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(Kaplan) Spitzer, Lottie (audio interview #7 of 9)

INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is one of eight interviews with Lottie Kaplan Spitzer conducted over the course of four months as part of a Senior Honors project in collaboration with the Feminist History Research Project. This penultimate interview was conducted one week after the previous interview following a two month hiatus. The interviews were conducted at the ACWA Retirees Center, which probably helped Spitzer to remember and focus on her union experiences. On the other hand, it might have reinforced only positive sentiments about the union, particularly since at the time of the interview visits there constituted Spitzer's main social excursion. There is a great deal of overlap and repetitiousness between the interviews, partially because of Spitzer's tendency to go off into different directions in response to the interviewer's question. Clearly, certain events and people represent more salient memories and these are the ones she tends to repeat. Despite some of the repetitiousness, however, the interviews provide a nice picture of the kind of grass roots union organizing that women like her carried out, especially in the 1910s. TOPICS - 1918 influenza epidemic; pregnancy and childbirth; living arrangements; living conditions; husband's status as a conscientious objector; husband's work history and wages; family fur coat business; children's education; social and economic demographics of neighborhoods; Depression; job at a millinery; and wages;living arrangements and housing; formation of the CIO; husband's attitude towards the union; managing household, work, recreational, and union activities; job at Bonds Clothing; working conditions; wages; gender and wage discrimination; relationship with co-workers; and vacation pay;vacation pay policies at Bonds Clothing; conflicts with co-workers; promotion to shop supervisor; working conditions; hours; wages; effect of work on family life; returning to operator job; wage and gender discrimination; relationship to Local 275 and Clara Leon;Local 275; Sarah Rozner; first husband's death in 1960; family history; meeting second husband, Morris Spitzer; his family history; friendship and courtship; housing; attitudes about remarrying; friends and social life; educational pursuits; and marriage, 1963;retirement; developing Retiree's Center; Morris Spitzer's career with the ACWA; bundle system, section work, and section tickets; gender division of labor; wage and job discrimination; changes in the clothing industry in the 1930s; decline of the clothing industry in Chicago; and relationship with August Bellanca, 1915 strike;relationship with August Bellanca; Dorothy Bellanca; reflections on her life; and attitude towards men when she was younger; 11/18/1974