Murray Platt, July 26, 2012
Dublin Core
Title
Murray Platt, July 26, 2012
Description
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.
Creator
Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Publisher
Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Date
2012-07-26
Rights
Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.
Format
video
Identifier
LVTNT-17
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Interviewer
Susan Clemens-Bruder
Interviewee
Murray Platt
Duration
00:55:10
OHMS Object
OHMS Object Text
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?
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 ; MP: Murray Platt, born in Brooklyn, New York, 1925.
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 ; SC: What was the address in Brooklyn? Do you remember?
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Only my maternal grandfather, his name was Isadore Platt. He came here as a young man. I never knew anything about great grandparents.
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 ; GE: Wait, your maternal grandfather?
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 ; MP: My mother’s father.
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 ; GE: His name wouldn’t have been Platt.
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 ; 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.
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 ; SC: What was it?
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 ; MP: Tuller. T-u-l-l-e-r. 0 394 Lehigh Valley Shirt Manufacturing SC: [Y]our step-father, what did he do? 
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 ; MP: He was part of the business.
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 ; GE: What did he do?
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 ; MP: He was in the apparel business.
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 ; SC: So that was in Brooklyn?
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 ; MP: They started in New York. It was he and two partners.
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 ; GE: And what were they doing there? Were they tailors?
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 ; MP: They had a factory. And then the union came along and they were chased out over here. 
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 ; SC: That’s a typical story.
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 ; MP: After years here, the union came here. Local businesses went out and most went down south.
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 ; SC: What part of the garment industry did they produce for?
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 ; 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?
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 ; 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.
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 ; GE: He made you do the Haftarah.
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 ; MP: He was very religious and we followed suit.
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 ; SC: Were you as religious before that?
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: 1945.
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 ; GE: You went into the army in 1945?
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 ; SC: So you would have been 20.
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 ; MP: During the second half of the war and then afterwards, in peacetime.
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 ; SC: Where were you deployed after you went into the army? Were you in Germany?
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 ; MP: No, stateside.
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 ; 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.
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP No, I was five when he died.
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 ; GE: What did he die from?
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: If we were poor, we didn’t know it - we had nothing to compare it to.
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 ; GE: Did you rent? Did you live in an apartment?
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 ; MP: Oh yes, $45.00 a month rent and the first two months were free!
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 ; SC: Do you have any memories of what you did in New York playing games? What the children did?
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: My stepfather had a daughter, Phyllis Steinberg. Does the name ring a bell?
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 ; GE: Well, Judge Steinberg?
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 ; MP: That’s her son.
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 ; GE: So his mother was your step-sister.
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 ; MP: Well, I didn’t refer to her as a step-sister, we were very close.
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 ; GE: Isn’t that nice. When your mother married Platt, you were 11, how old was she?
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 ; MP: She was ten years older than me.
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 ; GE: Was she already married?
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 ; MP: She got married the same year. She got married in July, my mother got married to my step-father in November.
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 ; 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? 
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Yes. As a chemist, in a bank . . . a lot of places. The going salary was $35.00 per week. 
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 ; 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.
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 ; 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?
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 ; 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? 
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 ; MP: Samuel Simon. He was the one who would go to New York every week to collect money for payroll.
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 ; GE: That’s also the guy you said was the cutting.
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 ; MP: Right. 
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 ; 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?
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 ; 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.
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 ; SC: So you gave him an opportunity?
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 ; MP: He was the son of the foreman when the factory came to Allentown.
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 ; SC: What was his name – the foreman?
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 ; MP: Sam Lutz. He wasn’t Jewish.
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 ; SC: He was Pennsylvania Dutch probably.
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 ; GE: Did the business survive for a while longer?
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Towards the end we had more Latino people - as they came along - moving into town.
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 ; SC: Because this was a good entry work job.
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 ; MP: At the beginning, it was always Pennsylvania Dutch, Czechoslovokian people, Irish people, but the last few years things were changed.
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 ; SC: As far as where the factory was…did it stay on Franklin Street the whole time?
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 ; MP: Yes.
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 ; SC: Franklin is between 14th and 15th?
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 ; GE: No, 13th and 14th.
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: We went to the JCC as soon as we got here. In those days it was still at 6th Street.
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 ; GE: 6th and Chew I think it was.
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 ; MP: This building wasn’t built until 1958 or 59.
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 ; SC: How about the community in general? What did you think about the community? Was it friendly?
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 ; MP: Hess’s was great. That was a focal point. 
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 ; SC: I haven’t interviewed anyone that hasn't talked about it.
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 ; MP: You mention Allentown and Hess’s and people say, “oh yes, I know Hess’s”
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 ; GE: And the whole downtown was great.
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Our oldest daughter was born in New York and Dennis, the middle son was born here – right after we moved here.
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 ; GE: So your oldest child was born in what year?
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 ; MP: 1949.
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 ; GE: So your oldest is about 62-63 years old.
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 ; MP: Right.
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 ; GE: And then your second child?
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 ; MP: Dennis – he was born here.
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 ; GE: That was nineteen . . .?
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 ; MP: 54.
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 ; GE: 1954. The first two, those were boys?
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 ; MP: No, the first one was a girl.
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 ; GE: What was her name?
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Except that we took the various customer’s agents out to lunch.
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 ; GE: Oh, so the customer’s agents – did they often come to your . . .?
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 ; MP: Yeah, they come once or twice a week.
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 ; GE: Was that more just to pick up and drop off?
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 ; 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.
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 ; GE: The manufacturer’s agent – were they employees of the manufacturer?
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 ; MP: Yes.
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Yes.
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 ; SC: Which union?
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 ; 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.
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 ; SC: Were you a member of the manufacturer’s associations?
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 ; MP: Probably.
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 ; GE: Like Arnold Delin? Does that sound familiar?
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 ; MP: Delin was the other union.
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: No.
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 ; GE: So yours always stayed pretty basic.
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 ; 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.
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 ; 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?
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 ; MP: Yes.
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 ; SC: Is there a reason why you stopped doing shirts?
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 ; 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.
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 ; MP: Alopecia. 
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 ; GE: Oh.
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 ; DP: Some people in our area, now, the doctor’s wife, I want to say, don't have hair. Do you know Dr. Silverman?
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 ; MP: Diane.
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 ; GE: Oh yes. 
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 ; DP: So, my mother had that illness.
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 ; 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. 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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives , “Murray Platt, July 26, 2012,” Muhlenberg College Oral History Collections, accessed September 21, 2024, https://textile.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/items/show/10.