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Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Vivian Morris
ADDRESS 225 West 130th Street, N.Y.C.
DATE February 15, 1939
SUBJECT Negro Laundry Workers
1. Date and time c" interview February 10, 1939
2. Place of interview 254 West 120th Street, N.Y.C.
Evelyn Macon
3. Name and address of informant
Same
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant. United Laundry Workers Union C.I.O.
Harlem Labor Center
312 West 125th Street
New York City
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Vivian Morris
ADDRESS 225 West 130th Street, N.Y.C.
DATE February 15, 1939
SUBJECT Negro Laundry Workers
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
I rapped on the door at 254 West 129th Street, and a head
poked through the door and suspicious eyes greeted MB "Well?"
The greeting was rather abrupt but I was not to be daunted
by any such trivial, "I would like to speak to Miss Evelyn Macon
please."
"Frient uh huhs?"
"loll -yes"
"Don't swan' like it. I'll see if she's in to you."
she flounced heavily down the hall.
A tired -eyed, slight girl came to the door and smiled "Do
came in. My landlady is suspicious of people who came looking
for me at night especially after the little trouble of a few
weeks ago."
She led me to a tidy little roam, after learning my mission.
It opened into a closed court which did not a/law for much fresh
ventilation but she did keep it as neat as could be.
I sat in the one chair; she sat on the bed. Evelyn produced
cigarettes. "Smoke?" We both lit up and she deliberately blew
smoke through her nose and calmly began, "So you want to know about
conditions in the laundry where I work? Well they're about one
-2
hundred times better than they were two years ago, and they're still
far from ideal.
First, let no tell you how conditions were two years ago before
our shop became almost one hundred percent Union,ULWIT C.I.O.We
only have one girl who is non-union in our shop now.
Before we unionized, I worked as a press operator. Slavery is the
only work that could describe the condition wader which we worked.
was, at least fifty-four hours a week, speed up speed up eating
lunch on the fly, perspiration dropping from every pore, for almost
ten hours per day. When you reached home sometimes I was too tired
to prepare supper. I would flop across the bed and sleep two or three
hours, then get up and cook and then fall back into bed immediately
after eating you know how unhealthy that was.
The toilet at our place wasn't fit for animals, much less people,
and there was but the one for men and women. When I complained the
boss said "there ain't many places paying ten dollars a week now, Evie."
That ended my protests, because I didn't want to get fired.
The girls who worked in the starching department used to sing spir-
ituals to enable them to breathe standing ten hours and sticking their
hands into almost boiling starch."
*Boiling?" I interrupted.
"Almost. It's so hot that they have to put camphor ice on their
hands before they can put them into the starch. Cold starch is better
but hot starch is cheapter and you know the bosses, she winked. *As
I said before the starchers used to sing, "Go Dawn Moses," "Dawn By
The Riverside," and God the feeling they put in their singing. As
tired as we were those spirituals lifted up our spirits and we joined
in sometimes. That was too much pleasure to have while working for
his money said the boss, and the singing was cut out.
But, that was where the boss made his mistake. While singing
we would forget our miserable lot, but after the singing was out out,
it gave us more time for thinking thinking about our problems.
One day a fellow applied for a job at our place as a sorter
and got it. We didn't think he would be there long because he
certainly did no speed up like the rest of us. The boss saw him
and asked him if he was sick. He said no. The boss told him he
would have to work faster. He laughed at the boss and told him
that a man was a damn fool to rush during the first hour when he
had seventeen more staring him in the face. I guess the boss felt
like firing him but he was a giant of a man and as strong as an ox.
The boss let him slide. But he caused the boss to hit the coiling
when the lunch hour came. The boss came out and yelled "on the
fly," which meant for us not to stop for lunch, but to eat while
we worked, as there was a rush.
"Bruiser," the new fellow, picked up his lunch and went out.
The boss raved and cussed almost tearing his hair out because
"Bruiser" had caused the work to slowdown. In exactly one hour
Bruiser was back.
The boss charged up to him bristling with rage demanding
*What the hell do you moan by going out to lunch during a rush?"
Bruiser laughed at him and said he always ate nis meals on
time, we were sorry to se him go but the boss paid him and fired
him.
That night when I got off and reached the outside a big man
came up to me smiling. The face seemed familiar but I walked fast-
er thinking he was trying to flirt with me. Then I recognized
Bruiser. He said his main objective in getting a job in our shop
was to see the lousy conditions in our place. Be said he was a
-4-
C.I.O. organizer and he gave me a leaflet stating that he was trying
to unionize our shop and that there was to be a meeting the following
night.
As disgusted as I was with my lot, I don't have to tell you that
I was the first one to reach the meeting, Almost everybody was there
for the meeting within six months everybody had joined with the ex-
ception of one girl. She wouldn't join and when we persistently
tried to recruit her she told the boss.
The boss was frantic. First he tried to intimidate, then he
offered to start his awn union *with the same stipulations in our
C.I.O. contract, but we were not to be tricked by promises. We
held our ground. He fired some of us the rest walked out and we
threw a picket line round the place. We had the one "scab" and the
boss imported others, protecting them by sending them to and from
work in cabs.
They messed up so that the boss called us beak to work at
union hours, union wages, and better conditions. "That's my story,"
she concluded.
*Why did your landlady lookeupon me with suspicion?" I asked.
"Oh, she smiled. "You know the bosses are die-hards even though
the union is in our shop they still try to intimidate me into getting
the girls to join the shop union. I told him to jump in a lake. He
attempted to get loud and my landlady had her hubby put him out, since
then she has been leery of anyone asking for me unannounced. I tell
her when I'm expecting company."
"So, it's like that, is it?" I asked.
"Yes, It's like that," she smiled.