Larry Hirsch, June 23, 2015

An interview with Larry Hirsch, June 23, 2015

SUSAN CLEMENS-BRUDER: Today is June 23, 2015. So would you just talk about yourself, when you were born, where you were born, etc. And then go back in your family history as far back as you know because it's really helpful for us to see the patterns of how people came to be in the textile industry.

LARRY HIRSCH: Well, I was born August 3, 1945. I won't go into my whole long history, but I was adopted. I was born in Canada ok so I pretty much starting with the beginning. My grandfather came to this country from Hungary in the early 1900s. He was I believe either 15 or 16 years old; came here by himself. 00:01:00Couldn't speak English. He was trained as a tailor. So for a number of years, he traveled around the country working in different cities as a tailor. It's funny how, he didn't talk about it very much and unfortunately if I had been smarter than I over the years I would asked him a lot more questions than I ever did, you know, but somehow and I don't know exactly how he ended up in Bethlehem and that's where he met my grandmother, who had also come from Hungary. And then in 00:02:0019 . . . oh my father was born in 1918 in Philadelphia. And then at one point they moved to Allentown. They apparently lived in many different locations in the Lehigh Valley. So my father pretty much went through the Allentown school district, and I believe he graduated like in 1936. My grandfather at around that time was making uniforms. Now when I say uniforms, they were uniforms that primarily gas station attendants wore that had their insignias on them and his 00:03:00factory if you want to call it that was in his house. So one-bedroom I remember my parents telling the story when they first got married they had to be out of their bedroom by like 7 o'clock in the morning because there were sewing machines in their bedroom and women then would come in and do the sewing in that room and my father then was a salesman for the selling the uniforms. And he also worked nights at Bethlehem Steel just to try to make a living. As far as I can 00:04:00remember he somehow met someone who manufactured as he called it children's sunsuits. You don't hear that word any more whatever sunsuits were and the guy said to him if you open a factory, I will supply you with work. So, of course, my father didn't have any money, and I believe he borrowed some money from someone he knew. In fact, I'll include that, I believe his name. . . They referred to him as Doc Shaffer, his real name was Ben Shaffer, Benjamin Shaffer. 00:05:00[Could not confirm correct spelling of name] He was very big in textile machinery. He bought and sold textile machinery, apparently had made a lot of money during the Second World War, and my father and his son grew up together. His son was my father's best friend, and I believe that's where he borrowed the money from, it was from Doc Shaffer. He opened the factory with my grandfather and my mother, and that's really how he got his start in the garment business.

SC: Was your mother connected to the garment business in a specific way?

LH: No, my mother grew up in Northampton, and her father owned a furniture store in Northampton, but I think after a certain period of time my father at some point met another gentleman, and they went into business together. And they started manufacturing their own line of children's what they called back then Polo shirts. They were basically T-shirts, but fancier T-shirts, pullover, and they had a sales office in New York City they had sales reps all over the 00:07:00country. At one time, they had their own knitting, they would knit their own fabric, and it was fairly large, it grew into a fairly large business. But I think what kind of doomed them was the Korean War. Where you know back then, you would take a position in . . .cotton that you used for knitting, but when the war came, you know, the price of cotton either went through the roof or whatever 00:08:00so eventually they closed up that business.

But during that time as they were growing, my father bought a very large building in Allentown, which he didn't need the whole building for himself, but he was fortunate and again you know - in business luck always plays, in some cases, a big role. And in order for him to get financing for the building he had heard of this little company that was looking for space called Western Electric. 00:09:00So we went to the bank he talked to the people at Western Electric, and they told him if you buy the building we will rent X amount of space from you in the building. So with that in hand he went to the bank, but at that point the bank said to him at first they said no they won't loan him the money. Because he didn't have really much collateral for it and they spoke for certain period of time, and eventually my father thanked him for his time, got up to leave, and the guy said to him, "Wait a minute," he said, "I'm going to give you the loan." My father said, "Well why? you just told me . . ." He said, "Based on talking to 00:10:00you," he said, "I like your attitude, and I think you're going to be a success." They gave him the loan, and he bought this very large building, and Western Electric rented two floors in the building. So when he then, it was interesting, when he was manufacturing his own line of clothing their label, the name of their company was Mylo Manufacturing. That stood for Merle and Larry. Merle is my sister, that's how he came up with Mylo.I think you know a lot of people in 00:11:00the garment industry named their companies after their children or after their mother, or . . .

So when they closed that up my father went back into contract manufacturing. And he worked primarily then for companies that made men's, and boy's knit shirts, polo shirts whatever you want to call them. Those firms were primarily, well a couple of them were from Philadelphia, and the largest part of their business was sweaters. At that time, in Philadelphia was . . . first of all, manufacturing in Philadelphia was tremendous, tremendous. Especially sweaters, 00:12:00knitting sweaters in Philadelphia. So a lot of those firms then branched out to making what we called cut and sewn knitwear. I don't know exactly how my father ever came in contact with them. But what I always thought was interesting, he worked primarily for three firms, and they, the owners of the three firms, were all related, and they were competing with each other. So when someone from one of their firms came to the factory they were forbidden to go out on the floor 00:13:00because they didn't want someone stealing the ideas from the other companies he was working for. But my father became very successful during that time. At times, they employed over 300 people with a dayshift/night shift. Again my grandfather was very active and instrumental in the business. Actually, my grandfather made all of the patterns. He did all the designing for each of these companies. They would give him ideas; drawings sketches. He would then, you know, design the garment, and he would make all the patterns for all the 00:14:00garments they produced. And I think for my father at that time it was a very exciting time for him.

SC: So may I ask a couple follow up questions: what names do you know of the family, even going back to Hungary? Do you know any of that information? Of the two families?

LH: As far as I know my grandfather had a sister. My grandfather, as far as I know, never went back to Hungary. And had little if any contact with his family after he came to this country. I don't know why. It just never happened. And I 00:15:00don't know what happened to them.

SC: Do you know their names, any of the names?

LH: Well let's see, I was named after my grandfather's father his name was Leopold Hirsch, and the name Hirsch was the name that he came to this country with it wasn't a shortened version as a lot of people who were Hirsch might have been Hirshberg or Hirschfeld. It was just Hirsch. My grandmother came to this country with her whole family: parents, sisters, brothers, what have you. It's 00:16:00interesting, this is something that I found out not too long ago is that my grandmother's father was also a tailor. So thn I start thinking, okay, well he was a tailor in Bethlehem so I think that's how my grandfather ended up meeting my grandmother. So I, you know, growing up I certainly knew a lot of my grandmother's family, but my father was an only child so. . .

SC: What were their names, your grandmother's family?

LH: Lowy.

SC: And what was your grandmother's name?

LH: Josephine.

SC: Josephine Lowy.

LH: Yes. My grandfather's name was Ernest Hirsch.

SC: And do you know his wife's maiden name?

LH: my grandmother?

SC: Yes.

LH: Lowy.

SC: Ok and then how about going down one your father and your mother. What was your mother's maiden name?

LH: Roth, yeah pretty common name. A lot of Roths. My mother was one of seven children. Yeah, it was Roth.

GAIL EISENBERG: And what was her first name, your mother?

LH: Mildred.

SC: And as far as where they lived, where everybody lived and went to school, do you know any of the other people, where they lived and went to school? That you haven't mentioned where they lived.

LH: Yeah, my sister, my mother's family, several of them, they all grew up in Northampton. Both of my mother's brothers were in the Korean War. My one uncle was a doctor, and he was the first medical person to be wounded in Korea. Not 00:19:00that that's something you really . . . ,but he was fairly, wounded fairly badly. When he was able to, he came to live with us while he was recovering from his wounds. But at different times several of my mother's sisters or brothers lived with us. So, for instance, my uncle Mel, who went to Muhlenberg, he lived with us when he went to Muhlenberg.

SC: What years did he go to Muhlenberg?

LH: What year...hmm

SC: It was before '57.

LH: Okay yeah, I might've been, I think I was less than 10 years old, I think.

GE: So, the early 50s.

LH: Then, different sisters . . . My mother's oldest sister ended up in New York City. She was very interested in acting. She was in a number of television shows, did a lot of off-Broadway stuff. In fact, my mother's cousin recently showed me a book that has a picture of a class of students at the Lee Strasberg Acting Studio in New York. So in that picture is by my aunt, Marilyn Monroe, and 00:21:00I can't remember some of the other people. But she knew many many many many people and her daughter ended up going into acting. And her daughter was on a daytime soap opera as a child for quite a while. She then made a movie. She was in a movie with Robert Duvall, James Caan, and there's a woman, and I can never remember, and my cousin as a child was in this movie. And the movie was produced 00:22:00and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Now it wasn't a big movie at the time because this was before Robert Duvall and James Caan had become big stars. So that's kind of my connection. So now I'm the oldest of 24 first cousins just on my mother's side of the family.

SC: What was her name, her cousin's name, who was in--

LH: My aunt?

SC: Your aunt.

LH: Beatrice. Beatrice Zimmet was her married name. That's a whole other story with my aunt and my adoption, what have you. There's a whole history.

SC: Would you be comfortable sharing if you know your birth parents' names?

LH: I was born in a maternity home in Canada, which became infamous. It was a baby mill. Mothers would go there to have their babies. A lot of the babies, if they were born not very healthy, they were killed. A lot of mothers were told that their babies died, and then the maternity home essentially sold them to 00:24:00someone else. So I believe it was in the late 40s a reporter kind of got wind of what was going on there and wrote a book and did a whole feature on. It was called Butterbox Babies, and they were . . . The reason that Butterbox, butter in those days was delivered in wooden box, and that's what they used to bury the babies in these little wooden boxes. So when my parents are looking to adopt, 00:25:00back then, first of all, if you were Jewish, it was very difficult to adopt a child that was not Jewish. So, of course then there were a very limited number of children available, but my Aunt Bea had seen an ad in the New York newspaper about this maternity home in Canada. She contacted the people there, had some correspondence with them then put my parents in touch with them, and that's how my parents ended up with me. But eventually the home was closed, and because of 00:26:00what went on at that home all of the adoption laws in Canada and the United States were changed because of what happened there. So there was a book written, there was a movie made about Butterbox Babies. I came to the United States, and I became a naturalized citizen, and at the time I was the youngest person in the United States to become naturalized. So yeah, it's a long; I always, it's interesting because I always knew that I was adopted. My parents told me and my 00:27:00sister was adopted also so I always knew that I was adopted. But it wasn't until a number of years after I was married that my mother presented me with all the information: who my birth mother was and what happened.

GE: Were these women, the mothers unwed? Is that how this was--

LH: I would say, probably. Probably most of them were unwed. At the time some of them actually worked at the home, you know, while they were waiting to give birth. So today, where the home was in Canada, has been torn down, but there is 00:28:00a monument there to the babies that died there.

SC: Do you know the name of the home and where it was?

GE: Yes, it was outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

LH: And I, boy, why can't I remember that.

SC: We can look that up. [NOTE: It's called the Ideal Maternity Home]

LH: Yeah, anyway interestingly enough at one point after I had all this information that my mother gave me, one day I had looked through it, and it was really weird because my original passport was in there. and I opened it up there 00:29:00is little picture of me in there. I think I was eight months old when I was adopted and underneath it said, "George Edward Little." And I remember, I turned to my mother and said, "Who's George Edward Little," and she said, "That's you. That was your birth name." So you know what, I waited until after my mother passed away. Cause I know was very hard for her to give me all of this information and eventually I did contact my birth mother, which did not go well. The last time I spoke to her was a few years ago, and she told me never to call 00:30:00her again. What's interesting too is that a lot of the babies were adopted by Jewish families in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. A lot of them came here.

GE: I guess that's because that's what they could do.

LH: Yeah, I was always grateful to my Aunt Bea because if it wasn't for her as I told her children, if it wasn't for your mother, I wouldn't be here today, you know.

SC: Could you talk a little bit about where you have lived, where you went to school, your education and then after your education any places you worked actually from the very beginning, paperboy if you did that, you know anything.

LH: I grew up in Allentown. I went through the whole Allentown school system, 00:31:00and I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City - which, back then, was a two-year school. And they had their major course was apparel design, but they had a small course in apparel management and engineering, which is what I took.

SC: So if you would talk a little bit about your work history. Anything that you 00:32:00did from before you became a business mogul as an adult. Any steps that you took that will be helpful to us.

LH: Well primarily, every summer I worked at the factory doing odd jobs, worked in the cutting room, worked in the shipping department but what's interesting my real interest growing up was art. Then in high school I took art classes, there was an art teacher then his name was Jim Musselman, I don't know if you have ever heard of him?

GE: Musselman Advertising?

LH: Yes, very well known, not only teacher, but and as an artist himself in the 00:33:00Lehigh Valley, and initially that's really what I wanted to do I wanted to go into commercial art, something like that. But I think when I explored it more I realized that it wouldn't be easy to make a living. Plus, you really had to be exceptionally talented in commercial art, so then I decided well then I'm going to go into business with my father and grandfather, who both of them that's really what they wanted me to do. And that's how I ended up going FIT.

SC: And can you talk about your family life from the time that you became an adult and your family?

LH: Well, I think certainly growing up as I said earlier I grew up right around the corner from here.

SC: What's the address?

LH: 414 North Leh St. and as I said, my parents bought the house in 1945, and I still live there. But yeah I had, I think I had a nice childhood growing up. I 00:35:00met my wife at FIT, and we got married. Not long after we got married, she became pregnant. So when I finished with a FIT that's I came back home, and I went into business with my father and grandfather who remained, essentially my grandfather remained active in the business almost up to the day he died. With the exception of because for health reasons he would go; in later years he would go to Florida during the winter, but when he was here every day he'd come into 00:36:00the factory.

SC: How old was he when he passed away?

LH: Just shy of 85 years old.

SC: Do you have children?

LH: Yes, two daughters, Lisa and Lori. I now have five granddaughters, so my whole life has involved women.

SC: And so could you talk a little bit about what your daughters do?

LH: My younger daughter, who lives in Bethlehem is a nurse at Easton Hospital and has been there for a number of years. My older daughter, who lives in the 00:37:00Plymouth Meeting is now a stay-at-home mom, but she originally worked as an accountant for different firms in Philadelphia and then ended up at Comcast. She was assistant vice president of one of the divisions of Comcast. So then I think it was around the time when they had their first child that she stopped working.

SC: Well, I will pass you along to Gail now.

GE: Ok.

LH: I'll show you this, who do you think that is?

GE: Thornburgh in the center and this is you.

LH: Yes, that's me.

GE: Is that your father?

LH: No, his name was Larry Lau.

SC: Thornburgh, I haven't thought about him in ages.

GE: So Larry, what we're going to do now is just explore a little bit more your own family's history, and maybe if you want to explain first you can say that you know a lot about just the apparel industry. Why don't we first just talk 00:39:00about what you know about local apparel industries. And so go back as far as you're comfortable. I know that you and your father, am I correct, were both presidents of the Association or helped develop the Association.

LH: Yes.

GE: In fact, why don't you start by telling us about the Association.

LH: Well you mentioned earlier the Atlantic Apparel Association, which originally was called the Slate Belt Association, okay, and that Association was a collective group of people that negotiated with the union, with the ILGWU for their contracts. Whereas the Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association was born as 00:40:00a self-help organization to help promote the apparel industry and to be able to share ideas. Because for many many years those that were in the garment business [didn't] really talk to each other about who they were working for or how they were doing things. It was this real secretive like you didn't allow anybody else to come into your factory because you didn't want them to see what you're doing. So at one point my father said well this is crazy. We're all in this together. 00:41:00We should be able to help each other and promote the industry. That it had become an industry that was really no longer a sweatshop industry. That many, many of the factories had been modernized, air-conditioned. . .

GE: Do you know about what time that was?

LH: Starting mostly in the late 50s [early] 60s. People started to really modernize and upgrade. So anyway my father and a few of his friends got 00:42:00together, and they said let's put together an association. I do have the names, I'm trying to remember, but I'll get you the names of the couple people.

GE: Like who were the other people that were involved with its start. And just so I understand, you say it was something with instead of competing against each other maybe we can all just grow the industry together with the best practices.

LH: Correct, that's correct. So one of my father's, our neighbors, was a gentleman named Jim Chambers. Jim Chambers ran an advertising agency, so my father knew him and sat down with him, and he said we're going to make you 00:43:00Executive Director of the new Lehigh Valley Needle Trades Association. . . and it was born. I think at one time we had different number of members at different times. I know, at times we had as many as 30 local apparel firms that were members.

GE: And these were the contractors as well as what other types?

LH: As well as men we had manufacturers, we had dyeing and finishing firms, knitting firms; you know anybody who felt that they really could benefit by 00:44:00belonging to an association like what we had. And it really opened doors. It got to the point where, you know what, if you needed a certain type of machinery that you didn't have and instead of going out and buying it you could call somebody up and say, "Hey do you happen to have one of these that you're not using that I could borrow for a while." It's interesting, in this picture; this is my father, this is a gentleman named Gerson Lazar, he had a factory called Cata Garment. He was one of the original founders. And this is Jim Chambers. 00:45:00This was gentleman named Jerry Katz, his father had a company was called K and M Manufacturing, and I believe this gentleman was from FIT, I think. Anyway, so Mr. Lazar was a tough cookie, but what I loved about him, he loved buying new equipment. The latest thing in the market he'd run out and buy it. And if I wanted to see it, he would welcome me into his plant, and I would see what he's doing. Many times . . . he didn't put a lot of research into buying equipment 00:46:00before he jumped in. So often the equipment he bought didn't work out. But I give him a lot of credit for doing that, and he probably had one of the most modern factories in Allentown, and in the Lehigh Valley at the time, he really did.

GE: What did his factory make?

LH: Pants, ladies' pants. It was a nice, very nice factory. You know that people don't realize at one time the apparel industry, and I'm not including knitting, dyeing, finishing, in the Lehigh Valley, we were collectively the largest 00:47:00employer in the Lehigh Valley. We were bigger than Bethlehem Steel as many as 24-25,000 people worked in the apparel industry. In the State of Pennsylvania, I believe overall we were the second largest employer next to Bethlehem Steel and US Steel. It's incredible. And a lot of people made a living. It's interesting because back then what I always hated was, we were considered a low-wage 00:48:00industry. Well the problem was they were comparing us to Bethlehem Steel and Mack Truck where people were making $15-$20 an hour, and I'm talking back in the '60s. Whereas, it's interesting, I'd say as long ago as at least 30 years ago we had what we called a shop average of eight or nine dollars an hour. Thirty years ago, that was considered low-wage. We had factories that had shop average is $10 00:49:00an hour, $14 an hour, but we were still considered low-wage industries. Through the Association we started the Allentown Sewing School because there was a time when everybody was busy. The labor market, virtually nobody existed and what everybody was doing, everybody was trying to steal help from somebody else which was really not good for any of us. So we started a sewing school.

GE: This was about what time period?

LH: I'm thinking in the late 60s early 70s, I think. I think initially we got funding from the state.

GE: And was this something that a woman did or person did after they graduated high school?

LH: Yes, yes.

GE: How long was the training?

LH: It depended-- six weeks, eight weeks maybe a little longer depending.

GE: This was obviously to increase your supply of skilled labor.

LH: And virtually anybody who graduated from that school had a job. Period. And 00:51:00then that went on for a number of years, and it was quite successful.

GE: When you say a number of years, can you give a sense of 5 years, 10 years?

LH: Twenty years, maybe. Also, through the Association, we started a class at the Vo-tech School at the Lehigh County Vo-tech School and at the Bethlehem Vo-tech School. Which, again, both very successful courses. In fact, the one in 00:52:00Bethlehem, we had a woman there who was just incredible. And a lot of her students went on to FIT and the Philadelphia Textile. And I was involved in all of that, and it was an exciting time in the '60s, '70s.

By then we started... As I said earlier, my father in the 50s was working from men's and boy's companies, and as that started to die off, we ended up getting 00:53:00into the women's. So over the years we worked for... basically you mention the name we work for them. okay Liz Claiborne back then we worked for companies like Bobbie Brooks, I don't know if you remember them. We work for companies called College Town. Who's the big one in Philly that I just heard about his closing?...Jones New York, Sidney Kimmel. Did you ever hear of Sidney Kimmel. The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia; he was the benefactor of the Kimmel Center. 00:54:00That was his company. Just recently I heard they were (makes a sound). They were one of the giants of the industry. We worked for Ship'n Shore. A lot of these companies we started with them almost in the beginning. Again, it's interesting, a lot of these women's firms were sweater manufacturers who then decided to go into what we called the cut and sewn knitwear. So a lot of them, we were there at the beginning when they first started, but again in Philadelphia you had huge companies Devon's Apparel and Clean Casuals. These were all companies we worked 00:55:00for at different times.

GE: So for Devon and Clean, were you doing the cutting and sewing?

LH: Yes.

GE: Ok, they were the brains?

LH: Yeah

SC: Was this a factor when you went from manufacturing to coming into contracting?

LH: Yeah, well I should back up and tell you one thing. At one point, I don't remember when this was, late 40s maybe in the early 50s. My father decided he wanted to get out of the business. So we sold this factory to a gentleman who 00:56:00had come here from New York, and that company became Allison Manufacturing. His name was Wharton Schneider. So my father, at that point, went to work in my grandfather's furniture store in Northampton. After maybe six months, nine months he decided that's not for him, but he had made a codicil with Mr. Schneider that he would not go back into business for certain period of time, so he went to Mr. Schneider, and he said that he'd like to go back into business. And Mr. Schneider allowed him to do that. As a result, he and Mr. Schneider - 00:57:00I'd say, Mr. Schneider became my father's best friend for the rest of his life.

GE: When you say Mr. Schneider is that related to Irwin Schneider?

LH: No, they're not related.

GE: That's a different family.

LH: Yeah, this Allison manufacturing made basically T-shirts that they screen-printed, and their licenses were with like Disney. The one that put them on the map was Daniel Boone, but big. They employ here in Allentown, they employed over 300 people, 350 people here. But there were many real icons in the 00:58:00Lehigh Valley. You had the gentleman that owned Phoenix Clothes, Berkowitz I don't remember his first name. They employed at one time, 1,500 people. I don't necessarily think they all were here because he also had another factory somewhere else in Pennsylvania but big, they made men's suits. Then you had a place like Cross Country Clothes in Northampton employed 900, a thousand people.

GE: What family was that?

LH: Billera.

GE: I think they're still around, right?

LH: They're no longer in the industry. There were originally five brothers, five Billera Brothers. They were huge. These were big companies. There was a company called Penn State Mills here in Allentown.

GE: What was the family name?

LH: Lesavoy family. Big company. They were manufacturers. I'm trying to think of sho some of the other really big, really big ones. There was one in Fountain Hill called Fountain Hill Mills. Their name was Meislin.

GE: Was that Ruth Meislin's husband?

LH: Could be, could be. There were two. There was father originally, a father and two sons. It was Nate Meislin and can't remember his brother's name.

GE: I don't know I just remember her husband died young.

LH: But these were big companies, and then you had the knitting companies: Fair Tex Mill that was Berman family.

GE: Ok, that was Shirley Berman's husband.

LH: I think so. Again, there were two brothers. Then you had the dyeing and 01:01:00finishing. There was a plant here called the Seco Mills.

GE: What family was that?

LH: Right now, I can't remember his name. There were other large ones that I can't remember. Back then there were primarily two trucking companies that served the garment industry in this area. One was Silver Line and the other one was called Interstate Dress Carriers.

GE: Do you know what families ran those?

LH: Interstate Dress Carriers was a gentleman named Lieberman, I believe. I mean 01:02:00these people were big. I mean, there was a whole interesting history.

GE: Were they from this area?

LH: No, New York. These were very different times that some of these people were connected. Do you know what I'm saying when I say connected?

GE: We do. Are you saying Mafia?

LH: [Larry shrugs]I'll tell you a quick story. When I first was working for my father. . . Back then, and I'm not going to make it a long story. Back then you 01:03:00used either Silver Line or Interstate that was it, period. So one day, I was working in the shipping room, and I had called for Silver Line to come at a certain time to pick up. They didn't show up, so I called Interstate. They came, picked up. I don't know if it was the next day or the day after, my father calls me into the office one day and there two gentlemen sitting there, and he said we heard that you use Interstate instead of Silver Line. One guy's name was Whitey 01:04:00that's all I remember. Whitey had a gun, okay, I don't remember [who] other guy was. You know, my father said to me, "We use Silver Line, we don't use Interstate." and I said, "Okay, okay." I got the message. Yeah, I remember Whitey.

GE: Thank you, that was great, it filled in a lot of chunks of the overall industry. What about, let's go back and just share with us the history of your father, your family business. I know you told us a little bit it's called A Town Manufacturing, but that looks like it ended early. And so just tell us a little bit, what factories and--

LH: Well, we had you know at one point my sister got involved with her 01:05:00boyfriend, let's say, and she wanted to marry him. My father felt, well, okay, and he thought, okay, we'll bring him into the business. But first, what he did, his name was David Lily, and he sent David to FIT for a one-year program. David then came back downtown and came into the business with us. So what happened is 01:06:00at one point we had one factory, and we now had four families we had the support. So we decide well the only way we could do that was we have to get bigger, we have to grow so what we did is first we bought another factory that was over on the east side of Allentown. We named that factory Knit Wits. We then bought two other factories, which we combined into one, and that was located more in the west end of Allentown called Hirsch Manufacturing. So collectively 01:07:00at one point we employed at least 250 people between the three factories.

GE: This is at what time?

LH: I'd say again, late 60s early 70s, and we grew to the point where we were shipping at times between 4 and five thousand dozen a week.

GE: And this is women's?

LH: Women's, well we then got into . . . . we made pants, shorts, tops. You name it, we were making.

GE: This is all cut and sew.

LH: Yes, we then, at one point, got into embroidery, doing embroidery through 01:08:00one of our manufacturers we worked for. So that something else that we could offer a customer to do you know besides cutting, sewing, and finishing.

GE: Was the embroidering, did it ever become a large part of the business, or was it very specialized.

LH: Actually, it was part of the business. Eventually it was separated from the business. It became its own entity.

GE: I assume, is that a little bit more of a higher margin. In other words, I 01:09:00assume the other had a lot of competition, had a lower margin, while something like this is more specialized, so there's a higher margin.

LH: Yes, yes, yes.

SC: Was it for women's clothing, was it embroidery font?

LH: Well, initially was started just doing little logos. I don't know if you remember a company called Hang Ten. Hang Ten had like to two feet embroidered on the shirts. That's how we started doing embroidery was for Hang Ten. [some back and forth discussion that is inaudible] At that time it was mostly logos. So as 01:10:00I said we got to the point where we were one of the largest.

GE: And that was under Hirsch.

LH: Mainly, people knew as his Allentown Manufacturing. We were one of the largest apparel producers in the Lehigh Valley for the type of stuff we produced. Ship'n Shore was one of our big customers.

GE: You want to share with us maybe the last 10 years as it started to . . . First of all, how long was your company in business?

LH: Well, my father closed up his factory, closed up Allentown Manufacturing, he had been in business for about 50 years, I think it was. So he closed up about, it's now going on 30 years ago.

GE: So about 1985.

LH: Yeah, he had to close. I mean the business . . . What had happened was that over the years, especially, we were in the women's apparel, most of those 01:12:00companies that we worked for were connected, were union. They belong to the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. So when we work for them, they would pay a lot of the benefits for us to the union. Well, what happened was that percentage that they were paying kept going up and up and up, and the only way they could escape the union . . . Now some tried to go down south, but they still had to pay the union. So that's really, in my opinion, that's really when 01:13:00stuff started going overseas. That they felt the only way they could escape the union is to go overseas. So that started taking the work away from us. So as those union manufacturers started to disappear, we then had to work for companies that were not associated with the union. Therefore, we had to pay these percentages to the union, okay, which at times got to be as much as 20% of our payroll went to the union. I mean, 20%. When you think of 20% on top of Worker's Comp., unemployment compensation, we were paying over 30%. On top of 01:14:00every dollar that somebody earned, we were paying. And then even those companies started going overseas. So eventually the handwriting was on the wall that we just couldn't do it anymore. So my brother-in-law and I at that point decided we kind of set a certain date that we were going to close up, that that was going to be it. Well at the last minute my father changed his mind and decided as he 01:15:00put it he owed it to the people to try and stay in business. And I said to him, "Dad," I said, "I've already started my own factory." I said, "I can't stay here anymore." And he said, "Okay, that's okay." But he had some issues with the union, so we went into New York one day to try and work things out, and the union said, "No. This is what we want, take it or leave it." And he said [makes a sound] that's it. He came home, and the next day he closed the factory.

GE: This was about 1985?

LH: Yeah

GE: And then you said that you were starting your own factory.

LH: Yes, I started my own factory not connected to the union. It was nice, it was a nice little factory. It was called The Garment Works. And I took over the building that we had had Knitwits in over on the East Side. I took over that building.

GE: What did you make here, and for whom did you make it?

LH: Well, again, I was, I primarily was making children's, more children's knitwear and then went along pretty nicely for maybe 10 years.

GE: Wow that was one of the last ones.

LH: Yeah, maybe a little less than 10 years. Had a nice factory. At one time, maybe I employed as many as 40 people. Then again, some of those people that I was working for started disappearing, going out of business, so then what I did . . . Before I closed the factory, I started doing what we called, we did pressing, finishing, and packaging for companies. Because around that time what 01:18:00became very big was garment-dyed garments, garments that were dyed after they were sewn. And a lot of them needed to be pressed and packaged and what have you. So I started doing that.

GE: You kind of got into this particular specialty.

LH: Yes, and I had the equipment to do it.

SC: Was this a place on the East Side that had really a lot of people who lived there that wanted to work at your factory? I mean, it would seem to me and maybe--

LH: On the East Side?

SC: Of Allentown.

LH: Yeah, I had a lot of employees that came from the east side as well as other 01:19:00places, but that's not where I did that the packaging and finishing. That I did in the building we had in the West Side, in the West End where again we had had a factory in there, and I took over part of that building, and that's where I did all my-- because to do what I was doing you needed a lot of room. And then you know that was pretty good for a few years. Then one of the big companies I worked for moved to El Salvador. Another big company I worked for they went out of business completely. And then at that point I kinda saw the handwriting on 01:20:00the wall and I said, "Well, this is it."

GE: And this was around 93, 94, that type of time period.

LH: Yeah, probably, year, maybe . . . No maybe it was later, even later than that. Because that was pretty good. I worked for a company called Wright Knitwear, big company. They were up in Schuylkill Haven, Orwigsburg, Allentown . . . Their main account was Walmart.

GE: What was the family name who owned that?

LH: You know what I don't remember.

GE: But they were not an Allentown family.

LH: No, so I did a lot of work for them. I did sewing and the packaging for them. Good company, you know, and they're the ones that moved to El . .. You know Walmart beat them to death and being that over 50% of their business was with Walmart . . .And Walmart said, the guy told me one day, he said Walmart said to us, "You know the 50,000 dozen that you made for us last year. . . Yeah . . . we want to pay you less than we did last year." You know it got to the 01:22:00point of how cheap is cheap. You know. So they moved everything to El Salvador. Just so they could still produce the goods cheap enough for Walmart. You know what, and after that I never set foot in Walmart ever again, ever. And I knew other people that were put out of business also by Walmart, and I said I will never, ever buy anything from them ever again.

GE: I rarely do, but I won't say never.

LH: You know it's just terrible what they did single-handedly did really to the apparel industry. It was incredible, and people don't really understand that either.

GE: Let's see in terms of, I'm sorry, the Lehigh Valley Alliance?

LH: The Lehigh Valley Needle Trades?

GE: Yes, The Lehigh Valley Needle Trades, so that began in the 60s, and how long did that last?

LH: At least I think 25 years.

GE: Ok until about 90, around that time period? Is that right?

LH: Yeah.

GE: And during that time, it sounds like you and your father were very active. Were you employed at the Needle Trades, or were you a volunteer?

LH: Yeah the only person that got paid was Jim Chambers.

GE: You were just founding members.

LH: Yeah, my father was the original president of the Association.

GE: Were you a president?

LH: Yes.

GE: So you were very, very active in it, but you were not actually employed.

LH: Yes, I mean, we did, we really some amazing things. One year . . . well here's what we did, this how this came about. The very first year my father and Jim Chambers approached the then governor Scranton. I believe it was through our local state senator you know what I can picture him, but I can't remember his name. He was very helpful to us. The governor declared a certain week as state apparel week, usually in around April. So what we would do every year we go to 01:25:00Harrisburg for the governor to sign the proclamation making it Pennsylvania Apparel Week. We then would have a banquet, every year we would have a banquet. First-year, governor Scranton and his wife came to the banquet. It was really something. One of our member firms made dresses, they made a dress for the first lady, which was modeled at the banquet. I remember it was at the old Americus 01:26:00Hotel and there was this long winding staircase that came down into the banquet room and the model came down this staircase modeling the dress for the first lady. So you know somewhere I have another picture of me with our governor Milton Shapp. Remember, he was our governor.

GE: Yes, yes, he was in the late 70s. So your family, you and your father were very, very active in the trade association.

LH: Yes.

GE: Will you tell us about your father's and your activity in the Jewish community in the broader Lehigh Valley or Allentown Community.

LH: That's an interesting point that I have discussed with some people recently in that why weren't more Jewish people active in local politics. Interesting 01:27:00very interesting. I don't know the exact answer of that. I tend to think some of it may have had to do with not wanting to be too visible. You know because when you consider who some of the local industry people were they certainly could become mayor, senators, you name it. But they, for the most part, chose to stay out of politics.

GE: How about organizations--Kiwanis, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, any of those things?

LH: We were a member of Chamber of Commerce. I at one time, when I was president of the Association, I was also on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, and I was also on the board of directors of what was then called Manpower, which was the state agency that provided funding for training. So one time, the funding for our sewing school was through them, through Manpower. It was interesting how we did that. We couldn't get direct funding, but what they 01:29:00did is they decided we would get funding for the teacher because she was learning to be a teacher, and that's how we got the funding. We always managed, sometimes we would get a grant from the city or the state. But yes, going back to what you said, my father was almost lifelong member of Kiwanis. He was an um--

GE: Rotary?

LH: No, not Kiwanis. I can't remember what it's called, but he had a ring.

GE: Shriners, Masons?

LH: Yes, Mason, he was a Mason. Very active in the synagogue.

GE: Which synagogue?

LH: Temple Beth El.

GE: How about your mom?

LH: My mother was active at Temple Beth El one time she was president of the sisterhood.

GE: And I'm sorry, tell us what your mother's name is again.

LH: Mildred was always very active in B'nai B'rith.

GE: How about Hadassah?

LH: Hadassah, yeah.

GE: Ok, what is your sense of how both the Jewish community as well as the 01:31:00larger community was affected by the disappearance of this industry?

LH: I think honestly, in my personal opinion, I think the Lehigh Valley lost its identity, I really do. I mean what are we identified with today? The largest employer in the Lehigh Valley is Lehigh Valley Hospital. Is that what we're identified with today, I don't know. You know, one time it was Mack truck, and it was, of course, in Bethlehem, it was Bethlehem Steel. But it was also the apparel industry. The other thing I think was affected . . . There were a lot of 01:32:00men in the apparel industry that made a lot of money. Some of them made a lot of money while they were in business; some of them made money when they sold their business. For instance, I mentioned up Wharton Schneider, Allison Manufacturing, he sold his company to Beatrice foods years ago. A lot of the companies that we worked for were bought by larger companies. London Fog . . . So I think Fair-Tex 01:33:00Mills was bought out at one time so a lot of these people were very large contributors to, for instance, the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Day School, UJA. I mean, I'm talking, I can remember, what was it, the Six-Day War, when they had an emergency meeting at the at the Jewish Community Center to raise money, and people got up and pledged $25,000, $10,000 and you know and that's back in, what, 1967. Five thousand--I mean, I was like . . . that was 01:34:00$25,000, and that was a lot. I mean, it's a lot of money today, back then . . . huge, huge! So I don't really know what happened, you know, I think there was a period of time when some of those organizations did start to struggle because they weren't getting the type of contributions that they once were. Whereas today the contributors are doctors and lawyers, no longer businessmen or industrialists. It's the doctors who are making the money today. So that's a big 01:35:00change, big change.

GE: And then just any thoughts that you might have in terms of why the Jewish community was certainly over-represented in this industry?

LH: In the garment industry?

GE: In the garment industry.

LH: Oh, I think most of that came from Europe. As I said, my grandfather was trained in Europe. You know in Europe for many, many, many years you basically only went to school up to a certain grade and then in certain cases you took a test. If they didn't feel your aptitude was to go on to higher education you went into learning a trade, which essentially . . . my grandfather always 01:36:00considered himself like the black sheep of the family. So even the names, even the names: Schneider. A Schneider okay is a tailor, so I think that's where a lot of that came from, you know. They came to this country through Ellis Island, a lot of them ended up in New York, New York City and one of the few places they could work or make a living, if you call it that, were in the sweatshops. At one time New York City, I believe, was . . . the largest producer of apparel in the 01:37:00world was New York City.

GE: Before I turn it over to Sue, there was a question I wanted to ask you when you got out around 1995 were you able to sell your businesses?

LH: No, I just had to close-up.

GE: How about the buildings, do you still own the buildings?

LH: Well, after I went out of business, I basically took over because now we had empty buildings.

GE: How many?

LH: Three, so we had to try and rent them, so that became my new job was trying 01:38:00to, in some cases renovate and to rent.

GE: How has that worked out?

LH: It worked out pretty well for a number of years. I think we were fortunate in that at one point we had a tenant, the building was over there on Madison Street, and tenant came to me and said they wanted to buy the building, so we eventually sold the building to the tenant. Then the building that we had downtown, the same thing we got to the point where I first had one offer to buy the building. That fell through. And then I had another offer to buy the building and my father and I finally said, "Okay it's time, it's time to let it go."

GE: So, at this point you don't own any of them.

LH: No.

SC: And do you know the addresses of the buildings, even if it's just the street?

LH: Our main factory was at 315 Linden St. and is now being converted to apartments.

GE: It took a long time.

LH: When we bought that building and moved in there, there were 500 people working in that building in the apparel business. Just in that building alone. Yeah, that was 315 the other one was 327 North Madison St. And then the other 01:40:00one on the east side was 11 South Dauphin St. You know - just to throw out - you had the companies for instance like to Perlman and Levine who...

GE: And Levine is the sewing store? Is that who you mean?

LH: Yes, at one time they had sewing store, but their major business was buying and selling fabric. In other words, a manufacturer would design and produce what they wanted for the season, so the end of the season, they'd have fabric 01:41:00leftover so companies like Levine would buy the fabric. And they occupied several buildings in Allentown filled with, I mean, an unbelievable amount of fabric.

GE: Because of what I knew is they had fabric stores. They had a big fabric store downtown.

LH: Yes, yes, one time they had a few of them. Yeah, nice people. I think the one time there were like 4 brothers involved but what they also did, this was interesting, when I first started with my father, when we would do cutting. . . you know you don't use every inch of fabric you have fallout, clippings whatever 01:42:00you call it, and we would put all of that in these big burlap bags, okay, and sell it to Levine's.

GE: Also, is that also Sheftel?

LH: Yes, Sheftel also did that. And at one time, I remember my father told me he would get enough money from the clippings to pay for the rent. But it was interesting as the years went by, and we started producing more and more man-made fibers: orlon, nylon, polyester. Initially a lot of that was recycled 01:43:00and remade into polyester thread, but as time went on, it became cheaper to produce it new than to recycle it. So then the value of the clippings went down to nothing. Your money, dollar bills, are made of paper that is made from hundred percent white cotton that comes from clippings.

GE: Will shared with us that apparently, that was very much the basis of his 01:44:00success to be the supplier of this paper.

LH: But also at one time, years ago, we had what they called linoleum, the backing linoleum was made from recycled clippings. Okay, the head liners in a car were made from recycled material.

GE: I wonder if they still are just getting it from a different source. I don't know.

LH: So, the apparel industry was very big in recycling.

GE: Yes, early.

LH: Really. Even early on, even a lot of the machines that we use had a knife on 01:45:00them, so as you sewed, it not only sewed the edge, but it trimmed it. So you'd have these trimmings that would fall on the floor we would sweep those up and put that in burlap bags and Levine's would take it.

GE: So Levine's was also just as Sheftel was with the scraps. That's interesting because I do know Ira Levine, that's one of Levine's sons. We'll have to add his name to our list.

LH: There was also Perlman, M S Perlman, and Sons [correct name is MS Perlman & Co.].

GE: Were they a part of the same, were they in business together or they in two separate ones.

LH: You mean, Levine's? It was two separate companies. And that was big 01:46:00business. That was really very big business.

GE: And how terrific was it that nothing was wasted.

LH: Yeah, we didn't waste anything, we really didn't.

SC: Are the Perlmans still around?

LH: I know the son, his name is Alan, Alan Perlman. I think he still . . . I don't know. I've heard different things, whether it's true or not, I don't know. I heard that he was maybe doing something in conjunction with the Sheftels. I don't know that for a fact. I don't think Ira is doing much anymore.

GE: I don't think so either. But he would be able to share with us a little bit with us about the family because he was in the business at one time.

LH: Yeah, in fact, the building, after they tore down my father's building, he moved into a building on Gordon Street downtown, and the building was owned by Levine's. So . . . here's a picture. We used to put out a monthly newsletter.

SC: Oh, wow, beautiful.

LH: Needlepoint . . . the whole thing. Here's Esther Halperin, Irwin Schneider.

GE: Ok, great, and we interviewed both of them.

LH: There's my father. You can read the articles in here.

SC: May we copy it?

LH: Sure. Here's. . . One month, Jim decided he wanted to do a feature article on my family so here's a picture [Larry shows the picture]. This is my grandfather, myself, my brother-in-law and my father. Here's another picture of us in the factory. My grandfather wore, I never saw my grandfather wear anything other than a white shirt, okay, and a suit. I mean he would take the suit coat off, but he always wore a white shirt and a suit. And I'll never forget he 01:49:00always told me, he said, "You never wear shorts in the factory."

GE: I wonder if that was for safety.

LH: No, he didn't feel he said if you're a manager or whatever, then you dress appropriately. Then this one here's a picture of me. This was the year I became president of the Needle Trades. And that's a picture of me.

SC: It's such a good late 70s, 1980s picture with the beard.

LH: Yeah, I had that beard for 20 years.

GE: You know I wouldn't recognize Esther, and it's just a little picture, but I'm saying I really wouldn't have recognized her.

LH: Now, Esther, did you interview Esther?

SC: Yes, we did.

GE: And that was a wonderful interview. And you know I recognize your father. I just didn't know. But I recognize your father from the synagogue.

LH: He was still going to synagogue. Over three years ago, I brought him back up here from Florida, and he was living at Country Meadows, but we had a woman that 01:51:00would take him to synagogue every Saturday morning.

GE: Oh, that's nice.

SC: Well I have a couple of sorts of theoretical or thought questions. The first one is what do you value most in life?

LH: My children and my grandchildren. See, I didn't hesitate.

SC: And what has made you feel the most artistic or creative or sort of satisfied in life?

LH: I think that when I was in a business that I was really good at what I did. I think we, at one time, we had an operation that was, at times when I think back, I wonder how did we do it? How did we produce five thousand dozen a week, 01:52:00how did we do that? You know you have to be doing something right. And I think I've prided myself on producing a quality garment, a real quality garment. We stood behind . . .if we did something wrong, we made it right. I'll tell you a quick story. One year we started work for a new company. I was making ladies tops with a zipper down the back. One day my grandfather comes to me with a garment, and he throws this garment down on the table, and he says, "Tell me what's wrong with that garment." I went over that garment with a fine-tooth 01:53:00comb, and I said, "I don't see anything wrong with this garment." He said, "The zipper's supposed to be in the back." The zipper was in the front. And I went oh my God, oh my God. Now, fortunately, it wasn't every piece okay, but needless to say we didn't do any work for that company after that. It ended up we had to buy the shirts that had the zipper in the front.

SC: But now it's style, and they would expose the zipper in the back.

GE: It's amazing the difference.

LH: My grandfather, he was wonderful. He would go . . . During the winter, in 01:54:00Florida, he was bored. So he would go . . . He didn't have a car and didn't drive in Florida. He would go to department stores in Miami, Miami Beach, and he would walk around and look at garments to see how they were made, trying to get ideas. Sometimes he would buy one and send it up here, and there were many times that he saw something with the way something was done that we then adopted in the factory that saved us money.

GE: He either saw things that were time-saving or labor-saving.

LH: Yes, yes.

GE: You know one thing we did just briefly we want to touch upon. How about your relationship with your employees? You didn't talk about that.

LH: I mean personally, I think, overall, I had very good relationships with the employees. At times my father felt I was too tough, but overall, you know what, I never felt that I was better than they were. I never asked anybody to do something that I wouldn't do myself. And that included cleaning the toilets, truthfully. I can tell you how many times I cleaned toilets. I will say that 01:56:00over the years, once in a while, when I would run into somebody who had worked for us . . . In fact, when my father passed away, on one of those websites where you can do--

GE: Oh, like the obituary?

SC: That you can leave comments and memories.

LH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody wrote in there that he was the most wonderful boss that she ever had, and working for him was an honor. I've come across employees that have said to me that it was the best place they ever worked.

GE: And in your business who among you was the one that really dealt with the manufacturing, who was getting that business?

LH: Well, initially my father did. My father was not the kind of guy, he was not on the floor, you know, doing the daily tasks. My father loved to schmooze, okay. He'd love to entertain the customers. Take them out to lunch to Hess's Patio, take them out to play golf, take them to lunch. So a lot of that, as time 01:58:00went on, fell to me. Where I would work mostly directly with the accounts. And then I would go into New York regularly. I can't tell you how much time I spent beating the streets of New York, knocking on doors. But what's interesting is as much as I did that the best accounts that we ever got were referrals. Somebody who knew us from someone. One company may have moved to another company and remembered us and then came to us. Or we were recommended by somebody so that I 01:59:00think is really saying a lot for what we did.

GE: I'm looking at this, and I see James Hartzell.

LH: Yeah.

GE: We interviewed him as well.

LH: Ok, sure.

GE: And I see that you and he together look like when you were president, and he was vice president.

SC: And they're still in business. Making pet clothing.

LH: What does he do?

GE: He does a little bit of custom-made outfits for pets.

LH: Oh, really?

GE: Yes.

SC: Yes, these tiny little things.

LH: He was a nice guy. I liked him a lot. And he is one that I saw at the last function that you had.

GE: That's right; he was there. Yes, yes.

LH: I hadn't seen him for years! Now Irwin Schneider, when we bought . . . Okay 02:00:00the building we had down on Linden Street we bought from this gentleman Gerson Lazar, he owned the building. We bought it from him, and one of his tenants was Irwin Schneider.

GE: May I see that picture? I've heard the name Gerson Lazar, but I think he's gone a long time.

LH: Yeah.

GE: So I think that's it. And then maybe we can make copies of the pictures, but I am going to have to write on the back of our copies who they are because we won't know.