Document text
PetitynAl.110 trY,V.Infwmnt
STATE
NAJGCOFWORIMR Irving Nicholson
ADDRESS 4507 -15th AV., Bfklyn
DATE November 28, 1938
SWECT Tales of the Shoe Industry
1. Ancestry
Morris Dash
Anna Dash
2. Flees and date of birth
Chernikov, Russia 1886
3. Family
FOLKLORE
NNW YORK
Has wife, 4 children living. 2 girls and 2 boys. One
girl married.
4. Places lived i, with dates
Boro Park Brooklyn up to 1926
Present Address from 1926
5. Education, with dates
Night High School from 1902 to 1903
6. Occupagons and accomplinhmenti, with dates
Shoe worker -skilled 1899
1 16 tp 1928
R Worker- to present
7. Special skills and interests
Knows anything connected with the making of a shoy,
including the minutest operations.
8. ColemlOtY and reltgloua a:ctivitetes
Is merely ramily man, active in the union. Goes to
synagogue on Jewish holidays.
9. Description of informaot
Is about filre nine. Has crop of JApn grey MIR hair
over reddish, healthy face. Eyes grey and sparkiling. Looks healthy
and full of liie
ND. Other Potato gain4d'in interview
_
STATE
umit or WORKER
WARS'S
DATE
ODBaCCT
t.
FORM A
0AAN4APftqs_grAiOtrytot
e -et
Irving Nicholson
4507 15th Av., Btklyn, NY
November 28, 1938
Tales of the Shoe Industrytt2iLEtti
1, ate and time'Ot interview
November 22, 1938
0141#4 'of interview
Shop of Palter' DeLiso, 740 Broadway, New York City
1
FOLKIJO.
NEW YORK
S. Name and address of infofnent
Philip Dash, 1653 East Fourth St., Bfklyn
4. Nene and address' of petson) if any, wno.put yo, in
touch with infornhat.
Mr. Benjamin Nicholson 1649 E. 4th St., Bfklyn
originally.....
5. Name and address of person, If any, nonowP4147i,8 you
None
6. DmscriPtioi Of roqi,"Monan,!Intrfoundinsw, qtc.
30
The factory: In the fitting room' there are lights over
sewing machines wh4ch extend,in a long row. They sit on benches. There
is also a cutting and lasting rbom. The cutting room extends around the
windows. There is a narrow table arouhd which 21 cutters work. That is,
21 trimming cutters. The lasting roOom is by benches. Ten sit
on one bench, ten others on another bench, ,.The intery e took place
iv
in the fitting —room.
mumitary, tor 4,07 of
**4100,t, ,1404 Owp
torn*, *ash
Peferm.)
_
FORM C
Text of Piterview (Unedited)
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
MUT
NAME OF MINER Irving Nicholson
ADDRESS 4507 -15th Av., Brooklyn, NY
DATE November 28, 1938
SUBJECT
Tales the Shoe Industry
In 1902, before the Japanese har, you know, started in 1903.
I work6d in a shop oi• abut 20 people in Kharkov, Russia, a' big
city. worked in a shop, so it was a lot of Nfil olderary neopJe
but they were considered the best mechanics in the shoe trade. For
the old shoe makers we tippe'l the hat. The young were gOod too. So
when it comes, for instance, to politics, the old ones say to the
young ones.
"Em, you don't pray in tne morning, you don't pray in the
evening. You are without God;,,,,
6o the young generation used to have deoetes with the olderary
people and when it used to happen you would spoil a shoe, they used
to come over to we young ones and say:
'You see, God punished you, because you don't believe. That's
why he punished you.
ask.
neat shoe we made good and we used to laugh at them and
"So why didn't he makr us WI spoil this one
They answered, ha, Gbd got a good heart, he's got pity on
2. (Continued)
Once the boss comes in and he listened to all the discussions
what's going on. So he used to say like thatogThis here fellow"( a
certain fellow named Semari% Sam in this country )used to read a
lot. He should be either a lawyer or a doctor. He's too clever to
work by shoes.
Nu, well, this was when I was nineteen years old. This fellow
Seman, had a long beard with a mustache and he was a short fellow and
looked like a wise ones
show what a wise one he
up and down. He used to
He combed his hair like the Czar XIXXXX to
was. When he talked his hair used to jump
say like that. At this point Mr. Dash
stroked his chin leaned over as if telling a secret)
P(PI made shoes to the Russian Czar! So the workers Ased to tip
their hats to him. Yeh, I mean it, he made shoes for the Russian Czar,
iquimmuumpdtammin
lAxpaxaxxxxxxx
One day we decide that we should demand better meals because,
you know, we used to board by the boss in the old country. ue decide
we should pick this here wise one, Seman, that he should go and talk
to the boss, like a committee. He went and told him.
"The wages are O.K. The only thing is the dinners are no goodf
4 This here Seman was a very jolly fellow,you know. So as soon as
he tolg the bossf tile boss was a liberal fellow, not like some over in
this country, the toss called the lagx wife and gi,e her a laying out.
She cried and said she'll make the dinners better a little, When Seman
returned back, when he told about the better meals, he was like a great
hero, bigger than the Czar. He said like a big general.
"From now on we'll have good dinners. No more junk. Borscht with
plenty of meat and that was the victory. We won good dinners. Without
Seman we were all like sheeps,
1,41(0111011041004)
„ion ,,,,te:il V004 tomoo pi, 600,14 NattV;.14 iP OA
4 Then I worked for, another,boss, a Crirratian 'Ycl
01010C OOP 4tit# 40 if '..ttlia tii 144 7, 6 iikt 0 0-, i i tall t s ed.liberal mati„ he d'i cirri t be 1 le ve in 'nothing., So 0
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'fi", ''s2i0,1''''. t 44
to talk to Us. At e time began meetings, rev6Iti E t ons,„„ o s
e.S;e1rt),11i1474c tndripitlfe'vi el 'vcriftli"i'il. ftut '.lie-,!diaet;Q"vtAith4h*
tosralt t.4::: ;12.,;v1r_.
didn't- like the idea. That's all they know is, sh-arch, air. church.
7,1'-'•.,..pr.f., Al..;:a1,1111Ai r; tlt #4 1114,4 iii:i
Now that's all right but why not etsmeypolitns also. vvi, eitt :1:1 I. 0 g
1
'010Tralit,,, t.4f,t7, r i'.',,e tt i :•;',i, t t: -;-tr, '4t4 ii4 tt, IP:$' t
they were slaves in their hearts., Then the war c.rne. rtasi &Ida edit*
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Everdey In the shop was.,41.sOlter ips,o' 0eow,,,,:etti,-o.iwile
#6te
diffcrort time /the res' 7#,:tlic,, w.Laiy.1514-41114..1(' is',,' it tril
Vkio t'f/C,. Attivr5,-. VO 12-iketit f$4,C-Itt-,14 111.7:ti 4vi-e 'I, :41.%-lti-1-40* tt;?tAttit:Vii
ust33atetic n (me9nc etrategIO ./e4411,) He tItikes-, our .,,generalt (san'IriliKNIX
ititilli041 ATT:a 0 AV, ..4;:--; eni- 14: -i: .,:rit
turns. them around and ,gets the Japanesse,, Japin mtane tio get 'to Port
4 A`i?,:t l'ir, r -A -:'•;'-i14/-
Arthur and ti-dis s i a surrounds 'them. He always wee% .0 we*" w< t L.Pchalk,.
i...Ci iiiittk A
When we heard that Japan ;took Port Arthur, he clamed ID
4re ilk i
He couldn't "'believe lt.-evenlvith papers showing all the time lilaek
,,gdolit-f.
,_ _
and.: wiiites Until the Jap killed three !of his LOW," sons in Poirt- Arthttroo
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ef ,Theit he believed it,,
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When' c ditiner _Luie hit
Met Nett14, ITO CIMINO "c ;4114,0
wall was a ricture,.or-:esus, an
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didn' t. wa 8 a ys til_r11410
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4ir #1- 14, 44-1
The bees decided eieryaine, euld-
there was ho'- iticire fighting- we eaWob. kiteeas
4%-;:i *ilk tf&-'.
atop* w -e. -had. e'sme.de it -1 Ire °Vex', ere* Very,'
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4.
Then I came to America. Such a wonderful land I heard. It was, too,
but there was always so much trouble and fighting.
In 1907 we had a strike from the I.Y.W. That was the union then,
that's right, and they called out a general strike in Brooklyn, and the
boss, he was the President of the Board of Trade. Only his shop was in
New York, Sen it That place, you hear, was the most
important one to get out. But it was the last. The workers was so
dumb that once I saw they picked up the boss. Naturally I was a green-
horn and I thought they were going to throw him into the river. The
shop was on Eleventh Avenue. But they acted like the boss was a king.
I never saw anything like it. They begged him to settle the strike.
But he wouldn't listen. So we decided we should send one fellow. Such
a crazy. idea. The boss liked this i.fellow so much and we thought it
would be easier that way. We give this fellow the honor, and he says to
"us.
"Oh, If I go into the boss, he'll do somethinlu
But when he comes back, he asks for thirteen men, me and twelve
others, he ,says, and he promised to take in the rest of the fellers very
soon. But that didn't happen. It was freezint those days. We shivered.
It was near the water. One advised that Ad -Put paper in the back of
the coat. "That will keep you warmr You take lyour overcoat and you
turn it on the left side. That also keeps you warm. This 13 right,
When you do these things, it keeps you warm.
Once we picked a fellow to go into a shop like a scab Co find the
situation. So he remained there. He didn't want to go down, That's the
show industry for you. Then they pieked me. I should go after a scab.
That scab was from St. Louis, a Greek. So I went after him in the same
trolley and I start to ask him w#y he goes to work. Its a strike. So he
answered me.
"In St. Louis they prOmiged me that he's gonna have here a steady
(MORE)
5.
job. That's why I came here'
You hear that. Such agencies there are Di by shoes.
I and Barney, we went to a house on a _Friday to ask, because
he was an important worker, a sample maker, not to work. It was on
a Friday night. The candles was lighting. He was sitting and sating IX
supper. So calm. So nice. So we start to ask him he shouldn't came to
work. Then he says.
"This is the first good supper in six weeks. If I wouldn't have
this job I wouldn't eat':
Then Barney and 1 almost fell down. He promised us he wouldn't
eat no more. He'd go down with us. I could see on -him that he couldn't
finish his supper. such ah Industry.
One day, around Thanksgiving it was very cold and we huddled
in a tiny store, when we look out we see one of us running like a
crazy throughtthe snow. We run out after him. What's the matter.
He tells us his wife just give birth to a little boy and he's so
happy he wants to take us to celebrate, But he's broke, and he's
looking for something to treat us All we could collect we give to him
which isn't much. So we go to his house. Then he gives us five biscuits,
all there is in the house. Then we send out for bread, herring and beer.
Then he goes to the cellar and burns the herring on the hot coals.
The next morning he tells us that the baby is dead.
"Thank God?' he says,. "we couldn't afford it:
Then the strike is over. 2There is a feller, Abele, working
near me. He had seven children and each year, he used to bring the
oldest children in the shop, like the 14 year one or the 15 one.
UN He, himself, was a little one, a little funny guy, a little one.
(MORE)
-6-y continued)
He used to come in late, about 10 o'clock in the shop. We used
ask him.
"Abele, what's the matter? Why so late?"
I'm running a big tikisiness. I got to see the children should
work,7
"But they only make five dollars a week:
"Oh, in another five years they will make 10 dollars a week.
Don't worry!! Then he would strut around like a big one (Here Mr. Dash
strutted around the table of the kitchen)
But once he said.
"f walked from uptown to Brooklyn to the shop:
And we'd ask him how come with three children working and then
he said that an accident happened, that one boy spoiled a pair of
shoes. So he got to work three weeks for that pair and the other bought
as suit. That's why he walked.
The truth is that all four of them, the father and the three sons
walked to work towards the end of the season, even though one had on
a. new suit. That's the show industry for you.
Lately, only about a month ago, we have slack for so many weeks,
a tall, tall gellow, his wife give birth to a boy, you hear. He is
a folder by hand and poor as the devil. We hang around the shop during
slack. Maybe there will be work.
This tall one, Morris, his name is, days:
"I have to go away at ten. Today is the bris of my little boyir
We know he's very broke, so we decide. Each one will give a dime.
We'll buy schnapps, and wine and go to the brie. We have no work anyway.
When we come to the house we see he'spoor as the devil. So we mak.
a party. One fellow who came was very, very nice -looking. The missus
who was in bed thought he MX was the boss. She says to him.
"Leo, what will be. Suchi.troubleS. No work:
(MORE)
rlo
4
Then we finished the strhnapps, and the pa -41e next door came
in and said.
"People still got good times. They have partieSk. IMMI Such
peopleU
All for the bpttle of MUM schnapps and the herring. Then we left
and we promised Morris that When we get busy, when, we' work, we'll make
a good big present for the baby. We left with that promise.9
I.
1)
I've been working in a shoe factory about 191$ or 1914, in
the Gold Shoe Company; It'was custom-made, very high-grade. Was
working there about 30 to 40 people. That's a true thing. So a shoe
maker brought his brother from Italy to work in the shop as a
laster. The very first day, you hear, the brother proposed to us
that the new person could sing, that he's a great singer. So the first
day the brother asked him to sing but he couldn't. He didn't feel at
hibme. On the other day he start to sing. When he sang, we all listen.
We think he's a real opera singer. And it happened, you know, just
after Caruso died, we all thought this was the next Caruso. So every
day he used to sing. We put away out XXXX tools and listened to him.
And from the shoe factory developed a regular opera. Until brie day the
boss comes around,a and yells.
"What'SXXXXXIXXXX going on here? Is th7is the Metropolitan
or a show factory?"
We thought after kll that the boss is right. lo we held a meeting
and we decide that this here shoemaker, the laster from Italy, shouldn't
work no more to annoy the boss, that he should go to a music XX school.
kiodhold a meeting and we decide, each one of us ng should give one
dollar a week to keep up the fellow. Then we took him to a tester of
music. You know, to a tester on Flatbugh Avenue, And it was a joke.
lhe music tester said
"Let him better go to shoe making, not to sine
Finally we got XXX used to him. We didn't care anymore XXX when
the tester told us he'd not so hot. We used to go on working. While
he used to holler his lungs out, we #ept on working. Still, Ice used
to call him Caruso. He always remained by us Carusopthe laster.
41:1
_
2.
•awijimmirimirloimMillMEMNIft
'Til nineteen eighteen they made shoes entirely different than
they make them now. It happened that in Kurtz and Lapidus in Brooklyn,
a shoe worker came from Germany, and he start to show the boss that
he could make a shoe pasted, without nailing, without sewing, without
anything. And he start to work on a A pair of shoes and we all, about
two hundred people were looking on that shoe and that worker and we tell Ni
him its a laugh. They're never be able to make that pasted shoe in their
life. He made one pair NA and he didn't succeed because he didn't have
the right paste. And we all call him crazy.
Than it passed away a year or two and rumors was going around in
the shoe trade that in St: Louis and in Brockton and Lynn they making
already pasted shoes. The one that start the pair of shoes by Kurtz
and Lapidus where I was contractor,NNI he went to St. Louis on his
own responsibility and he came back with big hopes that now he got
everything what's net.pessary to make pasted shoes. But New York manu-
facturers speaded ahead and they succeed to make pasted shoes without
him. Lots of them lost their shirt on the beginning but now 95% shoes
are pasted, ladies and mens. And hundreds and hundreds are out frau'
the trade. Most were good mechanics, and they got to learn not tO
sew by hand and only on the machine, So now a good mechanic, and a
boy could ddo the same thing.
I worked for a follow, Goldstein. That was 1908. He used to
make ballet shoes, the high high grade shoes for the millionaiies.
Each worker has to -be dressed in white like a doctor because the
shoes wee satin, all white satin.
Before gNristmas he was very busy aria he advertised for help.
So a fellow come along, an Italian feller, and he mentioned the nails
for wham he was working, The boss took hid up to work and he give him
a unifor* i* white and fo no 'money does he want to wear that unigarm,
a d. 0
Hs excuse was this. For the last thirty years he's working
on shoes, and he never work in white. He's no doctor and he won't
wear white. But he needed that job and the boss insist that he wear
the white uniform. So he trained his wife that she IMMIX should bring
him lunch everydayInd then it came out why he really didn't-want,to
wear the uniform. He XXXX said:
"My wife will bring me dinner everyday and then she will get scared
when she sees me in whitej
A younger man then played a trick on him. He knew that his
wife was coming so he called the worker who kicked out t6 meet his
wife with the lunch before he could change out of the uniform. When
she saw him, she said:
"What's the matter, Jimmy? You sick l They gonna take you to the
hospital?"
The man got bashful and in the hall where you go into work,
he took off his white tniform and he finished his dinner and he wants to
leave the job. So the boss liked his work very much. And he begged him
he should come to work and sit without a uniform XXI as long as he -should
sit and work. When he finally sit down he siike a hero because he
sit like a real shoe maker and they sit like dopes in whitp.
4
I was working for Cossack and McLaghlin, of Long Island City. That
was in 1910. So the people had there two brothers Laval. They are now
big manufacturers. They was very smart boys, very clever fellers, and
they start, you know, to organize the people in the shop. They were
so clever that every one had confidence in them like for th3 Czar.
And he succeed in organizing the whole factory. That was the -NW first
factory in New York that was organized.
We had a nice union shop and the rest of the factoria was really
jealous of our factory. All of a sudden one morning the boss tells us
that t4ese two brothers, one was going to be for a foreman and one
for a superintendent, that he thinks so much of them. But the workers,
right away they didn't like the idea that a wonde rful union man should
become a boss over fir -ale. workers. How could he do a thing lIke that?
The workers was against the two brothers. The factory started to go the
opposite way because they weren't experienced foremen. They resigned
1(8
from the union and they declared themselves bi hoti4 that they have
nothing to do no more with the union. So it went through a month and
the boss fired them. He did ityllifillatist purposely he made them. fir0
great Opts only to get rid of them.
014
Then the trouble begin in the factory. They got good guys for
the boss from Boston and they tried to fire ana Mak= break the
union. By ,the end was this way the two brothers were sore on the
workers because they didn't help them. There was a strike. The brothers
got scabs a lot and they went to work again. Even though the boss' fired
them from the big jobs. Then the 1111111111111.11 brothers' children (one had
three and the other three) got sick. And ozw_ of the kids died from
scarlet fever. They thought that God punished them because they done a
lot of harm to the workers so one morning they came in the union and
they pledged_hat I they gonna itake revenge from the bosses and make thee
again a
hop. But they didn't succeed because the -workers didn't NI
'-'--e
I was workinl in Griffin' and White on Pearl Street, Brooklyn
about 1904. So, being not too long in this here country, it just hap-
pergild that this boss who was a contractor fooled me in this way. He
used to give me work so the prices were supposed to be by the dozen, six
cents by the dozen. He used to tell me. "Here is ten dozen for you!!
The first couple of weeks I believed him. At the end of each day he
would say I did twenty dozen which amount to $1.20 I was a very fast
worker. But I trusted him. I xa didn't count it. What is it? I'm getting
faster and faster everyday but the money remains, the same. I can't make
anymore" than twenty dozen.
So I say to myself. I'm gonna count the work. So I count it over
and that was one and one-half times more than he say I make. So the
XX first day after that I IR= didn't want to say —anything to'him.
But on the third day I began to give X it to him.'
"What the heck is it? You fooled me already two weeks and I proveR
It"
And so I had with him an argument that he XXX skins me. Then I
0
start to tell the workers to take my part, to tell him I'm right. liaey
say to me that's impossible, that he's a fine fellow, that he's good-
hearted and gives plenty to charity. He wouldn't do +hing like that.
When I count the work in front of the people they beliege me. We decide
that, before he gives the work out, he should hay. on every lot a coupon,
or ticket, one dozen with a ticket. He had to do it. He wants to fire me,
but the rest of the workers were with:me. He had to do it. And that
was something new in the industry. He kept me. That else could he do?
Could you tell me?
RE)