Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview FOLKLORE
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
YORK
NATE OF WORKER Terry Roth Sam Schwartz
ADDRESS 47 W. 69th Street, N.Y.C.
DATE March 22, 1939
SUBJECT That WS,,s A Man
1. Date and tir— of .1-iterview March 15th Noon
152 W. 13th Street, N.Y.C.
2. Place of interview Operator's Shop of
Louis Alesen Son, Dresses
463 Seventh Avenue
New York City
3. Name and address of informant
Mr. Gold
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant. Sam Schwartz
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanyinL you
Sam Schwartz
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
N -E: OF wonmn Terry Roth
ADDRESS 47 W. 69th Street, N.Y.C.
DATE March 22, 1939
SUBJECT That Was A Man
FOLKLORE
NE' Y YORK
Sam Schwartz
152 W. 13th Street, N.Y.C.
THAT WAS A MAN
"You went through life bitterly. There was plenty mean
people. After you are working thirty years you see all kinds.
I remember I as working for Max in Walker Street. In 1907
Was before the general strike. That was a verra big place.
Used to be the biggest place in New York. So he had on one
floor his father-in-law. A foreman. And that was a man
I don't know. If he used to look on an operator, the cotton
would tear off. Bad eyes, he had. And in his pocket he car-
ried a gun. I see it with my own eyes. There was many fights
in that shoo. Was a girl working. About the third machine
from me. I remember her like today. A nice looking girl, I
remember. She couldn't eat breakfast. In the morning was
by her a sick stomach always. But while she as working, she
always had a bagle. Why a bagle? Maybe because it was easy
to bite. So that foreman, he's still alive, he didn't like
the idea why she's sitting and chewing on a bagle. So one
time while she was eating, he stands in front of her and gives
a cough. This way. Cchhh. Cchhh. And she looked up. He's
standing there in front of her picking his nose and pulling,
you should excuse me, snot from his nose. She sees that and
-2
she begins to vomit. And after, that girl Iainted. You ought
to see those people. It was something terrible. Siegel got
so mad he grabbed a chair and wanted to throw it in his head.
The foreman let that fellow work about a half an hour. Then
he took away his two spools of cotton and sent him away. This
here fellow and tht girl, because it happened that way, that
it took maybe two months. They got married."