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Transcription: [00:05:06]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Uh, the man gave me a job because my father was losing his eyesight.
[00:05:10]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Then he gave me a job weighing leather in the tannery, and I got 3 dollars a day.
[00:05:17]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And uh, I weighed leather from uh, I guess was 8 hours a day, and I made three dollars.
[00:05:26]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And that was in Pennsylvania,
[00:05:29]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mhm.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
working in the tannery.
[00:05:31]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Now that wasn't much money, for weighing leather and leather the bellies were,
[00:05:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
great big-- oh, I guess you'll like that, big pieces of leather.
[00:05:40]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And I had to weigh them and mark them on the bottom, how much they weighed, and then put them on the truck.
[00:05:45]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And the man would take them over and put them in the back, in hot acid.
[00:05:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
So that's what your shoes and your pocketbooks were made out of.
[00:05:52]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mhm.
[00:05:53]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And they had met, uh.. Works in-- in the Pennsylvania.
[00:05:58]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
That-- that-- that was the only other, uh, industry?
[00:06:01]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No, that had the uh, glass works. Uh--
[00:06:06]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Sylvania Glass Works. And, uh, they would not employ colored.
[00:06:13]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm.
[00:06:15]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Sylvania they would not.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
On any level?
[00:06:17]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Huh?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
On any level.
[00:06:18]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They would employ colored people. We were the only colored girls they wouldn't give us a job.
[00:06:23]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No, at that time
[00:06:25]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm- Mm
[00:06:28]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Can you beat that, with Betty?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah.
[00:06:30]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They wouldn't give us a job. Can you beat that?
[00:06:34]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Sylvania; I'd never buy a Sylvania tube if I knew.
[00:06:39]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Sylvania electric?
[00:06:41]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Sylvania, uh, tubes-- electric.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Y-- yeah, right, there, That's the brand-- brand name, yeah,
[00:06:45]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
tubes. They didn't employ colored.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:48]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And they had a great big plant there. There was a tannery and the iron works
[00:06:53]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And the, uh, the glass works. And the glass works had a lot of white, but no color.
[00:06:59]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mhm. What, what did your other, um, brothers and sisters do for employment?
[00:07:06]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They, they worked with the, the pop. Bill didn't work, uh, but his mother and fa--, uh--
[00:07:13]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Cause the father had worked for the doctor. And what he made, the little bit they made, they lived off.
[00:07:19]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Cause nothing was high. And the little bit they made, they lived off.
[00:07:23]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And had he never worked, she never worked until she came down here to New York.
[00:07:29]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And, uh, Ruby was a cook for the, uh, a rich family.
[00:07:35]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
She slept in and cooked, and Gladys cooked. That's all you could do is be a maid.
[00:07:43]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
You couldn't be-- There is nothing else to be but a maid.
[00:07:45]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm.
[00:07:46]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
That's all the kind of work that colored people had then.
[00:07:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
But now it's-- Everything has changed. But then that's all you could do,
[00:07:54]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
be the white person's maid. I think that's why they don't like colored now, that they--
[00:08:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They got all this so much [[chuckle]]. Now they can do any-- get any place,
[00:08:05]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
do everything, and learn too much. They said they got too much education [[chuckle]].
[00:08:10]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[side conversation]] Is it raining now, Betty?

{SPEAKER name="Betty"}
[[side conversation]] Just-- [[tape cuts off]]
[00:08:15]

{[[tape turns on]]
SPEAKER name="Pearl West"}
You're telling about, um, what some of your other sisters-- what, what your sisters [[Betty talking in background]] and your brothers did.
[00:08:24]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I told you, [[Betty talking in background]] they had to work in the the, work for rich white people, that's all.
[00:08:30]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
In what boat, What did um Hattie, what, what did your Aunt Hattie do?
[00:08:37]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Aunt Hattie? Oh, she's talking about when Aunt Hattie left Uncle Mose. She packed up her clothes and
[00:08:44]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and left him. I can't think what he did now that made her so mad,
[00:08:50]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
but she came down here to New York and to her Uncle Clem, you know.
[00:08:55]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Uncle Clem was the rich uncle that left us all the money, and he sold fish.
[00:09:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
On uh-- He lived around the corner here on Fulton Street; 15-- 1595 Fulton Street.
[00:09:06]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And when he died, he left 33 nieces and nephews; everyone of us got
[00:09:11]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
the first divide, I think was thirteen hundred dollars.
[00:09:15]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm.
[00:09:17]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And then he had the second divide after they sold the real estate.
[00:09:21]

[00:09:20]

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 18:42:29 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-29 10:18:48 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-29 14:35:37 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-29 19:45:43