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Title: Interview with Mel Mallin
Description: Interview with Mel Mallin about his experience with the Kansas City garment industry. He discusses his start in New York, his work with Maurice Coat Company in Kansas City in the 1950s, and his later purchase of the All Packaging Company box business and the Manhattan Sponging Works in the late 1960s, a fabric processing company. He shares stories about changing size labels on clothing to flatter customers, the majority Jewish ownership of local garment companies, and recounts other local garment manufacturers and designers, their specialties, and their owners and operations. He also discusses the later conversion of the Garment District buildings into offices and apartments, including including his own 1983 conversion of his box and packaging plant into the first residential loft building in Kansas City.
Date: 2004-10-19
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 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 Inge Silverman
Description: 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.
Date: 2011-01-05
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Marianne Young
Description: 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.
Date: 2011-04-03
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

Title: Interview with Eugene Salvay
Description: Interview with Eugene Salvay about his life and his family's experience with the Kansas City garment industry, with additional information provided by his nephew, Craig Salvay. He discusses his childhood in the 1920s, and his education in aircraft engineering which lead to job in World War II working on B-25s at the assembly plant in the Fairfax District in spite of antisemitism in the hiring process. He recalls his father's work as designer at Fashionbilt before moving on to mail-order company National Bellas Hess, and operating his own business designing custom coats. He also shares stories about his family roots in Lithuania, his Jewish identity and ancestry, and meeting Harry Truman in the 1930s. Salvay also mentions his participation in developing Israeli aviation and his relationship with Moshe Arens.
Date: 2011-06-04
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 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 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 Margie Bercu and Barbara Bloch
Description: 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.
Date: 2005-08-23
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 Seymour Weiner
Description: Interview with Seymour Weiner about his life and experience working in Kansas City's garment industry. Weiner recalls his Polish immigrant parents owning an alterations and pressing business, going to work for garment industry "trimmings" supplier Hammer Brothers as a young man, starting a company called Krest Originals, and discusses the business model of an "item house," which manufactured a limited number of items. He discusses the shift in the marketplace from locally owned specialty stores to department stores and national chains, the change in the labor pool in the 1960s, the role of labor unions in the industry, and changes in the relationships between businesses and banks over the decades. After closing his factory, Weiner went to work in sales for Betty Rose Coats, and recounts financial and fashion reasons for the decline in the local and domestic garment industries.
Date: 2005-05-20
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Mary Agnes Alderman
Description: 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.
Date: 2011-05-03
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Marshall Miller
Description: 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.
Date: 2010-05-06
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 Suzie Aron
Description: 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.
Date: 2011-02-07
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Mary Lou Chalmers
Description: Interview with Mary Lou Chalmers about her experience working in Kansas City's garment industry from the late 1950s through late 1970s.. She discusses enrolling in the fashion design program at Kansas City Art Institute, as well as taking courses at Fanny Fern Fitzwater School of Fashion Illustration and the Isabelle Boldin School of Fashion, and then working in design and pattern-making at area garment companies such as Nelly Don and Gay Gibson. She describes the process of designing and making clothing, her experiences at numerous companies, the perks of working at Nelly Don, and times that her designs were featured in national magazines. She also discusses the decline of the garment fashion industry in the 1970s, the homogenization of shopping, and the shift to manufacturing in Asia.
Date: 2010-05-07
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with Skip and Leo Feingold
Description: Interview with Leo and Skipper Feingold about their lives and their experience in Kansas City's garment industry. The couple discuss Leo's military service, meeting through a friend while he was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, and mention Skipper's early career tapdancing as part of the Luke Sisters. They also discuss their children's clothing business, Stevie Togs, Skipper's work as a teacher, and Leo's work for Stern-Slegman-Prins and Kap-Pel Fabrics.
Object Type: Video Recording

Title: Interview with M. Martin Unger
Description: Interview with Martin Unger about his life and experience in the Kansas City garment industry. He discusses his family, his immigration to the United States from Germany in 1939, his experience in tailoring, and his interest in designing women's clothes. He recalls working as a designer in New York for 41 years until coming to Kansas City to work for ladies' coat and suit manufacturer Youthcraft, and discusses the decline of the local and domestic clothing industry, attributing the change to overseas manufacturing and the rise in big box chain retail. His wife, Ann Unger, also shares memories, and the couple shares photographs of their family and examples of Martin's designs.
Object Type: Video Recording

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