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Steinholtz, Mollie (audio interview #2 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This second interview with Mollie Steinholtz was conducted in her home in Hollywood. Again, the interviewer was frustrated with Steinholtz's tendency to take over the interview and rush from topic to topic. Since the goal of the interview was to cover more about her Steinholtz's union activities, and since the interviewer felt that she did not get adequate details, she arranged a third interview. TOPICS - joining the ACWA; union dues; chairlady responsibilities at Hart, Schaffner & Marx; demographics of shop; social activities; wages and hours; hospitalization due to Spanish influenza; work history; blacklisting; handwork skills; housing and living arrangements; engagement; wedding; husband's work history; siblings; parents' immigration to US; husband's illness; the Depression;starting small business; business and family roles; anti-Semitism; mother's illness and death; pregnancy and childbirth; housing and living conditions; health problems; birth control; economic status; financial arrangements; 3/5/1974
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- SUBJECT BIO - Mollie Steinholtz became a grass roots ACWA union organizer almost as soon as she arrived in Chicago in 1913 and went to work at Hart, Schaffner & Marx. She continued to try to organize fellow workers at each place where worked, until she married and left the garment industry in 1923. Born in Sebezh, Russia, near the Latvian border, Steinholtz is the fourth of twelve children. [Note; her birth date on her travel documents is noted as 1898, but that might have been to make her older. It seems that she was actually born in 1899.] She went to Hebrew School for two years and then to Russian school for another two years after which she went to work as an apprentice to a dressmaker. After two years apprenticeship, worked briefly in a garment factory and lived with an aunt, until her mother called her home when she was about to give birth to her last child. Steinholtz emigrated in 1913, joining two of her older siblings in Chicago. After being hospitalized during the influenza epidemic, from 1918 to 1922, she worked at various non-union shops, which she attempted to organize. By the time she married in 1923, she was out of work, and did not return to garment industry again. Instead, she and her husband opened up a cleaners in River Forest, Illinois and stayed there until they moved to California in 1947. Steinholtz was interviewed by a student in a women's oral history class at UCLA in collaboration with the Feminist History Research Project, under the direction of Sherna Berger Gluck. INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This second interview with Mollie Steinholtz was conducted in her home in Hollywood. Again, the interviewer was frustrated with Steinholtz's tendency to take over the interview and rush from topic to topic. Since the goal of the interview was to cover more about her Steinholtz's union activities, and since the interviewer felt that she did not get adequate details, she arranged a third interview. TOPICS - joining the ACWA; union dues; chairlady responsibilities at Hart, Schaffner & Marx; demographics of shop; social activities; wages and hours; hospitalization due to Spanish influenza; work history; blacklisting; handwork skills; housing and living arrangements; engagement; wedding; husband's work history; siblings; parents' immigration to US; husband's illness; the Depression;starting small business; business and family roles; anti-Semitism; mother's illness and death; pregnancy and childbirth; housing and living conditions; health problems; birth control; economic status; financial arrangements;
- File: lhgwmsteinholtz3.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-4:49)... Steinholtz joined the ACWA when she was hired at Hart, Schaffner & Marx shortly after she arrived in Chicago in 1913. It cost $3 to join the join the union and union dues were $1.50/month. Her foreman taught her additional tailoring skills because he felt she was capable, and she eventually worked her way up to being an armhole and collar baster. Three years after she was hired, the shop chairman of the shop asked her if she wanted to be the chairlady of her section. She accepted the position, describing herself as "a union girl." There were approximately seven tables in her section with fourteen people at each table. Except for herself and one other woman, who was Jewish, the armhole basters were from eastern and southern Europe. (4:49-5:59)... At Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Steinholtz was paid piecework and averaged $16/week, which was paid in cash. She worked 9am to 5pm and half day on Saturdays. If she was asked to work overtime, she was paid time and a half. (5:58-8:28)... In 1918, Steinholtz was hospitalized for two weeks with Spanish flu. She she returned to Hart, Schaffner & Marx, she had problems with the women in her section who refused to follow her order not to work during their lunch break. On one occasion, a girl picked up a pair of scissors and threatened Steinholtz for trying to interfere with their work schedules. Steinholtz complained to shop officials about these problems, but they were ambivalent towards her because she was a strong union girl and they were not exactly pro-union. At that time, she decided to quit Hart, Schaffner & Marx. (8:28-10:45)... After she left Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Steinholtz's brother-in-law got her a job at a non-union shop. She continued to pay union dues. She worked at this shop for two years, earning $22.50/week as a collar baster. When the owner of the shop decided to move his factory to Wisconsin, he asked her to stay with the company. However, he rescinded his offer when he learned she was planning to organize the women in the shop. (10:45-16:20)... Steinholtz's went to work for another firm after the plant closure of her previous employer, working as a collar baster for$27.50/week. When this shop closed a short time later, she went to work in a non-union shop, where she was paid an hourly wage, earning $32.50/week. When she attempted to organize workers there, the shop foreman told her that she was "talking too much" and he had a right to fire her. Rather than be terminated, she quit, and went to work at another shop for the same wage. In 1921 she found a job in a union shop for $45/week. The foremen at these various garment shops refused to train her how to operate special machines because her handwork skills were excellent and they did not want to lose her labor in this area. (16:20-21:29)... She knew her husband for six years before they were engaged in 1922. After Steinholtz lost her job, she had trouble finding a job that paid more than $15/week. She managed to save up $500 during the years she worked in the garment industry. Her fiance told her not to worry about getting a job; that he would help support her. When she learned that her parents were making arrangements to immigrate,she and her fiance decided to wait to get married so that they could come to her wedding. (21:29-29:03)... Steinholtz notes that after initial contact from her parents, she and her siblings lost track of them. She believes their immigration was held up when the communists came to power. She postponed her wedding on two occasions in anticipation of her parents' arrival, all the while furnishing her two-bedroom apartment. It was located in a three-story building owned by her fiance and future mother-in-law. She lived on the second floor above her mother-in-law and they also rented a room to her girlfriend. When she realized that her parents were not going to arrive in Chicago for quite some time, she and her fiance decided to go forward with their wedding plans. They were married in May 1923. (29:03-32:29)... In addition to buying and selling property with his mother, Steinholtz's husband was a co-owner of a ladies garment shop. After they married, they went to New Haven, Michigan for their honeymoon. Two weeks into their stay, she received a letter from her sister asking her to return to Chicago to prepare for the arrival of her parents and six of their siblings. Two of her younger siblings, a brother and a sister, remained in Russia after their parents emigrated. When she returned to Chicago, they rented a three-bedroom house for her parents and she agreed to live with them for at least a month to help them get acclimated to their living conditions and new environment. Her parents and her siblings arrived in Chicago in August 1923. (32:29-37:37)... Steinholtz helped her parents adapt to their new environment in Chicago, living with them for a while. After she learned that she was pregnant with her first child, she and her husband decided to move out of his mother's home and into a two-bedroom apartment with her girlfriend, who also was pregnant. As Steinholtz's delivery date approached, she decided it would not be a good idea to raise two infants in the same apartment and she and her husband moved out. They found an apartment and agreed to let her husband's aunt live with them. Then, after Steinholtz's mother was diagnosed with diabetes, she was released from the hospital, she moved in with Steinholtz and her husband. (37:37-43:55)... During the Depression, Steinholtz's husband lost his business and had a difficult time finding work. She also lost the housing complex she purchased with her brother, Myer. When her husband was sent to Rochester, Minnesota for medical treatment, Steinholtz remained in Chicago. and her older brother assister her. He provided them with an apartment and gave her property management responsibilities, as well as helped to jump start their own business. During this time, in 1926, Steinholtz's daughter, Sylvia, was born. End of tape. File: lhgwmsteinholtz4.mp3 (0:00-9:05)... Her brother loaned Steinholtz and her husband $600 to start their own business. They found a storefront in River Forest, Illinois and negotiated a lease. There were very few Jews in the area and it was a KKK community. When the landlord found out they were Jewish, he hesitated to lease to them, but Steinholtz's brother convinced him that they were reliable. Her father helped construct partitions in the store to divide the laundry facility from their living quarters. They called their business River Forest Cleaners. (9:05-14:44)... When Steinholtz moved to River Forest, her son was four years old, her daughter was two and a half, and she was pregnant with her third child. In March 1928, her mother was hospitalized for an ear abscess brought on by her diabetic condition, and she died a short time later. Steinholtz was not allowed to see her mother after she died because the nurses did not think it was appropriate for a pregnant woman to view a dead body. When she gave birth to a daughter in May 1928, she named her after her mother. (14:44-25:21)... All of Steinholtz's children were delivered in hospitals by the same physician. During her fifth pregnancy, most people did not know she was pregnant because she wore a corset throughout her pregnancy. She received prenatal care, and her physician never disapproved of her wearing a corset. Even though she states that there was no birth control available during her childbearing years, she and her husband occasionally used prophylactics. She talks about her family's socioeconomic status when they lived in River Forest. In addition to owning automobiles and going out to dinner every Sunday, she hired a woman to clean her house and provide childcare on a weekly basis. (25:21-27:26)... In addition to supervising the staff in their cleaning business, Steinholtz handled all of the bookkeeping responsibilities. She and her husband purchased a home in River Forest for $13,000 and sold it for $17,500 in 1947 when they moved to California. (27:26-31:51)... Steinholtz's physician was a distant cousin of her grandmother's. He delivered most of her siblings' children as well as her own. Her family was very close to him and invited him to all of their family events. In 1948, he advised her to return to Chicago so that he could operate on her for a medical condition, and she flew from California to Chicago. She was hospitalized for two weeks following the surgery. She borrowed money from her older brother to pay for her medical expenses. She was emphatic about paying him back for all the money he ever loaned her for personal and business expenses. End of tape.
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