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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

issues, he was really good. He was a very profound thinker, he liked foreign policy more than domestic policy.

Then beyond that, beyond Sweden, there was --

Q:

But wait. It's remarkable that you had that relationship with Sweden.

Foner:

Well, I still have that relationship. I became very very close friends -- Rolf's wife is the minister of disarmament, Maj Brit. So that we are very close friends. When I'd come I met their family, and I'd go to their summer home. When they come here they come to our home. You know, we still have that kind of relationship with them and with other people in Sweden who are in, and close to, government.

I remember -- I don't want to say I'm pulling my horn. The last part of Images of Labor was a tour in Stockholm, in the old town in a gallery there. I was introduced by Bengt Goransson. The minister of culture came and introduced me. This is what he said in summary. He said, “Workers culture is a very difficult problem. We've never been able to solve this problem. We must always grapple with it. It requires a lot of attention to move on this issue, it's very hard.” He said, “To make headway on this thing you have to be obsessed. You need people who feel that this is their mission in life, who will never let anybody say no to them about anything they want. You need people with a vision, who have ability, who know what they want and who are prepared to do anything possible to do it. I have an obsessed person here. That's the kind of person we need in Sweden.”

Q:

That's very nice. What other things went there? Bread and Roses exhibit toured, and --

Foner:

The Images of Labor went there, our posters go there, our books go there. We go in to the schools, everything. They are modeling some of the things they're doing in the Workers' Museum based upon the Lawrence experience. They constantly sit down and say -- it's like reinventing the wheel.

The first time I was there we were going from place to place and, you know, it was a wonderful experience. Then we came in to Sodeburg -- not Sodeburg, there's a town forty miles outside of Stockholm. It's a relatively new town, a lot of foreign-born workers there. They said, “We're going to go to see a show,” and we went to see a show. It was a musical about clothing workers. After it's over they introduce me to the person who wrote it, and the director. “How do you think they did it? Through oral histories. The same kind of thing that we did in “Take





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