Don't Sing at the Table

  Located directly behind the restaurant, past a flat grove of pear trees, was a two-story gray sandstone building on a neat green acre of land. The lower floor would host the cutting room, while the upper floor would be used for assembling, finishing, and shipping.

  Garment factories were set in residential neighborhoods in these small manufacturing towns, which was convenient, as women (operators) could walk to work after dropping their children off at school. In the 1940s it was unlikely that a family would have two cars, so the women walked, while their husbands drove to work to the slate quarries, or Bethlehem Steel, or Alpha Cement. The needs of the workforce were considered from the outset by management. Viola knew the key to long-term success was to build a reliable and excellent team, so she put the word out through her known channels in Martins Creek that she and my grandfather were to soon open a mill. The applications poured in as they readied the physical plant.

  Own Your Own Business

  The entrance to the mill was strictly utilitarian. A set of rough-hewn steps and a potchkied landing made of wide wooden planks with gap-toothed spaces led to a glass door. Inside the door was the clock punch, and off to one side, the office.

  Over that entrance, in catchy red and white, was the name of the company: “The Yolanda Manufacturing Company.” And more to the point, the name of the co-owner, my grandmother. The power of that name, and what that meant in the world, was not lost on the buyers, middlemen, suppliers, or machine operators, or on our family. Viola’s given name, Yolanda, defined the endeavor. Viola may have had a maiden name that sounded English, Perin (most Venetian names don’t end in vowels), but there was no hiding behind the Anglican sound for her. She was upfront and proud to be Italian American, the daughter of immigrants, from the Veneto.

  There was a dividing line between the Italians who changed their names to assimilate in business or fit in socially and the ones who did not. Viola didn’t have any patience with faking it. She always felt badly for the Italians who, upon entrance to the United States, had their surnames changed or misspelled by a processing agent.

  However, when it came time to put her name on the business, there was no way it would be the Viola Company. The name was my grandfather’s idea, and it was, perhaps, the best gift he had ever given his wife. She was proud to give the company the name her immigrant parents had given to her. Viola was also eager, at long last, after years of working for others, to stand behind her brand, determined to deliver a product close to perfect and assume the role of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla to ensure quality control. They opened the mill shortly before Viola’s thirty-sixth birthday, in 1943.

  Made in the USA

  A blouse begins with a sketch that is broken down by piece and via size by measurement. The fabric is purchased by the mill (the price is negotiated), along with the extras: buttons, zippers, piping, specialty collars, embellishments or embroidered insets. All these elements were purchased from salesmen who become an ongoing and important part of the process of manufacturing, an extended family of suppliers, purveyors, and salesmen as familiar to my grandparents as the workers on the plant floor.

  The cutting room was on the ground floor of the factory, and the machines, office, finishing, and shipping were on the first floor. The five-foot bolts of fabric were delivered, sealed in plain brown paper casing. The fabric bolt is mounted onto a roller at one end of the table, and then pulled along the length of the table, then rolled out, back and forth, with thin sheets of paper applied between the layers. On top of this layer cake of fabric, thin pattern paper printed in midnight blue ink with the dimensions and parts of a blouse is placed, carefully, to use every inch of fabric and avoid waste. You had to be a bit of an architect when looking at the pattern paper. Sometimes I could make out collars, or a placket or a sleeve, but most of the time, this massive pattern looked like a map of a world I didn’t know.

  Over the table, a stainless steel saw with a very thin blade and a cover was pulled down from the ceiling and operated by the cutter. He artfully handled the blade, slicing through the layers of material, following the pattern exactly. The cutter had to be physically strong, have a good sense of concentration, and wield the blade precisely.

  Two men called graders would assist him, removing the pieces as they went. This is not a scientific observation, just my own, but I never saw a short man in the job of cutter. The man who handled the blade was always tall and lanky, with long arms.

  Upstairs, the main room of the shop was an orderly succession of sewing machines set out in rows on either side of a wide central aisle, attended by small metal stools with low backs. At the end of each row was a large canvas bin on wheels, where the assembled goods were placed, to be taken to finishing, where the sleeves were turned and the blouses pressed, then hung, bagged, or boxed.

  Overhead, an elaborate spiderweb of wires provided electricity to run the machines and illuminate the work lamps over the threaders. The bulk of the machines were for sewing, but there were additional models for detail work like buttonholing and grommet placement. The sewing machines looked similar—black enamel casing over the curves of the body, spiked by the silver wheel, needle shank, threader, and bobbins—but in time they also assumed the personalities of their operators. Some ladies made cushions for their stools; others organized their tools (short-handled scissors, small screwdrivers) in small boxes or initialed cups. They kept their personal effects in the metal drawers underneath the machines. There was room enough to tuck their purse, lunch, and odds and ends.

  At the far end of this large room was a loading dock. A large roll-away door lifted up and out on a track, which turned the back of the factory into an open-air space. A Silver Line tractor trailer would pull right up to the dock, a temporary bridge would be snapped in, and the stock would be loaded on, in bags, ticketed to ship, or on hanging racks on wheels, or folded in boxes individually like unwrapped presents. Due to the volume of goods produced by local factories, the expense of the truck rental was often shared with other mills. These trucks were loaded, then driven into New York City, where the goods were distributed through middlemen in the garment district of midtown.

  On days when I would visit the factory with my grandmother, it was usually a weekend, so the mill was empty. Even when the factory was idle, a haze of dust hung in the air from fabric filaments. In bright sunlight, the fabric dust looked like gray snow.

  I’d go through the drawers under the sewing machines to steal chewing gum or bogart a small silver bobbin of hot pink thread while Viola was in the office checking the mail. There were all sorts of things in the operators’ drawers— photographs in small leather cases, rosaries, and coins for the soda machine. An old-fashioned refrigerated chest was positioned in the front of the factory loaded with chocolate and orange A-Treat Soda. Viola would often enlist us to tear union labels (ILGWU) off a spool—we were quick with our small hands—to be sewn in the collar of the blouses, or to turn sleeves on finished blouses. If we weren’t ripping tickets, she gave us a magnet to collect straight pins from the cracks in the factory floor. We would place the pins in a box, to be reused in the cutting room.

  Viola ice skating in the 1950s.

  The bins at the end of the aisles were filled with bundles of piecework that the operators would sew together the following week. Fresh from the cutting room, these bundles looked like a stack of puzzle pieces, tied together with streamers of fabric from the edges of the cut fabric.

  The wise manufacturer negotiates deals, looks for bargains, and develops a sixth sense for exactly how much trim or how many buttons or zippers are needed on a certain job. It’s the salesman’s job to suggest options, one button over another or a particular brand of thread. Sometimes my grandfather would buy basics in bulk, knowing that he would need inventory on stock items like small clear buttons for neck loops, or sturdy white or black thread.

  All the elements needed to make a blouse factor into the cost for the manufacturer as well as the labor and overhead. My grandpar
ents ran a union shop, so they included pension expenses and fees in their bids. The price of a blouse is negotiated in lots, and the manufacturer is paid for his work by the dozen. It’s the job of the manufacturer to negotiate the profit margin.

  Viola often worried about “meeting payroll,” because things can go wrong in the process of garment manufacturing. The mill was responsible for errors. These errors (an uneven stitch, a collar set improperly, a pocket in the wrong place) had to be fixed, and this cost the mill time and money. It was an ongoing challenge to stay in profit. After all, human beings were making the blouses by hand, so you could count on errors. By contrast, you could also count on great artistry and speed, in the hands of experienced operators.

  Observing operators working at their machines, heads bowed in concentration as they spin the wheel, guide the fabric through the threader, and pump the pedal, is like watching an orchestra on the stage at Carnegie Hall. There is a syncopation to their movements, and a rhythm to the whole.

  In the heyday of production, fifty employees (including cutters, factory floor workers including graders, sample makers, examiners, operators, collar setters, buttonholers, and pressers) assembled the pieces on the machines, which resulted in a finished blouse.

  A blouse moved through the operations of the factory from cutting to assembling, to pressing, and on to finishing, where the blouses were hung, ticketed, and bagged, looking as they will when you peruse them on a rack in a department store.

  Viola was The Boss. She ensured every blouse that shipped from her mill should be of the highest and best quality. She would not only oversee the work but sit down among the operators, like a pace car on a speedway before a great race, and lead the effort. She led by example, as well as by the following factory rules:

  • Hire the best employee.

  • Use the specific and special talent of the employee.

  • Be able to perform every task that you hire someone else to do.

  • Work alongside those you hire; to oversee is not enough.

  • Pitch in when there’s a deadline.

  • If an operator is out, sit down and take her place.

  • Have an understanding of the equipment, and how to repair it.

  • There is no such thing as a silent partner. When you owe someone money, they own you.

  • Do not be smug in success. Stay humble and you’ll stay in business for the long run.

  • When you take a risk, no second-guessing, no looking back. Plow.

  Viola was a tough boss. She was relentless, and told me she made operators cry from time to time. The pressure was on, and everybody felt it; every person had to process that pressure. I think of the operators when I have a deadline. I think of the pressure to be perfect and to work nimbly and quickly when you’re tired, or don’t feel well, or are distracted by life at home or responsibilities to your family. Like them, I remind myself that I’m doing it for my family—and like them, I focus.

  Viola did not coddle, but there was modulated respect when a job was done well. I can see, from the gifts the employees gave my grandparents, that they had respect for them, if not affection. They wrote funny poems upon anniversaries in the mill and on their retirement, but they were never called Viola and Dick. They were Mr. and Mrs. Trigiani.

  Viola’s years as a forelady working for Mr. Rosenberg helped her develop her managerial style. The output of the factory and the excellence of the product was her responsibility. There was no way Viola was going to lose her job or botch an order, so she was a stern taskmaster. Time was not only money; her reputation was on the line. And for Viola, her good reputation and ability to deliver the goods was all they had when my grandfather got on the train in a suit and hat to travel into New York City to find work.

  Viola told me that she and Grandpop designed a business plan that they would not vary from in the years that they owned and operated the mill. My grandfather was the front man. This was a natural position for Grandpop, as he was intelligent, had good taste and was easygoing. He would dress up, go into New York City by train, and meet with various companies in the garment district, where he’d make deals to manufacture blouses, created and sold by the dozen.

  As a machinist, my grandfather purchased the equipment and maintained it. He also, according to their partnership contract (they had a very detailed legal agreement between them as full partners), leased the machinery to my grandmother, who owned the building. I learned from them to go to a proper attorney and arrange contracts for any business venture. Further, a proper will saved my grandmother a great deal of anxiety when my grandfather died. Every detail was discussed prior to his death, so Viola had few surprises when tragedy struck.

  Yolanda Manufacturing stayed in production fifty weeks a year. The traditional vacation period for the blouse mills was the first two weeks of July. During those weeks, when my grandparents had young children, they went to Atlantic City, to Lake George in upstate New York, or to New England. While they worked hard year-round, when they were off the clock, they relaxed.

  Once the operators and suppliers were paid, my grandparents took their cut above the small salaries they pulled from the mill. There were times when they did well, and times when they had to take a lesser deal to keep the factory in operation. Luckily, my grandfather’s skill with the machines kept any money that might have gone to repairs in their pockets. He worked in the factory on a daily basis also, but his schedule was more flexible than Viola’s. She left before dawn and returned home in time for dinner. He would get the kids off to school and then go to work. The family life thrived around the business.

  The Yolanda Manufacturing Company in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.

  The mill was an all-consuming, often family-wide venture. Viola would invite her sisters over in a crunch when a deadline was looming. Her children were enlisted to help when the pressure was on. Cousins came through to pitch in. It was natural for Viola to ask for extra hands, as she took the rule of farm life into the factory. If you wanted to eat, you had to work.

  When the tough times came, Viola was ready for them because she didn’t squander her time and money when the coffers were flush. She told me that when you own your own business, you can never coast, because there is no way to predict what will come. You must rise to meet every challenge, because if you fail, you lose your mill, and the jobs that you provide with it. While the mill employed upward of fifty people, the number grows into the hundreds when you consider the businesses that thrived off the mill. Viola’s ledgers are neatly filled with payments to locally owned businesses like the Roseto Paper Box Company, Leader Thread, Fremont Thread, and Silver Line Trucking.

  There was a sense of community among her fellow manufacturers, who were also the competition. They knew that the success of their small enterprises extended beyond their profit margins; many families beyond those employed by the mill benefited from this way of life. When a competitor couldn’t fulfill an order, he’d swing the work your way. Places like Perfect Shirt often shared an order, thus keeping a workforce active in two mills, both benefiting from the deal.

  Yolanda Manufacturing made blouses for Alice Wills Fashions, Dersh Blouse Company, and Lady Helene Blouses, among others. My grandparents’ old boss Mr. Rosenberg at Bangor Clothing Company threw them a deal here and there. They had put in their years under him, and now he considered them equals, and made sure that opportunities came their way. He recommended Yolanda Manufacturing with the full knowledge that Viola would deliver.

  Relationships, Relationships, Relationships

  The schmatte business, or the rag trade, as it was known then, whose epicenter was in midtown Manhattan, was built on years of relationships, cultivated from the time when my grandparents were young. These alliances and, ultimately, friendships were the fuel that drove the engine of the Yolanda Manufacturing Company. All the years on the floor of the factory mastering new tasks and equipment taught my grandparents everything they needed to know to run their own shop. But, they knew
they couldn’t do it alone. Relationships would sustain the new operation and help it grow. Loyalty was rewarded. If they liked you in the garment district, they looked out for you, and would recommend you for extra work, or offer you new opportunities that would challenge your work force, and build your business.

  In those days (Yolanda Manufacturing was founded in 1943, with the official paperwork of my grandparents’ business partnership filed in 1945), most clothes worn in the United States and around the world were made in these small American factories (northeastern Pennsylvania was loaded with them). My grandparents created higher-end blouses sold in department stores by middlemen who also took a cut, many of the designs inspired by fashions worn in the movies. In our current celebrity-driven culture, it’s an interesting note that the hunger for Hollywood glamour was key to design, production, and sales even then.

  Often a movie star would lend her name to a pattern company, sponsor a fashion line, or let a character she played take the honors to sell a particular garment to the general public. There were varying degrees of participation by the actresses, and their compensation reflected their input and effort. The tags that hung on the blouses featured their glamorous faces, often printed with their signatures. Sometimes their signature was a true endorsement; other times, their image was simply on contractual loan for a set time period, to push ready-made goods to the discerning shopper looking for her own handful of Hollywood stardust.

  Viola told me about the various styles of blouses made in their factory, including one that was known as the Gene Tierney, a blouse with a horse embroidered on the pocket, a variation of which was worn by the starlet in a movie. For my grandparents, whose own romance had blossomed in the early 1930s, with dates to Hollywood movies as their favorite pastime, it seemed that things had come full circle. How long would the good times last?