C., Harvey, December 2, 1973 tape 1, side 2

Harvey C.: That's that's what they had discussed. See, now they had the fellas was on the funny shit stayed in but the laborers they getting so many laborers went out. So these people that they got back in there was doing what I would call the dirty white. So sweeping and shoveling and so forth, just like your your they steam department. If they were to close that down at that time, it wasn't heating with gas. He was heating the furnace with coal and coke. Well, if it went down and froze up, those lines would have busted up. They just kept enough to keep the steam from--

Gottlieb: But they weren't making any.

Harvey C.: They wasn't making any steel? No, they wasn't making any steel.

Gottlieb: Well, you told me that you became a turn foreman. What does that mean exactly?

Harvey C.: Well, now what you would call a kind of foreman. Well, it's placed in two things. The turn foreman and a gang leader. You are not considered with the authority when you become to be a supervisor. Now, 1937, I started as a turn foreman, 1937. Oh, I see.

Gottlieb: You worked there for quite a...

Harvey C.: While before you worked there until. I worked at that job until they promoted me in 1948. See, now, when I became, uh, I was getting paid twice a month or when they started, you know, off and I was getting $250 a month. Well, I thought that was big money.

Gottlieb: Yeah, it was, wasn't it, at that time.

Harvey C.: You got the way at that time they split it. You got $125 pay every two weeks. See, that's how you got your money. Well, at that time, it wasn't in a Social Security taken out. And all this taxes like they are now. Oh, but whenever I made supervisor then on the pay, if you went over to $500 a month, you only got paid once a month. Anybody under $500 got paid twice a month. When you went over $500, you only got paid once a month. See, then a lot of people think that your Social Security, everybody come out to to get the same they have a maximum. You can be getting $1,000 a month and pay your Social Security. You don't get any more because maybe if you're getting $1,000 a month, maybe in a couple of months or three months, you pay it out for the year. Because whenever I was changed over to monthly pay, I looked and there was taken no Social Security out. So I was right across from Mr. Fight to Josephine County. I went home and I said to him, So what's happening? They ain't taking no Social Security. He said, Oh, I thought you knew that. He says, they don't say, Well, now this man is going to be here next month or three months from now. They take out according to the percentage on your money.

Harvey C.: Then you got a maximum to pay in because you ain't going to draw any more than that, he says. Now, if that would be in fact, the maximum wouldn't be called maximum. So then that's what I did. I paid in. You take the general superintendent and he don't get in no more than I don't care who you are. Gets the same maximum. Yeah, but now we had what they call a tributary convention. That you were down, you'd had to be a foreman is the journey. Yeah. And if you went to the foreman, you had to join it. They'd taken out so much percentage say now. All right. You couldn't get mad or say. Christmas coming. I'm going to buy me a car. I'm going to do this suit or something. Sick. Yeah. You know, that money was only there when you quit or retirement. Now, if you quit, they only give you just a little percentage. But if you stay there until you retired. You got dollar for dollar. Great. Well, a lot of people say, why should I pay 35, 40, $50 a month? I'll be dead for that time. But a lot of people paid it. But we had it. And I went along with the same thing. Vicinage just like to take out your Social Security when you're working on your income tax. But it paid off. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Well, what what kind of work were you doing between 1990 and 1937 when you became a turn foreman? Well.

Harvey C.: I'll tell you the truth, which probably not. But I was a utility man up until 1937.

Gottlieb: What kind of what kind of jobs responsibilities did you have.

Harvey C.: Walking through the mill, checking on the cars, getting the numbers of what track they were on, or like in your locker rooms. The guys would come late, they would bust, lock a door, would say, All right, now, whatever it was, take a number. Every lockers in in the United States, still, they don't have the same number. All right. You take the number off this, you take it to the tin shop, what they call the tin on metal shop, whatever you want to call it. That man will go out and take that door off as necessary and put a new dawn or repair that door. All right. They had at that time, they had stretcher boxes set up like a tin of golf bag. Now, in there, they had a little key and the little grass, somebody got hurt and had to be a stretcher case. You'd break that glass and get that key out and unlock the stretcher. The stretcher went.

Gottlieb: Now, that's the kind of work that you had to do. That's right. And you stayed on that job from 1919, 1937.

Harvey C.: That's right. That's right.

Gottlieb: Was it a pretty good position?

Harvey C.: Pretty good position right there. In other words, at that time, they they were progressing at that time, uh, with the pay little pay I was getting, I figured it was honor because I could wear a collar and tie. Oh, I see.

Gottlieb: In the mill.

Harvey C.: That's right. Oh, that's right. So then whenever I come to be a supervisor, then I had my line in the car. I drove my car and I checked it in Homestead probably in the afternoon. I went to California in the morning. If I went to California in the morning, I'd go. I mean, if I'd go to Wheeling Axle in the morning, I'd come back through by rankings with an axle pulled in. Of course, we had a charge account all wherever I eat. The company paid it. Okay.

Gottlieb: Do you remember when the strike was over and the and the. Well, they were mostly foreign workers out on strike, weren't there? That's right. Was there a lot of trouble between the white men coming back to work and the black men who had scabbed on the strike? No, there wasn't. No. You don't remember anything?

Harvey C.: There wasn't any because there was the idea, uh, when perhaps, as I told you, you could figure out maybe a better idea out of what I'm trying to say, maybe I wouldn't explain that. Just as it should be. But when you get hungry, you have a different attitude. Uh huh. See, they stayed out there. In other words, you wasn't getting it was no welfare. Right. The people was hungry. They was glad to go back. Right. Oh, see, these last 2 or 3 strikes they've had, they had ten times more trouble than they had in that strike because the people. All right, you take the unions now when they out, the men get so much a week. That's right. But that time they wasn't getting anything. Uh huh. And when they tried to go back to work, they they went back to work. Got the same job, probably the same price.

Gottlieb: And no one said anything to you about. No, no. You worked in there when they were out on strike.

Harvey C.: That's right. Right. And probably the trouble may be I was new to them. Maybe, you know what I mean? Yeah. But, uh, that was the story that about the. The strike. But they say different in the strikes now. Yeah. Right.

Gottlieb: Um, I was gonna ask you, what did you think of Homestead as just a town? You had seen other places? A lot of other places. By the time you got here. How did Homestead compare to the other places in the North that. That you had seen as a as a place to live and a place to work?

Harvey C.: Well, they tell you the truth. Uh, my choice was after I got the homestead, now I had a job that I could have went back to Chicago, but that was up to me. I would have had no trouble after getting out the army for 90 days, picking up the same job I left on, see? But, uh, uh, Homestead, it always been, uh, more of a, uh, what you would call friendly, uh, fellowship. The people I know in several places that I could name way back. You were scared to go to the After dark. But Homestead, even this at the Times. Now, we haven't had too much trouble in Homestead.

Gottlieb: So you think it was a friendlier place in Chicago? Was. That's right. Okay. So you were pretty happy with it. That's right. That's right. Okay.

Harvey C.: And of course, join my father and brother, but had no idea what I was looking for. Uh, to live. And they support my own self now, you know, that's when you say, Well, now. All right, I'll read. Now, when they come here. Did I didn't have to do anything. But when I come here, I had to look for a job and support myself, just like I would any place in the country in the United States. But before it here. Now, I could have got a job in Detroit. I turned it down.

Gottlieb: In the automobile plant. No, no.

Harvey C.: Uh, the United States have a plant there? Oh, yeah. You still have a plant there?

Gottlieb: I didn't know that.

Harvey C.: But now, here, here's the idea. If you are sent to move somebody, then you up in the management and the supervision of superintendents.

Speaker3: You know.

Harvey C.: He didn't make that change. But now, if I would have went there, then I'm a young man, I'd have to start start down at the bottom and go up to the top. And I figured that I had so much service and was getting along all right. And I stayed. I've been retired for 14 years. Going on 14 years.

Gottlieb: Um, does your family live on Hazel Street? For quite, quite a time. Did they stay there for a long.

Harvey C.: Time or from around 1914 till 1927?

Gottlieb: And you were living with them that whole time at that time.

Harvey C.: So that's when they had made the arrangement to leave. I rented a house on eighth Avenue, 611 East Eighth Avenue.

Gottlieb: And you were just living by yourself at that time? Time? Yeah, that time. Do you remember? I'm going to switch to a completely different subject now. Do you remember a man named Reverend Nelson? Yeah.

Harvey C.: Did you have Grover Nelson?

Gottlieb: Grover Nelson? Right. Did you have any contact with him at all? Uh huh. Can you tell me about the kind of work he was involved in? Cause I've heard different things from the people I've talked to, and I'm interested in whatever help the people from the South who were coming up to Homestead got from different agencies, from Nelson or from the Urban League or a lot of other organizations.

Harvey C.: Well, uh, you know, at that time, uh, Grover was just a member of Mount Olive Franklin Church. He was the general manager over the being fair for the colored people. They had the community center on Fifth Avenue. He was the boss, right? Uh huh. Well, they went for gymnasia. It was a center. It was held by the United States Steel. And if you are if you see that you need employment, if he said you he wanted to get you a job, you got it. Great. He did. He did a great way to the for the colored people in the United States steel way at that time, it probably called the Homestead, Illinois Steel Corporation at that time. The Carnegie. Yeah, yeah, the Carnegie, Illinois. That's right. But, uh, yeah. Yes, he was. He was, of all the sports then had a, his assistant was a man by the name of Charlie Bit. I see him a couple of days ago. He looks pretty bad but Nelson passed some few years ago, but he was retired from the mill. But he was in charge of the welfare.

Harvey C.: Now he always sent out and those people was coming from different parts of the south. On the transportation. He knowed how many is coming and he had a place for them. Oh, that's right. Now when he come around every day when he started there, he would take your name and you didn't ever get the pay that you was supposed to get, uh, to go and pay your landlord. See, they taking that out when you got your pay. They had. They pay. Uh huh, uh huh. Then he would bring a check around to the landlords. The people was renting. That's the way he worked it. Because as long as he put you here now, if you let them, there was an addiction. If you came here and didn't like it, or maybe the doctor said you couldn't work in certain parts, they see that you went some other place. Now what have you choice. You want to go back to where you came from. If you want to go to someplace else, they give you a ticket. They give you the money. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Do you remember if they ever held any classes that people from the South would be invited to where they would, uh, teach them the kind of work that they were expected to do in the mill? Oh, yeah. They did have those kinds of things. Oh, yeah. Can you tell me about them? Well, what they.

Harvey C.: Now what they would have was a trainee. Yeah. Now they would take, say, for less than once a month that if you was in a different department. Yeah. Then when the ones was coming in, in the morning, they would go to this school and they was taught safety and this and the other. Then, all right, when they leave, they could go home. Then when this next term come in, they would go in the next time. Come in. Now, what happened? That's the time that they would get paid overtime. Uh huh. See, you didn't lose any time by going to school, but the oldest job down. Maybe you stayed on that job after you went out. So. And now. All right. The man's coming in at 8:00 in the morning. All right. He's going directly to school. Yeah. The man that came out 12:00 that goes in for once a month, you see the room. So then you, your buddy would stay until school was out. Then you went and taking your job. Maybe he'd make two and a half, three hours. See, that's what that was. Only once a month. Right.

Gottlieb: Now, uh, what. What school were the classes given at?

Harvey C.: Uh, well, it was a different location.

Gottlieb: Each month it would be a different place.

Harvey C.: Well, now each department, I see, would be once a month. Each department. I see.

Gottlieb: But the classes would be held somewhere in Homestead.

Harvey C.: No, in the plant.

Gottlieb: In the plant. I see. So now let me see if I've gotten this straight. Each different department would offer a sort of training program that's right there. Now, were these just specifically for these black people who were coming up from the south?

Gottlieb: Any new workers?

Harvey C.: Any. Any new worker? I see. You understand what I mean? They this school would be containing to safety hazards and so forth, containing to that. So they didn't have, uh, uh, say, for instance, maybe, uh, when you talk so long, maybe. Maybe somebody, maybe the a general supervisor, assistant supervisor, they would take and they would just like school. You would have had seats. Uh huh. And they had their desk and microphone. They talked from the desk and explained. Then they had professors. They would figure out this and draw or map this. They. They, they. They were taught all right. Uh huh. Oh, yes, they were taught.

Gottlieb: But it wasn't just a program for the black people in the South. No.

Harvey C.: Any new person? I see. Yeah.

Gottlieb: They were. The classes weren't given just to an individual. They were given to a whole group.

Harvey C.: Then we might put it this way. Uh, you know, the foreigners and the. At that time, they called them the Negro. Of course they called them the black people now. But at that time, the foreigners and the Negroes was in the same category. Yeah, that's right. They called them dumb. Yes. In the way of speaking. See, now, most of the white kids, the American white kids, they started in maybe the send school. They started in clerk work or some kind of they started with they never come in as laborers. Right?

Gottlieb: Were they? Were they worried about safety back then? Is that why they taught them in the first place?

Harvey C.: Did always if you got hurt, the mill would have to take care of it was like almost like a Social Security. Now, I know a man up there. Uh, Venable. He's got a son, is a minister now. He got his arm cut off and he went into Poison Summer. He died the next morning. And be taking care of those three boys and put them through school and see. Oh, yes, they have to do that.

Gottlieb: And these programs were designed to cut down on. Oh, yes.

Harvey C.: Oh, yes. He went around, uh, in, uh. And, uh, when they pick you out now, you. You had a, uh. You had a job. Now, that'll tell you. Then I had to attend. Here's the two that I got the medal for. Uh huh. See, now I was a safety man. See? But when you got to be your safety man, then you went with the state of Pennsylvania. You were there for a week. Oh, I see. See what I mean? Yeah. So they. You had to be, uh, now you was really taught to know what the dangers was. Now, a lot of people figure say now, all right, they got a boiler room down there, say a, B, you go down there and work the boiler room tonight. Oh, no. This man had to have a training. And they always had different people for different departments, whatever it might be. They got a training.

Gottlieb: Huh? Did did you go to these classes?

Harvey C.: Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.

Gottlieb: Oh yes. Were they able to give these classes even when they were bringing a lot of black people on transportation? All right.

Harvey C.: Now, whenever they came in, that's what they did. They come in and this always was a restaurant. They come in, they got their breakfast if the needy choose and so forth, They first thing they did, they went to this training school so that they could talk to them about the danger. A man didn't walk in there. They more more danger today because the most of the people are educated. Yeah. Yeah. When I came in the mail, I could have walked in the mail by making an X, but it was I was fortunate to have an education, a little education, but I know people that got in the mill. Now, today, if you go down there, you got to take your diploma, your your high school diploma to get in the mill today. They figured then that you can read up to it or was it was more a tightening years back you know today. Yeah. Oh because if you would write maybe some of those guys looking at those errors and the way we put them, they didn't understand it. Yeah, but today that's a different story. You got a high school education. You should be able to understand those things, but still they goes to meetings, you know? Yeah.

Gottlieb: Did the management have a lot of trouble with bringing up a lot of people who had never worked in steel mill before?

Harvey C.: Well, no, because first place, uh, some guy said, well, I'm going down the mill. Anybody can dig a ditch. You see, the most of the people was coming in. They started in in labor. Yeah, that's right. See, now, today, the modern work today, uh, I'll say they have cut 60%, not 50%. 60% of the labor that was used to be. Yeah, yeah.

Gottlieb: See done by machines still.

Harvey C.: But, uh, during that time, from the time the mill was organized up until about 19. Uh, 40. Then it was a lot of death, but whenever they got it. So now, as I said before, if you get sent to the United States Steel, you must have a high school diploma. Yeah, that's right.

Gottlieb: So you think that the management of the mill down there was satisfied in general with the black people who came up on transportation? Right. Do you remember in specific any kind of problems that that were that was created by having so many people who had never worked in a steel mill come in there at that time? Because you were here when they were coming in and you had been here for four years. That's right.

Harvey C.: Now, here would be your trouble with the people coming in the mill now. All right. They got say each man would take 3 to 6 men. Now, this man is trained to this job, right? And he was there to see that. They tried to get the information about this. But now you'll take in those money. They send the payments, you go in that hole, you wouldn't stay over 5 or 10 minutes. Now, they don't have anything to admit. They got charges like a buggies that goes in by a switch and it stays under there when they tap the funny. Yeah. That slag goes down, they push a button, then they still got a fan in there and the two fellas going out with a broom or something, sweep it out. You see, it's different from what it used to be. Sure. Uh huh. Okay. So they, they said they was, well, uh, taken care of when they came in here. They never sent a man out by herself. Even if they had a a man that was taken to the someplace, if he went, would stay there. At the two rooms. They had a man to break him in to tell him what to do. So then that made it very good because the company would go broke.

Harvey C.: The company had to. They've always had safety. And you had divide by it, right? Yeah. See, now it's different. Now you catch a man. That's what. That was the type, uh, job definition. If a man, uh, would get in trouble, uh, back in those foreign years back there, it's a you go to your lock and get your clothes, go home and stay 30 days. He couldn't do nothing about it. See, that's where that's made. The poor fella did watch his job and try to do what he was told. That's right. See, now, you you sent a man home today. He don't stop. Maybe go to the headquarters. Go to the union. That's right. Now, if you his supervisor, you got to meet with them. And you better be careful if you send them home. Say you report back here. It's sitting. Sit your time tomorrow morning, the next day. If you let's say you go home, maybe he'll tell them, say, don't answer the phone and don't get in touch and he'll keep it. If he's off a week, you got to pay him for it because his supervisor didn't tell him when to come back. Right.

Gottlieb: So didn't used to be like that.

Harvey C.: Didn't used to be like that.

Gottlieb: The management could do whatever they want.

Harvey C.: That's right. As I said, you do something wrong, man. Say you didn't have to go to the suit. The old foreman say you take a week off or two weeks or high. 30 days. You couldn't do anything about it. But today you can't for a thing you do. If you catch a man doing something wrong, you give him a warning.

Gottlieb: See if there's all there's a regular procedure.