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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

Q:

So now do you want to come back to the calendar?

Foner:

The calendar. Because we had all of this art available to us, the question of deciding which twelve to use and how to design it, and we decided it would be like twelve by twelve, a large calendar. We had a designer who designed it. Then I decided that I would call unions I knew, send them a copy, a Xerox of it, and say, “Look. If you take a thousand calendars, you'll get them for $7.50 with the imprint of your union.” I sold 50,000 calendars. They are all over the place. Just this week Ellie Tilson is taking 600 to Florida to give to the retired members.

Q:

Of 1199.

Foner:

Of 1199.

Q:

Who are some of the other major purchasers, what other unions?

Foner:

UAW, Steel Workers, Paper Workers, UNITE [Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees], many of the unions. In addition, they would lead me to other unions to contact. I went to the Paper Workers, and the Paper Workers -- I found that many of these union leaders had Fasanella posters in their offices. Like Paper Workers, they said, “This is great. What we want to do is, we'll contact one of the big paper companies and see if we can't get you the paper.” So one of the big companies gave us the paper. They didn't have glossy paper, so it would have been much better. You know, we were able to bring it in and get grants and be able to match the grants to reach a huge audience with it.

Q:

And you were able to sell them at an affordable price.

Foner:

An affordable price, and people now --

Q:

What was it?

Foner:

We were selling them originally at $12.95, but a union could get a large run at $7.50. So that we have helped bring Fasanella to a new audience. We had an opening here in our gallery where I spoke and Milton Glaser spoke and Eva Fasanella spoke, and we had on exhibition twenty-five of Ralph's original paintings. So we were doing something that was important in art, important in labor, and we did that one also in cooperation with SEIU.

Q:

The core of Bread and Roses has always been bringing cultural events to members and involving members in a cultural life of the





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