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Title
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Interview with Ann Brownfield
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Description
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Interview with Ann Brownfield about her experience as a designer Kansas City and other Midwestern cities. She recalls her start designing shoes in St. Louis, later teaching pattern-making in Grand Island, Nebraska, and working in sportswear, coat, and suit design at Brand and Puritz after moving to Kansas City in 1960. She describes opening her own factory in Kansas City, Kansas, designing and sewing small collections for a variety of clients, including making warm-up suits for the 1972 US Olympic ski team; and her later closure due to the decline of skilled sewing machine operators. She also discusses the decline of the local industry, manufacturing moving overseas, and later working in retail, giving tours of the old garment district, and beginning to collect clothing and other items from local manufacturers.
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Date
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2005-11-14
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Harvey Fried
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Description
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Interview with Harvey Fried about his life and about the Kansas City garment industry. Fried describes the early start of the local garment industry in the West Bottoms, with the buildings in the downtown Garment District built between approximately 1898-1915, and notes Kansas City's position as a rail hub in the center of the country as being key to manufacturing and distribution. He also recounts his parents' backgrounds, his father opening the Fried-Siegel Company in 1930 and Style Line Manufacturing Company in 1939, and the companies' role producing a wide assortment of apparel. He discusses the work of garment manufacturing and distribution in detail, the predominance of Jewish ownership in the industry, and the evolution of the Fried-Siegal and Style Line into smaller firms alongside the shrinking of the local and national garment industries. He also discusses the evolution of the Garment District neighborhood to the present and shares photographs.
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Date
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2004-12-22
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Carl Puritz
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Description
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Interview with Carl Puritz about his family's company, Brand and Puritz. He discusses Hyman and Joe Brand and Harry Puritz founding the company in 1928, making women's coats and suits, manufacturing uniforms as part of the war effort in World War II, and recalls other family members who passed through the company. He also discusses the decline of the domestic apparel business in the face of Asian imports, the multiple clothing lines manufactured by the company, and their time making uniforms for TWA. Carl notes that he is the last surviving member of the Brand and Puritz families who worked for the company, and they show and discuss original garments made by the company and held at the Historic Garment District Museum.
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Date
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2005-08-22
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Sally Schwenk
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Description
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Interview with historic preservationist Sally Schwenk about the importance, and difficulty, of preserving and sharing the history of Kansas City's garment industry. She discusses the importance of Kansas City's location as a railroad hub to its early industry, the boom in the industry following World War I, the impact of unionization, and changes in the location and design of facilities, and the later decline of the local industry. She also describes the Garment District surrounding 8th and Broadway, the loss of buildings and connectivity to other neighborhoods due to post-war freeway construction and demolition, and the challenges of running the Historic Garment District Museum.
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Date
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2010-04-26
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Object Type
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Video Recording
