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Title
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Interview with Rosa Guarino
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Description
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Interview with Rosa Guarino about her life and career in the Kansas City garment industry. She discusses coming to the United States from Sicily by way of France, getting work sewing collars at Coronet in the garment district, accusations from coworkers that she was taking their work, and later working at Betty Rose near 31st and Linwood with a more diverse group of workers. She recalls the factory abruptly closing when the company chose to move manufacturing to China, resulting in 500 people losing jobs.
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Date
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2010-05-24
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Steve Chick
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Description
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Interview with Steve Dvorak about his experience working in the Kansas City garment industry and about his career with Youthcraft. He discusses the history of the company from its founding by Leon Karosen, and its merger with Stern-Slegman-Prins, a company which Chick's father Robert worked for; the manufacturing and sales processes, including traveling with racks of coats to visit stores throughout the country. He recalls the different facilities from which the company operated, including buildings in North Kansas City, the downtown Garment District, and near 31st and Gillham, and discusses the company's national profile and mergers, as well as changes in the garment industry over the ensuing decades, including the shift to department stores and other large chains.
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Date
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2010-05-18
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Eileen Garry
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Description
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Interview with Eileen Garry about her life and her experience in the Kansas City garment industry. She discusses her marriage to Marshall Garry, their move from Brooklyn to Kansas City, and Marshall's work for his father's B. Garry and Company. She discusses their work representing suppliers such as the Maimin Company, a producer of cutting machines, and textile manufacturers, the evolution of the company and industry into the 1960s, the couple's involvement in the local Jewish community, and the industry's social milieu.
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Date
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2011-02-03
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Davida Singer Pessen
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Description
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Interview with Davida Singer Pessen about her life and experience working at Kansas City department stores and other clothing retailers. She discusses her start circa 1960 at Klein's and Rothschild's, continuing in retail through moves to Omaha and St. Louis, and returning to the work in Kansas City as a single mother. She recalls working in a various of department stores and boutiques at Metcalf South and The Landing, and moving in to work at multiple locations of the fine clothing store Woolf Brothers. She also discusses issues including price markup, demand differences from one outlet of a store to another, the decline and ultimate closure of the Woolf Brothers company, and her retirement in 2010.
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Date
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2011-06-13
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Mary Agnes Alderman
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Description
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Interview with Mary Agnes Alderman in which she discusses her career in the garment industry, including working as a buyer for a department store in Springfield, Missouri in the 1950s. She recalls modeling and managing fashion shows, traveling to New York to buy women's sportwear, and her knowledge of Kansas City garment manufacturers and stores. She discusses the changes in shopping habits and department stores, working as a teacher after moving to Kansas City, and serving Ramfis Trujillo, son of president of the Dominican Republic Rafael Trujillo, while working at Swanson's clothing store on the Plaza. She also discusses the change in fashion to more casual dress, and expresses support and enthusiasm for the preservation of Kansas City's garment industry history.
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Date
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2011-05-03
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Inge Silverman
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Description
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Interview with Inge Silverman about her life and experience working at Harzfeld's department store. She recounts the story of her and her family's immigration from Germany in 1936, escaping antisemitism ahead of World War II, and joining other family; her mother being hired at Harzfeld's, and later working for Cricket West. She discusses going to work at Harzfeld's herself as a teenager, working in sales and modeling clothes for customers, owner Siegmund Harzfeld's reputation for generosity and kindness with his employees, and later working for City National Bank and Beth Shalom Synagogue. She describes moving to Dallas in 1960, returning to Kansas City in 1970, and finding the retail landscape different and less high end due to market changes; and discusses the change from full service sales model to customers shopping on their own, noting what modern stores still provide additional service. She also recalls her mother's friendship with painter Thomas Hart Benton and his wife Rita.
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Date
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2011-01-05
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Marianne Young
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Description
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Interview with Marianne Young about her life and her experience in Kansas City's garment industry. Born and raised in Germany, she discusses getting her taste for nice things from her mother and her early interest in fashion, coming to the United States on a scholarship to Northeast Missouri State University, meeting her husband, and following his job to Kansas City. She recalls her job at upscale women's clothing store Swanson's in the 1970s, working as a salesperson and helping assemble wardrobes for customers, declining offers to work as a model, and working as a buyer for DuVall's until the store closed. She discusses the fate of the various DuVall's locations in the area, and going to work at Saks on the Plaza as a personal shopper until that store closed circa 2005. She shares her opinions about the state of Kansas City clothing retailers, the change in fashion to focus on younger women, and making her wardrobe work over time.
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Date
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2011-04-03
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Marvin Gibian
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Description
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Interview with Marvin Gibian about his family's history in the Kansas City garment industry. He recounts his father's background and work with various garment companies before opening Oakwood Sportswear, a men's and boys clothing wholesaler to shops in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma until it closed in 1964. He discusses the work of selling throughout the region, their business during World War II, and the post-war shift in the industry from small, independent businesses to large chains. He also discusses the role of wholesalers in supporting the large mail order companies such as Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and National Bellas Hess.
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Date
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2011-01-14
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Marshall Miller
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Description
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Interview with Marshall Miller about his family's experience in the dry cleaning and laundry business in Kansas City. He discusses his grandfather Isaac Miller immigrating to the United States, founding Miller's Quick Service Dry Cleaning Company in 1907, and Marshall's father Leon taking over the business by the mid-1940s. Miller recalls how both men sought to modernize the business, bringing in new technologies and methods, and focused on quality work. He discusses the changes in the business over the decades, from dry cleaning being a high volume, low cost business when people regularly wore suits and dresses, to a low volume, higher cost business as people shifted to wearing more casual, machine-washable fabrics. He also discusses the business's work with local garment manufacturers and hotels, his own experience working for the company as a young man, and the small tailoring business operated by his maternal grandfather, Sam Schultz.
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Date
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2010-05-06
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Michael Lerner
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Description
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Interview with Michael Lerner about the Kansas City garment industry and his family's company, King Louie. He recounts his father Morris and uncles founding the Lerner Cap Company, later changing the name to Lerner Brothers Manufacturing and going into production of military clothing at the start of World War II. After the war they shifted to sportswear, and later, to bowling shirts under the name King Louie, as his uncle Victor Lerner was a professional bowler. He discusses how the company grew to encompass bowling alleys and other businesses, shifting to overseas manufacturing and imports, and eventually buying back the brand from a venture capital firm in 2006 and re-establishing the business as an American-made, union labor firm that manufactures uniforms and promotional garments.
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Date
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2011-03-07
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Suzie Aron
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Description
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Interview with Suzie Aron about her family history in Kansas City's garment industry, beginning with her grandfather Hyman Gordon's immigration to Topeka, Kansas, and later to Kansas City. She discusses Jewish prevalence in the industry, and her family's Frances Gee Garment Company which focused primarily on uniforms for nurses and other woman-dominated professions - a direction taken because it was easier to work with all white fabric. She discusses the company being one of the first with overseas production facilities, having opened factories in Puerto Rico and Japan, as well as other aspects of the company's operations and union relationships, including her experience working on designing and branding uniforms for the fast food industry, work which eventually became the focus of the company.
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Date
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2011-02-07
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Object Type
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Video Recording
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Title
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Interview with Jerry Stolov
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Description
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Interview with Jerry Stolov about his life and his family's experience in the garment industry at Kansas City Custom Garment Company. He recalls his family's immigration from Poland, and his uncle working at Kansas City Garment Company upon his arrival, and later owned the company. Stolov reports that his father joined his uncle at the company upon his own arrival in Kansas City, and the company staying in operation through the Depression with government contracts for uniform manufacture. The company had post-war success selling custom men's suits and other garments, and Stolov discusses the process of being measured, selecting fabrics, and the ultimate creation of the garments. The company also made uniforms for TWA, the Kansas City Police Department, and other organizations, and Stolov discusses prominent clients including H. Roe Bartle and Harry Truman, who was buried in a Kansas City Garment Company suit.
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Date
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2011-07-14
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Object Type
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Video Recording
