Interview
Cook was included amongst the interviewees for the TWUA Oral History Project mainly because of his long service in the synthetic industry and because of his role in the Union's internal dispute during the 1962-1964 period. I [interviewer James Cavanugh] made a total of six and one-half hours of taped interview with Cook on April 6-7, 1978, in the broad-ranging library of his Silver Spring, Maryland apartment. Cook has collar-length grey hair and a full grey beard and speaks in a thoughtful, though tediously slow, monotone. His presence is more that of a retired professor than a retired labor leader.
Cook is very good in his discussion on organizing and administering the synthetic industry (and on labor-management relations in the industry), but generally rather weak in his assessment of broader TWUA issues and disappointing in his recounting of the 1964 internal fight. Synthetics is the most successful division of the Union and the highest-paying branch of the American textile industry. Cook's total involvement in Synthetics to some extent has insulated him from the larger problems of TWUA. Even for the period after he became a member of the Executive Council, Cook is often able to answer the larger questions about TWUA only insofar as they relate to Synthetics. In regard to the 1962-1964 fight, he contributes some new information, but is generally weak on details. His dislike for former TWUA President William Pollock tends to color much of his assessment not only of the internal dispute, but also the entire range of post-1952 considerations. This is well-illustrated in his assessment of TWUA attempts to merge with the United Textile Workers.
In addition to his TWUA experiences, Cook's discussions about his work for New Deal relief agencies in Philadelphia, his pre-TWOC labor organizing, and his three-year stint for the Marshall Plan in Austria are also useful.
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 “Graduate Work” should locate the place on the second track of side one, tape one, where the voice announces the 13:25 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Thirteen minutes, twenty-five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “Graduate Work” continues until approximately 15:20 at which point discussion of the next topic (“In 1928 Cook Had Completed the Program for Bachelor of Divinity, with the Idea of Teaching Philosophy of Religion”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentence underneath “Graduate Work” gives further details on what appears on the tape between 13:25 and 15:20.
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.
