Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
Ntin OF WORKER Clarence Weinstock
ADDRESS 4$ Yorton Street
DATE July 13, 1939
SUBJECT Nurse's Story
1. Date and time of interview
2. Place of interview New York Hospital
3. Name and address of informant
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description 3f rpom, house, surroundins, etc.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(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.)
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
TEXT OF INTERVIEW (UNEDITED)
New York
Clarence Weinstock
43 Morton Street
July 13, 1939
Nurse's Story
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"TBE SCRUBWOMAN"
When we were still trying to organize on an
industrial basis I went to make a speech in one of the
smaller hospitals. About twenty people were at the meeting,
the highest in rank was a male nurse. I had to think of how
I could make them realize how important and necessary they
were to the hospital. So I said, "Who is the most important
person here? Is it the doctor who performs the operation?
Well, the operating room is on the tenth floor and the patient
is on the second. How does he get upstairs? By the elevator
which you operate." And I pointed to the elevator man. "Well,
perhaps the nurses can operate an elevator sometimes, but not
all the time, so you see how necessary John is. And then
supposing there were no laundry workers, think of how many
patients muld die because of the dirty linen. And if the
steam workers were not on the job, how could the instruments
be clean enough to do their work? So I really can't tell you
who is most important in a hospital. I really don't know, but
I think that everyone is."
Then a little scrubwoman got up, a little woman so
plain end homely she could just never help to organize anything.
She said, "Brothers and sisters, many times the nurses say hard
things to me and it hurts, but do you think I get angry?
Nobody Who works can ever hurt me. They are mad because there
is no union here and they don't know the reason. Brothers and
sisters, a hospital without a union is like a man without a
heart, like the sky without the moon, like summer without leaves
and flowers. Brothers and sisters, you can't live properly
without we have a union." Then she stopped, but those people.
knew that there was nothing more that she had to say, what she
had said was enough. They all joined up. That was one of our
best locals.
41.*****