Interview with Margie Bercu and Barbara Bloch

Swanson, Gary

Interview with Margie Bercu and her daughter Barbara Bloch about their family's history with Kansas City's garment district, and discuss what garment design and manufacturing still exist in Kansas City at the time of the interview. Barbara discusses her father Archie's start at Maurice Coat & Suit Company and later transition to Lan-Mar Sporting Goods, which manufactured little league baseball uniforms, basketball uniforms and other athletic apparel. Lan-Mar later spun off a company called Cotton Duck which manufactured restaurant uniforms and related apparel. The women also discuss Archie's education and military service, Barbara's continuing work with retail and restaurant uniforms through the 1980s, oursourcing of manufacturing, and remaining American textile manufacturing. The women also note several local companies continuing to work in garment production into the 2000s.

0:37:31

2005-08-23

Clothing industry
Uniforms
Textile industry

Garment Industry
Maurice Coat & Suit Company
Bercu, Archie
Lan-Mar Sporting Goods
Cotton Duck

The Historic Garment Industry oral history project was conducted by the Historic Garment District Museum in cooperation with the Kansas City Public Library.

Video Recording

Garment Industry Oral History Collection(SC229) See finding aid: https://kchistory.org/document/garment-industry-oral-history-collection-...

Downtown KCMO
Crossroads

SC229, Series 2

Reproduction (printing, downloading, or copying) of images from Kansas City Public Library requires permission and payment for the following uses, whether digital or print: publication; reproduction of multiple copies; personal, non-educational purposes; and advertising or commercial purposes. Please order prints or digital files and pay use fees through this website. All images must be properly credited to: "Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri." Images and texts may be reproduced without prior permission only for purposes of temporary, private study, scholarship, or research. Those using these images and texts assume all responsibility for questions of copyright and privacy that may arise.

This project was funded in part by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Missouri State Library.

https://kchistory.org/content-disclaimer