Interview
I [interviewer James Cavanaugh] interviewed Feinglass for four hours in his home on June 9, 1981. Eloquent and opinionated, he not only provided the UFCW Oral History Project with a spokesman for the IFLWU and its philosophy, but he also provided a progressive, but sympathetic, interpretation of the Amalgamated. The Feinglass interview is useful for several reasons: as an antidote to Philip Foner's The Fur and Leather Workers Union; for frank analysis of the Amalgamated's problems in its later years; for descriptions and analyses of the fur and leather industries; and for discussions of the various mergers the Amalgamated has engaged in, particularly the merger with the United Packinghouse Workers (UPWA) in 1956, which failed.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape, and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher, by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button, may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “1925 FUR WORKERS STRIKE” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 03:30 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Three minutes, thirty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “1926 FUR WORKERS STRIKE” continues until approximately 04:45, at which point discussion of the next topic (“DETERIORATION OF THE UNI0N AND 0F CONDITIONS AFTER THE 1926 STRIKE”) begins.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “1926 FUR WORKERS STRIKE” give further details on what appears on the tape between 03:30 and 04:45. The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index to the Interview
There is no separate index for this interview. There is a master index for all the interviews with UFCW leaders.
