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Alden and Joan Whitman. They had a number of people over, including Alger Hiss. I'd never met him -- I'd spoken to him over the phone. I was telling him a little bit about Bread and Roses and he said, “Arnold Weissberger” -- who is close to the people who run that foundation -- is a friend of his, and that I should call Arnold Weissberger. I did, and Arnold Weissberger got me in to the Golden Foundation. It's a theater foundation.
I remember, I think I got through to Joan Davidson at the Kaplan Fund largely through my interests and help at The Nation. At the big fund raising dinner for The Nation, which was a tribute to Carey McWilliams -- something that I did a lot of work for, I co-chaired it with Studs Terkel -- Joe Cadden introduced me to Joan Davidson. I'd been writing letters without any response. She said, “So you're the person who's writing.” She said, “Okay. Now you can call me up and we'll meet.” That was my entree to her.
Some didn't work. Ed Booth of Cummins Engine Foundation through Andy Young, didn't work out. Virtually all of the industrial corporations we never could break through. The only one we broke through in the beginning was the Prudential Foundation. There was through a friend of Bob Schrank named Mort Darrow, who was their grants person. I remember going out to Newark a few times to meet with him. We got a 25,000 dollar contribution for programming that would be done for our members in New Jersey. The following year I got another 5,000. I got to meet Richard Mittenthal of New York Community Trust through Joe Cadden. That started a relationship that lasted for about three or four years with rather significant contributions to Bread and Roses. Including, interestingly enough, a special contribution of I think 5,000 to do a study of the effect of Bread and Roses on the theater-going habits of hospital workers. I got a sociologist who came in and did that study. I have a copy of it. It showed a slight increase in theater attendance. But mostly most of the members said, “We don't have to go to the theater now. We have it coming to our hospitals.”
Another interesting thing was my relationship with the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries. That's the United Church of Christ. I got to them, strangely enough, through Jean Stellman -- who I think you know of her. Jean -- who is a very close friend of Judy Berek -- Jean, I talked to Jean about it. I met Jean. We were picketing St. Patrick's Cathedral. We had a strike at a Catholic nursing home in the Bronx that was part of the diocese. It went on for a long time, and we decided to up the ante and to go directly to the source. We were running picket lines on Saturday afternoons at St. Patrick's Cathedral. As a matter of fact, that particular year we ended up with a sit-in in
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