BACKGROUND OF INTERVIEW

Marianna Costa grew up in a Paterson, New Jersey, neighborhood close to several weaving plants. She began working in the Arrow Peace Dye Works in 1932. In this 1994 interview she recalls her involvement in a 1933 textile workers strike. Marianna realized the power of organized workers and became involved in union matters. Soon after the strike, she was elected to an office in her union local.
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Date of Interview: August 10, 1994

Interviewer: David Alan Taylor for the Paterson Folklife Project

...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...

Learn more about Marianna Costa and listen to the rest of the interview.