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Home , Moleskin, Overalls, Parka, Shirt, Union suit

Min Made in nesota

The Rise and Fall of an Apparel Industry

Mary Christine Bader

248 e set out to be a filmmaker would grow into the age of 16); 9 companies making in Los Angeles, but in the in a major Minnesota corporation, but fur garments, with 169 workers, 101 1970s Dennis Lang rewrote most of the state’s apparel companies of them female; and three HHthe script. He came home to Minne- remained small, family-owned firms. firms, employing 192 workers, 156 sota to help run his family’s St. Paul Entrepreneurs established sewing of them female (two younger than business—the Energy Manufacturing operations in towns throughout the 16). By 1906 nearly 3 percent of the n Minn Company. The company, founded state, although the major activity was state’s wage earners worked in cloth- de i eso as it was on the leading edge of the in the Twin Cities. As the railroads ing factories, but their numbers a ta Great Depression, had a history im- and construction activity expanded, included more than 14 percent of the M bued with optimism. Dennis was heir small family companies like Simon state’s female wage earners.3 to that optimism. and Mogilner, Klinkerfues Brothers, Energy Manufacturing was a and Guiterman Brothers sprang proud part of one of Minnesota’s ear- up in St. Paul to manufacture work By World War I, the industry liest industries. Tracing its roots to clothes. And, as milling expanded was maturing and dominated by the 1870s, the apparel business had near the Falls of St. Anthony in Jewish immigrants from Eastern provided jobs for thousands of Min- Minneapolis, entrepreneurs em- Europe. They had sewing skills and nesotans and profitable investments ployed young women—sometimes could set up their own businesses for numerous others. Now, with in sweatshops—to sew flour bags with a relatively small investment in cheap and arriving from and women’s shirtwaists for the machines and rented factory space. Asia, the Lang family’s outerwear company was about to face the most serious challenge in its history, and Minnesota’s formidable winters chilled one of the state’s oldest industries the bones of settlers, but they also ignited was about to become detritus of a early entrepreneurial instincts. new age of globalization.

growing population.2 The Minne- One of them was Barney W. Harris, Minnesota’s formidable winters apolis industry also diversified into who launched the B. W. Harris Man- chilled the bones of settlers, but they the manufacture of intimate apparel, ufacturing Company in St. Paul in also ignited early entrepreneurial with firms such as Kickernick (linge- 1916 and quickly advanced from buy- instincts. Shortly after the Civil War, rie) and Strutwear (). ing fur pelts to manufacturing warm an apparel-manufacturing industry By the beginning of the twentieth jackets for St. Paul Winter Carnival began sprouting, serving the growing century, apparel manufacturing was marching and World War I population’s basic need to keep warm. a major source of jobs, especially for soldiers. B. W. Harris also produced In St. Paul, Gordon & Ferguson began women. In fact, from its infancy, the mackinaw coats and leather jackets turning hides into coats in industry was built on the labor of lined with sheepskin for the general 1871, eventually becoming one of the women. In 1901 St. Paul’s 10 population. Then, in the 1920s, the largest manufacturers of fur goods in manufacturers employed a total of company capitalized on the raccoon- the country. Meanwhile, in Minneap- 1,193 people—1,104 of them female, craze among college boys and olis, the Northwest Knitting Company including eight workers under the also produced stylish fur coats for (later known as Munsingwear) in- age of 16. Another 13 companies women. On its way to becoming corporated in 1887 and soon began that made fur garments employed the leading outerwear manufac- producing its venerable union — 633 people, 357 of them female. neck-to-ankle underwear—that In Minneapolis there were 31 firms became a winter mainstay wherever employing a total of 1,189 workers, Mary Christine Bader is a writer who the cold winds blew.1 1,084 of them female (three under lives in Wayzata. Her article on St. Paul’s first union of garment workers appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of facing: “We Know It’s Cold”: Winter Carnival marching band modeling its Minnesota History. by B. W. Harris outside the company building in St. Paul’s Lowertown, about 1940

Fall 2011 249 a manager spelled out the firm’s sur- vival strategy: “We have cut the profit but not the quality, waiting for a better day.” By 1936 the company was again making money.7 Arnold Rubenstein, who later owned the Minneapolis menswear manufacturer Robitshek-Schneider, began his career during the early depression as an outerwear salesman traveling

what seemed like endless deso- late roadways between the small towns of the upper Northwest. left: Barney W. Harris (1886–1933) right: Soul Lang, founder of . . . The typical men’s and boy’s Energy Manufacturing Company Winter outerwear line in those days, and, in fact, right through turer in the Twin Cities and a brand and later renamed Minnesota Ap- the mid 1940s, consisted primar- with national name recognition, parel Industries. Half a century later, ily of leather and suede coats and B. W. Harris announced its pres- Soul Lang’s son Siegfried “Sig” Lang jackets with either sheepskin ence in giant letters on the building led the association and wrote about or heavy . Moleskin known today as Park Square Court, the depression years: “Little did we (heavy ) was a widely which faces Mears Park in St. Paul’s realize then . . . that the very fabric used fabric, also trimmed and Lowertown.4 of our prosperity and foundation lined in sheepskin. . . . The em- Also among the new entrepre- of our optimism would evaporate phasis throughout the line was neurs were Austrian immigrant with such terrible suddenness in the on “heavy,” and, believe me, the Harry Lang and his younger brother, fall of 1929.” The new organization salesman of that time had to be in Soul—Dennis Lang’s grandfather. was a public-relations vehicle that shape to lug these garments from Soul worked for Harry’s Lang promoted local companies through town to town. The merchandise Manufacturing Company in St. Paul shows. It also provided labor was basic and utilitarian in all through the 1920s, until a bitter negotiations for member firms dur- respects, possessing very little strike by union workers led Harry ing a prolonged period of turbulence fashion sense.8 to move his company to River Falls, and union organizing in the 1920s Wisconsin. A few weeks later the St. and 1930s.6 It was, after all, a depression. Paul Daily News reported that Soul Like most businesses, Energy With almost a quarter of the U.S. Lang had opened Energy Manufac- Manufacturing struggled during workforce unemployed during the turing Company at Sixth Street and the depression years. But it man- depression years, the demand for the Broadway in St. Paul, with 25 power aged to survive. Others were not so apparel industry’s products naturally sewing machines and more than 20 fortunate. Guiterman Brothers of St. fell. B. W. Harris, however, was still employees to manufacture “, Paul was sold to Gordon & Ferguson marketing its line of luxurious fur blanket-lined jackets and kindred in 1929, but two years later Gordon coats for women and men in 1934, articles.” It was 1930. As Soul was & Ferguson itself filed for reorga- an indication that not all segments embarking on his new venture, the nization, wiping out $1 million in of the country’s population were on entire country was embarking on the shareholder value. In a 1933 message austerity budgets.9 Great Depression.5 to the Guiterman subsidiary’s trav- Widespread labor turmoil in the Energy Manufacturing Company eling salesmen about to go forth to 1930s also affected the industry, soon joined the Twin City Apparel meet their customers in small retail particularly in Minneapolis. After Association, founded in the 1920s operations throughout the Midwest, several years of unrest, for example,

250 Minnesota History in 1936 Kickernick moved much of projects. Yet when such contracts mackinaw-type coats and field its staple production (items materialized for companies— jackets for the army, and it also de- such as and with rarely and their mostly female workers— veloped a multilayer for the changing styles) to the American they were short lived.11 Not until the air force. Energy Manufacturing also South but kept its fashion-goods end of the decade did the industry’s made for the military and plant in Minneapolis.10 prospects began to change, and that continued doing so after the war. was because the United States was The production of these uniforms preparing for war. The military not was a lifeline for apparel companies, Among the bright spots of the only needed ammunition, it needed because government-imposed ration- 1930s were the Twin Cities com- uniforms for the troops. ing during the war made it difficult panies that benefited from the Beginning with the build-up to to get material for civilian apparel. Roosevelt administration’s Civilian World War II, Minnesota apparel For example, Munsingwear, which Conservation Corps program, which companies began receiving military manufactured, among other things, ordered work clothes for the three contracts. Outerwear manufacturer girdles, had to contend with restric- million men employed to labor in B. W. Harris was particularly well tions on rubber and elastic, but forests, parks, and on other public positioned to produce warm military contracts for underwear,

left: “Business-reviving lines” from Guiterman Brothers, by 1933 a subsidiary of Gordon & Ferguson. right: Among B. W. Harris’s Winter 1934–35 offerings: “impudently attractive,” “swanky” fur coats “creating an atmosphere of luxury” in leopard, raccoon, Russian fitch, civet, and gray squirrel.

Fall 2011 251 airplane wing covers, tents, ham- In 1954 the Sharpes moved their tant, traveling with her husband in mocks, and mosquito netting kept company from First Avenue to the Europe and spotting style trends and the company’s production lines hum- Strutwear Building on Sixth Street. new fabrics to bring back to Minne- ming round-the-clock.12 Later, in the pattern of many of the apolis. It was, however, the surprise Twin Cities garment manufacturers fashion hit of the puffy down-filled in search of a larger pool of inex- coat that propelled some of the com- After the war, when materials pensive labor and cheaper rents, the pany’s most profitable years in the were again available, the industry company set up satellite operations early 1980s. prospered. Minnesota entrepreneurs in Brainerd, Hibbing, and western Max Goodman, a relative who staked out niches in outerwear, Wisconsin. In those plants, - helped run the company during , and—with the Baby Boom stresses produced the 1950s fad those years, recalled his bafflement getting underway—children’s play called and Sharpe’s with the new fashion and his initial clothes and snowsuits. signature product, the Sharpee coat objections to the company’s foray Fashion gained ground in the for women. into down: “How could a woman postwar years. The late Gloria Rose Jean Sharpe served as the wear a down coat that made her Hogan, who covered the Twin Cit- company’s unofficial fashion consul- look ten pounds heavier?” It didn’t ies from 1945 to 1970 as a reporter for the national trade publication Women’s Wear Daily, recalled that “the Twin Cities were known for very good quality of mid-range garments.” In those years, St. Paul companies B. W. Harris, Gordon & Ferguson, and Energy Manufactur- ing produced noteworthy outerwear, Hogan said, while Minneapolis was better known for lingerie and hosiery, thanks to Munsingwear’s Vassarette brand and companies like Strutwear and Kickernick. Min- neapolis, she said, was also known for “good value in women’s dresses.” For example, Boulevard produced dresses for less than five dollars wholesale, which included leather-backed belts and “2-inch hems with pinking . . . excellent detail for the price.” 13 Among those taking advantage of the booming postwar years was another member of the extended Lang family, Rose Jean Sharpe, and her husband, Carl. They launched their outerwear business, the Sharpe Manufacturing Company, after the war, joining other family firms starting up or expanding in the Min- neapolis garment district along First Sharpe Company’s signature Sharpee coat in brushed Avenue North.14 with simulated fur lining, 1968

252 Minnesota History compute. Unless, of course, one fur that inspired many cheaper considered the January wind chill in knockoffs by other manufacturers. Minnesota. President Richard M. Nixon and Sec- retary of State William Rogers were photographed wearing B. W. Harris Long before the down coat, the storm coats on their historic 1972 Minnesota apparel industry was visit to the Great Wall of China.15 propelled by the need to keep warm B. W. Harris produced prod- in winter. A large segment of the ucts for sale under other labels, too, state’s manufacturers had always fo- notably Marshall Fields, Neiman cused on warmth, beginning with the Marcus, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth B. W. Harris outerwear label and tag union suit and fur coats and evolving Avenue, and Nordstrom. And the from the down-filled era later into lighter-weight garments company worked in partnership containing down or 3M Thinsulate. with suppliers like DuPont and 3M “and we looked like a giant compared At B. W. Harris, the company’s brand to innovate. Richard Harris smiled to the others,” Richard Harris said, was dubbed Zero King, and every as he described working with 3M to underscoring the fact that, with a outerwear garment had a label that expand uses for its Scotchlite reflec- few exceptions—most prominently, boasted, “Made in Minnesota: We tive tape: “We produced garments for Munsingwear—Minnesota’s apparel Know It’s Cold.” kids using the tape and promoted the industry comprised small, family- By 1954, when founder Barney safety aspect, but parents rejected owned-and-run firms.17 Harris’s nephew Richard Harris it because it made the kids want to graduated from Yale and started stay outside in the dark.” Many other traveling Minnesota and neighboring innovations succeeded, however, Apparel-industry companies states to sell the company’s prod- helping B. W. Harris respond to con- and their workers have always been ucts, the firm was a national leader sumer preferences for lighter, more threatened by cheaper labor pools in high-quality outerwear fashionable outerwear as well as elsewhere. In the 1920s, as more gar- for men. “We always sold to the warmth. ment workers joined unions, some manufacturers preferred prison labor to the low-paid women who were Apparel-industry companies and their not incarcerated. Sander Genis, a workers have always been threatened prominent labor organizer in the by cheaper labor pools elsewhere. state beginning in the 1920s, said that he had to organize Minneapolis garment workers after he had orga- best store in a town,” Richard Har- The quality of B. W. Harris nized their St. Paul counterparts, lest ris recalled with considerable pride. products was long recognized by St. Paul garment companies go out Although the strength of the Min- retailers. The industry took note, of business trying to compete with nesota apparel industry, overall, was as well. In 1979 the National Retail cheaper labor across the river. In the in its companies’ relationships with and Merchandise Association rated early 1950s, one of the oldest family- the many small retail clothiers that Harris first in merchandise quality, owned businesses, St. Paul’s Simon dotted small and midsized towns in compliance with purchase orders, and Mogilner, moved to Alabama adjoining states, B. W. Harris—the and return policy, beating out Levi for cheaper labor, a harbinger of the outerwear leader—had been building Strauss and other better-known much greater and relentless wave of its reputation nationally by adver- national firms.16 competition that the state’s apparel tising in publications like Sports At its peak in the 1970s, B. W. industry and its workers would face Illustrated since the 1930s. The firm’s Harris had branch factories in sev- from the American South and then signature product was its version of eral small towns around the state and Asia, beginning in the 1960s.18 the storm coat, a premium-priced, 350 employees. Its modest annual In a bow to the changing reality belted, double-breasted classic with a revenues totaled about $15 million— and to widen its reach, the Minne-

Fall 2011 253 sota Apparel Industries trade group nies that manufactured apparel and down jackets, although they were changed its name to the Midwest Ap- other products fell from 7,488 never more than 10 percent of the parel and Textile Association in the in 1972 to 5,211 in 1980 to 3,061 in firm’s product line. Dennis, however, 1970s. The organization, which had 1990.21 thought he had a better survival plan. sponsored glittering semi-annual U.S. trade policies and interna- It involved the behemoth of Ameri- fashion shows for more than 50 tional agreements also contributed can retailers, Wal-Mart. years, began sponsoring survival- immensely to the industry’s decline Wal-Mart is one reason for the mode, direct-to-consumer sales by eliminating barriers to imported decline of Minnesota’s apparel indus- of locally produced clothing at the goods and accelerating advantages try. Wal-Mart’s success was built on Minneapolis Auditorium. “We tried for cheap-labor markets. One trade low prices, and low prices required everything to stay alive,” recalled group, for example, charged that the cheap labor, primarily from other Saralee Mogilner, who served as North American Free Trade Agree- countries. In addition, Wal-Mart managing director of the organiza- ment eliminated 640,500—or 75 targeted the same territory that Min- tion during those years.19 percent—of U.S. apparel-industry nesota apparel manufacturers had Addressing his industry jobs between 1994 and 2007.22 long cultivated and served: small colleagues in 1975, Energy Manu- towns. Clothing stores in small towns facturing Company’s Sig Lang, also across America were important cus- president of the apparel group, In St. Paul, one of the last tomers of Minnesota manufacturers, stayed hopeful: “We must,” he wrote, apparel-industry casualties was Sig but as these shops began falling vic- “always approach the future affirma- Lang’s Energy Manufacturing, whose tim to Wal-Mart’s advance, garment tively and optimistically, not with a White Bear and Thoroughbred manufacturers like Energy saw their false optimism founded on a blind- brands, introduced in the 1950s and customer base erode. ness to reality, but with a genuine 1970s respectively, helped build the Still optimistic, Dennis Lang optimism based on a clear-sighted city’s reputation for quality outer- wrote a letter to Sam Walton, the vision and an unwavering self- wear. At its peak in the early 1980s founder of Wal-Mart, suggesting confidence to deal creatively with all the company had sales of $4.3 mil- that the firm carry the Energy outer- difficulties.” 20 Others, however, lion and was making coats for J. C. wear brand. After all, it was made had a different vision. They looked Penney and Burlington Coat Com- in America, and in Wal-Mart’s early at the walls of the old brick fortresses pany, but the heart of its customer years the retailing giant had proudly lining Mears Park in St. Paul and base was still the “mom and pop” advertised products produced in the First Avenue in Minneapolis, where stores of small-town New England U.S.A.—even as it helped to under- so many apparel companies clus- and the Midwest, served by the firm’s mine U.S. manufacturing. Shortly tered. They looked at those walls 15 independent representatives. Dur- after receiving Lang’s letter, a Wal- and they saw the handwriting. ing production season, Energy had Mart buyer called. Soon, Dennis In Minneapolis, the Sharpe 150 or more employees sewing outer- was hauling outerwear samples onto family sold its company to Stearns wear in two small Wisconsin towns. a plane to Bentonville, Arkansas, Manufacturing Company of St. It kept its headquarters in St. Paul’s Wal-Mart’s headquarters. The op- Cloud in 1986. Other small family Finch Building but, as Twin Cities portunity was frustrating. As Lang firms folded quietly. Munsingwear, manufacturers had done for decades, remembered it, Wal-Mart liked the the largest of all Minnesota apparel moved production to less expensive samples but wanted Energy to match companies and one of the 20 rural facilities.23 the prices of imports—a no-profit in the country, was struggling. Im- Competition from imports began proposition. And so, no deal. ported clothing was overwhelming to seriously affect Energy Manufac- Energy experienced the first loss U.S. manufacturers, and U.S. retail- turing in the 1980s. Sig Lang had in its history in 1984 when J. C. ers were producing their own house never wanted to import products Penney dropped the company’s brands in Asia and Central America. to remain competitive, but in the outer wear line in favor of cheaper The apparel industry in Minnesota final years of the company’s exis- imports. The next year losses more was declining and, with it, jobs. tence, Dennis Lang said, he talked than quadrupled. Employment in Minnesota compa- his father into it, starting with men’s Dennis Lang, by then president

254 Minnesota History advance of imports became a rout. Five years later, cousins Richard and Joseph Harris bought it back.24 “We we could make it work, and we did for a number of years,” Richard Harris said. The company continued to produce top-coats and private-label outerwear, promot- ing new technology and new fabrics. To be profitable, however, it was outsourcing much of the production. Prospects turned negative when the Harris cousins discovered customers were bypassing them and going di- rectly to sewing sources. As Richard Harris remembered it, “We couldn’t turn a profit. All of a sudden we saw that no matter how creative or inno- vative we might be, it didn’t matter. Our greatest competitors were our own customers. There was no loyalty anymore.” There was also a shift in brand loyalty, a marked change from the days when apparel-company designers were largely anonymous. Modeling the stylish handiwork of Energy Manufacturing Company, 1978 As Harris said, “Brands as we knew of the company, hired a turnaround Lang said, recalling one visit to his specialist, slashed expenses, and set bank, where he saw competitors a new strategy based on fresh new also waiting their turn to plead for designs and fast turnaround for retail financing—and being similarly dis- customers. Union workers agreed to appointed. Eyeing the import trend a drastic wage reduction in exchange and wanting to avoid loan defaults, for keeping their jobs, and the state risk-averse banks lost confidence in of Wisconsin offered a line of credit the domestic apparel industry. to develop a new product line. When Dennis Lang made a last-ditch Lang succeeded in getting an order effort to find an investor, but that for the new outerwear line from attempt ultimately failed. Energy national retailer Macy’s—a major Manufacturing Company had held coup for a small manufacturer—the out longer than others, but at the end new strategy seemed on the verge of of 1989 it ceased operations and filed working. bankruptcy. But the company could not get B. W. Harris Company held on a financing. Without the ability to cover little longer. It had moved to a new, production expenses until payment larger facility in West St. Paul in 1971 for finished product was received, and continued to build its reputa- Energy could not fulfill the order. tion as an outerwear leader, but the There would be no deal with Macy’s. Harris family sold the firm in 1978 Advertisement, 1948 apparel-industry Banks were wary of the industry, to a national company, before the market directory

Fall 2011 255 them disappeared. The designers be- their products in local boutiques. galleries, or restaurants. Interna- came the brands.” B. W. Harris closed MN Fashion is an organization that tional Market Square, the former for good in 1995. promotes these designers by sponsor- home of Munsingwear, now houses Munsingwear, which by 1923 had ing Voltage, a fashion show with rock design studios. Built to support become the world’s largest under- music. It is also developing a sewing heavy power-sewing machines that wear manufacturer under a single cooperative to “create manufacturing rumbled throughout ten-hour work- label—and the largest employer of and sourcing opportunities to in- days, six days a week in the early women in the state—was by mid- crease designer purchasing power, fill 1900s, those structures were once century posting annual sales of a current production gap and provide the workplace for thousands of Min- $200 million and employing 3,000 local sustainable employment.” 27 nesotans, mostly women, sewing as people worldwide in six divisions. It For several decades, immigrant, fast as they could to produce coats, no longer made the union suit, but home-based Hmong women in the jackets, overalls, dresses, children’s its Vassarette ladies’ Twin Cities have provided a labor clothing, basic underwear, fancy lin- gerie, fur coats, and leather goods. Only scattered remnants of Minne- The Twin Cities’ vibrant design industry sota’s early apparel-manufacturing includes up-and-coming fashion designers industry are left. Yet the nineteenth- who sell their products in local boutiques. century entre preneurial spirit that confronted a bitter winter season and answered with fur coats and were sold widely and its penguin- force for local designers, but the warm underwear lives today in the logo knit dominated the market absence of a medium-to-large-size twenty-first-century entrepreneurs for branded knit golf . Yet by apparel contractor in Minnesota of a reviving Minnesota fashion 1991, changing markets and manage- is regarded by experts as an im- industry. a ment turnover led the company to pediment to business growth for the file for Chapter 11 reorganization. It independent designers. Junonia, a sold its name a few years later, and Mendota Heights-based company its famous penguin survives today with a niche in women’s plus-size only through licensing agreements.25 clothes, is an example of a firm that started out manufacturing in Min- nesota but now is strictly a design Today, although almost all of firm, outsourcing its manufacturing the old manufacturing companies because demand for its products ex- are gone, there still is an apparel in- ceeds local capacity.28 dustry in Minnesota. But with a few exceptions, it is a design industry, not manufacturing. And, to add a touch Still standing today like monu- of irony to this evolution, one of the ments to a forgotten industrial state’s largest clothing importers, past are the stout, brick fortresses Target Corporation, is now also the that guard Mears Park in St. Paul’s leading apparel company, employing Lowertown and line First Avenue more than 100 apparel and acces- in Minneapolis’s Warehouse Dis- sories designers in its Minneapolis trict. The massive building that design department alone, while once housed B. W. Harris has been manufacturing their output in other home to a succession of businesses countries.26 over the years, including, for a time, The Twin Cities’ vibrant design Park Square Theater. Other struc- In the beginning: Gordon & Ferguson industry also includes up-and- tures like it have been born again full-length buffalo-fur coat, 1880, with coming fashion designers who sell as loft dwellings, office space, art beaver collar and quilted cotton lining.

256 Minnesota History Notes The author gratefully acknowledges the 8. Mogilner and Lang, Minnesota Ap- the same ratings; Marilyn R. DeLong, ed., invaluable assistance provided by Dennis parel Industries, 2: 28. According to Dennis Minnesota Creates: Fashion for a Century Lang, Saralee Mogilner, Richard Harris, Lang, Robitshek-Schneider’s Great Western (St. Paul: Goldstein Museum of Design, Elizabeth Bye, members of the Sharpe label was “one of the most prominent in University of Minnesota, 2000), 51. family, and Gerald Lang. men’s outerwear after World War II.” After 17. Harris interview. selling his company, Rubenstein joined 18. Sander D. Genis, interview by Martin 1. Andrew Morrison, comp., Industries Energy Manufacturing. Dennis Lang, inter- Duffy, Duluth, Mar. 16, 1977, tape and tran- of St. Paul (St. Paul: J. M. Elstner, 1886), view, Nov. 13, 2009. script, Oral History Collection, MHS; 122; Marcia G. Anderson, “Munsingwear: 9. Product catalogs, 1933–37, B. W. Hogan interview. An Underwear for America,” Minnesota Harris Manufacturing Company Records, 19. Saralee Mogilner, interview, Mar. 9, History 50 (Winter 1986): 152–56. MHS. Barney Harris passed away at a 2004; St. Paul Dispatch, Aug. 30, 1983, 2. “Song of the Shirt,” St. Paul Daily young age in 1933. His younger brother p. 1B. Ms. Mogilner is related through Globe, Apr. 8, 1888, p. 9, describes the visit Charles then led the company into the marriage to the family that owned Simon of crusading journalist Eva McDonald 1960s, when Joseph “Jim” Harris, Barney’s and Mogilner. Valesh (pseudonym: Eva Gay) to the “Girl eldest son, became president. He served 20. Mogilner and Lang, Minnesota Workers in Minneapolis Shirt Factories.” until Richard Harris took the helm in the Apparel Industries: A Retrospective (n.p.: 3. Minnesota Dept. of Labor and Indus- late 1980s. Charles, Jim, and Richard all National Graphics, 1975), 1: 3. try, Biennial Reports, 1901–1902, p. 22, 28, served as president of Minnesota Apparel 21. Minnesota Department of Employ- 59–60, 67, 69; 1905–1906, p. 22, State Industries; Richard Harris, e-mail to ment and Economic Development, Labor Archives, Minnesota Historical Society author, July 7, 2011. Market Division, staff research communi- (MHS). The 1906 total excludes 14 wage 10. Kickernick was sold to Henson Lin- cated to author, Mar. 8, 2010. earners under the age of 16, of whom 11 gerie and closed its Minneapolis operations Stearns Manufacturing, incorporated in were female, as well as men’s tailors, in 1958; Earl T. Winget, Kickernick man- 1943 and in 2011 a wholly owned subsidiary women’s dressmakers, and workers in the ager and son of its founder, interview by of another company, produces recreational , , and fur industries. Linda McShannock, July 10, 1990, notes in and industrial water-safety gear as well as 4. Information on Jewish immigrants is MHS collections dept., accession #1990.428. women’s outerwear; www.answers.com/ from Hyman Berman, University of Minne- 11. St. Paul Union Advocate, Feb. 9, p. 2, topic/stearns-inc (accessed July 22, 2011.) sota history professor (retired), interview by May 25, p. 3, June 8, p. 4, July 27, p. 4, and 22. American Manufacturing Trade Ac- author, Mar. 19, 2004, transcript in author’s Nov. 30, p. 3—all 1933. tion Coalition, “USA: Post-NAFTA job loss possession; see also Hyman Berman and 12. Gloria Hogan, reporter for Women’s in & apparel exceeds 1mn,” June 2, Linda Schloff, Jews in Minnesota (St. Paul: Wear Daily, interview, Feb. 26, 2004; 2007, www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/ Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002), Dennis Lang, interview, Nov. 13, 2009; 1843614/posts (accessed July 22, 2011). 16, 18. Information on B. W. Harris is from Susan Marks, In the Mood for Munsingwear 23. Here and seven paragraphs below, Richard Harris, the company’s last CEO, in- (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society “Manufacturer bucks import onslaught,” terview by author, Sept. 1, 2005, transcript Press, 2011), 84. Apparel Industry, Jan. 1988, p. 24; Dennis in author’s possession. Unless otherwise 13. Hogan interview. Lang, interviews, Mar. 9, 2004, Nov. 13, noted, all interviews are by the author and 14. Here and three paragraphs below, 2009. transcripts in her possession. joint interview of Rose Jean Sharpe and 24. Here and below, Harris interview. 5. Harry Lang’s company was initially lo- Max Goodman, June 10, 2004. Rose Jean B. W. Harris was sold to Palm Beach, Inc., cated in South St. Paul, then moved to 232 Sharpe is the daughter of Harry Lang and of Cincinnati and became an autonomous East Seventh St., St. Paul. For the opening of the niece of Soul Lang. Goodman, a relative division of that firm. Energy Manufacturing Company, see St. Paul from the same Austrian village as Harry 25. Anderson, “Munsingwear,” 160–61. Daily News, Sept. 12, 1930, p. 1. The com- Lang, is an industrial engineer who arrived Munsingwear-brand clothing is still avail- pany later moved to the Finch Building in in Minneapolis in 1959 and went to work able online. downtown St. Paul. On the strike, see Mary for Carl Sharpe, eventually heading up 26. Target’s approximately 300 design Christine Bader, “Sisters in Toil: St. Paul’s operations until the company was sold in employees in Minneapolis include textile, First Union of Garment Workers,” Minne- 1986; Sharpe-Goodman joint interview. graphic, and technical designers. The com- sota History 60 (Spring 2006): 32–34. 15. Here and below, Harris interview. pany also employs an even larger number of 6. Saralee Mogilner and Dennis Lang, According to Richard Harris, the company international designers; Target Corp. com- Minnesota Apparel Industries: A Retrospec- decided against publicizing their coat’s role munications department, e-mail to author, tive (n.p.: McGill Printing, 1976), 2: 4, copy in history because Nixon was so unpopular Mar. 10, 2010. in MHS. at the time. Beginning in the late 1940s, 27. www.mnfashion.org/sewing-coop 7. See Guiterman Brothers subsidiary Harris ran national magazine advertising (accessed July 22, 2011). files, including M. B. Lathrop, manager of for the Zero King brand in Esquire, the New 28. Elizabeth Bye, associate professor in sales, to sales force, n.d., but prior to their Yorker, Playboy, and the New York Times apparel design, University of Minnesota, departure for their territories on March 4, Magazine; Harris e-mail, July 7, 2011. interview, Mar. 2, 2010; Target Corp. 1933, Guiterman scrapbook, Gordon & Fer- 16. Munsingwear was ranked eleventh in e-mail, Mar. 10, 2010; www.mnfashion.org. guson Records, MHS. Gordon & Ferguson reorganized as a new Delaware corporation in April 1931, wiping out 10,000 shares of common stock valued at $1 million. In 1933 The photo on p. 250, left, is courtesy Lewis and Natalie Harris; p. 250, right, courtesy the company’s operating statement showed Dennis Lang; and p. 255 and Contents, courtesy Gerald Lang. All other images are from a loss for the year of $3,529.49, and the MHS collections: the coats and labels in 3-D object collection; p. 248 and 251, right, in 1936 statement showed a net gain of B. W. Harris Records; p. 251, left, in Guiterman scrapbook, Gordon & Ferguson Records; $21,502.78; financial statements, 1933 and and p. 255, bottom, in Minnesota Inspired Apparel: Minnesota Apparel Industries Market 1936, Gordon & Ferguson Records. Directory, 1948. The two coat photos are by Jason Onerheim/MHS.

Fall 2011 257

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