ES: Fundraising. SCB: Fundraising. GE: Asking for donations. IS: Yeah. SCB: And that is just because language changes over time. GE: Actually, one thing that might be nice to share is to tell us what you mean about the Russian resettlement. IS: Well back around 20 years ago, at that point we were bringing a lot of Russian families into Allentown, I was on the committee and I was also the treasurer and dispensing money for the Russian resettlement. We were actually paying their expenses for their first four months. Taking care of the Russians and I was helping out with the funds and also helping out placing them, placing them with their various families in Allentown. And so I was on the committee bringing them in. ES: We visited with a family in St. Petersburg who had family here, some of the newly arrived Russians. And we visited with them, and we knew that they were on the list to come to Allentown. And they did come to Allentown, and we met them here, and we took them -- these people were two days out of St. Petersburg, and we took them to the Giant supermarket. GE: And they were shocked. IS: Yes, they were shocked. ES: And we told them now you are going to go and buy things for your home. They absolutely did not know what to do. IS: They were shocked. ES: They thought it was artwork. GE: Something that was not real. ES: Absolutely, that was--. GE: What was the family's name? ES: It's Nellie Gerstein's parents. Margaret. IS: We visited them in Russia. ES: We visited them in Russia, we visited Vladimir's family and Nellie's family. IS: And Nellie's mother, Margaret. ES: And they had us to their home for lunch, and they were toasting us and saying that you are the only link between we and our children, and they were translating. We said that when you come, and you are on the list, and when you come to Allentown, we will host you in our home, and we did. We had them for a Thanksgiving dinner. We were explaining to them what Thanksgiving was. SCB: Was this connected to the synagogue? ES: It was connected to the Jewish Family Service. SCB: Jewish Family Services. IS: We always tried to stay involved with the Jewish activities. In fact, Ellen was also involved with the Jewish Community Center. ES: I was President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center for four years. I served on the Board of the Jewish Community Center for about 15 years. And I went back to college after my children were grown and got a degree in social work, and then I was asked to join the staff of the Jewish Community Center, and I ran their senior adult program for 15 years. GE: What years were those? About? ES: About-- probably from about 1978 until... IS: Until 1992, when we went to Florida. ES: Yes, until we went to Florida. SCB: How has the wider community of Allentown changed over the years? And how has the Jewish Community changed over the years in Allentown? IS: How has it changed over the years, well definitely it has, the Jewish community over the years, it was more-- ES: Cohesive. IS: Cohesive. One section was actually down in the 6th Street area, 6th Street, 5th Street, 4th Street, 3rd Street, and another section was strictly down 6th Street and Fulton Street, and that was called the ghetto, and basically nobody was out in the West End area. And then, after the war years the Jewish community started to filter out towards the West End of Allentown, toward 24th Street, 25th Street, 26th [and] 27th Street. Of course all of the Jewish community were living inside the city limits of Allentown. It wasn't until I would say until the last 15 to 20 years that they started to move outside of the city limits of Allentown. And during the early years all of the Jewish kids went to Allentown High School, now you do not see a single Jewish student going to Allentown High School. I think in the last issue of Hakol, I saw one Jewish student graduating from Allentown High School. All the rest are in the various area high schools outside of Allentown. SCB: Parkland? IS: Parkland and Emmaus. ES: The other thing that I have noticed is primarily because of the garment industry, which was a family business, a father to son business, and Irwin's story is not unique in that the next generation did not go in. As a result, young people have not stayed in the area. IS: Young people are going to New York and big cities now. ES: Any kind of big cities, but they are not remaining in Allentown. IS: In Allentown, they are leaving. ES: I think that has been the biggest change in the Jewish community. SCB: But some new people have come to it? ES: New people have come in. IS: A lot of professionals are coming, doctors, especially doctors. We have a load of doctors, professionals, lawyers coming in. ES: The high school- the hospital rather is quite a draw. It is the larger employer in the Valley right now. It is. And that has been the draw and that I think has been one of the biggest changes that we have seen in the 50 odd years we have been here. GE: In some ways, it is more transient in terms that they didn't grow up here, they come here-- ES: Yes, they come here. It has been and so many of our friends who remained here, none of their children have. IS: But we've got other cities, we have friends like from Pottsville and Hazleton, those cities are dying with Jewish people. There is nothing left in those cities. GE: You remember them having small but thriving communities like 30 to 40 years ago, is that correct? IS: 30 years ago, they had thriving communities and synagogues, but now they are dying out completely. No Jewish people are there anymore. SCB: So, what do you value the most in life? IS: Value most in life, my family, the fact that I have a nice family that I am proud of how we raised our children. I mean we have wonderful children. They are well-educated. We have grandchildren, they've been raised so wonderful. They do not have tattoos, rings in their ears. They are well-educated. They are loving children. They call us often, they are just so wonderful. Our kids are just such great kids. We have good family values with our children, we raised them well, and our grandchildren are just super kids in general. ES: I would say one of the nicest things I can see is, you spoke of the family values, watching our children passing those same family values on to their children. GE: And what would you say those values are? ES: Honoring your past, staying... IS: Close with parents. ES: Close with parents, staying Jewish. IS: YES! ES: Yes. IS: Staying Jewish, staying close with Temple, staying close with Jewish holidays. ES: They all belong to a synagogue. IS: Yes, they all belong to a synagogue, they all have Jewish traditions at home, and so on. SCB: And what has made you feel the most creative in life, the most artistic in life and this can be more metaphoric, it doesn't have to be concrete but giving you a sense of connectedness in life? GE: Have you felt you have been artistic or made a difference, productive? IS: I do not know how to answer that. ES: Artistic talent kinda doesn't run in our family. GE: Doesn't have to be literally. SCB: But a sense of completion is another way to say it. It doesn't have to be art, but just a sense of completion. IS: The fact that I have done well in life, that I have had a successful life. ES: That you have been respected. IS: That I have been respected by my peers, that people look up to me, my employees look up to me. That I have a wealth of good friends, a load of friends in Allentown who we socialize with who look up to me, and I look up to them. The fact that I do not have a single enemy in town, people respect Irwin Schneider. I have such a good name in town, a good name in the synagogue. GE: So maybe a good name? IS: My good name will live forever. That's what is important to me. Nobody, nobody in town has a bad word for Irwin Schneider, from my employees on down to everybody. That's important to me, very important. SCB: Thank you so much. Ellen, so may we talk to you now? ES: Absolutely. SCB: And we will go back in your history. ES: Goodness. SCB: So could you tell your full name, including your maiden name, when you were born, and where you were born? ES: Alright. My name is Ellen Schneider, Ellen Ross Schneider. GE: I'm sorry, was that Ross, R-O-S-S? ES: R-O-S-S. Yes, Ross was my maiden name. I was born in New York, and at the age of ten, my family moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which is a very small town in the middle of Pennsylvania. GE: I am sorry, when were you born? ES: In 1936, I am 75 years old. I will help you out with your math. And I was raised in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. GE: Why did the family move there? ES: My father opened a business in Williamsport. SCB: Now, were you in Brooklyn? ES: In Brooklyn. SCB: You were in Brooklyn and then moved. ES: Right. Back in the day, Brooklyn was a very lovely middle-class Jewish area, and people were raised very nicely, and they went on to college. It was a very nice place to live. And Williamsport was also a nice place to grow up in, but it certainly was not too nice to stay there after you were grown. It was very limiting. After I graduated high school, my father died when I was 16 years old, and I was halfway through my junior year of high school, and I knew that nothing was going to keep us staying in Williamsport. I had a brother who was 12, and I just asked my mother [to] let me finish high school here because I knew we were not going to stay there. And she did. I went off to Penn State. When I was at Penn State, my mother and my brother moved back to New York. And then I met Irwin. SCB: At Penn State? ES: No, we both went to Penn State but did not meet there was no overlap. IS: She graduated, no I graduated in June of '53, she started in September of '53. ES: We never were there at the same time. IS: And when she started in '53, I was already going into the Army. ES: We met on a blind date here in Allentown, actually. GE: Who fixed you up? IS: Irwin Greenberg. ES: Irwin Greenberg. My Aunt lived across the street. GE: With Sheftel, I think it was Salitsky [who] fixed them up. ES: Right. Back in the day, a blind date was very nice. Try and get your kids to do it today, forget it. SCB: No, they have the Internet. ES: Absolutely. They are not interested in that. And that is where we met. SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your family as much as you know about your family, work, education, where they came from? ES: Alright. Both my mother and father were born in the United States. My grandparents came from Poland. And the area of Poland that they came from was in- had been Austria. And as I mentioned, we took a trip back to Poland. We took my mother for her 80th birthday. And we went to visit the small village where her parents came from which was outside of Krakow and then we went to the area which was outside of Warsaw where Irwin's father came from. And in the area where my grandparents came from we found evidence of our family being there. We went into the hall of records, and I had said to my mother, "What do you think you are going to find, my grandparents came out of there in 1899, what do you think you are going to find?", "Maybe I can find my parent's marriage certificate." So we went into the hall of records with the guide, and the women asked could we find a marriage certificate, and she said, "Yes," and my mother gave her a date, and she turned to the shelf behind her and pulled a raggedy old book and she was going through the pages, and she stopped, said something in Polish and it was translated to there was had been a fire there in 1910 and everything burned down. My mother said she remembered that her mother, my grandmother, went back there to see her mother who never left the village. And she went in 1926, and they got word a few months later that she died. She said, "Could you find a death certificate?" She said, "Yes," and she said to start looking in May of 1926. And she pulled another dusty book out, and she is going like this, and she stopped. My mother had given her a name, and she said Eva Goldblatt, and my mother said, "Yes" that is her name. She said here it is. She lived to be 89 years old, and there was an address, and she died of natural causes in her own home. She died on October something or other, and was buried November 1st. And we figured she must have died on a Friday and was buried on Sunday. Now we had a name and an address. And we asked, "Is there a Jewish cemetery?" First of all, we asked, "Are there any Jewish people still left?" And she said there was one, and he had a shoe store around the corner. She gave us an address, and we went around the corner with the guide, spoke to the young man who owned the shoe store, and we asked if we could go to the cemetery. He said, give me a half an hour. I will get somebody to stay in my store, and I will take you to the cemetery. Well, we went back, and sure enough he took us to the cemetery, and it was a small town, so it was a small cemetery, but it had a neatly painted gate with a Jewish star on it, and he opened it up. Now we had someone we were going to see there, and the stones had all been smashed by the Nazis. You couldn't tell one grave from the other. So you know we knew that would be something we would suspect. Then I said we went to the area where Irwin's family was. IS: Tell why the fellow was still there. ES: Oh, yes. SCB: Oh yea, absolutely. For the future. Why was there one Jewish man still there? IS: Why was there one Jew, listen to this story. ES: He said, do we know a place called Brooklyn? My mother said, "Oh yes we know that place." And he gave us a name and address, and he said would you please call. My mother and my sister live in Brooklyn, would you call them and tell them you met me and that I am okay. We said okay. We left, and then when we came home we did call, and we spoke to his sister, who spoke very good English. She said, "Did he give you a message for me?" We said, "No, he just said he is okay." Did you have a guide and a driver with you? I said, "Yes." That is why he could not give you a message. So she told us why he didn't leave, she said he could have come with us when we left Poland, but he had married a Polish woman, and she would not leave her family there. So he chose to stay. IS: He is the only Jewish person there. ES: Only one Jewish person. But that one Jewish person is maintaining this cemetery. GE: Isn't that interesting. IS: So he is maintaining the cemetery and painting the gate every year. ES: He is mowing the grass. We went to the area where Irwin's family, where Irwin's father came from, which was a larger community. We knew the local mayor here, Joe Daddona. He gave us a key to the city and he gave us a proclamation with a blue ribbon and a gold seal, and he gave us Allentown All-American t-shirts to bring- IS: To give to the mayor. ES: And we had made arrangements to have a meeting with the mayor of that town. We had a private guide and he said what do you think you are going to find there. We said could you find my father-in-law's birth certificate and he gave us, we gave him a date, an approximate date and we got there, and this mayor had a reception for us with Pepsi Cola and pretzels. Irwin read him the proclamation, and it was translated. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out his proclamation. IS: In Polish. ES: In Polish and he is reading his proclamation, so after all those festivities were done, we asked, "Is there a cemetery here?" No, first we asked, "Are there any Jews still left in the town?" And he said, "Regretfully no." "Are there any cemeteries, is there a Jewish cemetery?" He said, "Yes there is," and he gave our guide directions to find it. So we went over there, and we found the cemetery. IS: It was being used as a garbage dump. ES: That is the difference between one Jew and none. GE: My brother-in-law was just there now this past summer for the first time. We are Holocaust survivors, and so is my brother-in-law's family. It was very difficult. He went, actually it was interesting, because in that family, it was him and his sister, a cousin from Israel, a cousin from Sweden and a cousin from Paris. They all met, but they were able to find . . . and he said it was a little heartbreaking because of the conditions but they were able to find their grandfather's stone. ES: They were able to find it? GE: He said at least we were able to light a candle and say Kaddish [Jewish prayer recited for the dead]. ES: One of the things that we did, we took a little stone from the town where my grandparents came from and where his father came from, and when we came back here we went to the cemetery and put the stone there. IS: Tell them the rest of your history. Ask her more questions. SCB: Let me ask you one question, do you know if any extended family, is there any extended family left? ES: In Poland? SCB: Yes? ES: If there are, we have no contact, we do not know. As I said my grandparents came here with- SCB: Which is a long time ago. ES: Yes, 1899. And my grandmother came here with four children, one of whom was an infant, and had four more children including my mother here. My father, his parents, were from Hungary. They met in the United States and married in the United States. So all of their children were born in the United States. If my father were alive today he would be a hundred and something years old, so they went back a very long time. SCB: So you were going to say something more about the family, your history? GE: I was just wondering in Williamsport, you said your father went there to start--. ES: He went there to open up a business. SCB: What kind of business? ES: The kind you can't have anymore, a juvenile furniture and toy store. A retail store, the kind that Toys R Us put out of business. That is the history of retail. GE: Right. SCB: And until he passed away, he had that store? ES: Yes, he had the store until he became ill. And then, you know, we left Williamsport. GE: I assume you left because it was such a tiny Jewish community, and you wanted to go back to Brooklyn? ES: Actually, my mother's whole family was in New York, and there was really nothing to keep her there anymore. I remember her coming up to Penn State one day which was really not far from Williamsport. She came up one day and she said, "Ellen, how would you feel about moving back to New York?" I said you know it really is not going to affect me as much, how about Arthur, who was my brother. And she said Arthur is willing to do it, and he was just going into high school, so it was a good time to make that break. So we did, and it turned out to be a very fine move because all of us went on to make a very nice life for ourselves, and my mother eventually met and married a lovely gentleman, she married again. So everybody you know there is a time to do some things and a time to move on, and that was the time to move on. SCB: So can you talk a little bit about your college years and also after you met Irwin, how you came here? ES: Well, actually my college years actually came in two parts. I had two years of college when I met Irwin and we're talking the '50s, and it was very common to leave school. IS: And get married. ES: And get married, it was called getting an MRS degree, which I got. After my children were grown, and they were in high school and had started college themselves, I went back to college here, and I went to Cedar Crest and finished, and I got a degree in social work, and I worked for the Jewish Community Center. GE: Did you do that around the same time as Beverly Bloch? ES: Yes, we were there just about I think I was there a few years before. GE: It sounded like a similar story. ES: I went there and Diane Silverman went there. We were all going there. They were running a program at the time where they were encouraging women who had dropped an education to go and pick up the threads of their interrupted education because, as I said, it was very, very common to stop school and get married. SCB: Can you talk about your family, your children, and your life? ES: You want me to talk about my grandchildren, you will have to put another one of those things in there. We have two children. Our daughter, Janet, our children both live in the New York area. IS: Wonderful children, we raised them wonderfully, and they have great values. ES: She is married to a very, very lovely man who is on television, he is a sports broadcaster, and you can see him here. SCB: Is he Allentown? ES: No, no, no, he is in New York. SCB: He is on a New York station? IS: Do you get Service Electric? SCB: Yes. GE: Yes. ES: You can see him, Channel 7- Channel 17. GE: What is his name? ES: Bruce Beck. GE: Bruce Beck, I'm going to try that. ES: And he is with NBC in New York. And our son, who we said, "Don't come into our business, honey," he listened to mom and dad, and he is on Wall Street, he is a trader. IS: He is the head trader, a securities business, and has done very, very well. ES: Except this not such a wonderful day to be in the market. IS: He is better off than being in the shmata [Yiddish for rags or garments] business, he listened to us. ES: And we have four grandchildren. We have big grandchildren and little grandchildren. GE: What was it like raising your children here in Allentown? ES: It was a wonderful place to raise children, an excellent place. As I said, I grew up in Williamsport, but I always had family that lived here, and I used to come here as a teenager, and I would go down to the Center on 6th Street. GE: So it was very familiar to you? ES: Yes, very familiar to me, and I felt so jealous of these kids had a place to go, and they could socialize with other Jewish kids, and we had a handful of them in Williamsport. GE: It was just enough to really be a community. ES: Yes, absolutely, and that was it, there were about 50 Jewish families if there were that. Probably less now. GE: In Williamsport. IS: I am sure there are a lot less. SCB: Did your children go through the Allentown School District? ES: Yes, they both did. They graduated from Allen High School and they both went to the same college, they went to Ithaca College. They each came out with business degrees. SCB: What Elementary School and Middle or Junior High School did they go to? ES: They went to Muhlenberg Elementary and Trexler Junior High School, which was the popular one at the time. GE: And this is the '70s I am assuming? ES: Yes, one graduated High School in '75 and the other '78, so it was the '70s. It was a different time. SCB: And where did you live during those times? And you talked about more than one building, where were the buildings? Just to place you in Allentown spatially both in business and personal. ES: We lived on 24th Street, and we built that house primarily because of its school district that it was in but also because of its proximity to the Jewish Community Center. GE: And when did the Jewish Community Center open, about? ES: That building? GE: Yes. ES: That building opened I would say in '57, '56 or '57. GE: And who were the major contributors, was it really the generation before you, like your father's generation? IS: Yes. ES: Yes, they were the builders. IS: It was a joint effort. Interview with Ellen Schneider SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: This is tape four, interview with Irwin and Ellen Schneider, and Gail Eisenberg and Susan Clemens-Bruder interviewing and attending. So you were talking about that your father-in-law was just 11 years out of Poland when he came here. ELLEN SCHNEIDER: 1931-1932, he was 11 years out of Poland, and he had ambition, he did not have an education, he could not read and write English, but his job was as a foreman, and it was a good job. Thirty-five dollars a week in 1931 at the depths of the depression was a good job. He had a wife and a very young child, and he had the courage to leave the familiar, which was his whole family, whatever family he had, which came out of Poland, were all living in the same area of Brooklyn. And against his parent's wishes. "Please, Sam, don't go, don't go." You know they were shtetl [small Eastern European villages where Jews lived] people. IRWIN SCHNEIDER: They begged him to stay in Brooklyn. ES: To go out into the wide world, it took courage. IS: "Sam, you're going to get lost in Allentown, don't go, don't go." ES: Right, but he had the courage, he had the ambition. And thank God he did because all of us have had a wonderful life from the beginnings that he gave us. And we are very grateful to him. He was a wonderful man. I loved him, I did. SCB: Can you talk about your role in the Synagogue and the community, the wider Allentown community and the Jewish community. ES: My role was not much in the synagogue, that was Irwin's area. I devoted my energies to the Jewish Community Center. I devoted a lot of time and a lot of effort and I served in many capacities. SCB: Can you talk about that? ES: Yes, I was President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Jewish Community Center, which in the days that I was there had a membership of 600 and it had a Board of 60 ladies. And after I got finished with that, after having been President of-- GAIL EISENBERG: And you were President, this is about what decade? ES: Late '60s, early '70s. And I served on the Board of the Jewish Community Center for 15 years. And after I had finished my interrupted education and got a degree in social work. Actually I was placed with Jewish Family Services as part of some of my course work. And an opening came up, they said to me go down to the Friendship Circle and interact. I did not know what that was, but I figured I'll figure it out. And I went down there and interacted. And after a few months an opening occurred, and the director of the center came to me and said, "Would you like to come and work here?" I said "Lenny, I haven't finished my course yet." He said, "Take some extra courses finishing up and start work here." I actually started the job while I was still finishing up my coursework. GE: And the Friendship Circle is? ES: The senior adult group. Yes, and I ran that. And the days that I was running that program that was the only organized activity for the Jewish elderly in Allentown. GE: Are there no . . .? ES: I think it has been fragmented. I think there are several other groups, I think some of them are self-run. GE: I see. SCB: And can you talk a little bit about how you think that the community has changed, and the Jewish community has changed? You talked some about that, but is there more? ES: The community of Allentown, the wider community, has changed vastly as I think all of us realize. The ethnicity has changed completely. We were just driving through the old neighborhoods a week or two ago, and we were saying that this Allentown traditionally had been pretty much a blue-collar community. IS: All white. ES: White and the factory owners who employed the blue-collar people. That has changed a great deal. It was a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch. I do not think there are even too many Pennsylvania Dutch even around anymore. Very, very mixed ethnicities here, for the good, for the bad, I don't really know, but it has changed. The Jewish community, as I mentioned before, I think one of the biggest changes has been the death of the family-run businesses. Whether they were retail businesses or garment businesses or other businesses they are not passed down father to son as they had been. Children are being educated, girls too, are being educated in areas that are really pretty foreign to us. And they are seeking their fortunes outside the area. So how that, what that portends for the Jewish community I don't know, but it's changed. SCB: Did you, in your married life, shop in Allentown? Did you actually patronize Allentown in sort of an encapsulated way? ES: Absolutely. Absolutely. Hess's department store was a legend in its time. You could find the finest things there. Up and down Hamilton Street had beautiful ladies' clothing stores. I shopped a lot there. Those days are over and regretfully so. And I do my shopping out of town and I would, very much, if this ever gets shown to people who are in retailing, think about your customer who is still here and would like to shop, and there is not a lot around. SCB: Any specific stores that you remembered where you shopped for clothing? ES: Hess's, mostly Hess's absolutely. SCB: Mostly Hess's, anything smaller? ES: Yes, there were some individually run very nice ladies shops. I cannot even remember the names of them anymore. SCB: Marilyn's, maybe. ES: That store was out of Reading. SCB: Oh okay. And then came here. ES: Yes, and then came here. SCB: Emil Otto? ES: Yes, that had a nice clientele. There was a shop on 8th and Hamilton, I cannot remember the name, but that was gone a long time ago. But it was going downtown when I first came to town, I mean, you got dressed up to go downtown. And going to Hess's was an event. And having dinner-- IS: Back in the late '40s, we used to go downtown, people would wear a sports jacket and a tie on a Thursday night to go shopping. ES: I got dressed up to go shopping. IS: On a Thursday night in the 1940s. ES: Those days are gone. GE: Times have changed. ES: Oh, have they changed. GE: You mentioned with the JCC that Irwin was more involved with Beth El, what do you think attracted you? In other words, what from the JCC or about the JCC? ES: What attracted me to the JCC was growing up without a JCC and realizing what this did for my peers who are still here and they grew up in Allentown, they went to the JCC. That is why I gave my time and talents to that organization. Irwin grew up at Temple Beth El, he has never belonged to another synagogue in his life. Never. People have asked, "Are you going to go to children's for the holidays?" And I say, "No we go to the Temple Beth El." I think even when you were in college, I think you used to come home to go to Temple Beth El for the holidays. No, that is what we do. GE: You said that it was certainly important, valuable in his growing up with the JCC and his peers, you didn't have that. Do you feel your children did? ES: Yes, absolutely, that was why we built that house that we did on North 24th Street, which was within two blocks of the Jewish Community Center. That is how much I felt about the Jewish Community Center because I grew up without it. SCB: So you could walk there? ES: Yes, absolutely. SCB: What do you value in life? ES: I value my family, whom I love. I value good health. I value my husband. GE: What has made you feel creative? ES: What has made me feel creative? My goodness. I would have to say that the years I spent working with the elderly. I discovered I had a rapport with the elderly that I never knew that I had. When I started taking social work and intended to work in the field, I thought I would work with children. And just happenstance got me working with the elderly and discovered that I liked them. Now I am one of them. SCB: Thank you so much. ES: Oh, you are welcome. I would love to see what this turns out to be. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Irwin and Ellen Schneider, August 10, 2011
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Irwin Schneider talks about his father’s journey from being a sixteen year old immigrant textile factory worker, to foreman, to owner of a contract sewing factory. The Schneider business prospered due to hard work and good timing. Irwin joined the family business in the 1950s and further grew the business by producing for Beeline Fashions through the early 1980s.
Ellen Schneider talks about meeting Irwin, leaving college to get married and start a family, and then returning to college many years later after her children grow up. With her degree in social work, Ellen enjoyed a fulfilling career working with the local Jewish senior population.
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LVTNT-11
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2011-08-10
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Irwin Salitsky
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5.4 May 26th, 2011 Irwin and Claire Salitsky, May 26th, 2011 LVTNT-02 2:08:03 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Irwin Salitsky Claire Salitsky Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 SalitskyIrwin_Claire_20110526.mp4 1.0:|25(15)|58(6)|73(4)|104(2)|127(11)|152(4)|165(12)|182(13)|197(16)|214(10)|229(13)|244(9)|267(7)|284(10)|299(6)|316(5)|335(7)|350(9)|365(15)|390(3)|415(7)|450(12)|475(16)|506(2)|539(4)|560(15)|591(3)|620(4)|649(7)|668(2)|691(6)|712(8)|739(2)|760(5)|785(2)|806(2)|837(13)|880(6)|903(9)|920(12)|941(7)|960(3)|993(3)|1008(15)|1023(10)|1044(4)|1061(6)|1086(2)|1103(12)|1122(8)|1137(9)|1166(11)|1191(4)|1208(9)|1237(9)|1258(10)|1273(5)|1288(4)|1309(5)|1328(12)|1353(6)|1376(7)|1395(8)|1422(3)|1445(9)|1464(7)|1485(18)|1512(10)|1531(15)|1550(12)|1571(6)|1596(4)|1627(7)|1652(11)|1673(17)|1702(10)|1719(7)|1736(3)|1753(7)|1770(11)|1795(11)|1814(8)|1837(3)|1856(7)|1871(8)|1888(7)|1915(10)|1934(14)|1959(7)|1976(16)|1999(7)|2022(11)|2059(5)|2084(14)|2107(12)|2132(15)|2157(7)|2180(7)|2225(5)|2262(8)|2287(3)|2308(8)|2331(13)|2360(4)|2383(6)|2400(13)|2429(2)|2456(7)|2485(3)|2520(12)|2545(14)|2570(2)|2605(12)|2640(8)|2669(4)|2696(16)|2721(2)|2742(16)|2765(9)|2784(15)|2813(10)|2838(2)|2861(7)|2880(10)|2899(19)|2922(10)|2949(8)|2978(10) 0 https://youtu.be/WTiPcTtC44A YouTube video 0 Introduction—Irwin Salitsky SCB: Today is-
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 ; GE: May 26th.
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 ; SCB: Yeah. Today is May 26th, 2011, and we are at an- an interview for the Lehigh Valley Sewing Needle-Trades Oral History Project. That’s what we’re calling it at the moment. So, would you tell me your full name?
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 ; IS: Irwin Salistky, NMI: “No Middle Initial.”
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 ; SCB: And would you spell it for me just for the future? Because everything I ask, it seems really stupid, it's just for people in the future.
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 ; IS: Do you want to read that? It gives you a feeling of the...
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 ; SCB: I will after, I can, I will afterwards. Yeah. So would you spell your name?
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 ; IS: I-R-W-I-N S-A-L-I-T-S-K-Y
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 ; SCB: And also, we are going to be putting you into some kind of personal context. Where were you born? And-
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 ; IS: Brooklyn, New York.
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 ; SCB: Do you know the street? Do you know the region?
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 ; IS: Peck Memorial Hospital, which has been eliminated since. No longer there.
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 ; SCB: Do you know where your parents lived when you were born?
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 ; IS: Yes, Empire Boulevard, three blocks from where now my grandson lives. 0 108 1932: Salitsky Family Moves from Brooklyn, NY to Allentown, PA SCB: And what year did you come?
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 ; IS: 1932.
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 ; SCB: To- And that was to Allentown?
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 ; IS: Pardon?
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 ; SCB: Is that your birthday or was that to Allentown?
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 ; IS: No, what it is- Not only did my parents or my father come, but a lot of the garment industries for some reason or other formed in 1932. It was a great time to leave the city, because of what you'll read later. And we started with nothing. I remember they- My father couldn't afford a car ; his partner, Izzy Weinstein had a car, an old Packard. It was in such bad shape that the door wouldn't stay closed, I remember seeing it, and they had the door tied with a piece of rope around the window frame. They came with my Uncle Morris, who was our family accountant. His- He came from New Jersey and his firm grew into the largest accounting firm in the state of New Jersey.
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 ; SCB: What part of New Jersey?
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 ; IS: Asbury Park.
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 ; SCB: And so, you moved when you were four and your brother was one to Allentown?
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 ; IS: We lived on that street, we moved to 231 South West Street. We lived there for ten years until my father could afford to buy a house, which was ten years later, and made their money during the war. 0 255 Irwin's Father—Cutter and Marker in the Garment Industry IS: I educated myself a great deal more than my father did. He never knew how to sew, never cared to learn. He was happy running the cutting room and making markers—that's laying out the patterns for the best yield possible. And he did the paperwork reporting to the manufacturer what the result was of a spread. In other words, the manufacturer had a rough idea of what the yield should be, based on the total yardage that he sent. They would send us the fabric and we would make a marker based on the width and the type of fabric, because the different fabrics had to be done differently. For example, there is such a thing as a one-way pattern where all- it's a print, where all of the patterns had to go in one direction, and that takes more of a yield. There are a lot of tricks to the trade. I'll- Well, I’ll go over some of them with you. 0 347 Irwin's Education SCB: Where were you educated?
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 ; IS: Educated- I graduated from Allentown High School in 1945. I always had an addiction for flying. So, I was in touch with Parks Air College which is now a part of St. Louis University. And it's in East St. Louis, a shayna [Yiddish for pretty] town you never saw. And this was twenty miles south of East St. Louis. I was a little snot nose kid of 17 and it started July 1st of 1945. It was on a trimester basis. We left, it was funny, we always took a vacation July 4th because that's when the annual vacation for the garment industry was, when the mills were closed and you had a compulsory 2-week vacation. So I got there three days late, because I was up at the Concord, which is in the- in the Borscht Belt. 
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 ; GE: In the Catskills.
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 ; SCB: Yeah.
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 ; IS: I left by a Jitney into Penn Station ; we had a reservation at Penn Station for a non-stop train into St. Louis. It didn't stop in East St. Louis which is across the Mississippi, I was- East St. Louis is in Illinois. I- They knew I was going to be late. Classes started July 1st, 1945 and I was still, in July 4th, at the Concord chasing the waitresses. But it was a great experience. 0 923 1945: Irwin Leaves Parks Air College to Join the Family Business IS: So I thought my future was all laid out. But this was in 1945 and it was after the war and my father's business was very good. And I liked it because I went into the factory from age 16 over the summer and I had my own checking account, money wasn't a problem with my family at that time. We had- They had bought a house, took them 10 years but they had finally accumulated enough money to buy this house on 27th and Washington. And I lived there until we got married.
 ; 
 ; GE: So so, you didn’t stay- You didn't graduate from school?
 ; 
 ; IS: No. I- I found out- They had representatives of the various corporations would come on campus, and what they were offering in salary, I would blow in a weekend. So I said, “What am I doing? I'm going to knock my brains out for what?” 0 1005 Jewish Fraternities SCB: For the future, “AZA”, what- what is that? 
 ; 
 ; GE: It's a Jewish- It’s a Jewish-
 ; 
 ; IS: This was a Jewish high school fraternity. It was- We were competitors with AZA. AZA is still active- active. Sigma Alpha Rho, my fraternity, was mainly out of Philadelphia and a lot of the conventions were there and it was, it was- We had a great time. I- I kept saying how lucky I am, growing up in Allentown, maturing with my friends. 0 1047 Early Courtship with Claire IS: At this time when I came home, Claire lived- I was in 27th and Washington, Claire was in 27th and Greenleaf, down the back alley. I needed some surgery for I had a hernia when I came home, and I wanted to take care of it because I kept it in case I was called up for service, which I didn't want to do, go into the service. When I turned 18 in November of that year, I had to go to Chicago because everybody in Illinois had to go to the recruiting station in Chicago. So that was an overnight train deal. I found that, after all the problems, they didn't want to take me because of a hernia, but it was operable. So I waited ‘til I came home and I made- my mother and I made arrangements with a- a urologist in Allentown and I had it taken care of. All of a sudden I'm in the hospital, and I’m lying in bed, and who should come to visit me? Claire. She brought her girlfriend with me- with her because she didn't want to make it too obvious.
 ; 
 ; CLAIRE SALISTSKY: But I had gone out with you already.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yeah, I had dated her. Well, some of the detail you’ll remember better than I.
 ; 
 ; SCB: So you weren’t ever drafted, even though it went to the Korean War years?
 ; 
 ; IS: No, no. I got- I got married in ‘48 and had a child in ‘49. So I was a- I was a husband and a father and that was that.
 ; 
 ; CS: We went to Muhlenberg
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 ; IS: I went to Muhlenberg for- for 6 months. 0 1329 Recreational Activities at the Jewish Community Center, 1930s-40s IS: One thing about growing up in Allentown, you couldn't lie about your age. Everybody knew everybody else, and what they didn't know they tried to dig up. But growing up was great because the Jewish Community Center was very active. I lived on South West Street for ten years, West and Fairview. All I had to do was walk up to Hamilton Street, take a trolley car—they worked- they worked on Hamilton Street—to 6th street, and if I was lazy, I would take a transfer, get a northbound trolley that would leave me off at Chew Street or I could walk four blocks to the center.
 ; 
 ; GE: Where was it located? 6th and Chew?
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 ; IS: 6th and Chew, the old center.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Right and then that became the Negro Cultural Center?
 ; 
 ; CS: That's right.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And now it's the Housing- Housing and Health Center, yeah.
 ; 
 ; IS: But it was great because they had Sunday afternoon dances ; they had a jukebox, and we had an active man, George Feldman, who did a fantastic job of being the director. There were many meetings held, they had a restaurant there for a while, a kosher restaurant. AZA and Sigma Alpha Rho had a meeting room by itself on the third floor.
 ; 0 1445 1948: Marriage to Claire IS: So I guess that about sums up my high school, except that, well I might as well swing into getting married. I was- wasn't even 21, but I had sown my wild oats. And Claire was 19 going on 20 in July.
 ; 
 ; CS: No. How old are you?
 ; 
 ; IS: I got two years on you.
 ; 
 ; CS: How old are you? 
 ; 
 ; IS: Eighty-three.
 ; 
 ; CS: And how old am I? 
 ; 
 ; IS: Eighty-one.
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 ; CS: And how long are we married?
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 ; IS: Sixty-two years.
 ; 
 ; CS: Yes, so how old was I?
 ; 
 ; IS: Nineteen, you were, weren't you? Eighteen. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Yeah, I was 19 that month, two weeks later.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yeah, you were 18 when we got married July 4th because the mills were closed.
 ; 
 ; SC: The factories were closed.
 ; 
 ; IS: And her birthday is July 16th, so she was two weeks short of being 19.Is that right? Okay. We got married in New York because the Temple wasn't built yet and we had a big wedding. 0 1585 First Home and Neighbors After Marriage IS: When we got married, Schnitzer built those apartments at 18th and Hamilton on the northwest- the northeast corner, those two separate buildings.
 ; 
 ; GE: Okay, right by the synagogue? Right by the little synagogue.
 ; 
 ; IS: Yes, a block away.
 ; 
 ; CS: And I used to walk up with him. He'd walk me- He’d make me walk every day to the temple and we'd walk through-
 ; 
 ; IS: We would check the progress of the building.
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 ; CS: And then come back at 4:30 and take me back to see what they did during the day.
 ; 
 ; IS: It was a ball living there because it was a prime apartment. My next- across the hall neighbor was Max Stetner and his father, who was a widower ; and Jerry Bright who was a few years older than me and lived across the hall. His mother’s and all my friends- We had Anne a year later. They would all come and play with her, because I was the first one married, even though I was the youngest of my immediate group. Murray Goodman, the multimillionaire, still lived with his parents, and Murray was a builder in Florida. 0 1728 Salitsky Children and Grandchildren IS: And fortunately my daughter—you could wake up in the middle of the night and she was always happy, had a smile, never cried. It was funny when- This was a one bedroom apartment and when we'd go to bed, her crib was in the bedroom with us, and I got a kick out of- We were lying in bed and we'd hear her rustling. Then two little hands would appear on the railing, and then a- a blonde head with real curly hair and big blue eyes would show up. And she just was curious, and she was always that way, even to this day. She would never go and join in playing with anybody until she sat and watched and decided that she wanted to go in because she would never wanted to make a fool out of herself. Even from her childhood days, she was always that way. She went to the right school and thank God they were all right, all right kids.
 ; 
 ; GE: Your daughter's name?
 ; 
 ; IS: Anne. Anne Eleanor. And she was born in 1949. I timed it right—they were all two years apart. In ‘50- ‘51, Irene Vivian was born. She was the first girl admitted to Lafayette [College] when it became co-ed.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh wow.
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 ; IS: And was the first girl to be Phi Beta Kappa at Lafayette. Her daughter went to the Johns Hopkins, also Phi Beta Kappa. 0 1941 Family Businesses: Clyde Shirt and Highland Sportswear SCB: Could we move on to your- your- the business and a couple of things to think about: Who started the business? And we sort of have some of that on here, but maybe we should have it together. Did they own or manage the business? How did they become connected to the business? So-
 ; 
 ; IS: Well, they were partners in New York before they came to Allentown to escape the union. And they started almost at the time that Billera’s formed the pants factory in Northampton.
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 ; GE: Who- Who’s Billera? 
 ; 
 ; IS: Huh?
 ; 
 ; GE: You said Billera started the pants—who is that, that's a company?
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 ; CS: The Billera family.
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 ; IS: Four or five brothers that were tailors in Italy. And they started Clyde Shirt, which was the four story building. Clyde Shirt was- My Father and Izzy Weinstein, they were on the first and fourth floor. Universal Pants, there were two brothers who ran that, in the second and third floor. Then, further west, they started- they made only pants, but they started a, a—what the hell’s the name of that? 
 ; 
 ; CS: Joey’s father?
 ; 
 ; IS: No. I had it this morning. A clothing business where they made jackets and suits and sport jackets. That was at 21st Street and Main Street in Northampton.
 ; 
 ; CS: And did you have a plant there too?
 ; 
 ; IS: When- When- When Weinstein and my father, shortly after they started Clyde Shirt, business was good, so they started Highland Sportswear in Allentown. 0 2139 Relationships with the Villager and Ladybug Companies in Philadelphia IS: So we were able to make different kind of garments, for example, we made shirts, and if you were from Philadelphia you would know them—Villager and Ladybug, do you remember them?
 ; 
 ; GE: Yes, I do remember them.
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 ; IS: We were their chief- Most of their-
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 ; CS: We used to stay at their house. Norman Raab.
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 ; IS: When Norman Raab needed contractors, he came to Allentown and stayed at my parents’ house! And we were lucky, we got their-
 ; 
 ; GE: And that was- that was a Philadelphia firm. I've heard the name, definitely.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And they had an outlet in Telford.
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 ; IS: They made everything. They made purses, they made raincoats, they made shoes.
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 ; SCB: Huge outlet in Telford, I’ve seen it.
 ; 
 ; GE: Did you know, you know now that you’re saying it, I think it was related to that—my father had a cousin named Bernie Rutberg, and he’s about your age, a little older than you actually. And after- during the war, I think he worked for somebody, then after the war, he went into making dresses, and I thought it was Villager.
 ; 
 ; CS: Probably. 
 ; 
 ; IS: Yeah, they made dresses too. 0 2346 Irwin's Role in the Family Businesses SCB: [W]hat was your role in the business when you came back home and worked for your father?
 ; 
 ; IS: Oh I- I imitated my father. We had a good marker maker. But I decided to educate myself much further just in case. And I took- learned pattern making. They would give me a sample garment which was usually a medium- a medium and I would grade a small from it, a large, a medium-large, an extra-large, you know, how to operate it. I used a spec sheet—a specification sheet—and I would enlarge the length or I’d you know, I'd make the patterns. 0 2401 1960s: Irwin Leaves the Family Buisness/Salitsky and Weinstein Families Split the Business Partnership IS: And it served me well because my father and I got into a bruha one time and I had to go around knocking on doors looking for a job. So what had happened, I applied- I knocked on all of the doors I knew in Allentown which a lot of my friends owned businesses. Only one of them would say, "Irwin, I don't want to hire a friend. What do you do if it don’t work out—how do you fire a friend?" So I read the handwriting on the wall. And I- did I get a job locally? I don’t think so. 
 ; 
 ; CS: What?
 ; 
 ; IS: I didn't work locally at all, did I?
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 ; CS: No, you went to New York.
 ; 
 ; IS: I- My friend- Nate Braunstein made belts and he subscribed to Women's Wear Daily, so he would save me all of the issues. That was the Bible of the sewing business. And I would borrow his old copies and I would check the ads in the back and I would call and make appointments for an interview. Now I never led on that I was calling from Pennsylvania because I rightfully figured that they didn’t want to hire anybody that had to travel that distance. But I did it for probably about five, six years or more. I would get up at 5 in the morning. I was on the road at 5 in the morning, I’m sorry. And I would get there about 7:30 a.m. We would work from about 8 to 12, 15 minutes for lunch ; but we would quit at 4, so it took me a couple of hours at 4, I was home by 6-6:30. It was just like working here, but a lot more mileage on the car. 0 2912 Highland Sportswear Customers—Government Contracts and Villager IS: At Highland we were so diversified, and I didn't mention this before, we made army shirts, we made blouses for the WAVES—white with a Peter Pan collar—the WAVES of the navy girls. We made raincoats with a hood for the women's air force. We even made shirts for the Florida Highway Patrol. 
 ; 
 ; SCB: So you made government contracts?
 ; 
 ; IS: We had government contracts for marine corps shirts with the epaulets, the whole schmear. And we did army shirts, too. And in between we did blouses, which were seasonal, and when that wasn't busy, we made shirts. We had a backbone of Villager because they were always busy, they had two basic styles—a Peter Pan collar, or like a dress collar, long and short sleeves but the patterns were all the same. 0 2985 Overcuts IS: Now the secret of our business was overcuts. That is the ability to make a marker, laying out the patterns, better than they figure that they can do. The way we did this, we’d get the piece goods in, let’s say 60 inch goods. We had a 60 inch- one table was about 66 inches wide so that we could spread wide goods. But- Butting into it was 48 inch table for 45 inch goods. This we learned over time, I mean I make it sound like it’s nothing. But doing it, for example, if we got piece goods in and maybe ten percent of the piece goods were 42 inches wide, the rest were 40 inches. So we took the time and trouble to remake a marker for that extra width. And we were able to have a higher yield. And-
 ; 
 ; GE: So-so with this overcuts, what you're saying that the profit margin is very much if you can get a higher yield?
 ; 
 ; IS: Right.
 ; 
 ; GE: You’ll get a little more production out of it.
 ; 
 ; IS: Right, and then sell them on the open market for cash.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, okay. So in other words, if you're supposed to make 95 for the manufacturer, if you're able to make 100, then the other 5 you can sell?
 ; 
 ; IS: Right. I mean...
 ; 
 ; CS: It’s how flea markets operate.
 ; 
 ; SCB: And would that have been also labeled as Villager or not?
 ; 
 ; IS: Mainly Villager because I had a traveling salesman who we were friendly with, who traveled all the way out to Central Pennsylvania. And I made him promise that do not sell any retail establishment in a city that has Villager on the label, that sells Villager, because it will blow my business there, they would cut me out. And they could tell by the markings on the boxes where it came from, you know, we stamped the lot number, the style number, the size, you know. So fortunately, we didn’t get caught. 0 3421 Irwin Moves to Albany, GA Seeking Work in the Garment Industry After Leaving the Family Business IS: But I was conscientious, I was never late, I was always there on time. But when things got slow, it was like a one-dimensional kind of thing and I was the latest hire and they could supervise a cutting room without me. I even went down South—one of the ads I saw was a big company in- outside Albany, Georgia, near Peanut Country. And I went to New York, the owner worked in- out of New York in the sales room. They made athletic wear, matching pants and jackets with different fabric.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Like a sweatsuit?
 ; 
 ; IS: Like athletic jogging suits. Like a jogging suit kind of.
 ; 
 ; GE: Now are we in the 1970s at this point?
 ; 
 ; SCB: We should be, yeah.
 ; 
 ; IS: About then, yeah. So I went to New York and explained my background and he said, “Irwin, you're hired. Go down, find a place to live,” and he always had a motel in Albany because where the plant was—about 20 miles northeast—it was in a very rural area. So we could talk while we're going to work together, you know. He- He would go down every six weeks or so. And the plant manager was a Jewish guy, was a Kochalech [Yiddish-- possibly a shortened version of kochleffel, a pot stirrer]. He was in charge of the plant and was used to doing things his own way, and I let it go at that. I mean I- He didn't bother me, this was a tremendous cutting room. It was about eight cutting tables. 0 3843 Irwin's Education and Community Values (cont'd) IS: Before my time, then they had three junior high schools—Raub, Central, and Harrison-Morton. Harrison-Morton was down around 3rd Street, where all the Hispanics and Blacks went, the poorer families. Central was around 9th and Liberty, somewhere around there. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Linden.
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 ; IS: And that was for what I called the Jewish middle class. There were few Jews there, but it was working class people who worked in the downtown area. Raub was in the western end. It was the most- for the most wealthier citizens, most of the Jewish kids went to Raub. And-
 ; 
 ; GE: Where did you go?
 ; 
 ; IS: To Raub. I went to Raub for first through ninth grade. And I walked, it was within walking distance of where I lived. But as I said, it was a- It was annoying at the time, but when I look back now, it was a great advantage. For example, we- we didn’t need the- the Gentiles ; we had our own clique, our own friends. I had a high school fraternity of about 15-18 guys, Jewish friends. AZA was big at that time also. Claire missed out on a lot of that because her father struck it rich early. She lived in a nice area, what I call the deep west end of Allentown. So she missed out, she got her- her growing up through the Center, she was lucky that way. But I got mine on a daily basis, from the people I associated with and where I lived. 0 4364 Relationship to Morris and Lena Senderowitz CS: Morris Senderowitz was a great benefactor of Muhlenberg.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, was he?
 ; 
 ; CS: And he was a very good friend of the families. He lived at 18th and Hamilton Street, and Morris got the boys into Muhlenberg and Cedar Crest was the same story. Because my trunk went to Rhode Island, I was going to Pembroke, which is part of Brown and I decided I didn’t want to leave my mother. And my mother told me to be honest, if it was that I was Irwin’s, say it. So she- I said well, I’d rather stay in Allentown. So Lena Senderowitz, we got a phone call, and she was on the board at Cedar Crest, and I went to Cedar Crest.
 ; 
 ; SC: Well that’s a good segue. 0 4505 Introduction—Claire Salitsky SCB: So Claire, I’d like to ask you what your full name is and more about your family background, a little bit more about your family background. But let’s- let’s talk a little bit about where your family came from. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Oh, I have that inside. Irwin, on the table there’s that paper from Anne, you know, our oldest daughter. I mean, from Alison, our oldest granddaughter, is very interested in genealogy, so I gave her all the records I had and she- she gave me where they came from.
 ; 
 ; SCB: Well, let me just ask you, what is your full name, when were you born, and where were you born?
 ; 
 ; CS: My full name is Claire Joy Wiener Salitsky. 
 ; 
 ; IS: W-I-E-N-E-R.
 ; 
 ; CS: And I was born in Paterson, New Jersey, July 16th, 1929. My mother’s name was Mary Mendelson Wiener and my father was Louis Wiener. My mother was born in Paterson ; she was one of nine children who grew up ; there were fifteen originally. 0 4565 Claire's Family History CS: My mother’s name was Mary Mendelson Wiener and my father was Louis Wiener. My mother was born in Paterson ; she was one of nine children who grew up ; there were fifteen originally.
 ; 
 ; IS: That was before television.
 ; 
 ; CS: And she came from a- a very religious, orthodox family, and she was second from the end. I have a picture of them hanging on the wall. My father was born in Poland in a shtetl [Yiddish for small Jewish village in Eastern Europe] called- Ojikauf is the name of the burial society, but he was born in 1907. No, 1903, and he came to this country in 1907. He was the third child in the family. Now, my grand- My father’s family they were- they were silk weavers. They lived in the shtetl near “Lodz” [Claire pronounces it LODZ]. Lodz was a silk weaving- 
 ; 
 ; GE: Lodz [pronounced LUDJ]? I think that’s Lodz. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Yes, and they lived in- According to what was found, they lived in- they called it D-O-L-Y-S-Z-I-N. But they called it Russia. Now Lodz was Lodz at that point, you know the boundaries were constantly changing. You didn’t know. My grandmother’s maiden name was Warshawsky. Now I did get a copy of the marriage thing. And her husband, my grandfather’s name was Joel Robilinsky. Okay. In order to get out of the country, he- his- my- took his brother-in-law’s army papers. He was out of the army already. And he came to the United States with his brother-in-law’s army pass. His brother-in-law’s name was Joel—“Yo’el”, Yo’el, whatever—something like Wiener. 0 4771 1987: The Salitskys Seek Family History in Russia SC: My mother’s family, my grandfather, came from a shtetl named Barstitzti, B-A-R-S-T-I-T-Z-T-I, near—I knew it as Lithuania. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Right, right now, Vilna, Vilna. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Vilna. It was right near Vilna, because when I went to Russia the first time, I went on to Lithuania, and all I could- there I heard- I found anti-Semitism. Terrible. The bus driver wouldn’t take us. There was a group of Jewish girls on the trip. 
 ; 
 ; GE: When was this around?
 ; 
 ; CS: The first time I went to Russia was 19- When did I open my travel agency? 1980? Your 60th birthday, how old are- how- When was that? 1929… 1989. 
 ; 
 ; IS: [19]87.
 ; 
 ; CS: Eighty- 1987, it was around then. And they wouldn’t take us, and we got a cab, and I took my sister-in-law who had never been out of the country with me to Russia. My father almost had a bird that the two of us were going where they had struggled to get out. I found it fascinating. 0 4866 Claire's Family History (cont'd) CS: They lived near Vilna and he was a farmer there. When he came to the United States, he came first in ‘04 and she- and he came over in 1896 and she followed in 19- 1897 with one, two, let’s see… The three sons, the one daughter, four of the kids, and every year she had another- another child. But he started out as a huckster guy, and then he got involved in the building business. And he became—as I never found this out, I mean, I knew he owned tenement buildings, because every Friday at three o’clock when we got out of school, we got in the car and we went to Slatington, where my father’s factory was, to pick up my father and he’d drive to Paterson because we had to get there before Shabbos [Yiddish for Sabbath]. And we would come home Sunday night. So on Sundays I would go with my cousin and we would collect the rent. To me it was fun! We went in and out of these buildings on- And there were blocks of them. I- I didn’t know from anything. And- But years later, in Florida, I met somebody and he happened to admire what I was wearing. It was a Valentine’s Day party and I was wearing something red. And he said to me, where are you from? And I said from Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I said where are you from? He said Paterson, New Jersey. I said, oh, I was born there. Oh! Well what did you, you know, what is your name? We go through this whole thing and it ended up he had bought my aunt’s house. And, you know, he said, your grandfather was William Mendelson. I said, yes. He said he gave a lot of money to charity but he was a slum landlord. 0 5293 Louis Weiner's Silk Weaving Business CS: My father was in business with his father in Paterson when the Depression hit. 
 ; 
 ; SCB: What kind of business was that?
 ; 
 ; CS: He was in the silk weaving business. 
 ; 
 ; SCB: He was in the silk weaving business, yeah.
 ; 
 ; CS: And he had- He- He couldn’t make it and so he knew he was going to have to go bankrupt. And he went to his father-in-law and he explained the situation. And his father-in-law and his two brothers, two of the three brothers-in-laws agreed he should go through bankruptcy, it wouldn’t hurt. My father went to a stranger who gave- lent him the money to pay all his bills. And he had this opportunity, I don’t know how he heard about it, but there was an empty factory in Slatington. And he- He went- He came here and he was able to make a deal with the city of Slatington, and he was just very fortunate. He- he had- He had when he came here a partner from Paterson, an older man, whose last name was also Wiener, but was spelled W-E-I-N-E-R. And he had a son named Jack who he had- He wanted his son to learn the business so my father- He came along and he was married. He wanted to live in Slatington, my father would not allow my mother- My mother- He thought my mother would want to stay in Paterson and he’d come home weekends. Well, my mother was told by her mother, you go with your husband. And so she came, and she- they lived in Allentown at 2445 Union Street. 0 5772 For Years, Mary Wiener Pays the Dairy Bill for Local Jewish Families Who are Less Fortunate CS: Oh, it was a Triumvirate. Mitchell Katz, he was the family doctor, Rabbi William Greenburg, and Nettie Klass, Mrs. Aaron Klass. And they would find these people who needed help.
 ; 
 ; GE: Now is this like the 1950s?
 ; 
 ; CS: Oh this is- I’m married 63 years.
 ; 
 ; IS: [19]49 or ‘48. Early ‘50s.
 ; 
 ; CS: And it was- All I know is, when she went to Florida, she [my mother] said to me, “I’m leaving you signed checks for Freeman’s dairy.” I said for what? She said, “Well,” she says, “I pay for milk for people, and so I want you, you know, to pay the bill.” I said all right. But you know, this went on year after year after year. And one day, I walked- I was then already involved with the Federation, and I asked George Feldman—well then it was called UJA—I asked him, the executive director of the Center and the UJA, I said, “I- I have to ask you something, Mr. Feldman. My mother is buying milk for all these people.” I said, “Do you know—do they still have little children?” And he looked at me and he said, “No.” He said, “Really I should tell Mary to stop.” So I said, “Well, I’m going to tell Mary, I’m not-” Do you know she got mad at me? And she said you will continue and I will continue while I’m alive. If they don’t need it, maybe their children need it. 0 6033 Claire's Childhood and Education in Allentown, PA CS: Well anyway, we grew up ; I walked- I used to walk to school from 25th and Union to the Raub School. I mean when I think about it today, that our parents could let us walk that distance, and it was a- and our neighborhood was gentile. Across the street was a Rumberger family and they were wonderful. I grew up with Janet Rumberger. And we had an empty lot next to the house, my father got permission from the city to clear it. And he put toys out there, you know, kids’ things. But unfortunately, older kids would come and trash it, so my father took it down, took down the toys and that was it. But that’s where we lived. And- Well the Samuels family lived a block away and they were very nice to my parents when they moved here. And then when I was in third grade, I remember it was my parents’ fifteenth wedding anniversary, we moved to the house 2710 Greenleaf Street. And I used to go to school with Ruthie Rappaport, there were very few Jewish kids in the Muhlenberg School. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Very few?
 ; 
 ; CS: Very few. And- But I guess- My- My childhood memories of Allentown were wonderful. I think this is a wonderful place for kids to grow up. I was happy here, I mean- and then I went to Raub Junior High, and then I went to Allen- It was Allentown High School in those days. 0 6642 The Hess Family (Owners of Hess's Department Store) as Neighbors SCB: So, were your parents good friends of the Hesses?
 ; 
 ; CS: Pardon me?
 ; 
 ; SCB: Were your parents good friends of the Hesses?
 ; 
 ; IS: Nobody really was good friends with the Hesses. 
 ; 
 ; CS: Well Max Hess lived on Livingston Street at- at 27th. And he- Richard was his- You see, there was a table in Hess’s patio in the back. A big round table where local businessmen used to eat, the Jewish men. And Max Hess would always join them. And he- I remember once they were working on a thing for the Center, counting Jewish families, and he says you count me, but not my wife and my children. He was married to a gentile woman, Betty Douglass. 0 6889 Louis Weiner's Contributions to the Allentown Jewish Community GE: Going back with your father, Louis Wiener, do you want to tell us a little bit? Because I know he was a major pillar in the community, the Jewish community with the institutions. What were some of the- Was he a president of the synagogue?
 ; 
 ; CS: No, he would never be the president. But he was the chairman of the board for umpteen years. And when he gave it up, he felt that it was time for the younger people to take over, he believed strongly in that. And they made him the honorary chairman of the board, which he has- had... 
 ; 
 ; IS: He was the driving force for the new building of the new Temple. 
 ; 
 ; GE: On 17th and Hamilton?
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 ; IS: Yeah. At that time, Claire and I were just married, and we were living with them until- We didn’t have our own house then. 0 7051 How the Jewish Community Has Grown and Changed Through Its Members Commitment and Philanthropy CS: These men were a different generation. They aren’t like the men of today. Bobby Hammel is like these men. Bobby Hammel is a good- he’s- he’s wonderful. 
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 ; GE: You’re right. Very philanthropic and very community-minded. 
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 ; CS: Yes. These men believed in Rabbi Greenburg. He just drew them in. And he- he felt we needed a bigger synagogue, we had more members, the Hebrew school. I went to Hebrew school at the Lincoln School and confirmation- confirmation class at Greenburg’s house. I was in his first confirmation class and we had up on the Temple of- on 12th and Walnut, I swear the mice used to be running in the cotton. We had one big room. It was awful. So they wanted this. We had the Center, and we needed our synagogue. And these men, they gave from the heart. 
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 ; IS: They were all like Bobby Hammel, but in different stages, it was what they could afford. They had the same ideas like Bobby of being generous and what they could afford and that’s the way most of the men were and that’s the way the Temple was really built. 
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 ; CS: And it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. 0 7328 1970 Bus Accident on Route 22—the Allentown Jewish Community's Response to the Tragedy CS: But you know, we had our center, we had our synagogues, and we had our community. 
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 ; IS: We didn’t have to bother with Gentiles, actually. 
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 ; CS: When we- You know, years and years ago we had that terrible bus accident. 
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 ; GE: I heard about that, I heard.
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 ; CS: That was a terrible, terrible thing.
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 ; GE: This was a bus accident on Route 22, is that the one that you’re saying? 
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 ; CS: It was yeah, out past- 
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 ; GE: It was where it was slippery out by Lafayette.
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 ; CS: It was a terrible bus accident and I know it was a Thursday afternoon. And it was my birthday weekend and my daughter, Joanie was coming home, she was at- went for a summer in Richmond. And she was flying home that weekend. And my- Everything Thursday I was working then for Sandy Zales and Nina. 0 MovingImage Irwin Salitsky talks about how his father (Barney Salitsky) and his partner (Izzy Weinstein) moved the business from New York to Allentown in 1932 to escape the unions. Irwin was four years old. Irwin’s father and his partner started Clyde Shirt and later Highland Sportswear. Irwin loved growing up in Allentown and living in the heart of the Jewish neighborhood [around West and Walnut St.]. Barney Salitsky and Izzy Weinstein were partners for about 40 years. Eventually, when the sons were in the business, the partnership was dissolved.
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 ; Claire Salitsky affectionately talks about the wonderful role models her parents were. Her father was a silk weaver in Paterson, NJ with his father. But when the depression hit, things quickly soured. There was an available factory in Slatington, PA for Claire’s father to purchase but he needed a loan to do so. A veritable stranger gave him the loan and Claire’s father and new partner became very successful. Due to that generosity, Claire’s parents actively helped others in the community who were less fortunate and needed financial assistance.
 ; Interview with Irwin Salitsky, May 26th, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is- GAIL EISENBERG: May 26th. SCB: Yeah. Today is May 26th, 2011, and we are at an- an interview for the Lehigh Valley Sewing Needle-Trades Oral History Project. That's what we're calling it at the moment. So, would you tell me your full name? IRWIN SALISTKY: Irwin Salistky, NMI: "No Middle Initial." SCB: And would you spell it for me just for the future? Because everything I ask, it seems really stupid, it's just for people in the future. IS: Do you want to read that? It gives you a feeling of the... SCB: I will after, I can, I will afterwards. Yeah. So would you spell your name? IS: I-R-W-I-N S-A-L-I-T-S-K-Y SCB: And also, we are going to be putting you into some kind of personal context. Where were you born? And- IS: Brooklyn, New York. SCB: Do you know the street? Do you know the region? IS: Peck Memorial Hospital, which has been eliminated since. No longer there. SCB: Do you know where your parents lived when you were born? IS: Yes, Empire Boulevard, three blocks from where now my grandson lives. GE: Oh, isn't that something? IS: I couldn't wait to get out of Brooklyn and he loves it! Course I was four- four years old at the time, and he was- He was an infant. I am- I was four- No, we came here, I was five, he was one. I'm four years older than him. SCB: And what year did you come? IS: 1932. SCB: To- And that was to Allentown? IS: Pardon? SCB: Is that your birthday or was that to Allentown? IS: No, what it is- Not only did my parents or my father come, but a lot of the garment industries for some reason or other formed in 1932. It was a great time to leave the city, because of what you'll read later. And we started with nothing. I remember they- My father couldn't afford a car ; his partner, Izzy Weinstein had a car, an old Packard. It was in such bad shape that the door wouldn't stay closed, I remember seeing it, and they had the door tied with a piece of rope around the window frame. They came with my Uncle Morris, who was our family accountant. His- He came from New Jersey and his firm grew into the largest accounting firm in the state of New Jersey. SCB: What part of New Jersey? IS: Asbury Park. SCB: And so, you moved when you were four and your brother was one to Allentown? IS: We lived on that street, we moved to 231 South West Street. We lived there for ten years until my father could afford to buy a house, which was ten years later, and made their money during the war. GE: So- So this was an apartment? IS: It was a four- It was a double unit with an upstairs. There were four- four units on South West Street. SCB: Do you remember the number? IS: 231 South West Street. SCB: 231 South West Street. IS: Right. SCB: And where did you live in- IS: 27th and Washington. SCB: Oh, the second one? And when you were in Brooklyn, what- what did your father do when-? IS: He was a cutter. SCB: He was a cutter. IS: I educated myself a great deal more than my father did. He never knew how to sew, never cared to learn. He was happy running the cutting room and making markers--that's laying out the patterns for the best yield possible. And he did the paperwork reporting to the manufacturer what the result was of a spread. In other words, the manufacturer had a rough idea of what the yield should be, based on the total yardage that he sent. They would send us the fabric and we would make a marker based on the width and the type of fabric, because the different fabrics had to be done differently. For example, there is such a thing as a one-way pattern where all- it's a print, where all of the patterns had to go in one direction, and that takes more of a yield. There are a lot of tricks to the trade. I'll- Well, I'll go over some of them with you. SCB: Okay, could we just talk a little bit first about- IS: Oh sure, go ahead. SCB: Also, your- Your educational history. IS: Pardon? SCB: You- How- Where were you educated? IS: Educated- I graduated from Allentown High School in 1945. I always had an addiction for flying. So, I was in touch with Parks Air College which is now a part of St. Louis University. And it's in East St. Louis, a shayna [Yiddish for pretty] town you never saw. And this was twenty miles south of East St. Louis. I was a little snot nose kid of 17 and it started July 1st of 1945. It was on a trimester basis. We left, it was funny, we always took a vacation July 4th because that's when the annual vacation for the garment industry was, when the mills were closed and you had a compulsory 2-week vacation. So I got there three days late, because I was up at the Concord, which is in the- in the Borscht Belt. GE: In the Catskills. SCB: Yeah. IS: I left by a Jitney into Penn Station ; we had a reservation at Penn Station for a non-stop train into St. Louis. It didn't stop in East St. Louis which is across the Mississippi, I was- East St. Louis is in Illinois. I- They knew I was going to be late. Classes started July 1st, 1945 and I was still, in July 4th, at the Concord chasing the waitresses. But it was a great experience. One thing about Allentown--and Claire will bare me out--we loved living in Allentown. You may not be aware of some of the reasons, but in 1932, everybody was new. We had a bunch of fellows that I was friendly with, like Jerry Neff for example. When I tell people that he's been a friend of mine for 70 years, they think I'm crazy. They don't even know their next-door neighbor where they live. But what it did- Having a great group of friends, you mature fast. Claire is two years younger than me, but she was in a different clique. I didn't get together with Claire- Well I'll come to that later on. But we were a different group. In other words, when one guy learned how to jitterbug, we all got to learn. And at the time, I was six feet tall like I am today. And believe it or not, I weigh now what I did then. I used to weigh a little over 200 and now I weigh 165. So, I was able to lie about my age and get away with it. So what had happened--they met me, the grounds- the head groundskeeper met me at the station in St. Louis and brought me to the campus which was in a little village of Cahokia in Illinois. It's a- the scene of a big Monsanto chemical plant. You always got the stink from the chemicals. And what is a kid of 17 do when he doesn't know a soul, never been there before, the first weekend? So I looked up in the telephone book the address of the YMHA or Jewish Community Center. And I got the address and I found out how to get there. I had to take a bus from the campus into East St. Louis, another bus crossing the Mississippi and this, the YMHA, was in West St. Louis. I took another bus there. I had a car which my father sold but really I should have had it there. It annoyed the hell out of me because when my kid brother, who was four years younger, went to college he had a car. I was low man on the totem pole. But anyhow, I go to the YMHA and they had- It was a great deal because Scott Field was an army air base in Illinois about 20 miles from St. Louis. And the Lambert Municipal Airport in St. Louis was a naval training station. They had a lox and bagel deal every Sunday morning for the servicemen who came to the YMHA and they also honored veterans. I'm 17 years old. Nothing- I lied my way all the way through, but I was able to get away with it because I was tall, I even grew a mustache for the occasion. And I come there and who do I see walking in the door? Three of my high school fraternity brothers from Wilkes Barre. We had a high school fraternity in high school, and we had branches in Wilkes Barre, Scranton, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and we always had conventions. GE: Is this like AZA? IS: Well yeah. GE: That type of thing? IS: We were competitors. AZA was there at the Jewish Community Center, where we met. And it helped us mature. I was able to lie about a lot of things. In fact, I was dating a girl--gorgeous, 24 years old--she said, "I would never go out with anybody younger than me." But I lied and I got away with it. Anyhow, one of the guys that I met was Mendy [Yiddish name] Rudolph. The name may not mean anything to you, he ended up being a very well-known basketball referee for professional basketball. And he was still in the army. His father was a basketball referee, he came from Wilkes Barre. And there were a couple other guys that I used to see. And I met- we met girls, and I had lox and bagels, and I'll never forget- This is in July, and it's coming up to November, and I made a sob story that we're gonna have spam for Thanksgiving. So I got myself invited to Thanksgiving dinner by one of the girls there. And I- I had a ball, I really enjoyed it. I learned how to fly, I- I had 5 hours solo in an airplane by myself. But as things went along, I was never that studious. I would say I was above average intelligence, but not- nothing super. What I liked about this school was I hated taking a foreign language in high school and it wasn't a requirement. So that sort of cemented why I would go there ; plus it was a- an accelerated program, a trimester for three years, at which time you graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aeronautical Engineering and an A& ; E Certificate which allowed you to work on airplane engines--I could get a job as a mechanic--and a private pilot's license, that you had to accumulate 25 hours of solo. So I thought my future was all laid out. But this was in 1945 and it was after the war and my father's business was very good. And I liked it because I went into the factory from age 16 over the summer and I had my own checking account, money wasn't a problem with my family at that time. We had- They had bought a house, took them 10 years but they had finally accumulated enough money to buy this house on 27th and Washington. And I lived there until we got married. GE: So so, you didn't stay- You didn't graduate from school? IS: No. I- I found out- They had representatives of the various corporations would come on campus, and what they were offering in salary, I would blow in a weekend. So I said, "What am I doing? I'm going to knock my brains out for what?" SCB: Couple follow-ups. For the future, "AZA", what- what is that? GE: It's a Jewish- It's a Jewish- IS: This was a Jewish high school fraternity. It was- We were competitors with AZA. AZA is still active- active. Sigma Alpha Rho, my fraternity, was mainly out of Philadelphia and a lot of the conventions were there and it was, it was- We had a great time. I- I kept saying how lucky I am, growing up in Allentown, maturing with my friends. At this time when I came home, Claire lived- I was in 27th and Washington, Claire was in 27th and Greenleaf, down the back alley. I needed some surgery for I had a hernia when I came home, and I wanted to take care of it because I kept it in case I was called up for service, which I didn't want to do, go into the service. When I turned 18 in November of that year, I had to go to Chicago because everybody in Illinois had to go to the recruiting station in Chicago. So that was an overnight train deal. I found that, after all the problems, they didn't want to take me because of a hernia, but it was operable. So I waited 'til I came home and I made- my mother and I made arrangements with a- a urologist in Allentown and I had it taken care of. All of a sudden I'm in the hospital, and I'm lying in bed, and who should come to visit me? Claire. She brought her girlfriend with me- with her because she didn't want to make it too obvious. CLAIRE SALISTSKY: But I had gone out with you already. IS: Yeah, I had dated her. Well, some of the detail you'll remember better than I. SCB: So you weren't ever drafted, even though it went to the Korean War years? IS: No, no. I got- I got married in '48 and had a child in '49. So I was a- I was a husband and a father and that was that. CS: We went to Muhlenberg IS: I went to Muhlenberg for- for 6 months. CS: No. IS: Yeah, it was- Wasn't it? Somewhere along three months, whatever. CS: It was longer. IS: Claire, of course, was 19. Not even 19, you were- CS: You went to Muhlenberg and- while I was still in seminary, Moravian Seminary. IS: Yeah, she went to Moravian Seminary. CS: You were- You went to Muhlenberg by two years, Irwin. IS: Yes, two years. Claire was very bright. She had her choice of colleges. Her father was well to do and she could afford any college, but she chose Cedar Crest much to her parents' annoyance, because she didn't want to leave dear old Irwin. SCB: You know, you and Max Hess both left Muhlenberg. IS: Max Hess? SCB: Yes, he came back home from World War II, went to Muhlenberg for a while, and then left Muhlenberg to take over the business. IS: Max Hess lived up the block from- We lived- She lived on Greenleaf Street and 27th Avenue, he lived on 28th Street and- CS: And Livingston. IS: Greenleaf. Not Greenleaf. CS: Livingston. Max Hess lived on Livingston. IS: Livingston Street. GE: Is he a contemporary of yours? CS: No, he was older. IS: No, he was a little older. CS: He- He- He was actually, well he was younger than my father, but they were friends. IS: Yeah. We had the first two- Max Hess and my father-in-law had the first extra large screen television set in the city of Allentown. It was one of those, not a direct tube that large, it was a projection model. GE: Oh my goodness. SCB: Yeah. I was talking about Max Hess Jr., came home and- CS: No, are you- You're talking about his son. SCB: Yes, his son. Came home and went to Muhlenberg College and then dropped out. CS: There were three Max Hesses. IS: Max Hess was Max Hess Jr., actually. That was his real name. His son was I guess the third. CS: Tommy. SCB: Tommy? IS: Tommy. CS: Tommy was his son. Tommy was Anne's age. IS: One thing about growing up in Allentown, you couldn't lie about your age. Everybody knew everybody else, and what they didn't know they tried to dig up. But growing up was great because the Jewish Community Center was very active. I lived on South West Street for ten years, West and Fairview. All I had to do was walk up to Hamilton Street, take a trolley car--they worked- they worked on Hamilton Street--to 6th street, and if I was lazy, I would take a transfer, get a northbound trolley that would leave me off at Chew Street or I could walk four blocks to the center. GE: Where was it located? 6th and Chew? IS: 6th and Chew, the old center. SCB: Right and then that became the Negro Cultural Center? CS: That's right. SCB: And now it's the Housing- Housing and Health Center, yeah. IS: But it was great because they had Sunday afternoon dances ; they had a jukebox, and we had an active man, George Feldman, who did a fantastic job of being the director. There were many meetings held, they had a restaurant there for a while, a kosher restaurant. AZA and Sigma Alpha Rho had a meeting room by itself on the third floor. GE: And this is the 1930s and 1940s? IS: Yes, in- Well in- CS: The '30s even. Late '30s into '40s. IS: So I guess that about sums up my high school, except that, well I might as well swing into getting married. I was- wasn't even 21, but I had sown my wild oats. And Claire was 19 going on 20 in July. CS: No. How old are you? IS: I got two years on you. CS: How old are you? IS: Eighty-three. CS: And how old am I? IS: Eighty-one. CS: And how long are we married? IS: Sixty-two years. CS: Yes, so how old was I? IS: Nineteen, you were, weren't you? Eighteen. CS: Yeah, I was 19 that month, two weeks later. IS: Yeah, you were 18 when we got married July 4th because the mills were closed. SC: The factories were closed. IS: And her birthday is July 16th, so she was two weeks short of being 19.Is that right? Okay. We got married in New York because the Temple wasn't built yet and we had a big wedding. Her- My parents and Claire's parents were very well known in Allentown. My father-in-law was chairman of the board of the Center. My father was on the committee that built the Temple and my father-in-law was the chairman of the building committee... GE: This is which synagogue? Temple Beth El? IS: Of the new building. GE: Okay, this is when it was just being built on 17th and Hamilton. When was that built? Right around this time? CS: I- I would have to think. Anne is going to be 62 in June, correct? So Anne was born in '49--yeah we were married in '48. IS: We were married in '48. CS: Anne was born in '49, the Temple was being constructed. And I remember walking, every morning--my father's first stop in the morning was to pick me up, stop at the- and then- I lived- We lived at 18th and Hamilton. IS: When we got married, Schnitzer built those apartments at 18th and Hamilton on the northwest- the northeast corner, those two separate buildings. GE: Okay, right by the synagogue? Right by the little synagogue. IS: Yes, a block away. CS: And I used to walk up with him. He'd walk me- He'd make me walk every day to the temple and we'd walk through- IS: We would check the progress of the building. CS: And then come back at 4:30 and take me back to see what they did during the day. IS: It was a ball living there because it was a prime apartment. My next- across the hall neighbor was Max Stetner and his father, who was a widower ; and Jerry Bright who was a few years older than me and lived across the hall. His mother's and all my friends- We had Anne a year later. They would all come and play with her, because I was the first one married, even though I was the youngest of my immediate group. Murray Goodman, the multimillionaire, still lived with his parents, and Murray was a builder in Florida. CS: He built Village West. And he built- GE: Village West is what? CS: Shopping center, across the street from you know, at Tilghman and Cedar Crest Boulevard. GE: Oh, oh, oh, where Giant is? CS: Where the Giant is. SC: And that's Murray Goodman? IS: Where the Giant is, yeah. He was a commercial- His father was a commercial builder, but he out-distanced his father. CS: He made it big time. IS: And Stanley Finkel lived there, and I mustn't forget Larry Somach, the crazy one--the cheap SOB. GE: You know, I know the Somach family very well. IS: He was just married. CS: He was married the same summer. SCB: That was Larry Somach? IS: Larry Somach. Norman grew up with me, his brother, his younger brother. And- CS: Mrs. Bright only wanted to know which one was my husband? She always saw me with all these guys! IS: They kept coming in to play with my daughter, 'cause you know, they were all bachelors. And fortunately my daughter--you could wake up in the middle of the night and she was always happy, had a smile, never cried. It was funny when- This was a one bedroom apartment and when we'd go to bed, her crib was in the bedroom with us, and I got a kick out of- We were lying in bed and we'd hear her rustling. Then two little hands would appear on the railing, and then a- a blonde head with real curly hair and big blue eyes would show up. And she just was curious, and she was always that way, even to this day. She would never go and join in playing with anybody until she sat and watched and decided that she wanted to go in because she would never wanted to make a fool out of herself. Even from her childhood days, she was always that way. She went to the right school and thank God they were all right, all right kids. GE: Your daughter's name? IS: Anne. Anne Eleanor. And she was born in 1949. I timed it right--they were all two years apart. In '50- '51, Irene Vivian was born. She was the first girl admitted to Lafayette [College] when it became co-ed. GE: Oh wow. IS: And was the first girl to be Phi Beta Kappa at Lafayette. Her daughter went to the Johns Hopkins, also Phi Beta Kappa. CS: And what about Jared, her son? IS: Her son? Well... CS: He was Phi Beta Kappa at Wesleyan [University]. IS: Yeah, at Wesleyan, decided he wanted to be a lawyer. GE: This is still Irene's children? IS: Irene's children. She had three children. Anne never wanted children. She wanted to travel. And that's why she got divorced, because before they got married, Richard and she agreed they weren't going to have children, but he was an athletic kind of guy. In a pickup basketball game he got elbowed in the neck and he lost his voice. Temporary thing. But he realized how helpless he was because he couldn't even answer the telephone. And they decided to get a friendly divorce. So they got a divorce and he married another Jewish girl. [Some lost conversation here]-- Paid for the wedding. My father had to pay for his own wedding. CS: Did you tell Gail where your father met your mother? In Roseland. IS: In Roseland. In New York. They were both good dancers. Claire's parents unfortunately weren't--I had to push your mother around the floor. But the Salistskys were good dancers. SCB: Could we move on to your- your- the business and a couple of things to think about: Who started the business? And we sort of have some of that on here, but maybe we should have it together. Did they own or manage the business? How did they become connected to the business? So- IS: Well, they were partners in New York before they came to Allentown to escape the union. And they started almost at the time that Billera's formed the pants factory in Northampton. GE: Who- Who's Billera? IS: Huh? GE: You said Billera started the pants--who is that, that's a company? CS: The Billera family. IS: Four or five brothers that were tailors in Italy. And they started Clyde Shirt, which was the four story building. Clyde Shirt was- My Father and Izzy Weinstein, they were on the first and fourth floor. Universal Pants, there were two brothers who ran that, in the second and third floor. Then, further west, they started- they made only pants, but they started a, a--what the hell's the name of that? CS: Joey's father? IS: No. I had it this morning. A clothing business where they made jackets and suits and sport jackets. That was at 21st Street and Main Street in Northampton. CS: And did you have a plant there too? IS: When- When- When Weinstein and my father, shortly after they started Clyde Shirt, business was good, so they started Highland Sportswear in Allentown. GE: So Clyde Shirt was your father and Izzy Weinstein's company? IS: Right. And they were partners all the way through. They were partners in Highland. The reason they chose the name Highland, Izzy Weinstein's daughter went to Highland Manor which was a fancy girls' private school. CS: And Clyde Shirt was from the steamship company. IS: Yeah, Clyde- there was a Clyde steamship company in New York. I don't know how they found that. GE: So Clyde Shirt made shirts and blouses? IS: Well, we did a lot of things. We-- We had about over one hundred operators there. GE: With Clyde Shirt? IS: With Clyde Shirt. And they mainly did shirts. But Highland was a fairly large company. We had over 100 machines there. And our girls, we treated them right and they stayed. So we were able to make different kind of garments, for example, we made shirts, and if you were from Philadelphia you would know them--Villager and Ladybug, do you remember them? GE: Yes, I do remember them. IS: We were their chief- Most of their- CS: We used to stay at their house. Norman Raab. IS: When Norman Raab needed contractors, he came to Allentown and stayed at my parents' house! And we were lucky, we got their- GE: And that was- that was a Philadelphia firm. I've heard the name, definitely. SCB: And they had an outlet in Telford. IS: They made everything. They made purses, they made raincoats, they made shoes. SCB: Huge outlet in Telford, I've seen it. GE: Did you know, you know now that you're saying it, I think it was related to that--my father had a cousin named Bernie Rutberg, and he's about your age, a little older than you actually. And after- during the war, I think he worked for somebody, then after the war, he went into making dresses, and I thought it was Villager. CS: Probably. IS: Yeah, they made dresses too. CS: When Anne went to college- IS: Let me talk, please! CS: Oh, okay. IS: When- We had such a close relationship. When my oldest daughter left for college, they said--and they made everything, from soup to nuts, I mean from purses to coats, to- everything but bras and panties I think they made. They said, "Bring your daughter to Philadelphia and she could have whatever she wants." GE: Wow, that's very lucky. IS: She made a complete- CS: Outfit. IS: Outfits. CS: Wardrobe. IS: When my daughter, Joan, went to college--she went to BU, Boston--she went with a halter and jeans. GE: I was going to say, everything changed. Because I know- CS: And what did it say on the shirt? IS: Shit. CS: No, it didn't. It said, come on. IS: What? CS: "Damn It". IS: Oh, "Damn It", whatever. CS: I was so mad at her all the way up to Boston, and when I got there, I apologized. They were all dressed the same way, I saw. IS: But Anne- GE: It's- It's really changed, it's amazing. IS: She didn't give a damn about clothing, you know? And- And Anne, when she went, she came to a new dorm that was just built. CS: At University- She went to the University of Chicago. IS: Chicago. Irene went to- CS: Northwestern for a year, and then transferred. IS: Irene went to Northwestern, and she started going with her soon- eventually husband, who was at Muhlenberg. And that's why she switched to Lafayette. GE: I see. IS: And we know him, since they're married, I mean, he's taking her out. I regard him as a son, not a son-in-law. He's a wonderful guy. SCB: So at that time, after you graduated from high school and then went to college, etc., what- what was your role in the business when you came back home and worked for your father? IS: Oh I- I imitated my father. We had a good marker maker. But I decided to educate myself much further just in case. And I took- learned pattern making. They would give me a sample garment which was usually a medium- a medium and I would grade a small from it, a large, a medium-large, an extra-large, you know, how to operate it. I used a spec sheet--a specification sheet--and I would enlarge the length or I'd you know, I'd make the patterns. And it served me well because my father and I got into a bruha one time and I had to go around knocking on doors looking for a job. So what had happened, I applied- I knocked on all of the doors I knew in Allentown which a lot of my friends owned businesses. Only one of them would say, "Irwin, I don't want to hire a friend. What do you do if it don't work out--how do you fire a friend?" So I read the handwriting on the wall. And I- did I get a job locally? I don't think so. CS: What? IS: I didn't work locally at all, did I? CS: No, you went to New York. IS: I- My friend- Nate Braunstein made belts and he subscribed to Women's Wear Daily, so he would save me all of the issues. That was the Bible of the sewing business. And I would borrow his old copies and I would check the ads in the back and I would call and make appointments for an interview. Now I never led on that I was calling from Pennsylvania because I rightfully figured that they didn't want to hire anybody that had to travel that distance. But I did it for probably about five, six years or more. I would get up at 5 in the morning. I was on the road at 5 in the morning, I'm sorry. And I would get there about 7:30 a.m. We would work from about 8 to 12, 15 minutes for lunch ; but we would quit at 4, so it took me a couple of hours at 4, I was home by 6-6:30. It was just like working here, but a lot more mileage on the car. GE: Now this is the 1950s? CS: No, this is later. GE: 1960s? CS: You were in business with your father after you- Don't forget, when the Weinstein's kids got married, and you were married, all these kids were taken in and the fathers decided better they split. IS: No, no, let me get into that. CS: That was- that was- that was about the '50s. IS: Harris was about four years younger than me and he got well-trained even though his father had a Jewish accent that you could cut with a knife, but the importance- My father had an overestimated, and frankly--and I call a spade a spade--he had an overestimated opinion of his ability. GE: Your father? IS: My father. GE: Of his ability? Your father's. IS: Right, right. And his value to the business. Make a long story short, Harris came into the business about four years after, and his father trained him in pricing garments. And the most important part of the business was securing business from manufacturers in New York, and he learned that very well. And he realized that my father, being an equal partner with his father, earned the same amount of money, but he could be replaced for a man of $200-$250 a week. So why the hell should he be your partner? Even though they were in business together about 40 years. And I was mad as hell, he insisted that they break the partnership. In the meantime, they- we had three factories going on--Highland, in 10th and Walnut over the bowling alley ; Clyde Shirt, which was the biggest, but both of those had cutting departments. And then we had Sylvania Sportswear up at 18th and Main, which was a small three-story building that didn't have cutting facilities. In other words, it- they used to cut- Well what they- They broke up the partnership, they did us a favor in as much as they instigated the break up. They gave us the choice of whoever took up Clyde, the other two factories would be opposite, and in addition, there would be a monetary exchange because Clyde was still bigger than the other two combined. So we opted to take the two factories. GE: You took Highland and then also Sylvania? IS: Highland and Sylvania Sportswear. GE: Sportswear. How many operators were at Sports- Sylvania? IS: About 50. And we- My cousin, Sydney, who was my uncle's son, older son, was discharged from service and needed a job and we took him in with us to run Sylvania, to learn the business. And he would stop at Highland, and after the trimmers cleaned up the garments, we'd roll it up by the dozen and tie it and they would take it up to Sylvania for pressing and finishing. There was pressing there- There was a pulley, you put a truck on the bottom, you pull the rope, you can hoist it up to the third floor. We made it through that way- and that way... In retrospect I can't really blame Harris for what he did. I was mad as hell, but my father kept saying, "Oh they're gonna go broke in no time." Well they never did. He had my mother sold on his ability, but I call a spade a spade. And I knew that sooner or later I'm going to have to get out of here. So when that happened, and I went around- I couldn't get a job locally, and I'd seen- GE: So that's when you went to New York? IS: That's when I checked out the ads and called, made it sound like I lived in Jersey or you know--because everyone commuted a half hour, an hour to work. Even if you lived in Long Island, it took you an hour by train to get into downtown New York. So I set up appointments and I did- I went to interviews and I got jobs. But it was an expense, because I drove and I had to go- I went to 12th Avenue because that was the cheapest rental you know for a garage to park your car and if you worked in the garment center it was very expensive- those garages. GE: And about when is this? Is this around 1960 now or? CS: It was- I would say the '60s. IS: The '60s. GE: And- and- Did you think that the business that, the business that your family took--Sylvania and Highland--was it not viable? Did that- IS: It was average. We worked like hell and we made a profit, but barely. CS: But Irwin, then your father decided he wanted to get out. Remember? So then you were back with him. IS: My father- Oh. Because my- At Highland we were so diversified, and I didn't mention this before, we made army shirts, we made blouses for the WAVES--white with a Peter Pan collar--the WAVES of the navy girls. We made raincoats with a hood for the women's air force. We even made shirts for the Florida Highway Patrol. SCB: So you made government contracts? IS: We had government contracts for marine corps shirts with the epaulets, the whole schmear. And we did army shirts, too. And in between we did blouses, which were seasonal, and when that wasn't busy, we made shirts. We had a backbone of Villager because they were always busy, they had two basic styles--a Peter Pan collar, or like a dress collar, long and short sleeves but the patterns were all the same. Now the secret of our business was overcuts. That is the ability to make a marker, laying out the patterns, better than they figure that they can do. The way we did this, we'd get the piece goods in, let's say 60 inch goods. We had a 60 inch- one table was about 66 inches wide so that we could spread wide goods. But- Butting into it was 48 inch table for 45 inch goods. This we learned over time, I mean I make it sound like it's nothing. But doing it, for example, if we got piece goods in and maybe ten percent of the piece goods were 42 inches wide, the rest were 40 inches. So we took the time and trouble to remake a marker for that extra width. And we were able to have a higher yield. And- GE: So-so with this overcuts, what you're saying that the profit margin is very much if you can get a higher yield? IS: Right. GE: You'll get a little more production out of it. IS: Right, and then sell them on the open market for cash. GE: Oh, okay. So in other words, if you're supposed to make 95 for the manufacturer, if you're able to make 100, then the other 5 you can sell? IS: Right. I mean... CS: It's how flea markets operate. SCB: And would that have been also labeled as Villager or not? IS: Mainly Villager because I had a traveling salesman who we were friendly with, who traveled all the way out to Central Pennsylvania. And I made him promise that do not sell any retail establishment in a city that has Villager on the label, that sells Villager, because it will blow my business there, they would cut me out. And they could tell by the markings on the boxes where it came from, you know, we stamped the lot number, the style number, the size, you know. So fortunately, we didn't get caught. SCB: Would some of them have possibly gone to an outlet? Like the one in Telford. IS: What? SCB: Would some of those garments have gone to the Telford outlet, the Villager, or was that totally- IS: Oh yeah! In other words, they would say- My father would make out the cutting report when we finished cutting it. For example, let's say there was- we took- They wanted a man's shirt. Small, medium, medium-large, and extra large. The extra large was always the least amount. Next came small, next the larger, and the medium was the most numerous. And dependent- You had to study the cutting table. In other words, they may want a scale of two small, five mediums, three and a half large- medium large, and two extra large. So we would take the half amounts, the two and a half for example, and if another size was a half, we would put the two together because if you spread two sizes, you can make a tighter mark than a single bundled marker. Do I- Do you understand what I'm saying? SCB: Yes, I sewed a lot when I was young. GE: Well she understands better than I do. IS: Okay. And we always had overcuts, because we knew what the hell we were doing. SCB: Well it's like an intelligence test when they take things apart and you have to figure out how to put them back together again. If you can do that well, then you can make a lot more. IS: Oh, yeah. Well, we took the extra labor we did by making a 62 inch marker and also a 60 inch marker with the same scale ratio of sizes. And we also had- We cut- We saved the cuttings when you cut a lot you know you have some parts, you don't have everything butting up. So we saved the cuttings and we sold the rags. GE: Did you sell those rags to like Sheftel? IS: That's what they did, but we didn't use them, we used-- CS: Jack Pearlman. IS: Jack? CS: Pearlman. IS: Pearlman. CS: That was your father's start, the same Pearlman. GE: But that same- And they all- right right. CS: And all the- They all did this. I mean not just him, they all- IS: It was great for the classification of the fabric. In other words, white all-cotton paid the most because that was shipped to like Crane Stationary. A fine stationary. If it had a rayon content, it was maybe two cents a pound. White cotton was maybe like ten cents a pound. And it was, you know, the- the- the guy who would pick up the rags would store them under the cutting room and they deliver- Was putting fifty pound burlap potato bags. The cutter would clip it, keep all fabrics the same, and if they didn't finish loading the bag, they would put it aside and wait for a similar kind of fabric, and that was sold for us. Mainly I found that knocking around like I did, going to New York, I worked in Staten Island, I worked in Manhattan, I worked in Long Island, and I gave it- I worked right before the Holland Tunnel one time. They broke into my car there and I had a- a... telephone. It came in- GE: A car phone. IS: Those little boxes and I had it there because I wanted to amuse myself. They broke into my car. But I was conscientious, I was never late, I was always there on time. But when things got slow, it was like a one-dimensional kind of thing and I was the latest hire and they could supervise a cutting room without me. I even went down South--one of the ads I saw was a big company in- outside Albany, Georgia, near Peanut Country. And I went to New York, the owner worked in- out of New York in the sales room. They made athletic wear, matching pants and jackets with different fabric. SCB: Like a sweatsuit? IS: Like athletic jogging suits. Like a jogging suit kind of. GE: Now are we in the 1970s at this point? SCB: We should be, yeah. IS: About then, yeah. So I went to New York and explained my background and he said, "Irwin, you're hired. Go down, find a place to live," and he always had a motel in Albany because where the plant was--about 20 miles northeast--it was in a very rural area. So we could talk while we're going to work together, you know. He- He would go down every six weeks or so. And the plant manager was a Jewish guy, was a Kochalech [Yiddish-- possibly a shortened version of kochleffel, a pot stirrer]. He was in charge of the plant and was used to doing things his own way, and I let it go at that. I mean I- He didn't bother me, this was a tremendous cutting room. It was about eight cutting tables. GE: Here you were used to just a couple of cutting tables? IS: Right, and what I did, I wanted to increase production. And I made big signs, numerical signs, and as soon as they were finished spreading, I had it cut right away and I said, "When you're done, you go to table number three, you go to table such and such," and I kept them busy that way. They didn't need to wait around for the next assignment. So I built up production. Then it came out that somebody mentioned that they used to sell the garments to the workers. And somebody once mentioned, "Oh I can buy the same thing cheaper in town, there's an outlet store." So the next time my boss comes, I mention that, "You know you have a retail outlet?" I told him where it was, he went out, and he couldn't very well fire the manager because he was a more valuable asset than I was. You know, he was responsible for running the whole shabang. So, and I worked there for what, about 6 months? CS: I don't know, but I went down and I took one look at that place and I said it was a shame! And Rabbi Greenburg- IS: Wait a minute! CS: Knew the rabbi- IS: After I was there a couple of months, and this was before this incident happened, the boss came down and then got the report and saw what I had done, and he said, "Irwin, tell your wife to come down. Make- Make plans to move here permanently." So--and I was living in a motel--and Claire comes and we knew that this town Albany, Georgia was named after Albany, New York. It was about 20,000 people, it had one hospital, one synagogue, a reformed synagogue, and we met the rabbi and we told him of our background. Claire had already been the president of Beth El. CS: No, I wasn't President. IS: Oh, wasn't? Oh, whatever. CS: Sisterhood. IS: We impressed him. CS: No, but he knew Rabbi Greenburg. And I just got this feeling, he was telling me, "Don't come here!" And I wasn't about to go because I took one look at that red dust and- and- you picked up the telephone and heard music or cowboy music or whatever type of music. And I had just lost my sister. And I remember my mother, when I told her I was going down, and she started to cry and my father said, "You go where your husband goes. Your mother came with me to Allentown." He said, "If that's where you want to be, then you go. And don't listen to your mother, she will stop crying, she'll be all right. She has me." Well I went, and I said to her, "Well, I'm not staying! This is not for me!" SCB: Was the population in-in-in the factories, were they mostly African American or were theySouthernsers? IS: No, they were Southerners. For example, they got away with so many things that-that the way that- that- because of the way that the place was built that they would never do up North. For example, the whole place was cement block. The men's room--there was no mens or ladies, they--they were just booths with a door in the front with a lock on it and a toilet, not a urinal, just a regular toilet. And to wash your hands afterward you had to go out and there was a couple of few sinks close by, no ceiling--[lost some conversation] CS: Can I talk? IS: Only Buck Friedman who was exceptional- exceptional in sports was able to get on an Allentown High School athletic team. CS: Your brother played football for Raub. IS: Well, it was a little different. Before my time, then they had three junior high schools--Raub, Central, and Harrison-Morton. Harrison-Morton was down around 3rd Street, where all the Hispanics and Blacks went, the poorer families. Central was around 9th and Liberty, somewhere around there. CS: Linden. IS: And that was for what I called the Jewish middle class. There were few Jews there, but it was working class people who worked in the downtown area. Raub was in the western end. It was the most- for the most wealthier citizens, most of the Jewish kids went to Raub. And- GE: Where did you go? IS: To Raub. I went to Raub for first through ninth grade. And I walked, it was within walking distance of where I lived. But as I said, it was a- It was annoying at the time, but when I look back now, it was a great advantage. For example, we- we didn't need the- the Gentiles ; we had our own clique, our own friends. I had a high school fraternity of about 15-18 guys, Jewish friends. AZA was big at that time also. Claire missed out on a lot of that because her father struck it rich early. She lived in a nice area, what I call the deep west end of Allentown. So she missed out, she got her- her growing up through the Center, she was lucky that way. But I got mine on a daily basis, from the people I associated with and where I lived. There were a lot of many Jews around me, the working class. There was a kosher meat market a half a block away that a lot of Jews patronized and so forth. So growing up with all of these friends, we learned from each other. We learned how to jitterbug--one guy learned how to jitterbug, the rest of us learned. I realized this when I left college. I left and started college at 17. I always wanted to fly, study aeronautical engineering. When do I leave for college? I graduate high school in June ; college would normally start around September. Unfortunately, in the garment industry, July 4th is a vacation time where all the factories close down for the first two weeks of July. When does my college curriculum start? It's on a trimester basis, it starts- it starts July 1st. I graduated the middle of June and I had to go to college two weeks later. What the hell did I know about being away from home? Anyhow- CS: But you went to camp. IS: That's different. You're there with a bunch of Jewish guys, it's like at home. SC: Which camp? IS: Camp Hickory Run. It's run by the Federation, its White Hall- White- White Haven, Pennsylvania, where Boulder Field is. You know where Boulder Field is? SCB: Yes. IS: It's right near there. So I'm- It's July 1st, of 1945, that's when my college career started. Where is Irwin? Irwin is up at the Concord, with my parents. I'm having a ball for the two-week vacation. But I left early--I left after four days. I took a jitney to Penn Station in New York--17 years old, never been away from home--I got on the train to St. Louis, because it- The college was in East St. Louis, south of East St. Louis in Illinois. But the closest I could get to was in St. Louis. The head groundskeeper knew I was coming late. He picked me up in St. Louis and took me to campus. And I got- I was the last one to arrive. I had missed four or five days of school already. Luckily, the one remaining room spot was with another Jewish guy who was graduating. But from him I didn't learn much because he wasn't in a classmate, or didn't have any classes that I had. So I had a double job. I had to learn all about the campus, and I had to make new friends from my classmates. So, I managed to do- do that because I was personable, because of my growing up with all my boyfriends, not afraid to talk. And I was very, very personable. So the first weekend rolls around, what does a nice Jewish boy do when he's there for the first time? He doesn't have a car. He goes to town. So I took a bus into downtown East St. Louis, another bus from East St. Louis across the Mississippi River to St. Louis, and I looked up the address of the YMHA in St. Louis, which was in the west end, Union and Delmar. I took another bus all the way out there. And every Sunday morning, this was in '45, the war was just about over, and every Sunday morning they would have a bagel breakfast. They had Jewish hostesses for veterans and St. Louis was a hub for military activity. Lambert Field, which was the St. Louis municipal airport, was a naval air station. And 20 miles east in Illinois was Scott Field, which was an army air base. And all the Jewish boys like me would grab a ride into St. Louis and we'd meet. I go walking in there the first Sunday and whom do I see? Four of my high school fraternity brothers from Pennsylvania. Well what a reunion we had. I bullshitted about my age because I was about the same height and weight as I am now. I even grew a mustache. And I passed myself off for a veteran, so I met girls, I had a breakfast every Sunday morning, and that was my social activity. We had a dance about 3 weeks later--my classmates would have to depend--and it was a Catholic nursing school in East St. Louis--they would have to depend on the girls. I brought the best looking girl I found in the Y. And they said, "Irwin, how the hell do you know a nice looking girl already?'' They didn't stop to think that the Jewish [unclear]. "How do you know somebody nice looking that don't have to depend on- on the dating list?" I said, "Well, I have abilities." But I blame it on my growing up. If I didn't have the background, I wouldn't have been able to pass myself off. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the lifestyle I did. Fortunately, it was just after the war, my father was in much better financial shape. I had a- my own bank account, you know, I could do what I wanted. The only mistake I made, I didn't- I let him sell my car. I should have driven out, I didn't realize it was so far away from everything. But I only stayed there a year, and I went back with my father. He wanted me to come into the business. And they were doing interviews in my school for engineers, and the salaries at that time--I was spending more on the weekend. So I said this isn't for me, I'll go back to Pennsylvania, which I did. Then a couple of years later I went- CS: You went to Muhlenberg. IS: I went to Muhlenberg. He said finish your education. GE: Did you finish it at Muhlenberg? IS: No, I went two years to Muhlenberg. I had business, you know, which was general. And Claire suddenly discovered- CS: Yeah, Muhlenberg was very hard to get into. SC: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. IS: That was before girls even. And we had to pull strings to get me in because I applied late. You know, I went home over Christmas, and I wanted to start that September. CS: Morris Senderowitz was a great benefactor of Muhlenberg. GE: Oh, was he? CS: And he was a very good friend of the families. He lived at 18th and Hamilton Street, and Morris got the boys into Muhlenberg and Cedar Crest was the same story. Because my trunk went to Rhode Island, I was going to Pembroke, which is part of Brown and I decided I didn't want to leave my mother. And my mother told me to be honest, if it was that I was Irwin's, say it. So she- I said well, I'd rather stay in Allentown. So Lena Senderowitz, we got a phone call, and she was on the board at Cedar Crest, and I went to Cedar Crest. SC: Well that's a good segue. CS: But yeah, there's a great deal of anti-Semitism, there was. When Irene went to Northwestern- GE: And Irene is? CS: -- That was 1960. That's our daughter, our middle daughter. She was rushed for sororities, you know, that's a very- sorority school. And the Halperin girl was out there, Marion Halperin's older daughter. And you know, she kind of took Irene. Irene had been a cherub there and she loved the school. She had a Muhlenberg boyfriend when she went there though. At any rate, she was rushed by these different sororities, and I got a phone call from Bill Hacker's wife. Oh my daughter! She wants- All these wonderful things you know she's heard about her. She's top- one of the top students and- and all this junk. And then, her finally- She hopes that, you know, she's going to join this sorority. And I don't say anything, you know, I say that's going to be up to her. I know that I- I'm not going to interfere with what she wants to do. She said, oh by the way, who is your minister? I said, "My rabbi is William Greenburg. I belong to Temple Beth El." And I called my daughter and I said don't you dare join that sorority. I was livid. SC: Let me turn this off-- ________________ Interview with Claire Salistky, May 26th, 2011 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: So Claire, I'd like to ask you what your full name is and more about your family background, a little bit more about your family background. But let's- let's talk a little bit about where your family came from. CLAIRE SALISTSKY: Oh, I have that inside. Irwin, on the table there's that paper from Anne, you know, our oldest daughter. I mean, from Alison, our oldest granddaughter, is very interested in genealogy, so I gave her all the records I had and she- she gave me where they came from. SC: Well, let me just ask you, what is your full name, when were you born, and where were you born? CS: My full name is Claire Joy Wiener Salitsky. IRWIN SALISTSKY: W-I-E-N-E-R. CS: And I was born in Paterson, New Jersey, July 16th, 1929. My mother's name was Mary Mendelson Wiener and my father was Louis Wiener. My mother was born in Paterson ; she was one of nine children who grew up ; there were fifteen originally. IS: That was before television. CS: And she came from a- a very religious, orthodox family, and she was second from the end. I have a picture of them hanging on the wall. My father was born in Poland in a shtetl [Yiddish for small Jewish village in Eastern Europe] called- Ojikauf is the name of the burial society, but he was born in 1907. No, 1903, and he came to this country in 1907. He was the third child in the family. Now, my grand- My father's family they were- they were silk weavers. They lived in the shtetl near "Lodz" [Claire pronounces it LODZ]. Lodz was a silk weaving- GAIL EISENBERG: Lodz [pronounced LUDJ]? I think that's Lodz. CS: Yes, and they lived in- According to what was found, they lived in- they called it D-O-L-Y-S-Z-I-N. But they called it Russia. Now Lodz was Lodz at that point, you know the boundaries were constantly changing. You didn't know. My grandmother's maiden name was Warshawsky. Now I did get a copy of the marriage thing. And her husband, my grandfather's name was Joel Robilinsky. Okay. In order to get out of the country, he- his- my- took his brother-in-law's army papers. He was out of the army already. And he came to the United States with his brother-in-law's army pass. His brother-in-law's name was Joel--"Yo'el", Yo'el, whatever--something like Wiener. Okay? GE: So he took on the name. CS: And my grand- My grandmother's- He- He was my grandmother's brother. Her- Her mother had remarried, her father had died. And they came to- He came to the United States alone in 1904. And he went to Connecticut. And I'm trying to think what city it was where they made felt hats. And he couldn't take the inhaling of the felt, and so he had- they shipped him down to Paterson, where he had more relatives, and he was able to do his- Paterson was the silk center of this country at that time. Anyhow, that was that. My mother's family, my grandfather, came from a shtetl named Barstitzti, B-A-R-S-T-I-T-Z-T-I, near--I knew it as Lithuania. GE: Right, right now, Vilna, Vilna. CS: Vilna. It was right near Vilna, because when I went to Russia the first time, I went on to Lithuania, and all I could- there I heard- I found anti-Semitism. Terrible. The bus driver wouldn't take us. There was a group of Jewish girls on the trip. GE: When was this around? CS: The first time I went to Russia was 19- When did I open my travel agency? 1980? Your 60th birthday, how old are- how- When was that? 1929-- 1989. IS: [19]87. CS: Eighty- 1987, it was around then. And they wouldn't take us, and we got a cab, and I took my sister-in-law who had never been out of the country with me to Russia. My father almost had a bird that the two of us were going where they had struggled to get out. I found it fascinating. SCB: And that was right before the fall of the Soviet Union, too. CS: Oh, it was- It was unbelievable. I- I felt it was one of the best trips I ever took. But, at any rate, he lived near- They lived near Vilna and he was a farmer there. When he came to the United States, he came first in '04 and she- and he came over in 1896 and she followed in 19- 1897 with one, two, let's see-- The three sons, the one daughter, four of the kids, and every year she had another- another child. But he started out as a huckster guy, and then he got involved in the building business. And he became--as I never found this out, I mean, I knew he owned tenement buildings, because every Friday at three o'clock when we got out of school, we got in the car and we went to Slatington, where my father's factory was, to pick up my father and he'd drive to Paterson because we had to get there before Shabbos [Yiddish for Sabbath]. And we would come home Sunday night. So on Sundays I would go with my cousin and we would collect the rent. To me it was fun! We went in and out of these buildings on- And there were blocks of them. I- I didn't know from anything. And- But years later, in Florida, I met somebody and he happened to admire what I was wearing. It was a Valentine's Day party and I was wearing something red. And he said to me, where are you from? And I said from Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I said where are you from? He said Paterson, New Jersey. I said, oh, I was born there. Oh! Well what did you, you know, what is your name? We go through this whole thing and it ended up he had bought my aunt's house. And, you know, he said, your grandfather was William Mendelson. I said, yes. He said he gave a lot of money to charity but he was a slum landlord. I came home, I was shocked. I mean I never knew what he did, but he was a very religious man. But at any rate, my parents met--my mother was sixteen when she met my father, he was older. Can I think how much older my father was than my mother? Maybe four- four years older. Anyhow, he took her on a May Walk. Don't ask me what a May Walk is, but anyhow, they were engaged for two years, because he said he would not get married until he could buy a house. My grandfather had apartment houses, too, on this street where he lived. And his children were all on this one street. My father said, "That's not for me. We are going to move out, a full place," so that's what they did after they were married. And they were married in '29- in '27 in the- in Paterson. And it was funny, yesterday I was at a Friendship Circle luncheon that one of our friends sponsored and had invited us to come, and the director of the Jewish Community Center was from Paterson. And we were talking about all the places we went when we were little, because as I said, I went there every weekend until I was in junior high. And it was- well- well- Of course I was too young to know, but I was born in 1929, and my father was in business with his father. He had- My father left school at the age of thirteen, when he graduated from eighth grade, or fourteen. And he went to work on the railroads. And he earned, whatever money he earned, he turned over to his mother. And at the time when you know the war, they got bonuses, the First World War and all that, and he was able to buy his parents a house and put his father in business. And so, he- My father was a remarkable man. He was self-educated--after eighth grade, he never went to school. My mother, on the other hand, was educated, finished high school, and then went to Katharine Gibbs, or one of those kinds of schools. And her brothers- GE: What is that, like a finishing school or? CS: No, a secretarial school. IS: It's like a business college. CS: And she- she went to- The youngest sister went to Columbia. The two brothers were lawyers, and one brother was in the hosiery business. And my mother worked for her older brother who was a lawyer. She was his secretary. And so, anyhow, I was born and she- Well they were all stay-at-homers. You know, they cooked, they- they did everything together, though. The sisters, there were six sisters. And, I mean, when they made a Seder, [Jewish ritual service and ceremonial dinner to celebrate Passover] you would think an interior designer came in and fixed the table and everything else. They- they were- My mother had golden hands. She could knit, crochet, sew, she arranged flowers, she- and she was a marvelous hostess and a wonderful cook. But- And she was a wonderful mother. I was very blessed, I had a mother and father that were like no other. That's how I feel. They were very giving, they were very loving, and they believed in their kids, and they spent a lot of time with us, they put a lot into us. And I can remember when my brother graduated law school, my father stood and cried like a baby. He had put his brother through law school, he had put another brother through to become a- an accountant, and he had a third brother that was in medical school when he died. So, to them, education was important and service to the community, that was one thing I learned growing up in Allentown. You- You can't just take, you must give back, you must be a part of your community and if you are more fortunate, you are to help others. But we came- My father was in business with his father in Paterson when the Depression hit. SCB: What kind of business was that? CS: He was in the silk weaving business. SCB: He was in the silk weaving business, yeah. CS: And he had- He- He couldn't make it and so he knew he was going to have to go bankrupt. And he went to his father-in-law and he explained the situation. And his father-in-law and his two brothers, two of the three brothers-in-laws agreed he should go through bankruptcy, it wouldn't hurt. My father went to a stranger who gave- lent him the money to pay all his bills. And he had this opportunity, I don't know how he heard about it, but there was an empty factory in Slatington. And he- He went- He came here and he was able to make a deal with the city of Slatington, and he was just very fortunate. He- he had- He had when he came here a partner from Paterson, an older man, whose last name was also Wiener, but was spelled W-E-I-N-E-R. And he had a son named Jack who he had- He wanted his son to learn the business so my father- He came along and he was married. He wanted to live in Slatington, my father would not allow my mother- My mother- He thought my mother would want to stay in Paterson and he'd come home weekends. Well, my mother was told by her mother, you go with your husband. And so she came, and she- they lived in Allentown at 2445 Union Street. And I was three, that was- GE: Claire, did that become- I'm sorry. Did that become a rift in the family that-? CS: Pardon me? GE: Was there a rift in the family with that the father-in-law- CS: No. My grandmother was one of the wisest women in the world. My father was very bitter about it, but it taught him a lesson, because later on when my father was doing very well and he had gotten involved with dyeing plants and throwing plants and machinery and everything else, and he had a blouse business on the side, and- It- He was just very lucky and very bright, and he worked very hard to get where he was. And he made fur coat linings, which was the main thing and fabrics for the Catholic Church, because he once gave me a spool of gold thread to have. The vestments and everything else, you know, that was the kind- the kind of fabric that he made. But- GE: I- I had- No, I had asked in regards to, you said that your father was bitter, that his- that his father-in-law and brother- CS: Yes, but he learned that- He had an accountant, Frank Berg. It was Berg, Schultz, Green, you know. Frank Berg was a senior partner. They were the first people my father met, and my mother met when they moved to Allentown, Frank and Molly Berg. And as my father did well, Frank would always find- there were people who needed help, and he would come to my father, and my father always- would never, never say no to anyone, and that's what he taught us. SCB: So when- When you moved- When they moved from Paterson, the factory was in Slatington but the family was in Allentown? CS: Yes. And he drove to Slatington. IS: Well they set up the factory in Slatington, it wasn't a case of moving the factory. SCB: No, no, right. But they set up- IS: They have a building, found a building, and started the business. SCB: Right. And was it an extension of the silk industry in Paterson because they were making silk linings? CS: Well it was but it was weaving the fabrics for the- He wove fine fabrics for fur coat linings, jacquards [fabrics]. I can still remember him sitting and he used to look through a- a thing and they'd see the designs that go into a fur coat lining. And the fabrics for the- the church were beautiful. SCB: Were they mostly silk? CS: Pardon? SCB: Were they mostly silk? CS: Oh, all silk. Yeah. IS: They had a good position with DuPont. CS: DuPont, Eastman Kodak SC: Oh, wow, so also synthetic fabrics. Yeah. CS: And he, as I said, he- he prospered. He bought a lot of real estate, not in Allentown, but in Paterson and Newark. His brother would hear of something and tell him. And he got involved in a lot of things. And he got very much involved in Temple Beth El. Harry Neff- GE: I don't know the name Louis Wiener.. CS: Harry Neff, that's Jerry Neff's father- GE: I don't know if I know Jerry Neff. CS: Jerry and Norman. Well, if you go to Trivet on Friday at noon time, you'll find a group of old men who sit and talk about their youth, and Jerry Neff is one of them. But Harry Neff came calling on my father and mother, they were new in town, you know, and he told them where the Kosher butcher was. My mother used to have her meat brought in from Paterson on our carrier, which was used to deliver yarn to my father's factory, you know. And I used to say that I hated liver, and I used to say that it smelled like the silk, bails of silk that used to come in. So my father joined Temple Beth El and- GE: Claire, did your father- Did the partnership- CS: That- That partnership stayed until- when the father- This man had a son in Slatington and he had a son-in-law in the New York sales office. But when he died, the sons and the son-in-law were bought out. GE: By your father? CS: Yeah. GE: Okay, so- so- so during that older man's lifetime- IS: He was active in Slatington. Her father ran the whole show in Paterson- in Slatington. GE: Right, right. But the relationship- the partnership was maintained while the man was alive, and then when he died they bought out- CS: Yes. GE: They bought out the two sons. IS: He was just content that his son had a job. GE: Right, right. CS: And the sons, they both retired to Florida. But my mother was not--how can I say it?--she was not involved like I am. You know? That generation--she was there to see you got off to school in the morning and she came- she was there when we came home from school. She had a mahjong group, they played at night, not in the afternoons. A mother's place was home with her kids, and she instilled that in my sister and me. But I- See, I'm getting ahead of myself, but there was what I used to call a Triumvirate, which Dr. Katz- SCB: -- Triumvirate again, because that turned off. CS: Oh, it was a Triumvirate. Mitchell Katz, he was the family doctor, Rabbi William Greenburg, and Nettie Klass, Mrs. Aaron Klass. And they would find these people who needed help. GE: Now is this like the 1950s? CS: Oh this is- I'm married 63 years. IS: [19]49 or '48. Early '50s. CS: And it was- All I know is, when she went to Florida, she [my mother] said to me, "I'm leaving you signed checks for Freeman's dairy." I said for what? She said, "Well," she says, "I pay for milk for people, and so I want you, you know, to pay the bill." I said all right. But you know, this went on year after year after year. And one day, I walked- I was then already involved with the Federation, and I asked George Feldman--well then it was called UJA--I asked him, the executive director of the Center and the UJA, I said, "I- I have to ask you something, Mr. Feldman. My mother is buying milk for all these people." I said, "Do you know--do they still have little children?" And he looked at me and he said, "No." He said, "Really I should tell Mary to stop." So I said, "Well, I'm going to tell Mary, I'm not-" Do you know she got mad at me? And she said you will continue and I will continue while I'm alive. If they don't need it, maybe their children need it. SCB: And the U-U- GE: And this is not your mother, this was- CS: Pardon? SCB: The UJA is the United Jewish Appeal? CS: Yeah. SCB: Yeah, I just wanted to put that on the- Yeah, I wanted to put that on the tape. GE: You- You said- Was this your mother? Or this was that woman- CS: They would find these, they would find people- IS: Nettie was the local nurse. CS: They- they- they used to find other women who used to do this. GE: And who were- Who were the different women? What were their names? "Nettie"... CS: Nettie Klass- IS: K-L-A-S-A CS: -- Rabbi Greenburg, and Doctor Katz. And they lived right across the street from the center, the new center. And then- When I would go by and see the three of them sitting outside, I knew somebody was in trouble. SC: Well then was it your mother that was involved in telling you, "No, you keep doing it?" CS: That's right. SCB: And then what about Nettie at that point? CS: Huh? SCB: What about Nettie at that point? CS: Well after Nettie died, she didn't get any new names, so. SCB: Oh, but your mother was involved too? CS: My mother- Just- If Nettie said so and so needs, then I'll order it and they'll bill you. That's it. My mother probably didn't even know who they were. GE: Isn't that beautiful? CS: But that's how she was. My father was very involved- I mean, she would hostess for my father. Oh, I remember she used to have Oneg Shabbats [desserts and beverages served after Friday evening Sabbath services] growing up. GE: Which is- Which is Friday night after services. CS: It's a- It's a Saturday thing with family. She used to have- GE: Kiddush [food served after Saturday morning Sabbath services]? CS: No, Oneg Shabbat, like a study session. And she used to do it- She used to have stuff from Hadassah [popular women's Zionist organization]. And of course, every time they were raising money for the Temple or the Center because my father was co-chairman of the building fund of the Center on 22nd Street and he was chairman of the Temple. GE: And that was what, in the 1950s was that built? IS: Yeah. GE: 1950s. SCB: So if she was- If she having a study group after Shabbat, was this men and women or just women? CS: Just women. That was the women. Just the women. GE: And that would be like a Saturday afternoon after services? CS: Yes. We used to have a- a Sisterhood. I'm trying to think what it was, what we called it, but we used to have it on- occasionally on- I remember Adrienne Warshawsky was chairman of it. That's when I was Sisterhood President, I can't remember though what we called it. Well anyway, we grew up ; I walked- I used to walk to school from 25th and Union to the Raub School. I mean when I think about it today, that our parents could let us walk that distance, and it was a- and our neighborhood was gentile. Across the street was a Rumberger family and they were wonderful. I grew up with Janet Rumberger. And we had an empty lot next to the house, my father got permission from the city to clear it. And he put toys out there, you know, kids' things. But unfortunately, older kids would come and trash it, so my father took it down, took down the toys and that was it. But that's where we lived. And- Well the Samuels family lived a block away and they were very nice to my parents when they moved here. And then when I was in third grade, I remember it was my parents' fifteenth wedding anniversary, we moved to the house 2710 Greenleaf Street. And I used to go to school with Ruthie Rappaport, there were very few Jewish kids in the Muhlenberg School. GE: Very few? CS: Very few. And- But I guess- My- My childhood memories of Allentown were wonderful. I think this is a wonderful place for kids to grow up. I was happy here, I mean- and then I went to Raub Junior High, and then I went to Allen- It was Allentown High School in those days. IS: She used to ride with Harry Neff and he used to take us in his car. And she couldn't stand Irwin. So she would get out a block before I did so she didn't have to come with me. CS: And Harry Neff said they are going to end up married. SCB: And he was prophetic. CS: But I went to Allen- Allentown High just for one year. My father could not figure out how anybody who went to school every day and never did homework, or rarely did homework, came home with all 100s on her report card. And- Because I could figure out, the classes were so big, when I'm going to get called on and that's when I would do- I- I wasn't a good student, but I became a better student at Moravian. GE: Oh okay, so you went to Moravian after Allen. CS: I- I- I was- There was a family in town, one Marilyn Levine, she lived down South 16th Street. GE: Now is that part of the Levine's, the fabric store? CS: No, no. This was a Mr. Levine who had the cotton shop, right? IS: Yeah. His- Her father had a merchant shop- CS: On Hamilton Street. In fact, they used the second floor of his building when they had services in the beginning when Temple Beth El- you know before they got the building at 12th and Walnut. IS: The attitude of the Jews at that time was a lot different than it is today. They were all one hundred percent behind the Temple. They were all in the same economic group. Claire missed out on a lot because she- her family was fortunate to live and buy a house in the deep west end. She didn't grow up like I did in the working-class Jews of around 16th and Fairview, in that area. So it was a lot different. We weren't aware of it at the time, but when you think back now, you know, you realize the difference. And it made a- CS: This you know was after the war. And there were a lot of girls that were pregnant in high school and my father just thought that was a- So he decided- GE: Just curious, you're not talking about Jewish girls in the neighborhood? CS: No. GE: You're just talking about kids. CS: Just kids pregnant. And he just- He just didn't think it was the right place for me. He heard about different private schools, so he- The first school I thought about was--I read about different schools--the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. And Marilyn Levine also heard about it and she applied, and they wouldn't take two Jewish girls from the same town yet. So I then- the Mary Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, okay? Well, I applied and we went down for an interview, and I can still see that lady ; I know her name. And we sat there and she said to us, "Well, we will take your daughter. We have never had a Jewish boarding student. She will have to room alone." My father said, "Stop." He said, "You can take your damn school and shove it." And he told me to get up. Her name was Rosamond Cross. Today, Beverly Bloch's grandchildren go there, and I told them the story. She said, "Claire, the school is all Jewish now." I said that lady is turning over. SCB: And that wasn't a Quaker school? That was a Episcopal maybe, an Episcopal? CS: No, right, the Quaker schools are called the Friends Schools. SCB: Right, Friend Schools, and there are a lot of them in the area. CS: Right, in Philly. SCB: Was this, was it Episcopal perhaps? CS: Probably. I- I don't know. I mean, that ended it. My father said you are going to Moravian. So I went to Moravian and I learned how to study and I- I had a very- I was very happy there. And I went to look at colleges and I fell in love with Pembroke. I loved Brown, I loved the city of Providence, and that's where I was going. The trunk went, and I stayed home. I went to Cedar Crest and then got married. SCB: Because you already knew Irwin by that time? CS: Oh, yes. Well when he came home from St. Louis, his mother must have told him that that nice little girl around the corner- IS: No, no, you're getting ahead of yourself. After the first year, 1942, early part of the war, my father accumulated enough money to move out of South West Street. And he thought- We bought a house at 2709 Washington. CS: So Washington is here and Greenleaf is here. IS: She lived a block away. CS: And there was a service alley. IS: Yeah, I used to go up and down the alley to see her all the time. And of course her parents were- went to Florida for the whole winter and we had the run of the house. They had an excellent housekeeper all those years. CS: And I had- I had the biggest television set in the city of Allentown. Max Hess called my father up, he said, "I have two of them, I'm taking one, I think you should have the other one." The whole Phi Ep house used to come to watch the television. IS: They had a finished basement and they had this projection model TV, which was about three feet by four feet. At that time, the television screens- We used to have parties and galore over there. SCB: So you stayed, did you- Did your other brothers- Your other siblings stay in Allentown when your parents went to Florida? IS: Oh yeah. CS: My sister- My brother went to Blair Academy and my sister went to Emma Willard. IS: With Jane Fonda. CS: Jane Fonda was her roommate, in her suite, one of her suitemates. Margie went to Emma Willard. GE: Blair Academy is where? IS: Blairstown, New Jersey. SCB: Hackettstown in that area? IS: Blairstown, New Jersey. SCB: Yeah, but it's near Hackettstown. GE: And where is that, Emma Willard? IS: In Troy, New York. GE: Oh that's the one you were saying, okay. CS: Yeah, Margie went to- Well, I mean, I went to camp in the summer. I loved camp. I went to camp until I was seventeen. SCB: Which camp was that? CS: Camp Akiba. It was a Jewish camp in the Poconos. Bartonsville? Yeah, the village was Appenzell, the mailing address was Bartonsville. IS: Outside of Stroudsburg. CS: It was near Stroudsburg. And I loved my summers at camp. My brother hated camp because he said they have brother and sister meetings, but she never talks to me, she talks to the boys. My sister and I loved camp. He didn't. So my father said well if you don't want to go to camp, you can come home, and I'll take you to the mill and you'll work in the mill. That was like- He stayed in camp. But I loved camp. And- And at the Center, you know, we had a high school sorority, a Jewish high school sorority. And they had sororities at Allen High, Allentown, and I get such a kick out of it--whenever Charlie Dent runs for office, his mother, Marjorie Wieder Dent, calls to remind me of the wonderful times we had at Allen High. And I tell her, I only stayed there one year and that's it. SCB: So, were your parents good friends of the Hesses? CS: Pardon me? SCB: Were your parents good friends of the Hesses? IS: Nobody really was good friends with the Hesses. CS: Well Max Hess lived on Livingston Street at- at 27th. And he- Richard was his- You see, there was a table in Hess's patio in the back. A big round table where local businessmen used to eat, the Jewish men. And Max Hess would always join them. And he- I remember once they were working on a thing for the Center, counting Jewish families, and he says you count me, but not my wife and my children. He was married to a gentile woman, Betty Douglass. IS: He was not community-minded as such. He was involved only in his- the store. And- CS: And from the day- Even after I was married, when I would see him in the street, he'd said, "Miss Wiener! Miss Wiener!" He'd never call me Claire. And I'm so used to everybody calling me Claire I don't even know when they- I don't turn around. IS: He used to have the greatest Christmas parties. He would have Hollywood celebrities come to- CS: Oh and I thought your Christmas party- The first time you took me to a Christmas party at the factory, I had the best time of my life. All they did was polka dance. It was in a- Where was it? It was in a- IS: Saint Joe's. CS: Saint Joe's in Northampton. It was wonderful. But I loved growing up in Allentown. I was very happy. SCB: And one of the women who I interviewed, now I'm- Was it Joanne Spencer whose mother worked for the Hesses? IS: Could be, yeah. SCB: And I'm trying to think of her maiden name. Oh... I'll think of it, I'll let you know. She worked, and- and actually- Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was Hazel Aisley. CS: Hazel? SCB: Hazel Aisley, yeah. IS: He didn't have that many Jewish employees. SCB: No, they were African American. IS: That's why Max- he chose Irwin Greenburg. His son wasn't interested and Irwin was the most amazed person when he was selected because he only had only worked there a few- CS: What about Jerry Mandel? IS: And Jerry Mandel. He had a couple- And Roy Hertz was there for a while. CS: Yes, Roy Hertz was there. IS: They were controllers so, not- CS: And what about my father's friend, Mitch Kauffman and- IS: Well he was a bigshot. He was a widower or a bachelor. He was never married, Mitch Kauffman. Was he? CS: He's married- Yeah! To a girl named- to a woman named Nancy. She's a very good friend of Anna Frankel. IS: Well that's only a couple of executives, a handful, and at the time they had ten stores. That's when they branched out. SCB: And this was a woman who worked for his family, I guess cooking and- CS: Yes, Hazelman. Because he had a swimming pool and you could look in and it was unbelievable. You know he invited us up because he lived up the hill from us. And he used to ride a motorcycle down 27th Street and Richard would follow in the Cadillac. Richard was the- IS: And they had two Great Dane dogs that were chasing after all of them. CS: And then the house next to us was bought by Mr. Becker, who was one of the- one of his big managers there. He used to come down and park in Mr. Becker's driveway, visit him, then come over and visit my father. And he was a very nice man. He was a brilliant- IS: He respected those who had money. CS: He respected those who had brains, too. IS: Well yeah. CS: He was a very bright man in merchandising. GE: Right, right, right. He was one of the best. Going back with your father, Louis Wiener, do you want to tell us a little bit? Because I know he was a major pillar in the community, the Jewish community with the institutions. What were some of the- Was he a president of the synagogue? CS: No, he would never be the president. But he was the chairman of the board for umpteen years. And when he gave it up, he felt that it was time for the younger people to take over, he believed strongly in that. And they made him the honorary chairman of the board, which he has- had... IS: He was the driving force for the new building of the new Temple. GE: On 17th and Hamilton? IS: Yeah. At that time, Claire and I were just married, and we were living with them until- We didn't have our own house then. CS: No, first we were living in the apartment. IS: Well, we had the apartment. Then we moved- We lived in the Schnitzer's apartment on 18th and Hamilton. CS: But I had to move- When we had a baby, I had to leave. IS: No. But I remember he had the big shots at the Temple come and make all of the pledges and the groundwork for the building fund and all, were all held in Claire's father's house. Major planning, including bringing in the architect from New York, who designed the building and not only after they had the money, but the initial planning of the building, and who would do it, and how they were going to do it. And there were fights and yells and screams--I remember Abe Benioff and the architect got into an argument, almost socked each other. CS: And that architect, do you- You know Max Stetner? GE: I know who he is, yeah. CS: Okay, Mr. Stetner was a past president of the Temple, his father. He was a quiet, gentlemanly little man. And when he came to this country, he was an architect from Europe. And he got a job with this Mr. Courland, who was the architect. SCB: Courland? IS: Courland. K-O-U-R-L-A-N-D.[the correct spelling is with a "C."] SCB: Okay. CS: He was from New York, I think. And when Mr. Stetner met him for the first time, Max told me, he said to him, "Thank you very much," you know, he said, "for giving me a job." And then I think he let him out, and Mr. Stetner got into the laundry business and did very, very well. So you see, these- These men were a different generation. They aren't like the men of today. Bobby Hammel is like these men. Bobby Hammel is a good- he's- he's wonderful. GE: You're right. Very philanthropic and very community-minded. CS: Yes. These men believed in Rabbi Greenburg. He just drew them in. And he- he felt we needed a bigger synagogue, we had more members, the Hebrew school. I went to Hebrew school at the Lincoln School and confirmation- confirmation class at Greenburg's house. I was in his first confirmation class and we had up on the Temple of- on 12th and Walnut, I swear the mice used to be running in the cotton. We had one big room. It was awful. So they wanted this. We had the Center, and we needed our synagogue. And these men, they gave from the heart. IS: They were all like Bobby Hammel, but in different stages, it was what they could afford. They had the same ideas like Bobby of being generous and what they could afford and that's the way most of the men were and that's the way the Temple was really built. CS: And it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. Well we lived at 18th and Hamilton. My father's first stop in the morning was to pick- to come to the apartment, I'd be outside, and he'd park the car in front of the apartment and we'd walk up to the Temple, a block. And he'd walk through and I'd walk through with him. And he's looking at this and telling them that. And then at 4:30 in the afternoon we'd go through this again on his way home. So that Temple was a part of my life from the beginning. When Anne was born, Rabbi Greenburg didn't let kids in the sanctuary ; that was a no-no. But I would- We wheeled her up, the first Rosh Hashanah, in the service and he stayed outside and I went in. And then he went in and I stayed outside with her. But it- It was different. It was just different growing up. We were a very close-knit community and the friends are still. The boys he grew up with are the boys he eats lunch with and- and they're- it's- SC: It was a community. Can you say something about Bobby Hammel for the future? Just, you know, to have that on tape. GE: He is a current leader in the community and I would say also- actually, he grew up in Pottsville and he had- He is an exterminator. But- but again, where he became a very- The family became a very successful business, and he is really a major- But he's not just a philanthropist in terms of money, he is a philanthropist in the whole way, where he has been a leader in the Boy Scouts, a leader in the Federation, a leader at the synagogue. CS: He's just- GE: Right, right, right. Yes, no, I would also say, when you were saying with Bob Hammel, Rance Block might not be in a financial position to give- CS: But Rance Block is another- GE: He's also completely committed. CS: He- He was- Rabbi Greenburg used to say it was a pleasure for him because he watched- you know saw him right through, like me. Rance Block once introduced me, at Rabbi--was it Rabbi Greenburg's 80th birthday? It was the Center, it was at the Center. We were all sold out, we had to take it all out of the Temple and go to the Center. And he introduced me and he said, "When I was in grade school, she was in college. And when I was in high school, she got married. And when I was in college, she became a sisterhood president. Now she's the synagogue president!" But he- Well, Rance is a good boy. GE: Oh yeah. Very committed. CS: Bobby and Rance are great. I- I think they're wonderful, both of them. But you know, we had our center, we had our synagogues, and we had our community. IS: We didn't have to bother with Gentiles, actually. CS: When we- You know, years and years ago we had that terrible bus accident. GE: I heard about that, I heard. CS: That was a terrible, terrible thing. GE: This was a bus accident on Route 22, is that the one that you're saying? CS: It was yeah, out past- GE: It was where it was slippery out by Lafayette. CS: It was a terrible bus accident and I know it was a Thursday afternoon. And it was my birthday weekend and my daughter, Joanie was coming home, she was at- went for a summer in Richmond. And she was flying home that weekend. And my- Everything Thursday I was working then for Sandy Zales and Nina. I would- But every Thursday afternoon, the girls knew my mother was in the beauty shop around the corner and I would take her home and make a- Get lost for an hour or so with her if she had to go to the Farmers' Market or something. And my father used to play golf on Thursdays with his foursome. Anyhow, I go and I hear these sirens. Sirens after sirens. And I turn on the radio and they are talking about a bus accident and a Jewish day school. And I was- I was then an officer in the temple. I don't know what I was, but Milt Berman was the president, I remember, and he was playing golf. And I said to my mother, "I have to take you home. I- I have to go right down to the Temple, we've got to open up the Temple for these people," and that's what we did. And it was horrible. Seven children died. That night, where we used to buy gas at 17th and Liberty, Mike Tizzio, Irwin called Mike, and he said, "Could you open up the gas station? There are seven hearses that have to be filled up." The parents came, United Airlines flew in- They were extremely religious. They flew in Glatt Kosher food. You can't imagine what went on. It was- It was the most horrible thing and kids were in the hospital for weeks here. Parents and people opened up their homes and their hearts to them. GE: When- when- was that in the-? I did hear of it. I don't know if that was the '70s? IS: It was a long time ago. CS: I think it's in the archives, but- I was president from '64 through '67. It was probably the late '60s or early '70s. Wait, Joanie graduated from high school, wait a minute. Anne was class of '67, Irene was '69, Joanie in '71. So this was 1970 because it was the- she went between her junior and senior year. GE: I knew it was before I came to town. CS: That's when it happened. It was terrible. GE: Yeah, I heard of that. CS: And when I saw my daughter get off that plane, I want to tell you- How- How many parents look at a bus's tires when kids go away? You know, when I saw that red and white laundry bag come in front of her, I broke into tears. I wasn't- I couldn't see, I couldn't stop. SCB: Was she on that bus? CS: No, no. She was at school coming- She was at a summer in Richmond program. SCB: Right, right, I just wanted to clarify that. IS: It was from a Jewish day school from Lawrence, Long Island. CS: Five points, five points in New York. SCB: Were the students on a class trip or did they board there? CS: They were on a field trip. They were taking them up to Lancaster County. GE: I think it was raining. Was it raining or something? CS: I don't know, I don't think it was, no. SCB: Those curves are horrible. GE: Do you know how now it's like ridged. That's why. That's when it was put in. CS: It was just terrible. I mean- That's what I mean. The community, our community, came together so fast ; I couldn't believe it. I called Betty Griff. Do you know Betty? GE: No. CS: Well she used to be great in the kitchen. She came down and she was like a general. She caught him eating a roll and she told him, "You were told to set the table!" You know, we served food for these people constantly. And the rabbis all came together. SCB: They came in from Long Island. CS: Yeah. SCB: The families came from Long Island. IS: They didn't know which kids were killed. Nobody knew. All they heard was that seven kids killed on the bus and the parents didn't know if it was their child or not. CS: They were finding out when they got here. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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02:08:02
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Irwin and Claire Salitsky, May 26th, 2011
Description
An account of the resource
Irwin Salitsky talks about how his father (Barney Salitsky) and his partner (Izzy Weinstein) moved the business from New York to Allentown in 1932 to escape the unions. Irwin was four years old. Irwin’s father and his partner started Clyde Shirt and later Highland Sportswear. Irwin loved growing up in Allentown and living in the heart of the Jewish neighborhood [around West and Walnut St.]. Barney Salitsky and Izzy Weinstein were partners for about 40 years. Eventually, when the sons were in the business, the partnership was dissolved.
Claire Salitsky affectionately talks about the wonderful role models her parents were. Her father was a silk weaver in Paterson, NJ with his father. But when the depression hit, things quickly soured. There was an available factory in Slatington, PA for Claire’s father to purchase but he needed a loan to do so. A veritable stranger gave him the loan and Claire’s father and new partner became very successful. Due to that generosity, Claire’s parents actively helped others in the community who were less fortunate and needed financial assistance.
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LVTNT-02
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2011-05-26
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Murray Platt
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-17.xml
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5.4 July 26, 2012 Murray Platt, July 26, 2012 LVTNT-17 55:10 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Murray Platt Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 PlattMurray_20120726 1.0:|23(7)|48(4)|81(2)|116(11)|143(11)|170(3)|193(7)|222(6)|251(5)|272(8)|301(4)|326(5)|345(10)|372(8)|397(2)|418(13)|443(14)|474(3)|495(13)|514(11)|535(8)|558(4)|579(5)|604(7)|627(16)|654(15)|677(12)|700(10)|727(9)|748(8)|775(6)|800(5)|813(15)|838(6)|859(7)|882(18)|901(5)|926(19)|957(5)|982(5)|1005(5)|1030(5)|1063(6)|1104(5)|1133(7)|1158(4)|1189(4)|1214(4)|1239(15)|1264(11)|1279(10)|1302(3)|1325(9)|1348(6)|1375(9)|1376(2) 0 https://youtu.be/OcDadcjftl4 YouTube video 0 Introduction—Murray Platt SC: Mr. Platt, would you tell your full name, birthday and where you were born?
 ; 
 ; MP: Murray Platt, born in Brooklyn, New York, 1925.
 ; 
 ; SC: What was the address in Brooklyn? Do you remember?
 ; 
 ; MP: I know we moved pretty often. In those days, rents were very cheap, but most people had no money. They’d give you like three months free rent. What happens is that you lived in a place for a couple months, the first months were free. Then in a couple months you had to pay the rent and until they came to kick you out, you found another place. 0 54 Family History SC: Can you talk a little big now about your family background? As far back as you know - your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and what their names were and where they lived?
 ; 
 ; MP: Only my maternal grandfather, his name was Isadore Platt. He came here as a young man. I never knew anything about great grandparents.
 ; 
 ; GE: Wait, your maternal grandfather?
 ; 
 ; MP: My mother’s father.
 ; 
 ; GE: His name wouldn’t have been Platt.
 ; 
 ; MP: It’s always confusing because my mother remarried. My biological father died when I was real young. My mother remarried an Isadore Platt, not my grandfather, but cousin with the same name and I assumed his name. My birth name was not Platt.
 ; 
 ; SC: What was it?
 ; 
 ; MP: Tuller. T-u-l-l-e-r. 0 394 Lehigh Valley Shirt Manufacturing SC: [Y]our step-father, what did he do? 
 ; 
 ; MP: He was part of the business.
 ; 
 ; GE: What did he do?
 ; 
 ; MP: He was in the apparel business.
 ; 
 ; SC: So that was in Brooklyn?
 ; 
 ; MP: They started in New York. It was he and two partners.
 ; 
 ; GE: And what were they doing there? Were they tailors?
 ; 
 ; MP: They had a factory. And then the union came along and they were chased out over here. 
 ; 
 ; SC: That’s a typical story.
 ; 
 ; MP: After years here, the union came here. Local businesses went out and most went down south.
 ; 
 ; SC: What part of the garment industry did they produce for?
 ; 
 ; MP: The name of the firm was Lehigh Valley Shirt Manufacturing Company. 0 837 Religious Practices as a Youth GE: When your mother and stepfather married in 1936, from what you remember, was he working here and coming home on the weekends?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yes. As a matter of fact I remember going to the subway station and helping him carry his bags. He made me do the Haftorah every Saturday morning. I could do any Haftarah.
 ; 
 ; GE: He made you do the Haftarah.
 ; 
 ; MP: He was very religious and we followed suit.
 ; 
 ; SC: Were you as religious before that?
 ; 
 ; MP: Not really. I was Bar Mitzvahed after he married my mother. As a matter of fact, I laid Tifillin until I went into the army. 0 897 The War Years—Education, Work Experiences, & ; Army Service SC: What year did you go into the army?
 ; 
 ; MP: 1945.
 ; 
 ; GE: You went into the army in 1945?
 ; 
 ; SC: So you would have been 20.
 ; 
 ; MP: During the second half of the war and then afterwards, in peacetime.
 ; 
 ; SC: Where were you deployed after you went into the army? Were you in Germany?
 ; 
 ; MP: No, stateside.
 ; 
 ; SC: Stateside the whole time. I know some people did go over and went to Japan or after the war went to Germany during the times of refugees.
 ; 
 ; MP: I had majored in chemistry when I went to City College and I kept getting deferred from being drafted until I graduated. Once I graduated, then they inducted me into the army. After basic training they sent me to Randolph Field in Texas to work in a laboratory. So I never saw real action. 0 1118 Murray Platt's Parents GE: Do you have any memory of your father?
 ; 
 ; MP No, I was five when he died.
 ; 
 ; GE: What did he die from?
 ; 
 ; MP: He was a house painter. No one really remembers if it was his heart or was it lead poisoning. In those days they used lead. I remember an uncle was also a house painter, it was one of his brothers, telling him, “Abie, wash your hands!” My father’s name was Abraham. He never washed his hands, most of them didn’t. He didn’t die here…..he went to Poland – to Warsaw – to see his parents, and he died there. 0 1281 Childhood in Brooklyn GE: During this time when it was you and your mom, I know the Depression was going on, what was life like? Were you very poor?
 ; 
 ; MP: If we were poor, we didn’t know it - we had nothing to compare it to.
 ; 
 ; GE: Did you rent? Did you live in an apartment?
 ; 
 ; MP: Oh yes, $45.00 a month rent and the first two months were free!
 ; 
 ; SC: Do you have any memories of what you did in New York playing games? What the children did?
 ; 
 ; MP: I remember playing handball against the wall with some other kids. There was a store right around the corner and the wall was brick – we played handball there. The guy would come out and yell at us. Years later, we bought a home in Brooklyn, this was before we came here, an end of the row. Then the other kids came and played handball against our wall. 0 1410 Stepfather's Family and Businesses GE: Murray, you were an only child weren’t you?
 ; 
 ; MP: My stepfather had a daughter, Phyllis Steinberg. Does the name ring a bell?
 ; 
 ; GE: Well, Judge Steinberg?
 ; 
 ; MP: That’s her son.
 ; 
 ; GE: So his mother was your step-sister.
 ; 
 ; MP: Well, I didn’t refer to her as a step-sister, we were very close.
 ; 
 ; GE: Isn’t that nice. When your mother married Platt, you were 11, how old was she?
 ; 
 ; MP: She was ten years older than me.
 ; 
 ; GE: Was she already married?
 ; 
 ; MP: She got married the same year. She got married in July, my mother got married to my step-father in November.
 ; 
 ; GE: So you always had a close relationship with her. 0 1626 Murray Platt's Role in the Family Business SC: Going back then to when you were part of the business, what did you do when you first became part of your step-father’s business? 
 ; 
 ; MP: Our partners, while my father was the general factory man, one of the other partners was a mechanic and the third partner took care of the cutting and went to New York to collect money for payroll. In those days you had to wait for it to come by mail. [unintelligible] It was a pretty big payroll, don’t forget there was pretty many people working. When we came into the business, I took over my father’s job of being on the floor, as they say, in production. The mechanic’s son took over the mechanics and the other son took over the cutting – he was in charge of the cutting room. 0 1737 Jewish Involvement in the Textile and Needle-Trade Industries GE: Was it hard, as a Jewish person, to get a job as a chemist?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yes. As a chemist, in a bank . . . a lot of places. The going salary was $35.00 per week. 
 ; 
 ; GE: There were a few things - One, it was hard to get a good job as a Jewish person and secondly, it was not that lucrative. It was perhaps more lucrative to go into business.
 ; 
 ; SC: We’ve asked people, “ Why do you think in this region, there was so many Jewish textile or garment industry people.” Do you think there is an answer to that?
 ; 
 ; MP: No, except that the Jews gravitated towards this business. It was easy to get into. It didn’t require much capital so you didn’t have to go borrow money. You set up your own factory and in those days there was a big demand. 0 1804 Murray Platt's Business Partners and Contacts GE: Who actually was the salesperson or the liaison person with the manufacturers? 
 ; 
 ; MP: Samuel Simon. He was the one who would go to New York every week to collect money for payroll.
 ; 
 ; GE: That’s also the guy you said was the cutting.
 ; 
 ; MP: Right. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Was he, let’s say for instance, was he also the one when a contract would run out – he was the one who would negotiate the contract?
 ; 
 ; MP: We didn’t have any formal contracts – nothing was in writing. You just did the work for them and you hoped they would send you more fabric and it was an on-going deal. 0 2071 The Decline of Lehigh Valley Shirts Manufacturing Company MP: I retired in 1987. I turned the business over to a young man who had been working for me.
 ; 
 ; SC: So you gave him an opportunity?
 ; 
 ; MP: He was the son of the foreman when the factory came to Allentown.
 ; 
 ; SC: What was his name – the foreman?
 ; 
 ; MP: Sam Lutz. He wasn’t Jewish.
 ; 
 ; SC: He was Pennsylvania Dutch probably.
 ; 
 ; GE: Did the business survive for a while longer?
 ; 
 ; MP: For a while, but this guy didn’t pay much attention to the business. People, customers, would call, they’d want you, they didn’t want an office person and he wasn’t there. So he lasted a few years, every week it was less and then he just left. 0 2166 More on the Family Business SC: Did the ethnicity of the workers change between the late ‘40’s until 1987? Did they come from different family backgrounds?
 ; 
 ; MP: Towards the end we had more Latino people - as they came along - moving into town.
 ; 
 ; SC: Because this was a good entry work job.
 ; 
 ; MP: At the beginning, it was always Pennsylvania Dutch, Czechoslovokian people, Irish people, but the last few years things were changed.
 ; 
 ; SC: As far as where the factory was…did it stay on Franklin Street the whole time?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SC: Franklin is between 14th and 15th?
 ; 
 ; GE: No, 13th and 14th.
 ; 
 ; MP: No, it was between 14th and 15th. 0 2403 Involvement in the Jewish and Allentown Communities GE: Tell us what was the community like? What did you and Dot think when you came here? The Jewish community . . . and when did you start having children?
 ; 
 ; MP: We went to the JCC as soon as we got here. In those days it was still at 6th Street.
 ; 
 ; GE: 6th and Chew I think it was.
 ; 
 ; MP: This building wasn’t built until 1958 or 59.
 ; 
 ; SC: How about the community in general? What did you think about the community? Was it friendly?
 ; 
 ; MP: Hess’s was great. That was a focal point. 
 ; 
 ; SC: I haven’t interviewed anyone that hasn't talked about it.
 ; 
 ; MP: You mention Allentown and Hess’s and people say, “oh yes, I know Hess’s”
 ; 
 ; GE: And the whole downtown was great.
 ; 
 ; MP: There was no Sunday shopping, and it was only open Monday and Thursday evenings. My wife, when she was pregnant, a month or so afterwards she went there and they said, “what did you have, a boy or a girl?” They was a very homey atmosphere. 0 2527 Murray Platt's Children GE: When did you start having children?
 ; 
 ; MP: Our oldest daughter was born in New York and Dennis, the middle son was born here – right after we moved here.
 ; 
 ; GE: So your oldest child was born in what year?
 ; 
 ; MP: 1949.
 ; 
 ; GE: So your oldest is about 62-63 years old.
 ; 
 ; MP: Right.
 ; 
 ; GE: And then your second child?
 ; 
 ; MP: Dennis – he was born here.
 ; 
 ; GE: That was nineteen . . .?
 ; 
 ; MP: 54.
 ; 
 ; GE: 1954. The first two, those were boys?
 ; 
 ; MP: No, the first one was a girl.
 ; 
 ; GE: What was her name?
 ; 
 ; MP: Arlene, and she never married. 0 2715 Relationship with Buyers SC: [A]s far as the business is concerned, are there any memories you have – really vivid memories you have of some times in the business – either highs or lows when you were in the business?
 ; 
 ; MP: Except that we took the various customer’s agents out to lunch.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, so the customer’s agents – did they often come to your . . .?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yeah, they come once or twice a week.
 ; 
 ; GE: Was that more just to pick up and drop off?
 ; 
 ; MP: Just to see how things were going - how their products were being manufactured. To make sure everything is right and to go to lunch.
 ; 
 ; GE: The manufacturer’s agent – were they employees of the manufacturer?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yes.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh, they were actually employees. I wasn’t sure if they were employees or if they kind of had their own business. 0 2776 Unions SC: Were you unionized?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SC: Which union?
 ; 
 ; MP: Amalgamated Textile Workers. There were two apparel unions - one was the International Ladies Garment Workers and the other was Amalgamated. Since we had made men’s wear to start with, it was Amalgamated. Then in later years, we didn’t make any more shirts, but the other union didn’t bother us.
 ; 
 ; SC: Were you a member of the manufacturer’s associations?
 ; 
 ; MP: Probably.
 ; 
 ; GE: Like Arnold Delin? Does that sound familiar?
 ; 
 ; MP: Delin was the other union.
 ; 
 ; SC: Right he was the IGLU – I hope I said it right. There were two manufacturer’s associations in the region. 0 2847 Business Procedures and Products GE: Did you ever become very automated?
 ; 
 ; MP: No.
 ; 
 ; GE: So yours always stayed pretty basic.
 ; 
 ; MP: Right. Tama did and that’s why they lasted longer than everyone else. They just closed two or three years ago. Now I understand all the off-shore plants are automated. [unintelligible] with computers.
 ; 
 ; GE: Right - I guess that’s really primarily in terms of the business. You said that your product changed - let’s say you did shirts and blouses, is that what you did the whole time?
 ; 
 ; MP: Yes.
 ; 
 ; SC: Is there a reason why you stopped doing shirts?
 ; 
 ; MP: Well, because it became too competitive. Shirts were the first ones to go down south. Blouses, it was more specialty, dresses also the same thing. 0 3099 Dottie Platt's Family History DP: When you are an immigrant, you come here with empty pockets and your children – they don’t have anything. You have to realize this, now come in, and I’ll show you my blouses. Then I married Murray because he graduated college at 19, and I thought he was older than that, and he thought I was younger than I am because my mother was looking for the fountain of youth. She lost her hair at as a young girl. There’s a name for this illness.
 ; 
 ; MP: Alopecia. 
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh.
 ; 
 ; DP: Some people in our area, now, the doctor’s wife, I want to say, don't have hair. Do you know Dr. Silverman?
 ; 
 ; MP: Diane.
 ; 
 ; GE: Oh yes. 
 ; 
 ; DP: So, my mother had that illness.
 ; 
 ; MP: To make a long story short, my wife worked in the factory – in the office for several years. 0 MovingImage Murray Platt talks about how his father’s family began in New York making women’s shirts, failed due to the unions, and then came in the late 1930s to the Lehigh Valley. Murray’s father, with two partners, established Lehigh Valley Shirt Manufacturing Company. They were contractors for manufacturers in New York and in Philadelphia. They cut, sewed and finished the products. The business continued by the sons of these three original partners. An Interview with Murray Platt, July 26, 2012 SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Mr. Platt, would you tell your full name, birthday and where you were born? MURRAY PLATT: Murray Platt, born in Brooklyn, New York, 1925. SC: What was the address in Brooklyn? Do you remember? MP: I know we moved pretty often. In those days, rents were very cheap, but most people had no money. They'd give you like three months free rent. What happens is that you lived in a place for a couple months, the first months were free. Then in a couple months you had to pay the rent and until they came to kick you out, you found another place. SC: Can you talk a little big now about your family background? As far back as you know - your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and what their names were and where they lived? MP: Only my maternal grandfather, his name was Isadore Platt. He came here as a young man. I never knew anything about great grandparents. GAIL EISENBERG: Wait, your maternal grandfather? MP: My mother's father. GE: His name wouldn't have been Platt. MP: It's always confusing because my mother remarried. My biological father died when I was real young. My mother remarried an Isadore Platt, not my grandfather, but cousin with the same name and I assumed his name. My birth name was not Platt. SC: What was it? MP: Tuller. T-u-l-l-e-r. SC: So, when your maternal grandfather came to the United States, where about did he come from? Do you know about when he came? MP: Poland or Russia. In those days there was a very fluid line between them. One day I was Polish the next day I was Russian. GE: What was the name of the town or big city it was near? MP: Somewhere near Warsaw. SC: Did your father come by himself? And did he leave family behind? MP: My grandfather, he came by himself. He left his wife there, after a while she died. He remarried here. Then he had his children, which my mother was one of them. By then he had a coal yard. GE: I'm sorry he had what? MP: He had a coal yard. GE: In Poland? MP: No here. GE: What is a coal yard? MP: In the old days, most of heat was done by coal. As a matter of fact, I remember the coal delivery in New York, he had to park perpendicular to the sidewalk of the house and run a big chute down to the basement, dumped the coal out. We kids had a great time underneath the chute! GE: When your grandfather came from Poland, how old was he? MP: Pretty young. GE: But, he was already married. MP: Maybe in his 20's. GE: So, the hope was, he came from Poland, how many children did he have at the time? MP: Three. GE: He had three children in Poland. MP: My mother and 2 brothers. GE: The idea was that he came and then he was going to bring his wife and children. MP: I don't know about his wife, she died somewhere in between. GE: Right. MP: We never even saw a picture of her. In those days there was no hanky-panky. A wife was a wife. GE: Right. SC: So he came to the United States. This is your birth grandfather. When he came here how did he meet his second wife? Do you know anything about that? MP: Not really, I guess he went to a bar or something! SC: So he owned a coal yard and that was a fun place to be. MP: It was a small community, everybody lived downtown. GE: When you say downtown, do you mean downtown Brooklyn? MP: Mostly Manhattan -- the Lower East Side. SC: So with the coal yard were there ever any stories of people coming to the coal yard and taking coal to heat their places, at night or anything? MP: Not that I know of. GE: Did he work at the coal yard or did he own the coal yard? MP: I think he owned it. GE: Or at least eventually. So he left behind his wife and three children, the wife died, did he bring all his three children over? MP: They all came together. I guess it was right after the First World War. SC: So he came before the First World War. That would make sense. And then you were born in 1925. GE: Do you know how old your mother was when she came over? MP: She was around 18-19 or somewhere around there. GE: So she was already that grown up. What was she? Was she the oldest? The middle? Youngest? MP: She was in the middle. There was one older brother and one younger brother. Matter of fact, there is a picture of my mother you might like to take a look at. GE: Yes, I did, I already saw it. She's gorgeous. SC: I'll take a look at it later. GE: So there were two sons. SC: So is Dottie, so is Dottie. Your father's family, do you know anything about your father's family, the Platts, uh Tullers-- your birth father? MP: I know there was a brother, my late father's brother. Matter of fact, he died in his 90's. He lived in Washington DC. Then there was another brother, somehow we lost track of him. We were never close to any of that side of the family. SC: So your -sort of- adopted father, your step-father, what did he do? MP: He was part of the business. GE: What did he do? MP: He was in the apparel business. SC: So that was in Brooklyn? MP: They started in New York. It was he and two partners. GE: And what were they doing there? Were they tailors? MP: They had a factory. And then the union came along and they were chased out over here. SC: That's a typical story. MP: After years here, the union came here. Local businesses went out and most went down south. SC: What part of the garment industry did they produce for? MP: The name of the firm was Lehigh Valley Shirt Manufacturing Company. GE: How about in New York? MP: I'm not sure. GE: But it was shirts? MP: Probably. GE: But you're not sure. SC: So they came in the 1930's to the Lehigh Valley. Do you know about what year it was? MP: Not sure. Before or during the war, because they all made garments for the troops. GE: They were definitely here sometime in the 30's . . . MP: late 30's, early 40's. GE: And who came here? Was it your step-father came here? MP: Yes GE: So he actually who established the business? MP: Yes, and two partners. SC: Do you know the partners' names? MP: Yes, Samuel Barkan and Samuel Simon. Do you know Marian Barkan? GE: I don't recognize the name. SC: Is she still in the area? Well, that's another contact. So, they made shirts -- how big an industry was it in the early years? MP: I thought our plant was one of the middle size. We had about 80 or 90 employees. SC: And, where was it located in Allentown? MP: Right on Union Street. SC: Did it stay there when you were involved with it? MP: Yes, and then the city bought that plot and now its low income housing development. The 400 block of Union Street. SC: They bought it after the business closed? MP: No, then they moved to North Franklin Street. GE: And North Franklin is where? MP: Between 13th and 14th Streets. SC: When it was at Union, did they buy that property? MP: They bought the building before we came. Every partner had a son and it was worked out that the three sons would belong to the business. SC: When the city bought that property. Was that during the Little Lehigh Urban Renewal? MP: Probably. GE: Or when did that occur? MP: The early 70's. SC: A lot of my projects intersect. When you moved to Franklin Street, did all three of you (sons) come into the business? MP: We went into the business when it was still on Union St. SC: So you bought a new place-- MP: We didn't buy it, we rented it. SC: And you continued to make shirts? MP: Shirts, blouses, dresses-- SC: Were you a contractor for a New York company? MP: Mostly, although we had some Philadelphia stuff. Did you ever hear of Gordon in Philadelphia. J.G. Hook? GE: J.G. Hook, right. SC: Was J.G. Hook women's blouses? MP: Womens of all kinds. We just made the blouses. SC: Gordon, was that blouses or shirts? MP: Again, we made only the blouses. SC: Only the blouses for both of them. Can you talk a little bit about how the business was organized in your step-father's time and in your time? What is very highly capitalized? Did you have a lot of machinery? What type of people did you hire? MP: The sewing industry was the easiest one to get into. You didn't require a lot of capital and I don't know anything about the place in New York. When we came here, the building had three floors. There was sewing on one floor, cutting on another floor and the bottom floor was pressing, shipping and so on. GE: So the finishing. It was sewing, cutting and finishing. SC: What groups of employees did you have over the years? Were they wives of maybe people working in other industries? Were they working class? Was there a certain ethnicity? MP: All manufacturers were women. We always had a mechanic there in the cutting room. As a matter of fact, Irwin Salitsky worked with us - because his business went out too. [unintelligible] GE: Yes. So you were a young child when they came here? MP: No, we were all in our twenties when we went into the business. GE: In other words, if you were born in 1925 when your father came here, he established himself here, about how old do you think you were? MP: Well, I didn't know him until he married my mother. GE: When did he marry your mother? MP: In 1936. GE: Therefore, you were about 11 years ago when he married your mother? MP: Right. GE: At that time was he already here? Or was he still in New York when they got married? MP: I think they just come here. GE: So did you move at that time to Allentown? MP: No, No. My wife and I got married during the war, in 1945, and we lived in New York for a while. I didn't go right into the business. I did different jobs in New York. GE: When your mother and stepfather married in 1936, from what you remember, was he working here and coming home on the weekends? MP: Yes. As a matter of fact I remember going to the subway station and helping him carry his bags. He made me do the Haftorah every Saturday morning. I could do any Haftarah. GE: He made you do the Haftarah. MP: He was very religious and we followed suit. SC: Were you as religious before that? MP: Not really. I was Bar Mitzvahed after he married my mother. As a matter of fact, I laid Tifillin until I went into the army. GE: And that's where you do Morning prayer and Evening prayer. SC: What year did you go into the army? MP: 1945. GE: You went into the army in 1945? SC: So you would have been 20. MP: During the second half of the war and then afterwards, in peacetime. SC: Where were you deployed after you went into the army? Were you in Germany? MP: No, stateside. SC: Stateside the whole time. I know some people did go over and went to Japan or after the war went to Germany during the times of refugees. MP: I had majored in chemistry when I went to City College and I kept getting deferred from being drafted until I graduated. Once I graduated, then they inducted me into the army. After basic training they sent me to Randolph Field in Texas to work in a laboratory. So I never saw real action. SC: And so what made you decide to go into chemistry at City College and did you use it at all once you went into the business? MP: Very little. Some TV shows where you had to say what the signs were for certain chemicals and what certain elements were. Now the element for gold is Au. Did you know that? GE: I did, from chemistry. MP: Then, Sodium was Na. It's weird. GE: Some things stick with you. Did you ever work as a chemist? MP: No. SC: Because you would only have been 20 when you were drafted. MP: I graduated from City College when I was nineteen and a half. Then I worked for a company in New York for a few months, called American Cystoscope Makers. Do you know what a cystoscope is? GE: Is it medical? MP: It's a device where they look into . . . GE: For the bladder. MP: And they were setting up a laboratory, so they hired a main chemist and then he hired me. It was only a couple of months and then I was drafted. SC: Do you remember his name? MP: No. SC: So you were drafted? How long were you in the Armed Services? MP: A little over a year. SC: So it was 1946. MP: As a matter of fact, I was supposed to go overseas. In the Army you get orders, it tells you what to do. I had orders to go to Greensboro, NC, which was a replacement depot for overseas. I was there for a couple of weeks. Then all of a sudden I got orders to go to Massachusetts, there's a big field out there for discharge. I was wondering, how was I so lucky? But, that's the way it went down. I think they made a mistake on me. SC: That's a good mistake! GE: Murray, when you were a child, your mother remarried, you were eleven years old. Do you have any memory of your father? MP No, I was five when he died. GE: What did he die from? MP: He was a house painter. No one really remembers if it was his heart or was it lead poisoning. In those days they used lead. I remember an uncle was also a house painter, it was one of his brothers, telling him, "Abie, wash your hands!" My father's name was Abraham. He never washed his hands, most of them didn't. He didn't die here--..he went to Poland -- to Warsaw -- to see his parents, and he died there. GE: From the time that you were five until eleven, until your mother married this man, where did you and your mom live? MP: We lived with my grandparents for a while, the one who had a coal yard -- they didn't have it then anymore. We lived with them for a while. Then my mother met another woman, a friend, and they took an apartment together. GE: Did your mom work during that time? MP: Yes, in the apparel industry, in New York. Let me tell you a very funny incident. She didn't have any experience [unintelligible] and she applied to a job after my father died. She didn't know anything about sewing, so the man told her to sit down and sew. He sees that she can't sew and he can't use her. She says, well look, (she was very young and beautiful at the time) can you show me how the machine works? He said, sure. Then she went down, went around the corner to another factory to get a job there -- she told the lady that she had experience. My mother didn't have book learning, but she was smart. GE: Did she work as a sewer? MP: Right. GE: Is that the time you moved a lot? MP: We moved a lot after my mom and stepfather were married. We lived in New York for a couple of years, around Brooklyn. GE: During this time when it was you and your mom, I know the Depression was going on, what was life like? Were you very poor? MP: If we were poor, we didn't know it - we had nothing to compare it to. GE: Did you rent? Did you live in an apartment? MP: Oh yes, $45.00 a month rent and the first two months were free! SC: Do you have any memories of what you did in New York playing games? What the children did? MP: I remember playing handball against the wall with some other kids. There was a store right around the corner and the wall was brick -- we played handball there. The guy would come out and yell at us. Years later, we bought a home in Brooklyn, this was before we came here, an end of the row. Then the other kids came and played handball against our wall. GE: Do you remember what school was like? Do you remember playing much? Were you very studious? Did you play a lot? MP: I must have been [studious] because I advanced. In those days they had what they called"RA" - rapid advancement. I guess I had all those courses because I graduated high school at 16, college at 19. I guess I must have been studious. SC: Do you remember playing "kick the can?" MP: I remember playing stick ball -- in the middle of the street. If the ball hit a car, it was out! There weren't many cars then. We played stick ball with a broom handle. SC: Any other memories from your childhood? You have a wonderful memory! Anything else that sticks out to you? Experiences or stories? GE: Murray, you were an only child weren't you? MP: My stepfather had a daughter, Phyllis Steinberg. Does the name ring a bell? GE: Well, Judge Steinberg? MP: That's her son. GE: So his mother was your step-sister. MP: Well, I didn't refer to her as a step-sister, we were very close. GE: Isn't that nice. When your mother married Platt, you were 11, how old was she? MP: She was ten years older than me. GE: Was she already married? MP: She got married the same year. She got married in July, my mother got married to my step-father in November. GE: So you always had a close relationship with her. SC: That's very nice, and she wasn't living in your house at that time? MP: No. Her husband, Henry, had been a lawyer in New York and, I don't know, things, I guess, weren't that great. Anyhow, he had an uncle who had moved a plant to North Carolina and so Henry came down there to work for him. GE: So Henry was an attorney but he also went into textiles. MP: Yes, as a matter of fact, he had a plant in Emmaus. After he worked in North Carolina for a couple of years, then he came up here and this man who came here when he was ten years old -- Samuel Fuchs with six dollars in his pocket - when he died, he was a multi-millionaire. GE: And who is Samuel Fuchs? MP: That is my step-sister's mother's brother. GE: So your step-sister's uncle. SC: How do you spell Fuchs? MP: F-U-C-H-S. I know it's not a nice name----. SC: I always ask because there are so many different spellings -- for the future. MP: He came here as a boy. He started to work in a sewing factory, a couple of years later he bought the factory. Then he started expanding. GE: Was that one of the very first factories? MP: It was in Allentown for a while then he moved to North Carolina --a town called Kinston. He had a big factory, then he went to building and as I said when he died he was a multi-millionaire. SC: Any other memories about your childhood and youth? MP: Not really. GE: About Brooklyn and what it was like? MP: I know we went to Dodgers games. GE: Okay, tell us about it. MP: The Brooklyn Dodgers - twenty-five cents to sit in the bleachers. There was a pitcher, Carl Hubbell -- I don't know if you ever heard of him? He had in one year, won 26 and lost 6 -- and that record still stands. He is the originator of the screwball. Did you hear of that in relation to pitching? That was his thing. SC: Going back then to when you were part of the business, what did you do when you first became part of your step-father's business? MP: Our partners, while my father was the general factory man, one of the other partners was a mechanic and the third partner took care of the cutting and went to New York to collect money for payroll. In those days you had to wait for it to come by mail. [unintelligible] It was a pretty big payroll, don't forget there was pretty many people working. When we came into the business, I took over my father's job of being on the floor, as they say, in production. The mechanic's son took over the mechanics and the other son took over the cutting -- he was in charge of the cutting room. SC: When you say mechanic -- what exactly did that job entail? MP: Well, the machines had to be fixed. Some were bought new, some were bought used, and so on. SC: So did his father then teach him that trade or did he go to school anywhere for it? MP: No, we were all college graduates. GE: You were college graduates but you learned the business by being in the business. Why didn't you go into something, for instance, you were a chemist? Why did you go into the business rather than pursuing . . . .? MP: I always wanted to go into business. GE: Do you think that's true for all three of you? That you just wanted to be in business. MP: Yes. We never had a real profession, although we were all college grads, we hadn't really worked at it. GE: Was it hard, as a Jewish person, to get a job as a chemist? MP: Yes. As a chemist, in a bank . . . a lot of places. The going salary was $35.00 per week. GE: There were a few things - One, it was hard to get a good job as a Jewish person and secondly, it was not that lucrative. It was perhaps more lucrative to go into business. SC: We've asked people, " Why do you think in this region, there was so many Jewish textile or garment industry people." Do you think there is an answer to that? MP: No, except that the Jews gravitated towards this business. It was easy to get into. It didn't require much capital so you didn't have to go borrow money. You set up your own factory and in those days there was a big demand. GE: Who actually was the salesperson or the liaison person with the manufacturers? MP: Samuel Simon. He was the one who would go to New York every week to collect money for payroll. GE: That's also the guy you said was the cutting. MP: Right. GE: Was he, let's say for instance, was he also the one when a contract would run out -- he was the one who would negotiate the contract? MP: We didn't have any formal contracts -- nothing was in writing. You just did the work for them and you hoped they would send you more fabric and it was an on-going deal. GE: Let's say that things were slowing a little, who found a new manufacturer to work for? MP: By then Simon was his garment [unintelligible] and things weren't slow until, I don't know, the 70's or thereabout. GE: So prior to that it was just constant -- all you had to do was fulfill it in a sense. You didn't have to look for it. SC: How were the New York manufacturers different than the Philadelphia manufacturers? Was there a different system going? MP: No. SC: Were the manufacturers bigger in New York and smaller in Philadelphia? MP: Gordon in Philadelphia was a big, big outfit. J. G. Hook -- they are still around, but not as popular. SC: The reason I ask this was New England and New York seem to be larger initially, and many of the Philly textile people were more special order in the late 19th century and very early 20th century. So it had changed by that time . . . MP: We knew only the manufacturers. We did not know other contractors in those areas. SC: As far as you being on the floor, did that mean that you learned every element of sewing and did you actually know how to sew? MP: Oh I know, I still know how to sew. I showed different girls how to sew. SC: So you knew all of the operations so you really could be a hands-on employer. One of the partners was cutting in the cutting room and the other one was the mechanic. Did all of you stay together for a long time? MP: For a while and then gradually they died. GE: Were they older than you? MP: They must have been. One of the partners died in 1976 and the other partner died in 1980. GE: But you stayed together as partners until they were deceased. MP: Not that we didn't have any fights! SC: That's wonderful and unusual too. As far as the business was concerned, did it grow and did you add more machinery and more employees? Maybe different people cutting? MP: Slightly in the beginning, but then it became more and more difficult, it didn't really go downhill, but it was tough to get customers. We had stable customers - Gordon in Philadelphia, J.G. Hook . One company called [unintelligible]. And another one was . . . I forget the name of it. GE: So it was a stable business, not really a growing business. MP: Right, then, I retired in 1987. I turned the business over to a young man who had been working for me. SC: So you gave him an opportunity? MP: He was the son of the foreman when the factory came to Allentown. SC: What was his name -- the foreman? MP: Sam Lutz. He wasn't Jewish. SC: He was Pennsylvania Dutch probably. GE: Did the business survive for a while longer? MP: For a while, but this guy didn't pay much attention to the business. People, customers, would call, they'd want you, they didn't want an office person and he wasn't there. So he lasted a few years, every week it was less and then he just left. SC: Do you know what happened to him, where he went after that? MP: He went to Tama. He was going to cut. GE: He went where? MP: He went to the cutting room at Tama. GE: Tama -- that's Fogelman? MP: After that I don't know what happened. He ended up owing me some money. We had a contract that he would give me so much a week up until a certain amount. [unintelligible] SC: Did the ethnicity of the workers change between the late '40's until 1987? Did they come from different family backgrounds? MP: Towards the end we had more Latino people - as they came along - moving into town. SC: Because this was a good entry work job. MP: At the beginning, it was always Pennsylvania Dutch, Czechoslovokian people, Irish people, but the last few years things were changed. SC: As far as where the factory was--did it stay on Franklin Street the whole time? MP: Yes. SC: Franklin is between 14th and 15th? GE: No, 13th and 14th. MP: No, it was between 14th and 15th. SC: How far up north or was it pretty far down south? MP: It was in the 400 block. SC: It was fairly close to the older factory? MP: Yes, 4th and Union to Franklin. SC: That was pretty many blocks. So, it was in south Allentown. Where did you live when you moved to Allentown? Where did your family live? MP: Valley View Apartments. Do you know where they are? SC: No. GE: This is when you first came. Where is that? MP: South -- right off 15th street - 15th and Elm. The rent there was $92.00 a month. SC: So the three of you lived in an apartment? MP: The others somewhere else. GE: It was just you and Dot? MP: Right. SC: So where did they live? MP: One lived in Tremont Apartments, and I don't know where the other one lived. SC: As far as the older generation -- were they still around? Living in Allentown? MP: No, they had died by then. GE: Your fathers had all passed away. When did your step-father pass away? MP: 1976. GE: Okay, but when you went into the business. . . You went into the business when? Nineteen . . . MP: 54-55. GE: Around 1955 you came here. You went into the business, rather . . . before that you were living in New York -- you and Dottie. When you came here, your father and the two partners were still in the business. MP: Right. GE: You were just coming in with them, and then you stayed in the business with them until -- when did they retire? When did your father retire? MP He never came into the business the last few years, but he still drew a small salary. The other two likely died, I forget the years they died. GE: You went into business around 1955 and those men, as long as they were alive, they were drawing a salary, so you just gradually moved into the business. In 1955, you were doing the production part, were the other two sons of the other two partners, were they now in the business, as well? MP: Yes. They all came in. GE: At that time, this was a very active -- the textile industry was very active. MP: And doing well. GE: Yes, and doing well. Tell us what was the community like? What did you and Dot think when you came here? The Jewish community . . . and when did you start having children? MP: We went to the JCC as soon as we got here. In those days it was still at 6th Street. GE: 6th and Chew I think it was. MP: This building wasn't built until 1958 or 59. SC: How about the community in general? What did you think about the community? Was it friendly? MP: Hess's was great. That was a focal point. SC: I haven't interviewed anyone that hasn't talked about it. MP: You mention Allentown and Hess's and people say, "oh yes, I know Hess's" GE: And the whole downtown was great. MP: There was no Sunday shopping, and it was only open Monday and Thursday evenings. My wife, when she was pregnant, a month or so afterwards she went there and they said, "what did you have, a boy or a girl?" They was a very homey atmosphere. GE: And that was even at the department store. SC: Did you go to the Patio at all? MP: No, I think it was too expensive for me. GE: The Patio was just the restaurant? MP: Yes. They had these great big ice cream things. SC: And strawberry pie. GE: You joined the JCC -- did you find that you easily met people from that? MP: Oh yeah, we had a big circle of friends. Most of them aren't around now. Some moved to Florida, some died. GE: When did you start having children? MP: Our oldest daughter was born in New York and Dennis, the middle son was born here -- right after we moved here. GE: So your oldest child was born in what year? MP: 1949. GE: So your oldest is about 62-63 years old. MP: Right. GE: And then your second child? MP: Dennis -- he was born here. GE: That was nineteen . . .? MP: 54. GE: 1954. The first two, those were boys? MP: No, the first one was a girl. GE: What was her name? MP: Arlene, and she never married. GE: Your second is Dennis. And then your youngest? MP: Ken. GE: What year was he born? MP: Now you're making me think. GE: How old is he? MP: 61. GE: So he was born in '61 -- so he's about 51. MP: He just got his AARP card -- now you get it at 50. SC: Did any of them want to come into the business? MP: Oh no. SC: What did they end up doing? MP: Well, Dennis is a lawyer in Philly. Ken is a pediatrician in Connecticut. and Arlene works for the state in the Welfare Department. She's a supervisor. GE: In the Welfare Department? MP: Yes. SC: Does she work in the Allentown area or in Harrisburg? MP: In Philly. SC: So two of them are together in Philly? MP: No. GE: They both work in the Philly area. MP: They are close. GE: Did they never want to go into the business or did you not want them to go into the business? MP: Combination of both. Although when they were kids, they came and helped work out in the summer. We never urged them. GE: Why? MP: I don't know, we wanted them to be professionals. GE: I'm just curious, were you already seeing the business didn't have that long of a future? MP: Not at that time, we didn't know what the future would be. But, we knew that we wanted the kids to be professionals. SC: It's the American Dream. MP: We were lucky that we could help them out -- we could afford it. SC: Where did they go to school, college? MP: Dennis went to Syracuse undergrad and to Villanova Law School. Ken went to U of P and Duke Medical School, and Arlene went to Penn State, which in those days the tuition, I think, was $1100.00. GE: Things were a little different. SC: Also, as far as the business is concerned, are there any memories you have -- really vivid memories you have of some times in the business -- either highs or lows when you were in the business? MP: Except that we took the various customer's agents out to lunch. GE: Oh, so the customer's agents -- did they often come to your . . .? MP: Yeah, they come once or twice a week. GE: Was that more just to pick up and drop off? MP: Just to see how things were going - how their products were being manufactured. To make sure everything is right and to go to lunch. GE: The manufacturer's agent -- were they employees of the manufacturer? MP: Yes. GE: Oh, they were actually employees. I wasn't sure if they were employees or if they kind of had their own business. SC: Were you unionized? MP: Yes. SC: Which union? MP: Amalgamated Textile Workers. There were two apparel unions - one was the International Ladies Garment Workers and the other was Amalgamated. Since we had made men's wear to start with, it was Amalgamated. Then in later years, we didn't make any more shirts, but the other union didn't bother us. SC: Were you a member of the manufacturer's associations? MP: Probably. GE: Like Arnold Delin? Does that sound familiar? MP: Delin was the other union. SC: Right he was the IGLU -- I hope I said it right. There were two manufacturer's associations in the region. GE: I think one was the Lehigh Valley? SC: Were you a member there? MP: I don't remember. SC: Do you have any other business questions? We could talk about the community then. GE: Did you ever become very automated? MP: No. GE: So yours always stayed pretty basic. MP: Right. Tama did and that's why they lasted longer than everyone else. They just closed two or three years ago. Now I understand all the off-shore plants are automated. [unintelligible] with computers. GE: Right - I guess that's really primarily in terms of the business. You said that your product changed - let's say you did shirts and blouses, is that what you did the whole time? MP: Yes. SC: Is there a reason why you stopped doing shirts? MP: Well, because it became too competitive. Shirts were the first ones to go down south. Blouses, it was more specialty, dresses also the same thing. GE: So you stayed in blouses and dresses. MP: There were smaller, smaller lots -- a group was called a "lot". The shirts could be under the dozens -- all the same - but blouses - a lesser amount. GE: In a sense, the business - niche that you built for yourself was doing specialty -- like smaller lots? MP: More or less, and that's why we existed as long as we did. GE: And it was primarily dresses and blouses? MP: Yes. SC: As far as the 1960's and '70's -- did the business change at all because people became more casual? Did that have an effect on you? MP: No, because we still made classic garments. We made blouses that my wife still has today. They look as good as they did then. There are always certain classics. GE: The dresses you were making, were they typically for young girls, for older women? MP: Older Women. GE: Because dresses -- young women stopped wearing dresses. MP: These were classic types of things. SC: Does your wife still have any blouses that you manufactured? MP: Tons of them. SC: It would be nice to see some of them so we could photograph them. GE: We'll get them later. SC: That's pretty good with the business. GE: You said with the women, it was very boring work. MP: Honey [talking to his wife], these girls would like to see one of your blouses. DOTTIE PLATT: Okay. MP: When's your appointment? Soon? DP: Yes, and I wanted to eat something. You girls, living in this area, what's your second name? GE: Eisenberg. DP: I've heard of that. GE: You've seen me over the years at the Synagogue and things. And she is Susan Clemens. DP: And you grew up in this area? SC: Susan Clement-Bruder. I grew up in Ewing Township, outside of Trenton, New Jersey. GE: And I grew up in Philadelphia - in a very modest home. DP: But it must be very nice. When you are an immigrant, you come here with empty pockets and your children -- they don't have anything. You have to realize this, now come in, and I'll show you my blouses. Then I married Murray because he graduated college at 19, and I thought he was older than that, and he thought I was younger than I am because my mother was looking for the fountain of youth. She lost her hair at as a young girl. There's a name for this illness. MP: Alopecia. GE: Oh. DP: Some people in our area, now, the doctor's wife, I want to say, don't have hair. Do you know Dr. Silverman? MP: Diane. GE: Oh yes. DP: So, my mother had that illness. MP: To make a long story short, my wife worked in the factory -- in the office for several years. As a lot came along, she took a blouse from each one. The one blouse each added up to many blouses over the years. DP: The girl there smoked. Smokers are so addicted that even though they know it hurts them, they sometimes continue. MP: I hope you girls don't smoke. GE: No. DP: There was an article written about a smoker in the Reader's Digest who was a doctor, and he thought it would never happen to him, and he died. I have the article. MP: We had two office girls and one of them developed emphysema. DP: So I came in -- I didn't take anyone's job. I came in to help and I just stayed there. I took one from every lot! It's there for the taking, girls, and I grew up with one blouse. GE: Were you born here? DP: I was born here. GE: You were born here, just your parents came over. DP: Yes. GE: Frankly, my mother was also born here. My father, he didn't come over until 1949. His family was still in Europe and everyone got killed except for him. DP: That really is pretty late to come over. GE: When your family went through the war, that's when you came over. DP: When did Sarah and Sasha come over? MP: Somewhere in the late 40's. GE: If they were after the war they came over, because afterwards, they went to DP camps. MP: Some went to Israel, some came here. DP: So come on, I'll show you my blouses. 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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Murray Platt, July 26, 2012
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Murray Platt talks about how his father’s family began in New York making women’s shirts, failed due to the unions, and then came in the late 1930s to the Lehigh Valley. Murray’s father, with two partners, established Lehigh Valley Shirt Manufacturing Company. They were contractors for manufacturers in New York and in Philadelphia. They cut, sewed and finished the products. The business continued by the sons of these three original partners.
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LVTNT-17
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2012-07-26
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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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Judy Miller
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5.4 May 31, 2016 Judy Miller, May 31, 2016 LVTNT-05 23:35 LVTNT Lehigh Valley Textile and Needlework Trades Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Judy Miller Susan Clemens-Bruder Gail Eisenberg video/mp4 MillerJudy_20160531.mp4 1.0:|25(2)|48(16)|69(13)|90(6)|111(12)|130(18)|151(11)|168(13)|187(6)|210(2)|229(11)|258(14)|299(6)|324(4)|347(16)|372(3)|397(16)|432(6)|455(14)|482(16)|513(18)|534(12)|563(9)|572(12) 0 https://youtu.be/ZsV2nCZa3Mc YouTube video 0 Introduction—Judith Miller nee Farmer SC: Okay. Yes. Would you say your full name, when you were born, and where you were born?
 ; 
 ; JM: Okay. Judith Rose Miller — at that time, I was Rose Miller. Now I'm Judith Farmer Miller. 
 ; 
 ; SC: So your maiden name was Farmer?
 ; 
 ; JM: Right, right. I was born in, coincidentally, Borough Park, Brooklyn. My mother and father lived in Brooklyn at that time, at the same hospital that Mort [Miller]’s brother and sister were born — same hospital, which is no longer there, of course. It was a maternity hospital. I was born February 19th, 1931. That’s- And shortly after I was born, my parents moved to Manhattan on West 79th Street. I think it was 181. 0 75 Family History SC: But can you talk about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents on both sides as much as you know?
 ; 
 ; JM: Well, I do not know my maternal great-grandparents- well. I don't really know them. No, my grandmother came to the United States from probably Russia or Poland, wherever the borders were at the time, to Newark, New Jersey, at 15 and worked in the cigar factory. I don't really know anything about my paternal grandfather. I don't know where he came from, but he was also an immigrant. They- when they married — which I don't know when that was either — they were in the shoe business. My grandfather had a shoe store. That's- and that's probably goes back to the ‘30s because then I was born and I was more aware of what was going on there. He had a- just a general shoe store and they owned the building that had, I think- was a three storey building, and I think they had apartments there. And- and my grandfather had this shoe store and they were very active in the Workmen's Circle at the time. We won’t say what that was, right? And they lived in- and that was in Newark, New Jersey. That's my- my maternal side. 0 417 Judith Miller's Childhood and Early Education in New Jersey JM: My mother- in the 40s, we then moved from Manhattan. I do not remember where I went to school, to kindergarten. I don't know why I have no memory of this. I was not happy to move to New Jersey. We had to move to my grandparents’ house and I went to an elementary school, probably I think- I know it was third grade, maybe second half of second grade. At that time, we had half, half years. Then we moved to Hillside, New Jersey, from Newark, because my mother went into business. She had a children's shoe store, and that's why we moved. 0 482 Mother's Children's Shoe Store in Newark, NJ JM: My mother was working. It was pre-and post-war, post-war, World War II, and she worked every night. I think the store was open until seven o'clock at night. And I had a very happy, successful time in Hillside. I never really knew that things were not too good when the big bands failed. I never felt deprived. And because of my mother, we both were sent to college and my brother is a physician.
 ; 
 ; SC: So did you live near the store or above the store? 
 ; 
 ; JM: We lived- we lived in Hillside and she worked- The store was in Newark. It was- we lived very close. I guess it was maybe four or five, maybe six blocks away. 0 563 Attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA JM: I graduated from Hillside High School and I am go- I was one of four of us. We were all Home EC majors because we had a wonderful teacher. One of us became a designer, she was an artist. Two of us- three of us were education majors. Anyhow, I applied to the University of Maryland. It was post-war, I was there twice. They did not give me housing because women had to live in approved housing. The veterans were all coming back. It is June. I have nowhere to go to college because I really wanted to go to the University of Maryland. And my mother said, oh one of her friends had a daughter who went to the school in Allentown. And I said, “Where's Allentown?” She said, “That's where the Meislins come from, who you may have- Yeah, that’s Ruth!” Well, it was Ira, her husband. His mother spent summer at camp where my brother and I went, and my mother met her. So I came to Allentown for an interview and I was accepted and I never left Allentown. 0 684 Meeting Mort Miller JM: At the time, the Lehigh Valley Railroad went from Allentown to Newark. And I, of course, was at- where? Well, it went to New York, but I got off at Newark. And I was on a return trip to Allentown and I sat with this lady, was a very nice lady, and we started to talk. And when we got off the train in Allentown, her son was picking her up and she said, “You told me there are no nice Jewish girls in Allentown, at Cedar Crest. Here is one.” So the next Sunday-
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 ; MM: I tell you that the- this woman was the mother of my very, very-
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 ; JM: Oh, that’s right. He- Mort’s best friend. 
 ; 
 ; MM: We were almost like brothers. 0 842 Identity as a Homemaker and Volunteer for the Jewish Community Center SC: So how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as the homework maker, do you see yourself as-
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes. I was a homemaker. We have two children. Do we do that, do you want that? 
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes.
 ; 
 ; JM: Andrew, who was born in 1953, and Nancy, who was born three years later, 1956, both of them in October, one in the beginning and one at the end. I was home with the children. I did a lot of volunteer work. I started the blood bank here, which is no longer- not the blood bank, the Jewish Community Center had a drive. I visited my grandmother at the Princeton Hospital and did a double take because on the wall it said something about blood — “It is never necessary to replace blood here.” And I went back in and then I said, why? And they said, because we have enough donors from the college. And I came back and I went to the Center and they- we started it. As a matter of fact, the woman who started it with me was Miller, Lois Miller, Stanley's wife. She was very organized. And then after the first year, she left for her career. In any case, I did that, I guess, for twenty-four or five years. And now you don't have to do that because they replaced blood or your insurance pays for it. So that was what I did. 0 935 The Hole in the Wall Outlet Store JM: And then I guess Nancy was in high school, maybe before- yeah, maybe high school, I'm not sure. And I had an outlet store at the factory. I sold overruns and peace goods and lace and elastic, in a little shop that was called the Hole in the Wall. 
 ; 
 ; MM: [inaudible]
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes, yes it was. And my showcases were tables that my father-In-law made out of doors. He was a collector of wooden doors, do you remember that? Yes. So that's about it, I guess. I don't think, you know, I was never a president, but I was always involved in the organization.
 ; 
 ; SC: That’s important.
 ; 
 ; JM: I read to two blind children, that's right. 
 ; 
 ; SC: So you do see your role as wife and mother as being the primary, and this was after the fact-
 ; 
 ; JM: Yeah, when they were grown up. Probably made a mistake, I should probably have done something more of a- But that was the ‘50s! The ‘50s. I might not have gotten married so young either.
 ; 
 ; GE: Was that the ‘70s and ‘80s when you were running that store? 
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes, I think so. 0 1054 Father's Career as a Musician GE: When your family moved from Manhattan to New Jersey, can you just tell us what was the impetus, why did they have to move? 
 ; 
 ; JM: I think there was no more business for my father. And also, I think he was involved in some- trying to sell- I don't know, he always had a get rich scheme, like he was doing importing pasta machines. It didn't work. And something happened with a recording company, I don't- it was, what was it? RCA Victor, it was a big one and the guy was crooked. My father was the sweetest, nicest man, but people-
 ; 
 ; MM: He was not a businessman.
 ; 
 ; JM: He was not a businessman, although he was very, very active in the Musician's Union. 0 1210 Home Addresses SC: Do you know where you lived, what street you were on in Manhattan? 
 ; 
 ; JM: Yes, West 79th Street, 181. And in New York? forget what street I lived on, but I know where I lived in Hillside. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Good.
 ; 
 ; JM: You want to know that?
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes.
 ; 
 ; JM: I lived on Williamson Avenue in Hillside, New Jersey. 
 ; 
 ; SC: Okay. And where did you live in Allentown?
 ; 
 ; JM: We lived- oh! We lived at the Highland Apartments when we were first married on the third floor. 0 1310 Elizabethtown Gas Company JM: You want to know what I did as a home service representative? They don't do that anymore. When you bought a stove, a hot water heater, a dryer because they had gas dryers, they would send me out with a car and I would come to your house and show you how to use it. And I would adjust thermostats, which I can't do anymore. But now it's too digital, and that's about it. And that's why I knew what was being built in the neighborhood. And it was Elizabeth, New Jersey, which was the next town from Hillside. 0 MovingImage Judy Miller talks about growing up in New York and New Jersey then later attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown. While there, she met Mort. Many years later, when their children were older, Judy opened a small outlet store at the family factory. Interview with Judy Miller, May 31, 2016 GAIL EISENBERG: Ready? SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Okay. Yes. Would you say your full name, when you were born, and where you were born? JUDITH MILLER: Okay. Judith Rose Miller -- at that time, I was Rose Miller. Now I'm Judith Farmer Miller. SC: So your maiden name was Farmer? JM: Right, right. I was born in, coincidentally, Borough Park, Brooklyn. My mother and father lived in Brooklyn at that time, at the same hospital that Mort [Miller]'s brother and sister were born -- same hospital, which is no longer there, of course. It was a maternity hospital. I was born February 19th, 1931. That's- And shortly after I was born, my parents moved to Manhattan on West 79th Street. I think it was 181. I'm not sure. What else do we want here? SC: Okay, and- JM: I'm sorry. SC: No, that's fine. And so, when you were small, we'll come back to that. But can you talk about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents on both sides as much as you know? JM: Well, I do not know my maternal great-grandparents- well. I don't really know them. No, my grandmother came to the United States from probably Russia or Poland, wherever the borders were at the time, to Newark, New Jersey, at 15 and worked in the cigar factory. I don't really know anything about my paternal grandfather. I don't know where he came from, but he was also an immigrant. They- when they married -- which I don't know when that was either -- they were in the shoe business. My grandfather had a shoe store. That's- and that's probably goes back to the '30s because then I was born and I was more aware of what was going on there. He had a- just a general shoe store and they owned the building that had, I think- was a three storey building, and I think they had apartments there. And- and my grandfather had this shoe store and they were very active in the Workmen's Circle at the time. We won't say what that was, right? And they lived in- and that was in Newark, New Jersey. That's my- my maternal side. You want my grandparents now? GE: Yes. JM: On the other side? My grandfather, whom I never knew, died at forty-five of cancer. But he was from this long line of barber men, musicians. There all the men are musicians, the women, no talent. I being one of no talent. And my father had a sister also who was not a musician. There were three- yes, three boys and the grandfather and they lived- also lived in Borough Park, Brooklyn. They did not know each other, our families -- although I think so? Somebody knew your uncle, but that's okay. SC: So the types of musicians that they were? JM: Yes, okay. I think the great-grandfather was a violinist and he- I think played in Warsaw somewhere. The whole family came to the States. I think one of my father's oldest brothers was born in Europe. One, the oldest- the second oldest one was a very, very successful musician, played with- want to know that? The A& ; P Gypsies, which was the first radio program on early radio. And he was responsible for getting my father into the music business. My father was thirteen years old and my uncle was asked to go on tour, on the road with- I don't know which band of all these bands. And they said, well, what instrument does he play? Well, what instrument do you need? And at that point, my father, who I think was playing the violin, became a drummer because they needed a drum. That's- what'd I forget here? Nothing, huh? SC: So- JM: But everybody else- ah, the other uncle, what it is, what did he do? He was a musician, and then there's a cousin from that side of the family, are all musicians as well, but one of them is a Juilliard graduate and a composer and a timpanist player. He was the youngest- one of the youngest members with the Boston Symphony until he retired. But my brother, on the other hand, he plays instruments, his children play instruments, and his grandchildren. So it only goes down on the men's side, although one is a little girl, one of the grandchildren, who is very, very talented. That's about it. I mean, they lived in Brooklyn all that time until my father married my mother. I don't know where they met. Huh? Oh and my father had a big band! I forgot that. In the 30s. SC: In New York? JM: In New York City, and as I have written in that book, that he- the only time I saw him [perform], I was five years old. He was on the radio also. I was taken to Rockefeller Center and- for lunch, and his band was playing, I guess, a tea dance or something. So that was the first time, and then I never heard his band again until we went to a wedding, after our wedding, of a friend. And I think I've said that to you before, that he was- he looks so happy. And I said, you're having a good time. You always said you hated the music business. He said, that's right. I hated the business. But look, everybody is having a good time and I'm the reason. So that was my father. My mother- in the 40s, we then moved from Manhattan. I do not remember where I went to school, to kindergarten. I don't know why I have no memory of this. I was not happy to move to New Jersey. We had to move to my grandparents' house and I went to an elementary school, probably I think- I know it was third grade, maybe second half of second grade. At that time, we had half, half years. Then we moved to Hillside, New Jersey, from Newark, because my mother went into business. She had a children's shoe store, and that's why we moved. And oh! I have a brother, forgot my brother. He's four years younger, and I was ten, and he was six. No! Yeah, right, that's right.. And I pretty much took care of him. My mother was working. It was pre-and post-war, post-war, World War II, and she worked every night. I think the store was open until seven o'clock at night. And I had a very happy, successful time in Hillside. I never really knew that things were not too good when the big bands failed. I never felt deprived. And because of my mother, we both were sent to college and my brother is a physician. SC: So did you live near the store or above the store? JM: We lived- we lived in Hillside and she worked- The store was in Newark. It was- we lived very close. I guess it was maybe four or five, maybe six blocks away. And coincidentally, Philip Roth was a customer of my mother's. And when she read that book, Portnoy's Complaint, "I never knew Philip was- knew those things!" That's just an aside. I guess that- did I miss anything? I don't know when she went out of business. Okay, then it's time for me to go to college. We want that? I graduated from Hillside High School and I am go- I was one of four of us. We were all Home EC majors because we had a wonderful teacher. One of us became a designer, she was an artist. Two of us- three of us were education majors. Anyhow, I applied to the University of Maryland. It was post-war, I was there twice. They did not give me housing because women had to live in approved housing. The veterans were all coming back. It is June. I have nowhere to go to college because I really wanted to go to the University of Maryland. And my mother said, oh one of her friends had a daughter who went to the school in Allentown. And I said, "Where's Allentown?" She said, "That's where the Meislins come from, who you may have- Yeah, that's Ruth!" Well, it was Ira, her husband. His mother spent summer at camp where my brother and I went, and my mother met her. So I came to Allentown for an interview and I was accepted and I never left Allentown. I met Mort in the second half of my senior year, probably just around the time of our birthdays, and that was it. We were married in December, Christmas Eve. My father played the wedding, his band in New York City at the Ambassador Hotel, which is probably no longer there. It isn't. And that's our story. Did I miss anything? SC: And what college did you go to in Allentown? JM: Oh I forgot! Cedar Crest College. MORT MILLER: It was my luck that she couldn't get into, to Maryland. JM: Yeah well, you know how we met. Isn't that on the second half of that--? GE: I think so, but why don't you just tell us. JM: You want that again? SC: I think so. I'm not sure if it was. I didn't see it. JM: At the time- right. At the time, the Lehigh Valley Railroad went from Allentown to Newark. And I, of course, was at- where? Well, it went to New York, but I got off at Newark. And I was on a return trip to Allentown and I sat with this lady, was a very nice lady, and we started to talk. And when we got off the train in Allentown, her son was picking her up and she said, "You told me there are no nice Jewish girls in Allentown, at Cedar Crest. Here is one." So the next Sunday- MM: I tell you that the- this woman was the mother of my very, very- JM: Oh, that's right. He- Mort's best friend. MM: We were almost like brothers. JM: No no! She never traveled alone, my mother-in-law. GE: Lanethea's father-in-law, I assume. Is that who it was? MM: What's that? GE: Lanethea's. Was it her father-in-law -- Schultz? MM: Yes. JM: Yes! Who are you saying? GE: Lanethea JM: Oh of course, yes! John. SC: John's father. JM: John's Pappa, John 's father. Right. Mort and Murray were like this, from day one. And then they ended up at college together after the war. Everything together. We- in fact, we introduced them. MM: What's that? JM: We introduced them. SC: Lanethea and Jonathan? JM: No, Murray and Elaine, Jonathan's mother. I mean, that's a small world. Anyhow, so the next weekend, Murray called me for a date. Mort called my roommate for a date. She couldn't go, she had a French exam. And by the end of the evening. Mort and I were- MM: Well Murray said come along. JM: Come along anyhow. So he joined us. MM: And by the end of the evening, Murray was out of the picture. JM: And had gone back to his house, his mother gave us dessert. I still remember what she did it -- in little compote dishes, she gave us ice cream with creme de mints on them, and that was pretty something. So that's the story of Allentown, and then by Christmas Eve, we were married. After graduation, we were engaged. We weren't engaged until the end of October because his mother and father were just coming back from El Paso. And then they- they stayed. They stayed, at that point. We waited for them to come home. SC: So how do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as the homework maker, do you see yourself as- JM: Yes. I was a homemaker. We have two children. Do we do that, do you want that? SC: Yes. JM: Andrew, who was born in 1953, and Nancy, who was born three years later, 1956, both of them in October, one in the beginning and one at the end. I was home with the children. I did a lot of volunteer work. I started the blood bank here, which is no longer- not the blood bank, the Jewish Community Center had a drive. I visited my grandmother at the Princeton Hospital and did a double take because on the wall it said something about blood -- "It is never necessary to replace blood here." And I went back in and then I said, why? And they said, because we have enough donors from the college. And I came back and I went to the Center and they- we started it. As a matter of fact, the woman who started it with me was Miller, Lois Miller, Stanley's wife. She was very organized. And then after the first year, she left for her career. In any case, I did that, I guess, for twenty-four or five years. And now you don't have to do that because they replaced blood or your insurance pays for it. So that was what I did. And then I guess Nancy was in high school, maybe before- yeah, maybe high school, I'm not sure. And I had an outlet store at the factory. I sold overruns and peace goods and lace and elastic, in a little shop that was called the Hole in the Wall. MM: [inaudible] JM: Yes, yes it was. And my showcases were tables that my father-In-law made out of doors. He was a collector of wooden doors, do you remember that? Yes. So that's about it, I guess. I don't think, you know, I was never a president, but I was always involved in the organization. SC: That's important. JM: I read to two blind children, that's right. SC: So you do see your role as wife and mother as being the primary, and this was after the fact- JM: Yeah, when they were grown up. Probably made a mistake, I should probably have done something more of a- But that was the '50s! The '50s. I might not have gotten married so young either. GE: Was that the '70s and '80s when you were running that store? JM: Yes, I think so. When was Nancy-- Yeah. No, wait. She was born in '53. GE: So she was in high school in the later '60s. JM: Well yeah, '60s and '70s, I guess. MM: Well she graduated from high school- I mean from college in 1979, I know that. JM: Right. GE: So therefore '75. JM: Or maybe even before that. Yeah, you're right, the '70s -- until Mort retired. GE: And then may I ask you a quick question? JM: Go ahead. SC: Sure. Yes. GE: So when your family moved from Manhattan to New Jersey- JM: No. I'm sorry, yes, yes. GE: When your family moved from Manhattan to New Jersey, can you just tell us what was the impetus, why did they have to move? JM: I think there was no more business for my father. And also, I think he was involved in some- trying to sell- I don't know, he always had a get rich scheme, like he was doing importing pasta machines. It didn't work. And something happened with a recording company, I don't- it was, what was it? RCA Victor, it was a big one and the guy was crooked. My father was the sweetest, nicest man, but people- MM: He was not a businessman. JM: He was not a businessman, although he was very, very active in the Musician's Union. And that was part of the business, I think, where he didn't like, I mean, because things were tough then. And that was about the time -- no, it was later. When you had to have live musicians on the stage in spite of the fact there was recording music, recorded music. So they used to have to have- depending on the size of the house, he did play some shows. He did do something with Mike Todd. With that, I have pictures of that. But it's- that's- that was it. And I was miserable, I have to tell you, in New Jersey. But I think my mother was miserable. I think everything was not good then, but I don't know. And I never felt deprived. So, isn't that interesting? [cross chatter] GE: So when you went to New Jersey, your father continued to work in the music industry. JM: Oh yeah, he went to New York. GE: It was just there, it was much cheaper the living. JM: I think my grandparents weren't charging them rent. GE: Oh they were living with- you were living with your grandparents? JM: No, not with them. This was a multi- I think there were maybe five or six apartments. It was a three-story walk up and the store was below. I used to play dominoes with my grandfather in the back. And it was also- well no, during the Depression, my father made a very big living because like the movie business, people who had any money wanted to be entertained. It was so terrible. And they were, and he was really making a lot of money, which is, I guess, why they moved to Manhattan. GE: Right. JM: So that's it. SC: Do you know where you lived, what street you were on in Manhattan? JM: Yes, West 79th Street, 181. And in New York? forget what street I lived on, but I know where I lived in Hillside. SC: Good. JM: You want to know that? SC: Yes. JM: I lived on Williamson Avenue in Hillside, New Jersey. SC: Okay. And where did you live in Allentown? JM: We lived- oh! We lived at the Highland Apartments when we were first married on the third floor. And then we had Andy, and we bought a lot. And we didn't think we were going to build right away, but we built a house right away. We built a split level- Oh I forgot! I did have a career. I forgot. I was a home service representative for the Elizabethtown Gas Company after graduation. Not very long because we got engaged and after I graduate- before I graduated, I got the job. And that was 1952, and everybody was building split levels. Well, when it came time for us to build a house, Mort wanted a two story. No, you wanted a ranch, and I always lived in apartments, I wanted steps. So we built this split level which is why we moved out of our house and we are now at an apartment. Okay, so that was pretty much- we built our house and I thought I knew everything. Okay. You want to know what I did as a home service representative? They don't do that anymore. When you bought a stove, a hot water heater, a dryer because they had gas dryers, they would send me out with a car and I would come to your house and show you how to use it. And I would adjust thermostats, which I can't do anymore. But now it's too digital, and that's about it. And that's why I knew what was being built in the neighborhood. And it was Elizabeth, New Jersey, which was the next town from Hillside. That's- I forgot about that, it was so short. Okay? We're done. SC: Yes. Okay, thank you. JM: You're getting out in time? GE: Yeah, yeah, no it's perfect. It's going to be fine anyway. Honestly, I remember, it's just- JM: You've got so many people. GE: We've had a lot of people. At this point, we've interviewed- JM: Are you almost done? GE: Yeah, we're going to continue to do this this year, this summer. We've been doing every summer for a while. This summer and next summer, and then at the end, is the collection. [cross chatter] JM: You've brought a lot of stuff back! Just not that. Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:23:34
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Title
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Judy Miller, May 31, 2016
Description
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Judy Miller talks about growing up in New York and New Jersey then later attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown. While there, she met Mort. Many years later, when their children were older, Judy opened a small outlet store at the family factory.
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LVTNT-05
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2016-05-31
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://textile.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/6aef6c88fa56eedaaef4fc8e4bdaa89e.png
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Title
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Lehigh Valley Textile and Needle Trades Oral History Project
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Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
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Mort Miller
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LVTNT-25.xml
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5.4 May 31, 2016 Mort Miller, May 31, 2016 LVTNT-25 19:42 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_20160531 1.0:|21(2)|40(3)|55(12)|80(7)|101(7)|124(9)|149(14)|166(16)|187(2)|210(4)|233(8)|260(8)|285(10)|304(9)|327(12)|348(15)|365(8)|378(10)|399(10)|412(7) 0 https://youtu.be/rLHvGqO_Ork YouTube video 0 Introduction—Mort Miller GE: So right now, it's recording.
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes, it's going on, yes. OK. OK. Today is May 31, 2016, and we'd like to start with and continue with what your full name is, where you were born and where you lived in your life.
 ; 
 ; MM: My name is Morton Jay Miller. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 12th, 1924. 0 38 Family History SC: And we'll go back now into your family history. As much as you know about your family history. Where did they come from? Where did they work, et cetera? 
 ; 
 ; MM: My father was an immigrant from Poland. He lived in a town called Kolno, which is 50 miles northwest of Warsaw. He arrived in this country in 1910. My mother was born in this country, in Brooklyn, and her father came to this country in eighteen eighty-five, I think. And her mother came about when my mother's mother, my grandmother came about the same time. I never saw my Polish grandmother. She died in Europe. My father, my grandfather — my maternal grandfather — did come to this country, and I did know him.
 ; 
 ; SC: Do you know where they specifically lived or and also what they did as far as work is concerned here? From the time they left Poland or what they were doing in Europe and then came to this country?
 ; 
 ; MM: My father, he came here in 1910, for a while lived with relatives in Mount Vernon, New York. And then he started a business shortly after he came here, manufacturing raincoats. And he did that until 1917 when he was drafted into the army for World War One. My mother was born in Brooklyn. She lived in Brooklyn until she, until she, moved actually to Allentown, which was in 1938. That's when our family moved from New York, from Brooklyn, to Allentown in 1938. 0 448 Education MM: I said I was born in Brooklyn in community of Boro Park, which was almost 100 percent Jewish community. Interesting community in the sense that it was. . . and to this day, it's the only community in the United States that was started by Jews, in the late eighteen 1800s, and to this day has never been anything but Jewish. Today it is ultra-orthodox, as a matter of fact. Anyway, I went to a Hebrew school, a yeshiva, started in kindergarten, went through ninth grade. When I was at that point, I was 14 years old. At that point, my parents moved to Allentown. My father had a business in Brooklyn, but in 1934 he moved it to Allentown, and he commuted for four years. His sister moved here with him, so he had a place to live. And in 1938, our family moved to Allentown. And I've been here ever since. I attended Allen high school. And I then went on to the University of Pennsylvania. And in my beginning of my sophomore year . . . the war had started my freshman year. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I was drafted. I was in the Army for almost three years, came back and then finished school. And I graduated from Penn — University of Pennsylvania — in nineteen forty-seven. The Wharton School. 0 546 Success of Miller Underwear (Father's Business) SC: Yes. And so what- do you have any memories of your father's business when you were young?
 ; 
 ; MM: Not really, we were very little involved with his business. It was a very successful business. Even during the Depression, my family was financially, reasonably well off. We never suffered from the Depression at all. And I think it was a good-sized business that employed about two hundred and fifty people. This was in Brooklyn and then employed almost the same number when they moved here to Allentown. At that time, he was no longer manufacturing raincoats, he was manufacturing ladies sleepwear, and eventually when I graduated from college, I went into my father's business for two years. 0 661 Serving in the U.S. Air Force JM: I think you didn't tell them what you did in the Army.
 ; 
 ; MM: Would you want to know that? 
 ; 
 ; SC: Yes, that would be wonderful.
 ; 
 ; MM: Right. In the Army, I was in the Air Force. I was not a flier because I had gone to the Wharton School. I got into finance, and I spent two years overseas in England, which is the best possible thing. I was stationed, again, 50 miles from London. And there was a train that ran directly from the town that I was stationed in into London. And every month I got a four-day pass to London. I spent four days in London every month for two years. 0 752 Miller Underwear (cont'd) GE: You want to tell us a little bit about your father's business once in Allentown.
 ; 
 ; JM: Why did he come to Allentown, tell them that? 
 ; 
 ; GE: And also, once in Allentown, you and your brother-in-law went into your own business. Was that where he stayed with his son, with another son in business, or what was what? And what was the sequence of your father's business?
 ; 
 ; MM: OK, my father moved as best as I say here in nineteen thirty-four. There was a depression and things were difficult. And to be very honest, he moved here . . . he was unionized in New York, in Brooklyn, and he moved here to escape the union, which he did. A union did try to unionize them here in Allentown. They were never able to. He remained in business until nineteen forty-five, at which time he sold the business and retired. He then bought a building, good-sized building, in Bethlehem on Seneca Street. And after two years, in nineteen forty-seven, he decided that he was too young to be retired. And he went back into business and he then merged his business with a cousin who was- had a business in New York. And they manufactured not sleepwear like where they manufactured children's pajamas. And that's all right. And he remained in that business until nineteen forty-nine, I think, at which point he became ill, and he can no longer work. And he then sold his interest in the business. 0 964 Origins of the ARDRU Label MM: The name on the label, on the garments that we sold was ARDRU Undergarment – A-R-D-R-U. We got the name . . my nephew was Shepherd, we took the last three letters of his name, and our son was Andrew, we took the last two letters of his name and it became ARDRU undergarment and that was the label that was on our . . . 0 1061 Millcrest Manufacturing Company—Benefits of Nonunion Work MM: As I say, we started our business in 1949, and we were nonunion, and the union did try to unionize us, the ILG, and they tried for 40 years, and were not able to. And one of the interesting things was one of the women who worked for me, she and two of her sisters and a niece, all worked for me, and her husband, this woman's husband was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Union. And I said to her, I said, Margaret, your husband is the head of the Bethlehem Steel Union. How does he feel about all of you working in a non-union shop? And she said, Mort, we've talked about this. And my husband says to me, they're good people, you like them, they treat you well, they pay you the same wages and give you the same benefits as a union. You don't have to work in a union shop, stay where you are.
 ; 
 ; JM: Tell them why a union, I mean nonunion shop was good for the women?
 ; 
 ; MM: One of the advantages of working in our shop as opposed to . . . women had particular jobs in a union shop. If you were a collar setter, you set collars. If you were a cuff setter, you set cuffs, but you did nothing else except that. And if there wasn’t any work for collar setters, you were sent home. 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 Miller, May 31, 2016 GAIL EISENBERG: So right now, it's recording. SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Yes, it's going on, yes. OK. OK. Today is May 31, 2016, and we'd like to start with and continue with what your full name is, where you were born and where you lived in your life. MORT MILLER: My name is Morton Jay Miller. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 12th, 1924. SC: And we'll go back now into your family history. As much as you know about your family history. Where did they come from? Where did they work, et cetera? MM: My father was an immigrant from Poland. He lived in a town called Kolno, which is 50 miles northwest of Warsaw. He arrived in this country in 1910. My mother was born in this country, in Brooklyn, and her father came to this country in eighteen eighty-five, I think. And her mother came about when my mother's mother, my grandmother came about the same time. I never saw my Polish grandmother. She died in Europe. My father, my grandfather -- my maternal grandfather -- did come to this country, and I did know him. SC: Do you know where they specifically lived or and also what they did as far as work is concerned here? From the time they left Poland or what they were doing in Europe and then came to this country? MM: My father, he came here in 1910, for a while lived with relatives in Mount Vernon, New York. And then he started a business shortly after he came here, manufacturing raincoats. And he did that until 1917 when he was drafted into the army for World War One. My mother was born in Brooklyn. She lived in Brooklyn until she, until she, moved actually to Allentown, which was in 1938. That's when our family moved from New York, from Brooklyn, to Allentown in 1938. SC: So and the other side of your family, do you know what the grandfathers did working? MM: Yeah, I'm not sure, my grandfather came from Odessa. And he came to this country when he was only 16 years old, I think, or 18 years old, and he found some sort of work selling plumbing materials. And he eventually went into business for himself, did rather well, and he acquired some real estate in New York, in the Lower East Side of New York. And that's basically how they supported themselves. I don't know anything about really about my maternal grandmother. I don't know exactly where she came from, in Europe, it was Russia, and I'm not really sure where. JUDY MILLER: Your mother's family was from Odessa? MM: Well, I don't know about that. MM: Well, maybe. SC: Thank you. MM: My father's family came from Kolno. JM: And what did they do there? MM: My father's family in Europe had a flour mill in the little town of Kolno. I would say the town was about 50 miles from Warsaw and it was two thirds of the town was Jewish. And unfortunately, it was only six miles from the German border, and when World War II started, within a few days, all the Jews in the city would be killed. None survived. I think my father did have family in this little town. They were all killed during the German occupation. SC: But he had already left. MM: He left in 1910. JM: His sister . . . [unintelligible] MM: He left after the war, that was World War I, but here they were killed in World War Two. SC: Yes. So so the family- the sister and brother were both okay. MM: Yes. But they had other family. He had a father, had three sisters, all who came to this country and one brother who came to this country and his father. JM: Tell the story that they went to Germany. The story that the grandmother was a smuggler. SC: Was a smuggler . . . oh MM: So they lived only six miles from the German border and they had this flour mill, and they used to send wagon loads of flour into Germany. And the wagon would go with flour and my grandmother, apparently would hide a few things in the wagon, which were then sold in Poland. And they would come back with things in Germany, and they would come back with things from Germany. SC: They could smuggle some people away from Germany. They didn't wouldn't have thought of that. MM: No, no, no, no, no. No need to smuggle. SC: Not then. JM: There's no need to . . . [unintelligible by Judy Miller] . . . She brought pearls and fabric . . . because fabric was really essential because no one was manufacturing them. MM: My father had a cousin in this little town who went to Germany and went to medical school in Germany. And my father used to often go to Germany and visit with him. And as a result, my father was reasonably fluent in German. SC: It's coming. I'm watching the red button. So let's go to your youth. Can you talk about what you did as a young boy, where you worked, if you worked anywhere through your entire life? But stop at when you got, you know, when you started working as an adult. MM: I said I was born in Brooklyn in community of Boro Park, which was almost 100 percent Jewish community. Interesting community in the sense that it was. . . and to this day, it's the only community in the United States that was started by Jews, in the late eighteen 1800s, and to this day has never been anything but Jewish. Today it is ultra-orthodox, as a matter of fact. Anyway, I went to a Hebrew school, a yeshiva, started in kindergarten, went through ninth grade. When I was at that point, I was 14 years old. At that point, my parents moved to Allentown. My father had a business in Brooklyn, but in 1934 he moved it to Allentown, and he commuted for four years. His sister moved here with him, so he had a place to live. And in 1938, our family moved to Allentown. And I've been here ever since. I attended Allen high school. And I then went on to the University of Pennsylvania. And in my beginning of my sophomore year . . . the war had started my freshman year. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I was drafted. I was in the Army for almost three years, came back and then finished school. And I graduated from Penn -- University of Pennsylvania -- in nineteen forty-seven. The Wharton School. SC: Yes. And so what- do you have any memories of your father's business when you were young? MM: Not really, we were very little involved with his business. It was a very successful business. Even during the Depression, my family was financially, reasonably well off. We never suffered from the Depression at all. And I think it was a good-sized business that employed about two hundred and fifty people. This was in Brooklyn and then employed almost the same number when they moved here to Allentown. At that time, he was no longer manufacturing raincoats, he was manufacturing ladies sleepwear, and eventually when I graduated from college, I went into my father's business for two years. And then my brother-in-law and my sister had just gotten married. This was in nineteen forty-seven. In nineteen forty-nine, my brother-in-law and I started our own business. I remained in business until I was sixty-six years old. I retired in nineteen ninety. What's that? JM: What's the name of the name of the business? MM: It was Millcrest Manufacturing Company. SC: Would you spell that? MM: We also manufacture primarily sleepwear, and we sold to department stores and chain stores all over the country. It is Millcrest. All one word, M-I-L-L-C-R-E-S-T Manufacturing. SC: And that's where we have, we- Is there anything that you can think of? JM: We had a story. Yes, yes. Yes. I think you didn't tell them what you did in the Army. MM: Would you want to know that? SC: Yes, that would be wonderful. MM: Right. In the Army, I was in the Air Force. I was not a flier because I had gone to the Wharton School. I got into finance, and I spent two years overseas in England, which is the best possible thing. I was stationed, again, 50 miles from London. And there was a train that ran directly from the town that I was stationed in into London. And every month I got a four-day pass to London. I spent four days in London every month for two years. SC: Do you know the name of the town that you were in south of London? MM: Yes. It was not south of London. It was north of London, Sudbury, Sudbury and East Anglia. Another story, I was just talking with a friend a few days ago, we were only about 20 miles from Cambridge, and a friend and I, on a number of occasions, would go into Cambridge and spend time there and go through the various buildings at the university. We met a few people. We never really got friendly with anybody there. SC: That's a pretty area, East Anglia Base. MM: Yeah, I've been back to my air base three times. Security back there and my children have actually been back with us. GE: You want to tell us a little bit about your father's business once in Allentown. JM: Why did he come to Allentown, tell them that? GE: And also, once in Allentown, you and your brother-in-law went into your own business. Was that where he stayed with his son, with another son in business, or what was what? And what was the sequence of your father's business? MM: OK, my father moved as best as I say here in nineteen thirty-four. There was a depression and things were difficult. And to be very honest, he moved here . . . he was unionized in New York, in Brooklyn, and he moved here to escape the union, which he did. A union did try to unionize them here in Allentown. They were never able to. He remained in business until nineteen forty-five, at which time he sold the business and retired. He then bought a building, good-sized building, in Bethlehem on Seneca Street. And after two years, in nineteen forty-seven, he decided that he was too young to be retired. And he went back into business and he then merged his business with a cousin who was- had a business in New York. And they manufactured not sleepwear like where they manufactured children's pajamas. And that's all right. And he remained in that business until nineteen forty-nine, I think, at which point he became ill, and he can no longer work. And he then sold his interest in the business. And move to El Paso, Texas, as a matter of fact. The reason for that being that he had developed a terrible skin condition -- terrible, he had broken out all over his entire body. They could not do anything to cure Father. He went to a doctor in New York and the doctor said, Mr. Miller, there's only one thing that's going to cure you. You have to move to El Paso, Texas. My father said, are you crazy? And he said, that's the only thing that's going to cure you. In fact, he was so desperate, he moved to El Paso, stayed there for two or three years, and it did cure him. And he came back and it never came back after that. SC: Is there a reason why El Paso. . . MM: Yes, it has a very dry because it's a very dry state. Yeah. Yeah. It's warm most of the time and very, very dry and sunny. [some conversation about Phoenix--hard to hear and not relevant] GE: What was the name of your father's. . . MM: Actually, it was Miller Underwear, and he also had the trade name of Millcrest, which at that point he had stopped using, and my brother-in-law then took that as the name for our business. SC: Do you have any other questions about the business? JM: [hard to understand . . . talk about the name of the label] MM: The name on the label, on the garments that we sold was ARDRU Undergarment -- A-R-D-R-U. We got the name . . my nephew was Shepherd, we took the last three letters of his name, and our son was Andrew, we took the last two letters of his name and it became ARDRU undergarment and that was the label that was on our . . . [chatter by everyone . . . hard to understand] MM: It was Stanley's father, who combined his business with my father's business. They had a factory in New York that they wanted to get out of that also. And they moved here. A distant cousin. [chatter by everyone, unimportant, and hard to understand] SC: OK, so you were talking about that Harry gave them donuts. Could you talk about the union and say, you know. MM: As I say, we started our business in 1949, and we were nonunion, and the union did try to unionize us, the ILG, and they tried for 40 years, and were not able to. And one of the interesting things was one of the women who worked for me, she and two of her sisters and a niece, all worked for me, and her husband, this woman's husband was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Union. And I said to her, I said, Margaret, your husband is the head of the Bethlehem Steel Union. How does he feel about all of you working in a non-union shop? And she said, Mort, we've talked about this. And my husband says to me, they're good people, you like them, they treat you well, they pay you the same wages and give you the same benefits as a union. You don't have to work in a union shop, stay where you are. JM: Tell them why a union, I mean nonunion shop was good for the women? MM: One of the advantages of working in our shop as opposed to . . . women had particular jobs in a union shop. If you were a collar setter, you set collars. If you were a cuff setter, you set cuffs, but you did nothing else except that. And if there wasn't any work for collar setters, you were sent home. We didn't do that. If you, if you were a collar setter, and we had no collars, you could do something else. So our people were never sent home. They were never unemployed. And that was really an advantage. And also, they didn't have to pay dues to the, to the union, which was. . . JM: You want to hear that? Copyright for this interview is held by Muhlenberg College. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
Duration
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00:19:42
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mort Miller, May 31, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LVTNT-25
Date
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2016-05-31
Format
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video
Creator
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Publisher
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Rights
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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.