Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Moe FonerMoe Foner
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 592

is very different. First of all, it's much poorer. Even though Williamsburg is not a mecca, it probably is considered much nicer than the East Side at that time. It's much poorer and more of the basic workers in the garment industry are there, crowded up and huddled up, and the Irving Howe stuff is all there; the socialist movement culture and everything is there. That's the fight that's going on already.

Q:

Because my grandfather, in his experiences, you know, was carrying a box for Meyer London to stand on.

Foner:

I remember the name Meyer London. I remember them from that period, but I remember my parents mentioning Meyer London, but I didn't know -- he was a socialist, he was a good man, a good man, because those people were good men. That's all, they weren't because they were socialists; they were good men.

Q:

That was the view that your parents had?

Foner:

I'm sure I must have heard it somewhere.

Q:

He was Jewish and he was for the workers, and therefore, he was a good person.

Foner:

He was a good man, that's right. He was for people, for poor people.

Q:

Did you have any, from your family, sense of unions?

Foner:

Not really, no. No, no. No, I don't. I'm trying to think, because first of all, I had uncles who lived all fairly close. I forgot to tell you my father, at night, after coming home later, would wash up, sit down and eat by himself, and then go off to visit his father, who lived a block and a half away and where all the sons would sit down and while my grandmother would bring tea, and my grandfather -- I remember because I used to go to him for lessons also -- sat and smoked a Murad and was writing letters to Bintele Brief and nobody talked. Occasionally he'd say something. He was like the patriarch, would sit there, and they all sat there. They would exchange views with each other a little bit. Then they picked up, and they came home and they went to sleep.

Q:

They wrote letters to the Bintele Brief?

Foner:

My grandfather did. He pictured himself as a great intellectual. He was not. He was not. He used to always be writing.





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help