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Working in Paterson
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Item Title
"Come on out. Join us. We're going to strike."
Author/Creator
Interviewer: Taylor, David Alan, 1951-
Created/Published
August 10, 1994
Notes
Interview with retired dye-house worker and textile union official Marianna Costa at her home in Haledon, New Jersey.
Summary of audio segment: Marianna worked in shipping department at Arrow Piece Dye Works for a year; she then became involved with the union. First reactions to the strike of 1933: "I didn't understand when the girls in the department I was in said, "We're going to go out." The chanting outside of the window, that's my first recollection. There was chanting outside of our work windows, and a big group of people. I guess they initially started by the Wideman plant. . . . and in Riverside you start in one place and you go down [and] you weave in and out. It's all dye plants. So that if you made your run you would call these people out and they would join in that line. And they'd go to the next plant and there was a bigger line. And the line kept getting bigger and bigger. The crowd instead of being one hundred was two hundred. Two hundred would get three hundred. By the time they got to our plant half the street was just a crowd of people. And they'd say, "Come on out. Join us. We're going to strike. The president said we can. We're tired of this." And I said to the people, "What's going on? I don't understand." They says, "Oh, they're having a strike." And I asked them, "And then do what?" [They said] "Well, then, we'll see what the union does." I said, "And what's the union?" "Oh, that's an organization that will fight for us to get better protection." I didn't even get the full comprehension, but I went with them. I wasn't going to stay alone in the plant. I went with them and we walked from the Riverside section to the Turn Hall, which was quite a walk . . . . And, anyway, when we got there, there were organizers that were trying to establish an organization to speak to the crowd and say "You got to stay out. You have a right to organize. You can do better than what you're getting. And the idea is to be firm, stay together and we'll see what we can do for you."
Subjects
Interviews
Italian Americans
Oral history
Retirees
Sound recordings
Strikes
Textile industry unions
Ethnography
Interviews
United States--New Jersey--Haledon
Object Type
Related Names
Narrator: Costa, Marianna
Medium
Analog Audio Cassette
Language
English
Call Number
AFC 1995/028: WIP-DT-A011; A: 00:05:44
Reproduction Number
AFC 1995/028: WIP-DT-A011
Part of
Working in Paterson Folklife Project
Repository
Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Digital ID
afcwip dta01102
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afcwip.dta01102