^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS American Folklife Center The Library of Congress Spring 1995 Volume XVII, Number 2 ISSN 0149-6840 Catalog Card No. 77-649628 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, publication, and training. The Center incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established in the Music Division of the Library of Congress in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world. Administration Alan Jabbour, Director Trellis Wright, Special Assistant Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant Stephanie Parks, Clerk Camila Bryce-Laporte, Program Coordinator Acquisitions Joseph C. Hickerson, Head Processing Stephanie A. Hall, Archivist Coordinator Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist Programs Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specialist Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist Publications James Hardin, Editor Public Events Theadocia Austen, Coordinator Reference Gerald E. Parsons, Reference Librarian Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist Jennifer A. Cutting, Reference Specialist Administrative Office Tel: 202 707-6590 Fax: 202 707-2076 Reference Service Tel: 202 707-5510 Federal Cylinder Project Tel: 202 707-1740 Board of Trustees Juris Ubans, Chair, Maine Robert Malir, Jr., Vice-chair, Kansas Nina Archabal, Minnesota Lindy Boggs, Louisiana; Washington, D.C. Carolyn Hecker, Maine William L. Kinney Jr, South Carolina Judith McCulloh, Illinois Ex Officio Members James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress I. Michael Heyman, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Jane Alexander, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts Sheldon Hackney, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities Alan Jabbour, Director, American Folklife Center FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS James Hardin, Editor David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor John Biggs, Library of Congress Graphics Unit, Designer _Folklife Center News_ publishes articles on the programs and activities of the American Folklife Center, as well as other articles on traditional expressive culture. It is available free of charge from the Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. 20540-8100. _Folklife Center News_ does not publish announcements from other institutions or reviews of books from publishers other than the Library of Congress. Readers who would like to comment on Center activities or newsletter articles may address their remarks to the editor. Telephone and Online Information Resources American Folklife Center publications (including _Folklife Center News_), a calendar of events, collection guides, general information, and connections to a selection of other Internet services related to folklife are available on the Internet via the LC MARVEL Gopher Server and the LC Web World Wide Web Server. LC MARVEL is available through your local Gopher server. Or you may connect directly through Telnet to marvel.loc.gov, and then login as marvel. From the main menu, choose "Research and Reference," then "Reading Rooms," then "American Folklife Center." LC Web is available through your local World Wide Web service. The Center's home page can be accessed from the Library's main menu. The direct URL for the Center's home page is: http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife Folkline, an information service providing timely information on the field of folklore and folklife, including training and professional opportunities and news items of national interest, is available through both the above Internet servers and by telephone. For the telephone service (available around the clock, except noon on Monday, when it is updated), dial: 202 707-2000. Cover: Nick Doris (right), proprietor of the Hot Grill, in Clifton (just across the city line from Paterson), and his friend Chris Betts, who has also been involved in the Hot Texas Wiener business for many years, hold a typical order: three wieners "all-the-way," an order of French fries, and a soft drink. The locally invented Hot Texas Wiener has been popular for many years, especially among workers in Paterson's manufacturing industries. (WIP-MC-B036-20) Photo by Martha Cooper. EDITOR'S NOTES "Nothing to Do With You" One of the memorable stories Center folklorist David Taylor heard in Paterson, New Jersey, was told by Sol Stetin, a retired textile-union leader. Stetin had just begun a new job in the shipping department of a Paterson dye house, when a workers' strike occurred. The superintendent said to him, "Listen, this has nothing to do with you. You're in the shipping room and the shipping room's not involved in the strike, just the production workers." So Stetin continued to work and went home at the usual time. A few hours later, he was reprimanded by a union member and convinced that an effort for workers' rights had, in fact, a great deal to do with him. As a consequence, he joined the striking workers, at their meeting that evening and, later, on the picket line. "My place is with you guys," he came to realize. The phrases that open and close Sol Stetin's story, ordinary in themselves, are resonant for the folklorist, a specialist in community life. Consider them in relation to the several topics discussed in this issue of _Folklife Center News_: Patersonians' memories of their own and their parents' work experiences, the Hot Texas Wiener, and a cultural survey in Montana. In each case, the topic involves what does or does not "have to do with" individuals in a community. Sam Balister feels an intense identification with a particular task connected with his life's work, and seeks validation from a predecessor who was engaged in the same activity. Frank Lautenberg was urged by his father to get an education so as to escape the hateful conditions of factory work; yet, the successful businessman and politician strongly endorses and supports the remembrance and recording of the people and experiences that helped to make him who he is. In Tim Lloyd's admirable account, the Hot Texas Wiener is shown to be connected with such a range of experiences for present and former Paterson-area residents as to represent "home" for them. A project in Montana, described here by Alan Jabbour, will seek to demonstrate to a new generation of school children what it means to be a Montanan and where Montana fits into the national picture. Examining the past through the collections of various institutions and the present through various projects of their own devising, school children (the "Next Generation") will be asked to sort through the "things" of their parents to discover which ones "have to do" with them. Perhaps, as a result of their investigations, they will learn to say, with Sol Stetin, "[our] place is with you guys." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Narratives of Work: Stories Told by Retired Workers and Their Children By David A. Taylor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .................................................................. During the summer of 1994, Center folklife specialist David Taylor led a team of researchers on a four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey. The study, "Working in Paterson," was sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of the National Park Service (Philadelphia), under a 1992 federal program, the New Jersey Urban History Initiative (see Folklife Center News, summer 1994). ................................................................... Describing his hometown of Albany, New York, William Kennedy observes: "It is centered squarely in the American and human continuum, a magical place where the past becomes visible if one is willing to track the multiple incarnations of the city's soul."1 This description applies to Paterson, New Jersey--a rambunctious, inventive, mysterious place, also centered in the American experience. But how does one track the multiple incarnations of a city's soul? Since a substantial portion of Paterson's collective memory relates to the experience of blue-collar workers in local manufacturing industries, one way my colleagues and I approached this problem was through interviews with retired textile- and garment-industry workers.2 These interviews yielded a wealth of data about such topics as tools and processes used in making woven textiles and garments, occupational terminology, organization of work, strikes and other major events, and workers' values and traditions. The interviews contain many narratives that reflect similar themes and, therefore, provide insight to retired workers's collective occupational experience and the ways they reshape the past. A few of the narratives, representing four common themes, are presented here. Early Lessons of Work All the retired workers I interviewed described ways their parents shaped their outlook on work. Retired textile union executive Sol Stetin, for example, emigrated to the United States from Poland in 1921. He recalls contributing to his family's income as an eleven-year-old, not long after he arrived in Paterson. Recollections like this one not only provide facts about children's work in Paterson during the 1920s and 1930s, they also suggest how chores performed by children for the benefit of their families trained them to accept responsibility, learn skills, take pride in work, and cooperate with others: I came to Paterson in January '21. I think that by the end of the year I was on the street selling newspapers . . . . So I began selling newspapers early. I always worked. I would sell papers right after school until eight- nine-o'clock at night. In those days you'd buy the papers and sell them. You'd get them wholesale. Either the _Paterson News_ or the _Paterson Morning Call_ or the _Press Guardian_. There were three newspapers in Paterson at the time . . . . And so I earned money to help my family. . . . At one time, I recall, I was somewhat of an entrepreneur. I used to also sell the New York papers, those were popular papers . . . . When the pink edition of the _New York Daily News_ first came out--it was called the "bulldog edition"--I would go to New York, buy up 600 copies, bring them back. I'd go on the Erie Railroad, Chamber Street ferry to the New York Daily News, on Chamber Street, and bring them back and I'd have six or seven boys waiting for me to take the papers to sell.3 Parents' Sacrifices; Parents' Advice Other stories show how parents' work experiences influenced their children's aspirations and shaped their attitudes about workers' rights. Many interviewees described the long hours and hard work their parents endured, often under disagreeable working conditions. Marianna Costa, of Haledon, a retired textile union official who first entered the industry at Arrow Piece Dye Works, in Paterson, recalls the long hours her mother put in at her job at National Dye and Printing, in East Paterson, and her father put in was a construction worker: My mother left for work at 6:30 and she didn't come back until six at night. It was a long day between transportation and a ten-hour work day. She was away almost twelve hours. [My father] would leave at about seven, and he was out doing construction . . . . And he would get back by five--an hour before she did because of the transportation. He had a bicycle, so he was able to do better time. And she had to walk to a bus and walk the distance back home.4 Some informants' parents vigorously discouraged their children from following them into Paterson's textile or garment industries. U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, whose father worked as a warper in a Paterson silk mill, recalls the forceful way his father tried to impart this message to him: My father once took me to a silk mill he was working in. It was in Paterson. I remember the mill. It was a couple of blocks from where we lived . . . I may have been twelve. My father brought me into this mill. . . . So, my father, when he took me one day, I know it was a Saturday, to the mill that he worked in. And he walked me upstairs to where his friends were and he introduced me to his friends, as one is likely to do, a parent and a child. And he said to me, "I want you to notice how dark it is in here." And he said, "I want you to see how dusty it is in here. I want you to see how filthy it is in here. And I want you to hear how noisy it is in here." And he said, "If you don't want to work in a place like this you have to get an education." Frankly, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but it stuck with me. It had meaning later in life. But at that time he was decrying his situation, and saying to me, "For crying out loud, don't let this happen to you. Rise above this." It was quite a message. Anyway, I remember that so vividly.5 Lautenberg followed his father's advice. After serving in the armed forces and then graduating from Columbia University, he founded Automatic Data Processing, a company that eventually became the largest computing-services firm in the world. And, in 1982, he was elected to the United States Senate, where he continues to serve. Organized Labor Other interviewees talked about how their lives were inexorably changed by exposure to workers' strikes and, subsequently, by involvement with labor unions. Marianna Costa grew up in a neighborhood close to several weaving plants, and began working in a dye house in 1932. For her, the textile workers' strike of 1933 was galvanic. Here she describes how the energy of the strike mounted as more and more workers joined it, including Marianna herself, who knew practically nothing about organized labor: I didn't understand when the girls in the department I was in said, "We're going to go out." The chanting outside of the window, that's my first recollection. There was chanting outside of our work windows, and a big group of people. I guess they initially started by the Wideman plant. . . . and in Riverside you start in one place and you go down [and] you weave in and out. It's all dye plants. So that if you made your run you would call these people out and they would join in that line. And they'd go to the next plant and there was a bigger line. And the line kept getting bigger and bigger. The crowd instead of being one hundred was two hundred. Two hundred would get three hundred. By the time they got to our plant half the street was just a crowd of people. And they'd say, "Come on out. Join us. We're going to strike. The president said we can. We're tired of this." And said to the people, "What's going on? I don't understand." They says, "Oh, they're having a strike." And I asked them, "And then do what?" [They said,] "Well, then, we'll see what the union does." I said, "And what's the union?" "Oh, that's an organization that will fight for us to get better protection." I didn't even get the full comprehension, but I went with them. I wasn't going to stay alone in the plant. I went with them and we walked from the Riverside section to the Turn Hall, which was quite a walk . . . . And, anyway, when we got there, there were organizers that were trying to establish an organization to speak to the crowd and say "You got to stay out. You have a right to organize. You can do better than what you're getting. And the idea is to be firm, stay together and we'll see what we can do for you."6 The strike was a turning point for Marianna. She saw the power of workers organized to improve working conditions, and was proud to participate in an action that forced factory owners to grant the strikers' demands: the establishment of a minimum wage, an eight- hour day and a forty-hour week; the right to union representation in the plants; and the rehiring of strikers without discrimination. Not long after the strike, Marianna, previously unaware of unions, was elected to an office in her union local--not a common thing for a woman to do at the time. Sol Stetin's first contact with strikes and unions was similar in many ways to Marianna Costa's, particularly with respect to his naivete about both, and the effect of his participation in a strike not long after he got a job in a dye house: I got a job and [my new boss] put me in the shipping room. And then one time a strike breaks out. All the men walk out of the plant. And the super comes to me and says, "Listen, this has nothing to do with you. You're in the shipping room and the shipping room's not involved in the strike, just the production workers. So I didn't go out. . . . And they went out at twelve o'clock and I remember the word went around they were going to meet again at night. But it didn't affect me, so I didn't go out. Five o'clock I went home. . . . And in those days, at night, you'd hang around the candy store. You'd listen to Father Coughlin, the fascist. You remember, you heard about Father Coughlin? And they had a radio, I don't think we even had a radio in those days. And I see one of the fellows . . . and [he said], "I head there's a strike on at your place." And I said, "Yes, but it has nothing to do with me." Well, when he got through with me he had me convinced that I had done a terrible, terrible thing. That very night, I ran across the bridge, I waited for the bus. I knew where the meeting was going to take place: 612 River Street, the Kallin Ballroom. I ran up those stairs and I asked for the floor and I apologized: "My place is with you guys." . . . To make a long story short, the next day I'm on the picket line.7 Recognition of Skill While the proverb "work done well is its own reward" may offer some solace, most crave recognition of their skills and occupational accomplishments by co-workers, bosses, family, and friends. It is not surprising that one type of story retired workers tell concerns experiences that confirm their status as superior workers. Retired textile worker Sam Balister worked as a "twister"--an essential job in the textile industry that requires extraordinary concentration, precision, and dexterity. He became known as the best in Paterson, and his skills were in great demand by weaving mills. He appreciated the respect and good wages his skills brought him, but even when he was at the height of his career he wondered how his skills compared with those of legendary twisters of the past. In particular, he wondered about Joe Bromilow, the twister who, according to at least one factory boss, was the fastest ever to work in Paterson. In most instances, this sort of question remains unanswered, but, as Balister describes in the following story, he was lucky: I was working with Ronatex one time on Paterson Street. They used to have a place on Paterson Street. And the looms were in a row like this, you know, alongside the windows. And you get in back of the looms, and I'm right alongside the window. And in the summertime they had the windows open and anybody that walked by could look in, you know, and watch you, and [then] they'd walk away. And this old man used to come around once in a while. He used to limp at the time. He'd look through the window and watch me and he'd go away. This happened about maybe five or six times, you know. He always had some kind of bag in his hand. [He] went shopping, I guess. So, one day he happened to come by and he says to me, "I've been watching you for a long time." I says, "Yes, I'm getting to know you," I says. "What's your name?" He says, "My name is Joe Bromilow." "Oh," I says, "you're Joe Bromilow. You're the guy that [my old boss] Charlie Simmoni used to brag about how fast you were [at twisting]." [Bromilow] said, "I can't compare with you." He says, "I couldn't compete with you. I was fast, but not like that." He says, "You really got it," he says to me. "You're really fast." To me that was the greatest compliment I've ever received. . . . Even now, I get goosebumps when I think about it because that was a great honor for me to hear it from him, you know.8 The stories presented here allow us to look through workers' eyes into Paterson's bustling weaving factories, dye houses, garment shops and other workplaces of the past; to appreciate, in a more profound way, the meaning of being a textile worker or a garment worker or their children; and to better contemplate the legacy of the past in our time. Notes 1. William Kennedy, O Albany! (New York: The Viking Press, 1983), 7. 2. The other members of the "Working in Paterson" research team were: folkorists Tom Carroll, Susan Levitas, Tim Lloyd, and Bob McCarl, and documentary photographer Martha Cooper. 3. Interview, Sol Stetin, Paterson, New Jersey, by David Taylor, August 4, 1994. 4. Interview, Marianna Costa, Haledon, New Jersey, by David A. Taylor, August 20, 1994. 5. Interview, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, Washington, D.C., by David Taylor, March 22, 1995. 6. Interview, Marianna Costa, Haledon, New Jersey, by David Taylor, August 10, 1994. 7. Interview, Sol Stetin, Paterson, New Jersey, by David Taylor, August 4, 1994. 8. Interview, Sam Balister, Paterson, New Jersey, by David Taylor, August 7, 1994. Captions: Sam Balister, the resident textile expert at the Paterson Museum, demonstrates how to pull warp ends through the reed of a weaving apparatus called an "entering frame." Balister worked in Paterson's textile industry for over forty years and became a master "twister"--the person responsible for joining (twisting together) the individual threads ("ends") of two warps on a loom. (WIP-MC- B031-10) Photo by Martha Cooper Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and David Taylor, director of the "Working in Paterson" field research project, examine photographs of textile, garment, and other workers taken in Paterson in 1994. (2-74108-16A) Photo by James Hardin While the 1933 Textile Workers' Strike was in progress in Paterson, eighteen-year-old Marianna Costa (second from left) and other striking textile workers traveled to Washington, D.C., where they participated in a march in support of the adoption of federal standards for the silk industry. Photo courtesy of Marianna Costa Sol Stetin, general secretary-treasurer of the Textile Workers Union of America, walks behind the New York City Labor Council standard. TWUA officers, staff, and members are shown picketing the last grocery chain in the New York City to sell California grapes, September 1969. Photo courtesy of Sol Stetin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paterson's Hot Texas Wiener Tradition By Timothy Lloyd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A dozen miles northwest of midtown Manhattan, Paterson, New Jersey, is the home of the Hot Texas Wiener. Each year, the members of the many cultural communities populating this multi-cultural, multi- lingual city eat hundreds of thousands of deep-fried beef hot dogs, topped with spicy mustard, chopped onions, and a distinctive chili sauce. Hot Texas Wieners are restaurant food, served at several dozen establishments throughout, but mostly limited to, Paterson and its southern neighbor Clifton. Greeks own a great many of these restaurants, but though the Hot Texas Wiener's chili sauce owes more to Greece than it does to Texas, the wiener is not locally thought of as a Greek food. Hot Texas Wieners are workingman's food: they are inexpensive, and most of the older Hot Texas Wiener restaurants, including some no longer in business, were specifically located near industrial plants or along important truck routes through Paterson. And, of course, Hot Texas Wiener restaurants are workplaces themselves. They are the home of several distinctive occupational traditions, and have been important enculturating and economic- development sites for the Greeks and others who have worked there. Much less well-known than other American regional foodways such as the New England clambake, the southern fish fry, or the southwestern barbecue, the Hot Texas Wiener is the most locally distinctive foodway in the Paterson area, recognized, remembered, and argued about in loving and educated detail by present and former Patersonians. In August 1994, I investigated the Paterson-area Hot Texas Wiener tradition by interviewing Nick Doris, Greek-born part-owner of the Hot Grill on Lexington Avenue in Clifton, and Chris Betts, who with his brothers operated the Falls View Grill in Paterson. The Hot Texas Wiener and Its Preparation In its simple, classic form, the Hot Texas Wiener is an all-beef hot dog "blanched" or par-cooked in 350-degree vegetable oil in a fry basket for a few minutes, cooked by another hot vegetable-oil bath in a tilted steel pan until done, and then placed in a bun, topped (in strict order) with a spicy, ballpark-style mustard, chopped onions, and a chili sauce containing ground beef, tomatoes, more onion, and a "secret" blend of spices, including (I believe) cayenne, cinnamon, allspice, and cumin. Hot Texas Wieners are available with any combination of these "classic" toppings (e.g., without onions, with only chili, and the like) as well as pickle relish and sauerkraut. The chili sauce is also sold in refrigerated pint and quart-size containers, to take home. The shorthand jargon used in wiener restaurants to describe orders for the many possible variations on the Hot Texas Wiener is a distinctive part of this local tradition. If you were to enter one of the area's many Hot Texas Wiener restaurants and ask for "one," you would be served the food item I've described. If you were to ask for "a hot dog without onions," you would hear your counter-person yell back to the preparation line, "one no onions," and you would receive a wiener with mustard and chili sauce. If you were to ask for "four hot dogs, two with everything, one with just mustard, and one with everything but no onions," you would hear your counter-person yell back, "one mustard, one no onions on four." "On (number)" at the end of a Hot Texas Wiener order indicates the total number of wieners ordered; in the example, subtracting the number of wieners ordered with special topping combinations (two, in this case) will tell those on the preparation line the number of wieners (two) to be served "with everything." On a simpler order, such as four wieners without mustard, the counterperson may shout back to the preparation line, "Four no mustard four," to emphasize the total number ordered. Like many occupational traditions, the system of jargon used in Hot Texas Wiener restaurants has both a practical and an artistic importance. Practically, it standardizes orders so that they can be communicated clearly by voice (for the most part orders are not written down), especially in the midst of a lunchtime rush; but beyond this, knowing and using this folk speech has become the distinctive mark of the Hot Texas Wiener working world, and is stylistic evidence for those in the business of insider knowledge and occupational accomplishment. The common side dish for Hot Texas Wiener orders is french fries, which used to be ordered only plain or with ketchup, but in recent days are more often ordered with wiener-style toppings: mustard and chili sauce, and so on, and is also often served with gravy in a mid-Atlantic, urban style. Hot Texas Wiener restaurants customarily also serve a number of other foods, including hamburgers, cheeseburgers, bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches, and the like, along with soups and salads. Some of these have been served at Hot Texas Wiener restaurants for many years. According to Chris Betts and Nick Doris, the five main foods of the old-time menu were wieners, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, and roast beef sandwiches. A photograph visible today on the Pepsi machine at Libby's, depicting that establishment in the 1940s, shows a long sign running along the restaurant's roof listing these five items in large letters. (Libby's is one of Paterson's oldest Hot Texas Wiener restaurants.) The other items on the typical Hot Texas Wiener restaurant menu are newer arrivals, added to satisfy a clientele more interested in "lighter" eating. Wieners, however, are by far the most important product, in terms both of sales volume and of local cultural significance. Hot Texas Wieners are served in several dozen restaurants in the Paterson-Clifton area that specialize in them, most of which are owned and operated by Greek-Americans, and many of which have been in business for some time. People in the Paterson-area Hot Texas Wiener business told me that this food is served only in the Paterson area and has never been successful elsewhere, but I have learned from natives of western Connecticut and Allentown, Pennsylvania, that Hot Texas Wieners are served there also: this probably represents the farthest geographic spread of this tradition to date. The customary local term identifying a Hot Texas Wiener place is "grill," as in the Hot Grill, the Haledon Grill, the Colonial Grill, and so on. This usage is interesting, since the preparation method for Hot Texas Wieners does not include grilling: unlike many other wieners, Hot Texas Wieners are not grilled or boiled (in Hot Texas Wiener restaurant jargon, the "grill" is the part of the preparation line devoted to hamburgers and cheeseburgers) but, as described earlier, are deep-fried in two stages. Most, if not all, Hot Texas Wiener businesses include the concocting of what is regarded within the business as its most important ingredient, the spice mixture for the chili sauce. At the Hot Grill, and at the wiener businesses with which Chris Betts was and is involved, and at many--if not all--other local wiener restaurants, only owners know how to perform this exacting task correctly and consistently. Both Chris Betts and Nick Doris, in talking about their work, repeatedly referred to this mixture as the "secret recipe." As we discussed wiener preparation, both Betts and Doris listed a number of the ingredients that are included in the spice mixture: cayenne, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, and the like. What it wouldn't have been appropriate for them to tell me was the proportions of each, and, perhaps, some especially important secret ingredient. In discussing the matter of secret recipes, they agreed that while the recipe for a given business was, or should be, consistent over time, the recipes differed from business to business. As evidence for the importance of these recipes and their secrecy, Chris Betts told a story about his contribution to his son's Haledon Grill business, which opened in the late 1980s. The contract that established the business arrangement between Betts, his son, and his son's partner stipulated that Betts would not provide the spice recipe to the partners until the business had been in operation for five years, so he could be certain that the partnership would be a lasting one. Until that time, Betts himself mixed the spices. A Brief History of the Hot Texas Wiener According to Chris Betts, the Hot Texas Wiener was invented around 1924 by "an old Greek gentleman" who owned a hot dog "stand" (a loose restaurant-business term for a small restaurant; this one apparently sat ten or fifteen customers at a counter) on Paterson Street in downtown Paterson. This gentleman was experimenting with various chili-type sauces to serve on his hot dogs, and apparently drew upon his own culinary heritage for the first Hot Texas Wiener chili-sauce recipe. As Betts and Nick Doris mentioned when I questioned them about the sauce's origins, it resembles Greek spaghetti sauce, which contains tomatoes, meat, and a similar combination of spices. As Betts's account also suggests, the chili sauce is considered the crucial ingredient in this new food, its invention defining and separating the Hot Texas Wiener from the hot dogs the "old Greek gentleman" was serving before. Two important aspects of this early history remain undocumented: the name of the "old Greek gentleman" and his business, and his reasons for naming his new food the "Hot _Texas_ Wiener." Documentary research in newspapers, other local periodicals, and business directories of the period, as well as interviews with older workers, may well identify the Hot Texas Wiener's inventor and his place of business, although smaller businesses in working-class areas did not often receive much coverage in mainstream publications. The specific reasons for his choice of "Texas," unfortunately, are more likely to remain unexplained. I suppose that, seeking to give a unique and, for Paterson, exotic name to his new and somewhat spicy food--itself characterized by a sauce whose name ("chili") carries western, Latino, and cowboy associations--he might have chosen the "Texas" designation to give his creation what today we'd call an "image." For several years the Paterson Street location was the major outlet for Hot Texas Wieners, but in 1936 a Paterson Street employee named William Pappas left and opened Libby's Hot Grill on McBride Avenue and Wayne Street, across the street from the Great Falls on the Passaic. Libby's--still in operation today in the same location--was extremely successful, in part because of the quality of its food and in part because of its location, near to its clientele of workers in Paterson's textile mills and other plants, and on one of the main highways to and from New York City. In its heyday, Libby's employed over thirty people. Several of these employees took the knowledge and skills they gained at Libby's into their own Hot Texas Wiener businesses. For example, former Libby's employees opened Johnny and Hanges, on River Street, in the north end of Paterson, in 1940, and many long-time employees in other Hot Texas Wiener businesses received valuable experience at Libby's. (Johnny and Hanges is still in operation, though under different ownership.) In May 1949, Paul Agrusti, another Libby's employee, left to open the Falls View Grill--two blocks east of Libby's, at the bottom of the hill where Market and Spruce streets intersect, even more centrally located in the Paterson Falls mill area--with three Greek brothers, Chris, George, and William Betts. After they returned from military service in World War II, the Betts's had gained experience in the Hot Texas Wiener business by leasing the Olympic Grill--which sat directly across McBride Avenue from Libby's--from John Patrelis, who had founded it in 1940. Also with an excellent location, convenient to working people from the mills and to major highways of the time, the Falls View was also quite successful for many years. For two years, 1964 to 1965, the partners also operated a second location--the Falls View Grill East--in Elmwood Park, east of Paterson. Though the Betts's sold the business after a few years, it is still in operation as the Riverview Grill. Thus the three most-remembered Hot Texas Wiener restaurants of the post- World War II period--Libby's, the Olympic, and the Falls View--were located within a stone's throw of one another, of the mill buildings which were once the most important working-class workplaces in town, and one of the major east-west highways through Paterson. Paul Agrusti left the Falls View in 1978 to open the Colonial Grill on Chamberlain Avenue; his son Leonard now runs it. The Betts brothers sold the Falls View business in 1984, but its buyers were not successful in operating the business and sold it in 1988. The building, in the midst of Paterson's historic manufacturing district, now houses a Burger King. Chris Betts's son now is part owner of the Haledon Grill on Haledon Avenue. Nick Doris emigrated to the U.S. from Greece in 1954, and began working as a french-fry cook at the Falls View just after his arrival. Over the next several years he worked his way into knowledge of the whole occupation. In 1961, he and three partners-- another Greek, Peter Leonidas, who has since passed away, and two Italians, Carlo Mendola and Dominic Sportelli--opened the Hot Grill on the site of Gabe's, a car lot and Hot Texas Wiener operation on Lexington Avenue, just over the city line into Clifton. Since that opening day the Hot Grill has become quite successful, and is recognized throughout the area as perhaps the most authentic of Paterson's many Hot Texas Wiener restaurants. As Chris Betts said of the Hot Grill, "We were the old champs, and they're the new champs." The Hot Grill now employs thirty-five people, and the partners own two other restaurants, one serving Hot Texas Wieners, and the other more of a full-service restaurant. Significance of the Hot Texas Wiener Tradition For many Patersonians, especially those who have lived in the area for some time, Hot Texas Wieners mean home. This "meaning" works in several different dimensions. Patersonians eat a great many wieners, of course, but they do much more: they may remember the time they met their spouses at a wiener counter, they may recall regular family trips to the neighborhood grill, they may recount regular lunchtime gatherings of working people at their favorite grill near work, they may chart the genealogy of wiener businesses emerging from one another over the past seventy years, they may know the neighborhoods of Paterson by the grills that carry their name and mark them, they may argue about which grill has the best wieners and whether wieners or the places that serve them were better in the "good old days," and, if they move away, they may make a beeline for the old familiar wiener place when they come home for vacations or holidays. The Hot Texas Wiener tradition shows one of the ways in which, faced with the demands of making a new way of life, people creatively adapt and transform the cultural traditions with which they were raised. In Paterson, a Greek food was made into the centerpiece and most important ingredient of a local culinary and occupational world, perhaps losing its specific ethnic associations--at least, in the setting of Hot Texas Wiener grills-- but gaining over time a broader, more intense regional identification. Patersonians have made a new tradition using the raw materials of an old one. .................................................................. Timothy Lloyd is director of folklife programs at Cityfolk in Dayton, Ohio. .................................................................. Captions: Nick Doris, proprietor of the Hot Grill, holds a typical order: three Hot Texas Wieners "all-the-way," French fries, and a soft drink. (WIP-MC-B036-2) Photo by Martha Cooper Cook at the Hot Grill fries all-beef hot dogs in a vegetable-oil bath. (WIP-TL-B001-34) Photo by Tim Lloyd Sign for Libby's, the oldest Hot Texas Wiener restaurant in Paterson. It is located close to the Great Falls on the Passaic River, and Paterson's historic manufacturing district. The arrow points to the restaurant's old location, on Spruce Street (now occupied by a Burger King restaurant); its current location is on McBride Avenue, directly across from this sign. (WIP-MC-B024-2) Photo by Martha Cooper ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Montana Heritage Workshop: New Project Looks to "The Next Generation" By Alan Jabbour ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Montana is a state rich in history and tradition--and also, like America generally, a state facing the challenges of demographic, occupational, technological, and social change. Nowhere is the challenge of reconciling change and continuity greater than among the young people of the state. They are the next generation, and how the state will prosper and develop depends heavily on the new skills they acquire and the cultural continuities they reaffirm. A new project sponsored by the American Folklife Center (in cooperation with the Library's Center for the Book), the Montana Heritage Workshop creates a partnership between a consortium of Montana agencies and the Library of Congress to help Montana's "next generation" assume responsibility for maintaining the state's heritage. The project has been made possible by a generous grant from the Liz Claiborne and Arthur Ortenberg Foundation. Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg are ranch owners in Montana, and Mr. Ortenberg is a member of the Library's Madison Council. Entitled "The Next Generation," the Montana Heritage Workshop is a student and community education project that will encourage high-school students to compare and contrast the community life of Montana in past generations with community life today. The project has cultural heritage as its subject matter and field and library research as its educational strategy. Students will use materials in the Library of Congress, the Montana State Library, the Montana Historical Society, the libraries of the University of Montana and Montana State University, and their local libraries and museums as a window into Montana community life and culture in past generations. To compare that record with cultural life today, they will be trained to interview and document members of their own communities, including some of the same people, families, and communities whom they encountered in their historical research. Montana agencies participating in the project are the Office of Public Instruction, which will serve as the administrative home base for the project in Montana; the Commissioner of Higher Education and the state's two major universities, University of Montana and Montana State University; the Montana Historical Society; Montana State Library and the Montana Center for the Book, which is based at the State Library; the Montana Arts Council; and the Montana Committee for the Humanities. Envisioned as a three-year effort, the project will begin with a teacher-training workshop in August 1995. The workshop will be held at the University of Montana. An effort will be made to locate teachers from communities or areas where there is known documentation in the Library of Congress or Montana agencies. The teacher workshop will include both classroom instruction and a brief field experience. The project will ask broad questions: What has changed, and what remains the same, in the life of the various cultural communities that make up Montana? Is the environment changing? Has community life changed in significant ways? Is the occupational culture of the state changing? Are the various cultural traditions of the state in good health? What does it mean to be a Montanan? Where does Montana fit in the national picture? Student teams will seek to provide at least tentative answers in the form of final products that can be shared with the communities within which the students conducted their investigation--exhibits, booklets, radio programs, and public seminars conducted by the students in the community, for example. One resource for the project will be the documentary photographs, tape recordings, and fieldnotes from the Montana Folklife Project, conducted in 1979 by the American Folklife Center in cooperation with the Montana Arts Council. The project visited many Montana communities and documented ranching life, miners, loggers, and cultural communities as varied as the Hutterites of the High Line and the Crow community at Crow Fair. The schools and communities in areas visited by this project a generation ago would make ideal candidates for undertaking the "Next Generation" initiative in the 1990s. Many other Montana documentary materials and publications are also available in the Library of Congress and in various Montana libraries and museums for the purposes of the project. In the course of the project, participating students will also learn concepts relating to history, cultural anthropology, folklife studies, ethnography, literature, musicology, art--concepts to which few are exposed during their K-12 years. As a result of the required preliminary research, they will also acquire familiarity and experience with library research techniques that will benefit them in other educational arenas. The Montana State Library and the Montana Center for the Book will develop a core collection of appropriate publications for distribution to the local or school libraries of all participating schools. Copies of documentary materials from the Folklife Center's Montana Folklife Project will also be made locally available for the participating schools. Students in project schools will go first to their local libraries, archives, and other repositories, then to state agencies like the Montana State Library, the Montana Historical Society, or the state university libraries to conduct preliminary research preparing themselves for fieldwork. If possible, a delegation of teachers and students will also visit the Library of Congress in pursuit of their research. Driving cattle into the corral for branding and dehorning, Bitterroot Valley, Ravalli County, Montana, in the 1930s. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress John "Hammerhead" Hogan, retired copper miner, recites some miner's poems for fieldworker Gary Stanton. (C84598-17) Photo by Michael S. Crummett. From the 1979 Montana Folklife Survey conducted by the American Folklife Center in cooperation with the Montana Arts Council ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ People and Events ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Captions: Jennifer Goldsborough, chief curator, Maryland Historical Society, answers questions following her presentation "Lavish Legacies: Baltimore Album Quilts and the Women Who Made Them," at the Library of Congress, March 16. Photo by James Hardin Greg Schwalenberg, curator, Babe Ruth Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, displays sheet music from the collections of the museum at a Library of Congress presentation (with state folklorist Charles Camp) "Of Heroes and Ballparks, Real and Imagined: A Folklorist's View of Baseball," March 23. Photo by James Hardin Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, executive director of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, at the February meeting of the American Folklife Center's Board of Trustees, where she gave a report on current challenges to funding for the arts and humanities. Photo by James Hardin Timothy Lloyd at his desk at the American Folklife Center. Tim resigned his position as assistant to the director on January 6. He has returned to his home state of Ohio to become director of folklife programs at Cityfolk in Dayton. His duties include research, teaching, and producing public programs on southwestern Ohio's folk culture, as well as directing the National Folk Festival, which will be held in Dayton 1996, 1997, and 1998. Photo by Mary Hufford Timothy Lloyd at the wrap-up session of the 1994 Colorado field school in Colorado Springs. Tim resigned his position as assistant to the director on January 6, 1995. He has returned to his home state of Ohio to become director of folklife programs at Cityfolk in Dayton. His duties include research, teaching, and producing public programs on southwestern Ohio's folk culture, as well as directing the National Folk Festival, which will be held in Dayton 1996, 1997, and 1998. American Folklife Center Board of Trustees members Juris Ubans, Robert Malir (left), and Alan Jabbour (right), with Kansas senator Robert Dole, in his office to discuss the work of the Center, February 1995. Cover 4 caption: Former towel-factory worker Anne Murphy, of Totowa, New Jersey, being interviewed in her home by "Working in Paterson" project director David Taylor. Murphy, 97, is describing a photo of workers (including herself) and managers at Newberger's Towel Factory, in Paterson, ca. 1918. Taylor's account of other workers and their stories begins on page . (WIP-MC-B023-34A) Photo by Martha Cooper