Interview
The eleven-and-a-half hours of interview with Stetin were conducted in five sessions - one hour on July 18, 1977, in his New York City office; two-and-a-half hours on March 13, 1978, and three-and-a-half hours the next day in his St. Louis hotel room; three hours on July 25, 1978, in his office; and one-and-a-half hours in his office on November 16, 1978. Stetin, small in stature but big in heart, was an eager and pleasant interviewee - energetic, optimistic, gregarious, and animated.
The Stetin interview covered the entire range of TWUA's history. His recall ability was not exceptional, but when his memory was prodded, Stetin always ventured an opinion. He was a little reticent on some sensitive issues, particularly the 1950-1952 internal dispute, but was quite candid on others, like the 1962-1964 internal dispute. For the years after 1968, when he ascended to major office, his statements can be taken as the official TWUA position. Stetin, however, has always been politically to the left of mainstream American unionism and even mainstream TWUA, and remains so today. Certainly his opinions on the direction of American unionism over the past couple decades and his criticisms of the AFL-CIO today are stated more strongly than the Union would state them in an official publication.
Stetin was most helpful when discussing the 1930s, the formation of the Dyers Federation, the decline of the TWUA and its current problems, and the relationship of the TWUA and the United Textile Workers. Also, he was more reflective than one might expect from a still-active union leader. From time to time during the interview, he tended to launch into speeches, but he always managed to return to the main point.
Abstract
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 “Arrival and Early Years in the United States” should locate the place on the second track of side one, tape one, where the voice announces the 04:00 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “four minutes”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “Arrival and Early Years in the United States” continues until approximately 10:55 at which point discussion of the next topic (“Employment Prior to Entering the Textile Industry”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “Arrival and Early Years in the United States” give further details on what appears on the tape between 04:00 and 10:55.
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
There is a master index for most of the TWUA Oral History Project interviews in the collection-level finding aid.
