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Title: Interview with Ann Brownfield
Description: 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.
Date: 2005-11-14
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Carl Puritz
Description: 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.
Date: 2005-08-22
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Rosa Guarino
Description: 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.
Date: 2010-05-24
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Steve Chick
Description: 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.
Date: 2010-05-18
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Bob and Bruce Gershon
Description: Interview with Bruce and Bob Gershon about the history of their family company, Arrowhead Fabricare Services. They discuss the building's construction at the corner of 39th and Troost, salvaging furs and leather goods from Plaza stores after the 1977 flood, their garment company clients, a venture into hat-making, and share stories about their lives, families, and the dry-cleaning business.
Date: 2009-10-24
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Cy and Esther Rudnick
Description: Interview with Cy and Esther Rudnick about their lives and their store, Cy Rudnick's Fabrics. Cy recalls coming to Kansas City to manage Kaplan's Fabrics and later operating his own store in Crown Center from 1976 to 2006. They discuss fabric buying, custom clothing, and notable customers, and sewing becoming a creative outlet rather than a necessary task. They also discuss the prevalence of Jewish families in the fabric business and their disinterest in shifting their business online.
Date: 2010-09-28
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Marshall Gordon
Description: Interview with Marshall Gordon about his family's experience in the Kansas City garment industry. His father, Hyman Gordon, operated the Frances Gee Company, manufacturing inexpensive housedresses during the Depression and World War II, later shifting to manufacturing uniforms. Marshall discusses working at the family business from 1960 to 1972, and returning after his father passed away in the early 1990s. He discusses their shift to manufacturing in Puerto Rico and Japan, the decline of the company, their relationship with the garment workers' union, as well as their real estate holdings and development work.
Date: 2005-08-04
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Rose Stolowy
Description: Interview with Rose Stolowy about her life and her family's experience in the Kansas City garment industry. She recounts her husband Saul's immigration to the United States from Poland, his background in tailoring and design, and his work for and later ownership of Kansas City Custom Garment Company. She notes famous clients including Harry Truman, Nelson Rockefeller, and Kansas City Police chief and FBI director Clarence Kelley, and recalls starting her own fabric business, Midtown Fabric Shop, at 39th and Troost. She also recounts meeting and marrying Saul, and says that he helped Truman enter the haberdashery business.
Date: 2005-02-03
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Sherman Dreiseszun
Description: Interview with Sherman Dreiseszun about his life, his work in the Kansas City garment industry, and other ventures. He was the first of his family born in the United States after his parents and siblings migrated to Kansas City from the Polish-Russian border and later served as gunner in the Army Air Corps in World War II. He later owned the Vic-Gene Manufacturing Company with his nephew Frank Morgan, which he described as manufacturing knock-offs of popular garments including Pendleton jackets and corduroy "slick shirts." He and Morgan later opened Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park,
Date: 2004-10-05
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Nancy Hipsh
Description: Interview with Nancy Hipsh about her family's history in the Kansas City garment industry. She discusses her grandfather Harry Hipsh's start in the cap making business before moving on to manufacturing neckties at several factories in northwestern Missouri. Her father, Charles Hipsh, worked for the business and later established Empire State Bank in 1963. She also shares photographs and miscellany from Hipsh Manufacturing and Textile Distributors, Inc., and shares stories about her father's political involvement, her upbringing, and other family members.
Date: 2005-05-25
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Eileen Garry
Description: 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.
Date: 2011-02-03
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Linda Lighton
Description: Interview with Linda Lighton about the history of the Woolf Brothers clothing stores, which he father worked at and later owned. She discusses the company's origins in the late 1800s, selling men's clothing and haberdashery at 1020 Walnut, and its expansion over the decades to locations at the Plaza, area malls, and regional cities, as well as expanding to sell women's clothing. She also discusses the life of Herbert Woolf, the Kansas City Jewish community, and says that she heard Herbert Woolf "discovered" actress Jean Harlow. She connects the decline of the business to the 1977 flood that damaged the Plaza store and her father Alfred being shot in a mugging, as well as the ascendance of clothing and department store chains in the 1980s.
Date: 2011-05-13
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Ralph and Ben Zarr
Description: Interview with brothers Ralph and Ben Zarr about their lives and experience working in Kansas City's garment industry. They recount their father's and uncles' backgrounds in the garment business, their father's founding of the Quality Hill Dress Company, which made two-piece dresses for size flexibility, their start in the business as traveling salesmen, and the company's practice of adapting best-selling designs by other companies from previous seasons into two-piece dresses. They also discuss changes in fashion, overseas manufacturing, and labor union demands as factors in the decline of their business and the local industry, and share memories of seeing one of their dresses in a movie, having a racially diverse group of employees, future business dealings, and downtown businesses of the era.
Date: 2005-01-26
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Hal Hardin
Description: Interview with Hal Hardin about his history working in Kansas City's garment industry. He discusses the origin of the Donnelly Garment Company, his experience serving in the Mediterranean during World War II, his early life and work, and his start with the Donnelly company in 1952. He describes his beginning in advertising and his later work in sales, ultimately becoming their national sales manager. He also discusses his work with stores across the country; their plants in North Kansas City, St. Joseph, and Nevada, Missouri; their clothing lines and sales territories; and staying with the company until it shut down in 1978. He then opened a new manufacturing company which he operated until selling in 1990.
Date: 2005-02-14
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Eddie Jacobs
Description: Interview with Eddie Jacobs about his life and experience in the Kansas City garment industry. He recalls his family history, including his parents' immigrations from Poland and Russia, and starting out in the garment industry with his father and brother manufacturing children's clothes. He discusses their later transition into maternity wear, selling to department stores and mail order businesses, and also notes he opened fabric stores with his mother-in-law. He also discusses their relationship with the garment workers union, describes their staff and their small-town manufacturing, and notes that they once made up about 20% of the maternity wear market before closing in the 1980s. He shares photographs and notes maternity wear design elements.
Date: 2005-01-06
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with DeSaix Gernes
Description: Interview with DeSaix Gernes about her life and involvement in Kansas City's garment industry. She describes her family background and childhood, and recalls her father founding Gernes Garment Company based on reception to a full-skirted dress his wife designed and sewed for DeSaix and neighborhood girls. She discusses the company's success through the Great Depression, the fun of visiting the factory as a child, and details of the business and its different lines including sizing and pricing. She also shares stories about the company's production of WAC uniforms during World War II, her husband and mother taking over the company after her father's death in 1947, and the popularity of the Gay Gibson line, and ultimately the company's bankruptcy filing in 1978.
Date: 2005-01-14
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Regina Pachter
Description: Interview with Regina Pachter about her life and experience in the Kansas City garment industry. She recalls her father's immigration to the United States in 1915, with Regina following with her mother in 1921, and later meeting her husband Meyer Pachter, a Kansas City native. She discusses her and Meyer's experiences as students at the University of Missouri, his first garment industry job with Laverne Cloak Company and her employment as a social worker, and Meyer opening the Pachter Garment Company and later merging with the Louis Walter Company and Youthcraft Manufacturing Company. She also discusses Meyer's later move into the carwash business, his work as a salesman at Woolf Brothers, their work within the Jewish community, and other ventures. She ends the interview by sharing information about her family, and playing a piece on the piano.
Date: 2005-01-12
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Bob Slegman
Description: Interview with Bob Slegman about his life and his family's company Stern-Slegman-Prins. He recounts his family history and their start manufacturing silk blouses, and his paternal Slegman family and maternal Stern family partnering up as "jobbers" who distributed wholesale garments to retailers, later manufacturing ladies' coats and suits, and notes that many other prominent garment industry companies had their roots in Stern-Slegman-Prins. He discusses the high quality of local manufacturing, and the operations, financing, and demographics of the work force, as well as his entry into the family business and his service as an Army Air Corps meteorologist during World War II. He shares photographs and other stories about the company, including their inability to have a company outing at Fairyland Park due to having black employees, and discusses the decline of the local garment industry and changes in fashion and retail in the 1970s. Anne Brownfield appears to show off details of a Stern-Slegman-Prins manufactured "Betty Rose" coat.
Date: 2007-10-23
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Dale Rice
Description: Interview with Dale Rice about his family's experience in the Kansas City garment industry. Dale recounts the story of his grandfather David coming to Kansas City to work as a production manager at Stern-Slegman-Prins and later splitting off to start Rice Coat Company, which was later bought out by his sons, Frank and Lou. Dale discusses joining his father, Frank, in the business in 1968, and seeing the downturn in business which he attributes to imports, changes in fashion, shifts in the retail industry, and notes that he was one of the last remaining local manufacturers before ultimately closing the company in 1993. He also discusses the work of patternmakers and designers, and shares stories about working with his father.
Date: 2005-08-23
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Davida Singer Pessen
Description: 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.
Date: 2011-06-13
Object Type: Video Recording

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