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C., Chick, February 21, 1976, tape 1, side 1

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Peter Gottlieb:  The following is an interview with Mr. Charner C.. C H A R
N E R. Begun on February 21st, 1976, at Mr. Charner C.'s home at 1503
Mifflin Street, Homestead, Pennsylvania. The first part of the interview is
missing. Uh, and uh, the information, um, Mr. Charner C. gave me, uh, is as
follows. He was born in 1903, in Carlisle, uh, South Carolina, which is in
Union County. His parents were also born in the same area. Um, his father,
uh, rented a farm on which the cash crop was cotton. Mother did not work
outside the home. He had, uh, 6 or 7, siblings. One older sister. He was
the oldest boy in the family. Uh, no other relatives or, other people lived
with the family. Mr. Charner C. got about four years of schooling. The
school was nearby his home. He could walk to it. He remembers it being in
an old small house. He remembers one teacher he had. A woman, a young
woman, and he remembers going to school only during the months of
approximately January to March each of those years. The sisters were able
to go to school longer than he or his brothers. For a longer period of time
each year that is.

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Charner C.:  I knew I was a small boy. I knew that.

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Gottlieb:  Can you tell us something about the work that was done on your
family farm? Cause I'm sure that most of us today wouldn't have any idea
about how cotton was grown back when you were growing up.

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Charner C.:  So what do you want to know about it? Gottlieb: Just exactly,
you know, what you had to do to get the land ready and how you'd raise it.
Charner C.: Well, you see, you first break the land up. You go around and
break it up with a mule and plow, and break it up. And then you break it up
maybe once or twice. And then you take a harrow, they call it a harrow
like, you pick the leaves with a harrow or something, the horse or whatever
it is. And they go across and tear all them crosses and make the ground
smooth. Then you go and lay off-- lay off your own bed of mud. Then you're
ready to plant seeds.

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Charner C.:  [unintelligible]. Then you put your fertilizer in then. You
bust the, the bed up-- bust the bed up then and put that fertilizer down in
there. [unintelligible] and then you plant the seeds behind that. Gottlieb:
Did you have to plant the seeds by hand? Charner C.: No, no. You had a
planter. They called that a planter. You can use your planter. Pull the
planter. It dropped the seeds down and cover, cover it up behind it. It
ain't like it is now they have a big old board behind it. Something drags
behind it so you come around, level it off like that. Then when the cotton
come up or the corn, whatever it may be, same thing. You just take a mule
and it just about so high and you go beside it, you go right beside it.
Then you tie it off, you chop it. What do you call it. You thin it out and
then chop it. Yeah you thin it out. Sometimes you cut out big plants that
don't grow. You know. You cut out plants like that. Corn is the same way,
potato the same way, peanuts the same way. All the same thing, same thing.
You plant them, so according to what kind of land it is, it makes a
difference. Now a real rich land. You can have them pretty close together
and they'll be the same thing. But if the land is not so rich, then you
have to kind of have awful [??], awful things like that.

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Gottlieb:  What happened when the cotton got a little bit bigger? How can
you thin it out?

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Charner C.:  Well, yeah, that's right. When you when you thin it out, then
you you come back and they call it--

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Charner C.:  Flendling [ph], flendling they call it. You run it. You have a
mule applied. You shook it. and you set your plow right in the middle. And
you throw dirt [??] right in between. Right in between and leave a place
right in between. Like a, like a stick. Right in there. That-- that'll hold
both sides of it so it'll grow. That's what they call. That's what they
call it. And-- right. And then, you know, after a little while, maybe a
week or two weeks or three weeks, something like that, no less than a
month. You go back again and then you, you dirt it, they call it dirt it.
You get a small plow-- a plane plow but a small wing, the plow had little
short wings on it and hit on the side of it and hit the little dirt. So
they get [unintelligible] And then next time you go back, they called that
laid, laid aside. You have a big bull here with a plow on it. You screwed
on the plow behind and then you go over there and sweep it over that way.
And the dirt and the moss would go to the side and you leave a big hole in
there and then going and done. And then you're ready the pick. Next time.
Next time you're ready to pick.

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Gottlieb:  How much time was it between the time that it had been laid by
and the time you went back to pick it.

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Charner C.:  Well, you lay by about the first or last of July. Yeah. And
then you go back around the first of  fall around September, October and
start picking.

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Gottlieb:  You could go the whole month of August and you didn't have to--

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Charner C.:  No, no. No no. You don't do nothing.

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Gottlieb:  Uh, did your father own all of his own plows and animals and
stuff like that.

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Charner C.:  Mhm. All that stock.
Gottlieb:  He owned the planter? And everything. Charner C.: Right. All
that. Gottlieb: He only had to rent the land? Charner C.: Right.

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Gottlieb:  Did he get these things by saving his money and buying them,
like, over a period of the time? Or did he get them from his father or?

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Charner C.:  Well, I don't know. As far as I can remember, when I was old
enough to remember he had them. That's what he was doing. When I could
remember. Yeah. That's all he ever did.

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Gottlieb:  I can't remember if you told me how many acres your father had
there.

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Charner C.:  Well, to make a big, rough guess at it, I couldn't hardly tell
you now, but somewhere, uh, it would be around 25 or 30 acres.

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Gottlieb:  Do you remember how many bales of cotton you used to get.

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Charner C.:  Well, I've had-- different years. Now, one year we didn't,
never saw a thing. Picked 17 bales and never saw a thing.

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Gottlieb:  Don't you usually get-- now, this is what I've read in books.
You can tell me if this is wrong. Don't you usually get about a half a bale
to an acre or something like that?

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Charner C.:  Yeah. And sometimes you get a bale to the acre. It depends on
the land. The old land-- some land is rich and some is poor. Not. Not too
good. Yeah.

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Gottlieb:  Did you have a good piece of land there?

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Charner C.:  Good piece. Good piece of land. Yeah.

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Gottlieb:  Did farming work suit you?

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Charner C.:  Yes. Yes, sir. Yes. See I didn't know nothing else? Yes. Butif
you called now I wouldn't choose it. You know what I'm saying?

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Gottlieb:  Do you remember how old you were when you first had a job away
from your parents farm?

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Charner C.:  I must have been around 15 or 16, 18, something like that.
Yeah-- no, I was 18, I think, when I came here. I was. 18 when I'd come
here. Must have been 16 or 17 after-- after laying by, I went to the man
that run the sawmill. You know like a sawmill? I went to him and worked
with him till Saturday to go back to the farm. That's the first work I
could remember doing.

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Gottlieb:  So. So you would have worked at the sawmill just until the
cotton need to be picked.

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Charner C.:  Right, Right.

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Gottlieb:  Do you remember very much about the sawmill or what kind of work
you had to do there? Charner C.: I was turning up-- I turned logs. See you
cut-- the lumber, the tree, the lumber that's cut off like this. Well, they
had bark on the side of it. You'd turn it over and you run a saw across
that side. You turn it, turn it again and saw it on that side. Get that
bark off to make lumber in the inside. Yeah. Well, that's what you call
turning logs.

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Charner C.:  Well, I needed something. Mother needed something. And a lot
of people that lived down there had boy-- had boys and that's what they
did.

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Gottlieb:  Did your brothers do this as well? Charner C.: One of them.

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Charner C.:  One of the did. The others wasn't old enough.

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Gottlieb:  Do you remember about how much money you could earn working at
this sawmill during the month of August?

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Charner C.:  I think it's like-- a dollar and a quarter or something like
that a day.

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Gottlieb:  Did you work right around the weeks? Did you have any days off?

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Charner C.:  Well, yes, Saturday and Sunday did no work. You never worked
down there on Saturday and Sunday, like no one.

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Gottlieb:  Was it very far from your home?

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Charner C.:  You could walk.

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Charner C.:  You could walk. Yeah. Gottlieb: And that was the first job
that you had off your parents farm? Gottlieb: Right.

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Charner C.:  What did you do with the money that you were getting from the
sawmill?

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Charner C.:  Well, different little things. I'd give to my mother. I was
awfully good to my mother.

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Gottlieb:  You took the money back to your parents? Charner C.: Right.
Right. Gottlieb: Can you tell me-- you said you began working at the
sawmill when you were about 16? Charner C.: I guess something like that.
Gottlieb: And you said you were about 18 when you left home. Can you

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Charner C.:  Well, my father worked on the farm. And my aunts in Detroit
were writing for me to come because I could get a job and work and do more.
Get more money.

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Gottlieb:  So your father himself gave up farming?

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Charner C.:  Right. Gottlieb: Why, why did he do that? Charner C.: Well.

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Charner C.:  Mother died. I'm just saying that, I don't know exactly--
that, that's as far as I know.

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Gottlieb:  What did your father do? Did he go to Detroit as well?

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Charner C.:  No, no. His, his home was there and he stayed with his-- he
had a lot of sisters and things there.

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Gottlieb:  What did your brothers and sisters do when you went to Detroit.

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Charner C.:  They went-- one of the brothers is in Ohio now. He went to
Tennessee, to my Aunt. Aunt in Tennessee. My two sisters was in-- one in
Philadelphia now and one in Brooklyn. They went to Boston too with one of
my aunts.

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Gottlieb:  Were these aunts your mothers sisters or fathers sisters?

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Charner C.:  Mother's sisters.

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Gottlieb:  And they had all come up north-- Charner C.: Right. Gottlieb:
Earlier. Do you remember why they had gone up there?

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Charner C.:  The same thing. It was like a fleet. I know because there was
writing to them all the time to come.

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Gottlieb:  What year would that have been if you went up to Detroit? Do you
remember it?

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Charner C.:  It was, it was. I came here in 23 I think it was. It must have
been. I was there about two years. Gottlieb: You would have been about 21
then. Charner C.: Right. Right. I think that's what you said 21 or 20 or
something like that, you know.

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Gottlieb:  Remember what time of year it was when you went up?.

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Charner C.:  It was long winter. A little later, around the first of
spring. Arounnd the first of spring.

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Gottlieb:  How did you go? Did you go-- like what kind of transportation
did you take?

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Charner C.:  Well, they sent me a ticket. Gottlieb: A train ticket?

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Charner C.:  Right. Gottlieb: Did you stop anywhere in between-- did you go
from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Charner C.: Right. Gottlieb: Did you stop
anywhere between Spartanburg and Detroit.

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Charner C.:  No, no more than a change. You know, stop to get a meal or
something like that.

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Gottlieb:  Was that the first time you've been out of South Carolina?
Charner C.: Yes. The first time I've been out of South Carolina.

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Gottlieb:  What did you take with you when you went up to Detroit? Charner
C.: What clothes I had. A suitcase of clothes is the only thing. Gottlieb:
Did you have very much money?

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Charner C.:  No, no, no, no, no. We couldn't get all that much money in
those days.

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Gottlieb:  What? What did you do when you got to Detroit?

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Charner C.:  Well, I went to work with my uncle there.

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Gottlieb:  He was a building contractor? Charner C.: Uh huh.

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Gottlieb:  Was he building houses and things?

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Charner C.:  He was making a mall on Hallam Bridge, I was rolling, rolling
a wheelbarrow. You know what a wheelbarrow is right? Right.

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Gottlieb:  And where you living with your aunt and uncle. Yeah?

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Charner C.:  Right. Gottlieb: Do they have any children at home? In that
house?

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Charner C.:  One.

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Gottlieb:  Did you try to find any other kinds of jobs? Besides working
with your uncle?

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Charner C.:  Yeah, I had a I had another job there for a while, but I
didn't. Didn't like it too because I had to [??].

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Charner C.:  I was working full time. But I had to get up 4 or 5 o'clock in
the morning.

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Gottlieb:  What did-- oh sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. Charner C.:
That's all right. Go ahead. Gotlieb: Let me go back to Detroit for a
minute. When I read about the history of autoworkers and things like that.
They always talked about how much money Ford paid. Was the money that you
could have learned at River Rouge pretty good money? Charner C.: Right.

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Gottlieb:  But that didn't seem-- that didn't make enough difference to
you. Charner C.: No, see I could get-- I came out here. It wasn't that
much, what I was getting, you see, what I was getting wasn't that much
different. Maybe a dollar or $2 more than than over there was what I was
getting here. And then I had more convenience because it was closer. It was
closer here to my work than it was way out there.

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Gottlieb:  You mean the place you lived in Homestead was closer?

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Charner C.:  Yeah, right. See, I can walk. I walked to the mill to work
down here all the time. I never had to buy a car. Nothing to drive. No. I
had to walk. I worked right in this one place the whole time. It's on the
other side of the river right in the mill here. When I was there you had to
get up four times, maybe 5:00 sometimes. Get ready and get out in time to
go to work.

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Gottlieb:  What kind of-- what kind of job did they put you on? Do you
remember?

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Charner C.:  Well, it was. I call it carnival [??]. It's not a shaking out.
They call it shaking out the mould. What-- you know what a mould for the
mould plant? A mould thing? I would shake out. Shake out for it after
them.

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Gottlieb:  And what exactly did you have to do? Was there sand in the mould
or anything?

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Charner C.:  No. Well, see, when they, when they, when they make that, make
the mold and put it in and when they, when they come out they turned out
and take it out. You you would shake-- turn it over and shake them out for
the next time you went back and make something. Clean out like.

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Gottlieb:  Was it hard work?

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Charner C.:  Mhm. Well it wasn't too hard but do it pretty fast like. But
that's because piecework [??] was right there. Something like that.

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Gottlieb:  Did you make any-- did you meet any people on the job there that
you got to know. Charner C.: Not any.

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Charner C.:  I couldn't remember any of them now. Nobody that I was any
close to me or nothing like that. No. Gottlieb: Was anybody else from South
Carolina there?

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Charner C.:  Well, I'm almost sure there was. I'm almost sure there were
plenty.

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Gottlieb:  When you first came to Homestead. Uh, have you been-- have you
been back home yourself between the time you came to Detroit and the time
you came to Homestead? Charner C.: No.

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Charner C.:  When I first came, no. I went back and-- I married my wife.
Come right on back. I didn't stay a long time. Just went back and we, we
correspond through letters all the time. All the time. And they just come
right on the way. Then went back and got my wife and then  come right on
back here.

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Gottlieb:  Um. The first time you came to Homestead, was it just for a
visit or did you come here-- Charner C.: For a visit. For a visit.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.000
Gottlieb:  Can you tell me how long you stayed and what you did here?

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Charner C.:  Yeah I came out here and the man hired me. Come out here to
the mill and the man hired me and told me to get ready for work the next
morning. I went back to the house where I was staying at, and he told me
that old pair of overalls. I got these overalls put on and worked til the
end of the end of the week. And then I went back to Detroit and got my
trunk and clothing.

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Gottlieb:  Had you been expecting to find a job in Homestead when you first
came, or was it just by accident?

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Charner C.:  Yeah, that's. That's by, that's by accident. I didn't like out
there. I didn't, I didn't give up my job over there. Understand what I
mean? No, I didn't give up my job over there at all. I come and I like it
out here. And the man hired me and I work here a week, and then I liked it
better. I went back weekend and got my trunks and clothes and that's it.

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Gottlieb:  Why do you like to work in the steel mill better than the
foundry at Forbes? I've heard that working at the steel mill isn't any
picnic either.

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Charner C.:  No it isn't. It isn't

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Charner C.:  But it's not as dusty. You don't. You don't, you don't, you
don't inhale as much as dust in the steel mill as you did in the foundry
where I was.

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Gottlieb:  What mill were you working at down there?

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Charner C.:  Well, I finished up down here at the Union [??] department,
they called it. The call it the 160 now. The [??]. Yeah. You worked--
levers and things, you pull levers and things like that. It's very
convenient. But when I first started working up in the old mill, it wasn't
like that. You had to-- [coughs] pardon me. You had to work pretty hard
sometimes, but you had a lot of outlet, a lot of air, and you didn't--
wasn't [??] and inhaling a lot of dust and things like you was in there.
Over there.

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Gottlieb:  So you worked in Rolling Mills?

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Charner C.:  Right.

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Charner C.:  Rolling. That's right. Rolling. I had to finish the steel.

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Gottlieb:  Um. What did you think of Homestead as a, as a kind of a
neighborhood compared to the place you were living in in Detroit?

00:25:38.000 --> 00:26:03.000
Charner C.:  Well, it's much, much better in a way of speaking more
Christianized and things like that. And at the time I was in Detroit, it
was-- it was terrible those two years. It was terrible. You just see people
run out and they get killed in the street. And the-- police are just, just
awful.

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Gottlieb:  Why? Why were things so rough there?

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Charner C.:  Railroad. You see, anybody would tell you that. Long back
then. It's different now. But I was back over there and all my wife's
people were there. Some of them is there now. Most of them dead now, but in
65 I was over there. Visiting in 65.

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Gottlieb:  Why were things so rough in Detroit? Do you think?

00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:59.000
Charner C.:  Well, I don't know. Well I-- just their way of thinking. As I
said, it wasn't Christianized enough, I don't think. It wasn't-- people
didn't care about no church and if they had a church, people just like--
there's no-- [??] it look like was the biggest-- was that day. It was, on a
Sunday like. They never sang. Never call down. No, nothing like that. Just
work all the time and--

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Gottlieb:  Did your aunt and uncle belong to the church in Detroit?

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:31.000
Charner C.:  Well, I don't know. He might have been. They might have
belonged to the church, but they didn't go too regularly. See I was there
from about the time I told you I went there until 23 when I came here. It
wasn't too long a time. I wasn't there too long before I came over here.
Most of my life has like been in here. Yeah. Been here 23-- Yeah. Been
right here.

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Gottlieb:  I heard that homestead was a pretty rough place itself back
there in the 1920s.

00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:48.000
Charner C.:  It was. It was, but it wasn't as-- couldn't, couldn't compare
to Detroit.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:03.000
Gottlieb:  Did anybody help you find a job in the mill? Did anybody tell
you any particular person to talk to? Or which office to go to or anything
like that? Or did you just go down there by yourself?

00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:24.000
Charner C.:  No I got information from a fella. I don't know who he is now.
I can't tell you who he is now. Over the years-- he worked out here.

00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:26.000
Gottlieb:  And he-- what did this person tell you? Do you remember?

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:53.000
Charner C.:  Yeah. He told me about how they work out here, and there was
hiring men. And they needed men. How they shipping in men here from [??].
And I find that he did like he said, because the time I got to go into the
office. Got down there that week. Come, they told me to come. Gottlieb:
Really, they beckoned you to come?

00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Gottlieb:  They don't do that aymore.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:29:00.000
Charner C.:  Oh no, no, no. You have to beg for them now. Right.

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Gottlieb:  Do you remember what place you were talking to these fellows?
Who told you about that?

00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:17.000
Charner C.:  It was at Pittsburgh. Yeah, yeah.

00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:20.000
Gottlieb:  Do you remember the person who actually hired you on?

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:31.000
Charner C.:  I couldn't recall his name. Gottlieb: Did you ever have
anything to do with him again after he hired you. Charner C.: I'd seen him
but I never had no more. Gottlieb: Did they ask you any questions when they
were talking to you?

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:33.000
Gottlieb:  What kind of things did they want to know?

00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:43.000
Charner C.:  Where I was from. Where was I born. Everything. How old I was
and all that stuff.

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:58.000
Gottlieb:  Did they ask you if you would ever work in the mill before?
Charner C.: Mhm. I told them I was. Told them I was up there in Detroit
working in the foundry.

00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:16.000
Gottlieb:  Did they seem to be interested in any kind of qualifications in
terms of, uh, how strong you were or anything like that or were they just
hiring pretty much anyone who would move. Charner C.: Move. Anybody who
would move up to the North.

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:24.000
Gottlieb:  Did you ever think when you were talking to this man down at the
employment office that you weren't going to get the job?

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:31.000
Charner C.:  No, I didn't. I didn't think-- I was thinking I was going to
get the job. When he, when he called me, I was thinking he was going to get
the job. Right.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:32.000
Gottlieb:  Were there a lot of men down there?

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:47.000
Charner C.:  A lot of men, a lot of them. It was crowded, but it's picking
like-- picking them like, you know. Some of them had worked there before
and quit. And some of them, you know, some of them had never been there,
you know. I was told, I said yes.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:51.000
Gottlieb:  And so they pick you from that line.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:57.000
Charner C.:  Mhm. Because they had never seen me before. Gottlieb: Well why
do you think that they, they, they selected you from all the--

00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:57.000
Charner C.:  Well, I just-- just because they had never seen me. They never
hired me before. Gottlieb: So I guess it was just a matter of luck.