This is an interview with Steve Bartos for In the Age of Steel: Oral Histories from Bethlehem . The interview was conducted by John Fugett on April 8, 1975 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

00:00:00 Fugett: I’m at the home of Mr. Steve Bartos in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on April 8, 1975. I guess we could start by how did you come to work for Bethlehem Steel?

Bartos: This was 1917. The war was going on at that time and they were importing Mexicans and people from (inaudible) wouldn't go in the war anymore. So about four or five of us kids went down where the rest of the fellows were working in the soot mills and we says as long as they're hiring anybody like this, let's go down there and maybe we can get a job down in the Steel. So we went down and standing outside the little employment office and one of the foreman1, a young boy, he was about 23, from Drexel University2, Drexel College, Richard Gleason3 was his name, he came out and he looked, he says, `You fellows want a job?' said, `Sure, that's what we're here for.' (chuckles) So I was in the back, I was 14 then. At 14, and he looked over and he says, `You,' I was the tallest and I was around 160 pounds then already. He says, `You, how old are you?' I said, `18.' Because if you told him you were 14, you couldn't get in. If you told him you were 16, then you'd have to go to what they called continuation school once a week. That's the people that went to work in mills, soot mills and places like that. So if you were 18, you were a man, so I said, `18.' `Okay, come on.' He filled out the papers and he took me down to the plant. And when we were going in, that time they didn't have as much safety like they do now, and switchboards were cracking and sparks were flying. If I could've found my way out, I'd of ran out. I didn't know my way out, I had to follow him in. So they took me in and then he said, `This'll be your job here and this fellow will show you what to do.' And the fellow that had the job, a recorder, he was promoted to another job and that's how I got this job. I sat there and had a little desk. So I stayed there and nobody ever bothered me after that. So I stayed there all these years, 50 years, 1 month and 22 days when I retired, that's what they gave me.

And those days it wasn't like now. Those days there wasn't much safety. I mean you know, like now this Mr. Martin, Edmund Martin4 that was Chairman of the Board, he started a safety program when he came down there, and they really go into it, safety. Even if production stops, if something's not safe, they just stop and fix it. And the people are different, too. The supervisor, of course, is different today than it used to be. I remember, I was just telling my wife this morning we had a superintendent5, Snyder his name was. He was a Lehigh6 man, his son wrestled in Lehigh's wrestling

1 A workman who supervises a group of workers, especially in a factory. 2 A private research institution located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 3 Project staff were unable to identify this person. 4 Former chairman of Bethlehem Steel Corporation from 1964‐1970. 5 A person in management charged with overseeing or directing an organization. 00:03:53 team, he was a heavy weight wrestler. He used to like me because I played ball and everything while I was working. I was playing football with the semi-pros that time with a team. We played teams like what's now the Eagles. That time it was Franklin Yellow Jackets. And I played ball. I even made a track team that went to Europe while I was working. And this Snyder, he went big for that, you know, and he wanted to send me to school. So I did go. I went to Allentown Prep.[Pennsylvania] They were building a football team and I played a lot of football, so he got me up there and I had a good practice session.

Mrs. Bartos: Hello.

Fugett: Hi, Mrs. Bartos, how are you?

Mrs. Bartos: Good. I interrupted, I'm sorry.

Bartos: So I said how can I do that, this is prep school, I said I didn't even go to high school. He says, `You'll make it, they'll show you and you'll make it. A year and a summer, then you can go to college. I said, `You think so?' `Oh yes.' So I was out there practicing and came in to work. I didn't want to give up my job because my brother was going to Fordham University7 at the time and I was helping him. And I already had a pretty good job, I was making as much money as my father with a family. So he said, `You go out and practice. You come in and you work steady 3 to 11. And practice to 6, 7 o'clock, whatever it takes and you come in here and you go downstairs.' I said, `What's my job?' `Never mind what the job is, the job is to study. You go down there, I'll get you a desk and a locker where you can keep your books and you just study. And at 11 o'clock you go home. You don't have to punch in or anything, just come in there and study and go to school.' Then I went about a week. I called up my brother at Fordham and I says, `Guess what?' `What?' `I said, `I'm going to school.' He said, `Good for you.’ He said, ‘Do you think you can do it?’ He said, ‘You're used to throwing 20 dollar bills around, going to school you're going to squeeze nickels.' `Yeah, I guess.'

So Saturday came along and the first day, first game. The coach told me around Thursday, he said, `This Saturday you'll play on the line because you don't know the signals, and then next week you'll go on the backfield.' So Saturday came along (chuckling) and I took off. I had a Ford. I took off, I went down to see Fordham. The coach came up to the house because we were supposed to be at the school at 11 and I wasn't there at 12 or 11:30 or 1 o'clock. So he came up to the house and he asked my mother, `Where's Steve?' She said, `He went to New York.' `He went to New York? He

6 A private, four year university located in Bethlehem PA. 7 A four‐year, private university located in New York. was supposed to play ball today.' She said, `He went down to see his brother play; that's all I know.' So that was the end of my schooling.

Yeah, the supervisory force today is altogether different. This Martin, he was a good man, too. He started the safety program. Wrestling. We used to wrestle on the floor because I used to wrestle with the YMCA8 in Allentown and he liked wrestling up here. We used to follow Lehigh. So he'd come in and he'd say, `What kind of a hold is this?' And two of us, we'd be wrestling all the way to floor. Today (chuckling) you wouldn't dare do that.

00:07:17 Fugett: What was your job like as a recorder9?

Bartos: Why we'd keep track of heats when they rolled beams. See, each furnace, when they make a heat, there’s say 24 ingots10 to a heat, then they made beams, every heat is marked, the analysis is, the customer wants, say 20 carbon steel and they make 25, and if they want harder steel, it's higher carbon. Now in the railing mill where I started, that was the rail mill11, they made rails for the railroad, and that was all high carbon steel, around 40, 50 carbon. And that was hard steel to make. I mean a lot of times we'd come out and they maybe didn't have 3 or 4 heats in the furnaces and none of them were applied to any of the orders and we'd have to throw them out. But steel like now that they make for beams and all, that's around 20 carbon steel. Is there anything else?

00:08:34 Fugett: Were you from the Bethlehem area?

Bartos: Originally I was born in McKeesport [Pennsylvania] and we came here around 1911, I think we came here. My father was a heater12 in U.S. Steel in McKeesport and when he came here, even I was a heater there. I wound up being a heater. It's a fair job. I have a son working down there now, he's going to the University of Scranton13. but he's down at the Steel. And I had another son that was in the Air Force and he worked there, a metallurgist.14 Now he's back in

8 Young Men’s Club of America, this now inclusive organization is located in communities around the and is dedicated to fostering principles of healthy living. 9 Responsible for marking billets with chalk and recording steel production information for different types of processes, such as oxygen‐furnace pit, open‐ hearth pit, structural mill, blooming mill, and slabbing mill. [http://www.jobdescriptionsandduties.com/JobDescription/?JobID=221367050&JobTitle=Recorder] 10 Normally a metal material that is cast in a way to assume a specified shape. 11 A rolling mill designated to produce railroad rails. 12 Responsible for heating without burning the steel. 13 A Catholic and Jesuit university located in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 14 Deals with procedures used in extracting metals from their ores, purifying and alloying metals, and creating useful objects from metals. England. So there's two of us down at the Steel, three. And my daughter, my daughter worked in the Treasury Department. Her husband is a professor at the University of Delaware so they had to move down there and she had to give up her job. He's a Lehigh man, too, my son-in-law. He got his Master's up here and his Ph.D. He's a full professor, he's just got full professorship last Saturday. He was assistant professor up till now, or associate. What they call it, associate.

Fugett: I think it's assistant and then associate, then full professor.

Bartos: Yeah, now he's a full professor.

00:09:57 Fugett: When did you become a heatist?

Bartos: In 1936 until 1968.

Fugett: Were you a recorder up ‘til then?

Bartos: No, I was a recorder and the after recorder I was on the crane, pit crane. And then after that I was assistant heater, then a heater. We move up. That's about the highest we can get, heater, outside of supervisor. Well this is like that. Yeah, it was about 10, 15 men to take care of. Yeah, I was telling my wife this morning this Snyder, the first superintendent I had, that time you weren't allowed to smoke. They used to go places to clean and it was like sewers and there's gas in sewers, well this was the same thing. And on a Sunday when the mills weren't working, that's when these people used to clean.

00:11:09 And this Snyder, he was a rough guy but good, real good. And one Sunday he was walking through and he smelled smoke only coming out of there, so he hollered down, `What are you smoking down there?' And the guy said, `Horse manure.' And he said, `I know, but what have you got mixed with it?' And that's all there was to it, and today, (chuckles) you'd get reprimanded right away. There's gas down there. But they took care of the people. And if you wanted to go to school, like I said, they'd take care of it. And the same way with alcoholics, look how they take care of those people. It's a real good company to work for.

I have a niece who's married to a fellow who graduated from Lehigh and he was telling me a couple weeks ago, he said they used to stand up here at the field house or somewhere and look down and they'd see that smoke coming out of the stacks. ‘Not for me, no.’ No Bethlehem Steel for me.’ And he's working in New York somewhere. I don't know what he's doing. But last week he was telling, `If I'd known then what I know now, that's where I would've been,' because instead he's changed about four or five different jobs. And then he said, `That's the place.' You can't beat it, a big company like that you have the benefits, the pays are good.

00:12:56 Fugett: How much do you think the union had to do with that?

Bartos: That was a big help, too. You know, before we had our own union, but this is a big help. And they go with them. They're not rough on them. Mostly when they negotiate, why, you know, they have to show some, something (inaudible) but they go with the union. (inaudible) Now a fellow that is on the staff in the union and all his children, there's 3, boys, they all have good jobs in the steel company, and they know, you know, that he's a union man. But I was talking with a fellow his name is Robinson, and I don't know what his job— He has to do with the union, he always was on the negotiating team, and he was telling me about this fellow. He says, `I know him real well. A good man to work with.' And he was a steel company man and he says from the union. Yeah, they go with the union. If it's reasonable.

Fugett: Do you think it's gotten out of hand at all in the years since it started?

Bartos: I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Sometimes when the— Well, it's like everything else, you know, you put on a little show, but I don't think that they're real serious when you see that they're arguing about this or that. I don't think they're real serious and getting mad at each other. Because they can have these arguments and the next day they're having dinner together. Like the lawyers, you know, it's their job. But I think anybody that's going to school up here, if they have no other place to go— Well, not that way, but it's a good place to go. I believe everybody down here, you know, like Ben Bishop15, he was a wrestler at Lehigh and he has a pretty fair job down here. So I think he takes care of the wrestlers from here. Another fellow in real estate maybe takes care of the others, and engineers. And if they know like me, you know, that I worked down there for 50 years, then my son didn't have any trouble. Now I know another fellow that's trying to get the Loop course and it was full, couldn't get in, and after that, my son went to apply for the Loop course16 and somehow they worked him in. They look up the records, I guess. I had 50 years. My father had about 50 years. And my wife's father, he had almost 50 years of service.

00:16:25 Fugett: I'm curious why your dad moved from Pittsburgh to Bethlehem.

15 Lehigh University wrestler who won an NCAA championship in 1934 and later became Vice President of Sales at Bethlehem Steel. 16 The Loop course was a management program for Bethlehem Steel. The people who took the Loop Course were called Loopers. Bartos: I don't know what the reason for that was because then I was only maybe five years old or so when he came here. But all his relatives were around here so he wrote to one of his brothers here and he said there's a possible chance of him getting a job. So he picked up the whole family, there were 3 of us, 3 children. (interruption in recording)

Fugett: Turn that in more.

00:17:12 Bartos: Yeah, he came around and he says, `Things are slowing up so we'll have to lay a few people off.' And he said, `How about your buddy? There were two of you recorders.’ I was on one shift and the other fellow was on the other shift, so I says, `I wouldn't like to see— Michael was his name.’ I said, `I wouldn't like to see Mike get laid off.' So he said, `Well we don't have to lay him off, we'll keep two of you on and you'll work every other day. You'll work Monday, he'll work Tuesday, you’ll work Wednesday and keep going like that there. Is that all right?' I said, `Sure,' because I was single at the time. I said, `Sure, that suits me. In fact, I was going to ask you whether instead of working every other day, suppose I worked Monday Tuesday and Wednesday and Mike worked Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Would that be all right? We’ll fix it up with him.'

He said, `Why do you want to work it that way?' I said, `Because I can play ball Wednesday. I got a job playing football up in the coal regions. I'm going to make $40 a game and we play 3 games a week. Wednesday night. Four in fact, yeah, Wednesday night, Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon.' We didn't have to play the whole game, you know. And I said, `At $40 a game, I'll be making three times as much money playing ball than I make working.' Well he said, `That sounds good, but suppose you get hurt?' He said, `You just got married, you get hurt, you get a leg broken or something, then what?' I said, `I never look at it that way. When I come in the gate, there's 20 ton ingots flying around. When I'm on the football field, I weigh 200 pounds and the other guy only weighs 200 pounds so we're even up. I never look about getting hurt.' So he said, `That's good. All right.' People were going on relief and here I bought a new car. (chuckling) I was getting $160 a week playing ball. And my brother played too because he was just about got out of Fordham so he played for a little while, too, before he got the job for the FBI.

Fugett: You must have some stories about what it was like to play ball. I'm curious about that. How long did you play?

Bartos: I played until I was 32, about 16 years. Well first it was semi pro around here, and then a few teams that I played with, we had All-Americans. We had three All-Americans on one of the teams. The old Bethlehem Bears17 it was called, it was right out here. We had two or three fellows from Lehigh, because we were playing at the coal regions and when

17 An early professional football team from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. they put the posters out for the games, you know, they'd have your name and then the school you went to, like Lafayette, Lehigh, we had from different schools. And we were playing Franklin Yellow Jackets in Philadelphia one day and I was doing the punting on our team and an All-American, Asplundh, who was from Swarthmore18, he was punting on the other team. And the game was going back and forth and we were just punting, so during the half this Asplundh came over and he asked our coach, he said, `Where'd that kid go to school that's punting on your team?' He didn't know what to say, you know, so he said, `Schwab Tech,' so he left it go at that. And then when we came up here to play, when we were playing the coal regions, that's what they put down, they put my name in Schwab Tech.

So we're playing in Shenandoah [Virginia] one day and a fellow that was on our team, name was Jones, he was a substitute halfback at Lehigh, so he came over and he said, `Where's Schwab Tech?' I says, `Bethlehem.' `Bethlehem. I went to Lehigh four years and I know where Muhlenberg19 is, Lafayette20, Lehigh and Moravian21. Never heard of Schwab Tech.' I said, `That's no school. They just say Schwab Tech because Charles Schwab22 was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Company at that time. That's where they get the name Schwab Tech.' `Oh, is that what it is?' And from then on we were friends. He'd take us out. He'd say, `Where you eating tonight?' `I don't know, some restaurant,' because when we went up on a Friday we stayed overnight because Saturday we played again, so we didn't want to come back home. So he says, `Eat with me. I'll take you out.' He was a mining engineer from Lehigh and he worked up there. He says, `I have a charge account.' So we were eating steaks for breakfast, dinner. (chuckles)

Yeah, there were four of us used to go. My brother and I, I had the car, and a fellow from Allentown, he was from Temple23. They were paying good money up there. Those people up there supported the teams. And we played in Mt. Carmel [Northumberland County, Pennsylvania] High School field, and that field was built like Lehigh's Saucon field [Bethlehem, Pennsylvania], you know, where the field is down and you could sit up on the bank. Well, that's the way this field was. Inside they had bleachers, seats, but if you sat on the bank you could watch the game. But not the miners, they came in with their miner's caps on and paid 75 cents at that time. That was, you know, it was like four or five dollars today. And they'd come in and watch the game. So they were making money. I mean they could pay the ball players. Yeah, we had this here Charlie Berry24, he was an All-American end from Lafayette. And Charlie Wade25

18 A private, liberal arts college located in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. 19 A private, liberal arts college located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 20 A private, four year college located in Easton, Pennsylvania. 21 A private four year college is located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 22 President of U.S. Steel and later President and Chairman of the Board of Bethlehem Steel Corporation. 23 A public research institution located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 24 A Lafayette athlete who went on to be a catcher and umpire in Major League and as an offensive end and official in the . from Penn State, All-American. And Fritz Pollard. I don't know if you ever read about Fritz Pollard. I thought up till then when he was playing, he was the first colored All-American, but later on I found out he was the second. He was from Brown University. Now those days, if they picked a colored boy for All-American, he had to be twice as good as a white guy. And this Fritz Pollard, he played with us. He was from Brown, that's right, Brown University26. Yeah, we had some good teams, good games.

Fugett: What else did you play besides punt? What other positions?

Bartos: What positions?

Fugett: Yeah.

Bartos: Well I played end most of the time. And I played backfield, too, but end, I used to like end. And that time you played both ways, not like today. That time if you went in, you stayed in and if you went out, you couldn't go back in until the next quarter then. So I used to play on the line a lot. I liked to play end, defense. If I was playing today, that's what I'd play, defense. And I did the punting and kicking off. We did everything. I tried everything. That's why I say I never regretted that I— Sure, I have no degree, but I had as much fun as a lot of fellows that go to school. I played ball all the 00:25:35 time, played baseball, , wrestling, football. Like I told you, I went to Europe with a track team from down here at the Sokols27, and my brother was at Fordham28. And Hudak, he retired a teacher with Liberty29, he was going to Georgetown [Washington, D.C.], and they were organizing this thing to go to Europe. And one of the officials came to our house one day and he asked me, `What size track suit would my brother wear?' I said, `Why?' He said, `Well, they sent their time in from school, you know what they did in the 100-yard dash.’ He said, `They sent the times from the school and it looks like—' They rode to the semi-finals, they were in Youngstown, that was from all over the East. And he said, `It looks like they made the team to go to Youngstown [Ohio] for the semi-finals.' Well I said, `Suppose a fellow isn't training?' I didn't go out to train with these fellows from down here. I said, `Suppose you don't go out with training and you can still make the team?' `Well, if you're a full-fledged member, that's your privilege. But did you register?' I said, `No, I didn't know about it.' So he said, `Well maybe you can't get in anymore. The time was up two weeks ago.'

25 First African‐American head coach in the National Football League. 26 A private, Ivy League institution located in Providence, Rhode Island. 27 Founded in 1862, in the Czech region of Austria‐Hungary, a gymnastics organization dedicated to instilling the need for fitness training in youth. 28 A four‐year, private university located in New York. 29 A public high school located on Linden Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

So I came up to Sokol Hall one night, I was working 3 to 11, I think. No, 7 to 3. So I came up to the Sokol Hall and there was one fellow standing at the end of the bar and he was by himself. I didn't know him, so I figured he's a stranger so maybe he has something to do with this track business. So I went down here and got talking with him and he said, `Are you out for the track team?' I said, `No, I didn't know about it, but I'd like to. I'm in pretty good shape,' because like I say, I was up in the YMCA doing (inaudible). I said, `I think I could do something on the track team.' Well he says, `You're big enough to be a shot putter or discus.' I said, `Yeah, but I didn't register.' `Well that's all right,' he said, `don't say anything. I'm running this thing. I'll fill out the form now and date it two weeks ago and just don't say anything to anybody. We'll work you in. ' I said okay. That's how I got in there.

So we went up to the Lehigh upper field where the dorms are now and we went up there for the preliminaries. And they had AA officials enough there. You were supposed to aim the shot put, I think, 36 feet at that time just to get in the semi-finals. So I came from work at 3 o'clock and they were just about putting the shot putting down at the other end where the fire gate is, the old gym. And I ran in there, you know, and this fellow was waiting. He was stalling things off so I would get there. So I just about got there and I was the last one. So he says, `Okay, Steve, you're next.' So I pick up the shot, I was just in regular street clothes. Picked up the shot and heaved it out. We used to heave the indoor shot in the gym. So I heaved it out and it went 36’,9” or something like that. Enough to qualify. So he says, `You have five more shots.' I guess you were allowed six. Three or six, I don't remember. So I said, `No, that's enough.' (chuckling) I was afraid the next one would be 30. I said, `No, I'm satisfied, that's all right.'

So then we had to go to the next event— I said, `Now what shall I do?' I'm asking him. And he said, `You could switch to the discus.' So I said, `Oh, I never threw the discus. If I'm going to twirl around, I might throw it in the opposite way.' He said, `Don't turn. Stand up at the line and heave it out. You can heave it 100 feet.' I said, `All right.' So I did, I went over there and I heaved it out and it went 100 and some feet, you know, 104 or 5 feet. Well you had to have two events, so that qualified me for Youngstown.

So I was happy at that, and I stood around and then they were running the 100-yard dash. And they had nine but they were running them in pairs. So one fellow was left and he had to run by himself. And he was a local guy, so I said to him— Or he came over to me and he said, `I have to run against time. I'm the only one. You want to run with me?' I said, `Run against you?' `Yeah,' he said, `you can run.' And then another fellow came over, he says, `Well you run pretty good in football with a suit on. You ought to be able to give a race.' And then this fellow said to me, `Just run about 20 yards. When I get in front of you, you can drop out and then I'll finish. I don't like to run against time.' I said, `Okay.' So I borrowed a pair of track shoes off a fellow (chuckling) and we started out. He never caught me. (chuckling) You know, I finished the 100 before he did. But I didn't need it then, but if I'd known then, I'd left him win because then he didn't know what to do. He had to get in a mile run or something to get to get to Youngstown. So we went to Youngstown for the semi-finals and we had a coach who just came back from the Olympics and he broke the 440 record. Ray Barbuti, he was from Syracuse, I think. So he was our coach and he watched us working out. So he took all of us together, the local fellows, because there were people from Chicago and the Midwest. After watching us, he'd say, `Now you take the discus, you take the shot put, you take the pole, or the—

Fugett: Javelin.

Bartos: Javelin. So I was supposed to take the shot put with this Hudak. He was an all events star over at Liberty, a good 220 hurdler. So he said, `Between you two, Steve, if you can take it, okay. If you can't, you tell Hudak, he'll take it. But if you see that Steve is doing all right, you lay back because you're good for the 220.' He saw all the other fellows working out so he knew that Hudak would win the 220 long hurdles, so he says if I couldn't take the shot put, he should take it and then I would try something else. He worked us all in, and my brother got in too. We have seven seconds, we had the seven track events and there were six first and one with the most seconds, and my brother got in with the most seconds.

00:33:21 So that's how we went to Europe. Three months. And there's another time when Martin helped me out. He was our superintendent so, you know, for a trip like that, I didn't know any better. I was just going to quit, you know, I was going to go on this trip whether I lost the job or not because like I said, I was single, you don't think about things like that. So I said to Martin one day, `I think I'm going to be off about three months.' He said, `What are you gonna do?' and I told him about this trip to Europe with the track team. And he said, `You can't go away three months, they'll terminate you. But you can take out a leave of absence.' I says, `For how long?' He says, `Whatever you want.' I said, `Three months. I'll be back in three months.' `That way,' he says, `you won't lose your seniority.' `Okay.' He said, `But I'm gonna make it out for a year just to make sure. I'll write the letter and make it for a year.' I said, ‘You don’t have to.' `Six months.' `Okay.' So he wrote this letter at six months and I got this leave of absence. So that helped out because I think it was about two or three years before I retired, our assistant superintendent came over to me one day and he says, `Hey, do you know that you were terminated in 1929?' I said, `No.' He says, `According to our records in the office, you were terminated. I don't know why I was looking through the books one day and I seen your name there and it's terminated in 1929.' `No, there's something wrong. I was never terminated.' He said, `But don't say anything. Don't say anything to anybody,' because we had the union already, you know. And they could bump me off like they do if a fellow's got more seniority than the other fellow and he wants his job, he can bump him off. So he said, `We won't say anything. Everybody's under the impression that you're 1917.'

00:35:53 So I said, `Okay.' But this bothered me. So then when I went down for a physical one time down in the office— We had to go once a year. And I went in the office, I saw their pension office, so I thought well I'll go in and find out how much I would get a month if I retired. So I went in and I knew the fellow that was the superintendent of the pension department. Said, `Oh hi, Steve, what are you doing here, looking for a job?' I said, `No, I want to quit my job.' He said, `When?' And I had no intention of retiring. Well, this was January, the middle of January and I was 65 in September. So I said, when he said when do you want to quit, I said, `At the end of the month.' Just like that I said at the end of the month. `Oh, you can't do that.' I said, `Why?' `Oh, they have to have more time down at the office. You can't quit like that, you have to give a notice.' Well I said, `I have the seniority, I have the time. You just call the office and tell them not to schedule me anymore. After the end of the month, I'm finished.' `No, I can't do that.' I said, `Well give me the phone, I'll tell them.' ` Okay,' he said, `I'll call them up.' He called up the office and I could tell when he told them because he said, `No, I told him the same thing but he said no, he's quitting.' They must have said the same thing to him. And I said, `Look, Charlie Schwab quit, Grace quit, Homer quit, and the place is going just the same and it'll go after I quit, too.' So he said, `Okay.' So he went in to look up my records. He brought them out and he says, `When did you start?' I said, `December the 10th, 1917.' So he looked at the record and said, `That's right. Oh, I see you've got a letter for leave of absence.' Ah, then I felt better. He said, `Signed by Martin.' I said, `Yeah, he was our superintendent.' So see, that straightened it out. Then I called that office and said, `Hey, you told me to get it straightened out.' It didn't make any difference anymore but I told him, `Call up the office once and find out.' But I had a leave of absence for six months, I wasn't terminated in '29 [1929]. My seniority goes back to 1917.

Fugett: So did you stay on the job or did you quit?

Bartos: No, I quit and I came home that afternoon. And I told them and I said, `Now you don't say a word down at the plant,' at the shop where I worked. I said, `Tell them not to say anything down there to anybody.' Because usually the fellows go around, `Well I've got six more months, I've got seven more days,' or something like that, see, and I just wanted to go out— It's bad enough, because I don't care how tough you are, you put 50 years at someplace, you're like a kid when you're leaving. So I told them not to say anything to anybody. I says, `When you call the office, tell them to keep it quiet. I want to tell the fellows.' So when I got back, I never said anything to anybody because I knew that that office information leaks. I know because when there were other things that were said in the office that were supposed to stay in the office, somebody would come up and fellows like me, they'd tell me what was going to happen on Thursday or Friday, this and that, `now don't say anything.' Well I know if he told me that, he'd tell somebody else. He'd tell the men and say, `Don't say anything.'

So sure enough, I stopped at the Sokols down here at the bar one night and a friend of mine that worked down there, I says, `Leo, guess what I'm gonna do.' He said, `I know what you're gonna do. I knew it ten minutes after you called the office. The system superintendent come over and he said, "You know what your buddy's gonna do at the end of the month?" "What?" "He's gonna retire." "Get out." "Yeah." "He's not old enough." "He's gonna retire."' I came home and I told my wife, I says, `Guess what I did?' `What?' I said, `I'm gonna retire at the end of the month.' 'Good for you.' (chuckles) We had four children and the last boy got married. She said, 'Us two will get along. Stay out of that place.' So I'm out now seven years. 1968, 75, it's been over 7 years.

Fugett: How come you decided to retire?

Bartos: I don't know, it just struck me like that. He talked me into when he said when do you want to retire. If wouldn't have said when, I was going to tell him just tell me how much I would get a month, you know, to see how we could get along. And he said when, and oh when he said when I said the end of the month. That was two weeks.

00:41:33 Fugett: Did you ever think of leaving Bethlehem Steel to go to work someplace?

Bartos: Never.

Fugett: Never.

Bartos: Hm-mm.

Fugett: You liked it that much, huh?

Bartos: I liked it. I liked my job. I often say that you hear some people that they say oh— I had a brother-in-law. No, not a brother-in-law, he was a brother-in-law to my brother-in-law, but that fellow used to— His wife was telling me that he used to go out from the house— He had the job like I did, but he was nervous. And she said a lot of times he used to walk out to the car at the curbstone and hold the doorknob and he'd stand there, `I'm not going in,' and he'd go back in the house. That's how much he was afraid of his job. I never was afraid. A lot of times I used to like the challenge when we'd go out there and find out it's real tough and then you're proud of yourself when you got out of it, you know. Oh, I remember a friend of mine, he was godfather for my children, he used to tell me, he said, `Why did you ever go on a job like you have? You're working 3 to 11, 7 to 3, Sundays, holidays, Christmas, Easter. You playing ball like you do, you should get a job steady days.' `Oh not me, I'm going to get myself a real job down there. I've got so much time in there and I know the job, I know all the jobs down there and I'm going to get myself a good job that I don't have to— Even if I have to work nights and days and whatnot, you know. I didn't care.’

So I wound up with this job that I had, the heater's job, and it's a good fair job. We never had to worry about money. And like I say, during the Depression all the people were going for relief, flour and stuff like that, and I bought a car. I could've stayed home all week with the other fellow working but I had to keep my seniority, so I worked three days and he worked three days. And Martin said, `You can work six days.' That time it wasn't like now where for the six days they'd have to pay you time and a half and double time. Yeah, I did all right. I liked the Bethlehem Steel and I would advise anybody to go down there. I was just reading here, I have to take that Time magazine down to my son-in-law. 00:44:02 They have an engineer who was promoted to vice-president, engineer from University of Delaware. You think that they’d get them from up here, but there's not too many, I guess. Yeah, Williamson. My son-in-law is a math professor. He wrote 2 or 3 books. I think he's on a third one now. You want to see one of the books?

Fugett: Yeah, sure.

Bartos: The first book he wrote— (interruption in recording) The second—

Mrs.Bartos: Well he's got 4 of them already.

Bartos: Four, I thought three.

Mrs.Bartos: No, four. That's the college.

Fugett: That's pretty.

Bartos: He autographs the first. This is one of the first ones. They're selling good. You wouldn't be able to read that.

Fugett: No.

Bartos: See that's ‘To Baba and Zedo.’ Baba in Slovak30 in grandmother and Zedo is grandfather. They even teach the kids that way. That's his name, Cliff Sloyer [Clifford W. Sloyer was a mathematician who served on the faculty of the University

30 Term used to refer to people of Slovakian descent. of Delaware from 1964 to 2006. He did research in the areas of topology and sheaf theory and committed the latter part of his career to the improvement of secondary mathematics education.] was the author of numerous articles and texts on mathematical theory]. They even teach the kids that way: Baba and Zedo. And it's all right because when they were small, they could distinguish between his parents and my daughter's parents. Because his parents they call Grandmother and Granddaddy, and us they call Baba and Zedo. That's in Slovak. That Czech (?). Yeah, he's doing all right.

Fugett: That's great.

Bartos: Well he was promoted, I told you, a full professorship Saturday so they went to New York and saw Tosca, the opera. And the weekend we had the kids here. He's due for a sabbatical leave and I think he's going to California, to Stanford to teach there. And he teaches at the University of Wesleyan in Connecticut six weeks every summer. When he's through down here for the summer, he goes up there and he teaches advanced students for their Master's, six weeks up there. And he can't turn it down and 2 hours and what he's getting he said they pay good. He was in Chicago 2 years ago teaching these people that are in Houston for the space ship. He was teaching them out there. I don't know if he— Is there a Professor Gulden [Samuel Gulden taught mathematics, computer science, and engineering for over 50 years at Lehigh University] up here yet, do you know?

Fugett: I don't know, I'm not sure.

Bartos: I think our lad was one of the youngest Ph.D from Lehigh. He stayed here and taught while he was taking his Master's and then he stayed again and taught while he was getting his Ph.D. I don't know if I asked him one time, I said would he consider going into industry and I don't know, I think I'm the guy that talked him into going to Delaware. Because after he got his Master's, then when he was looking for a job, he had ten schools offering him a job, and he was undecided. So I've followed Lehigh from when we were kids, you know. In fact, when I see some of these presidents of steel companies and all, I remember when they played ball up here. In fact, Kissinger's31 wife is a McGinnis girl, and I remember the two McGinnises when they played with Lehigh. There was Al on the line and Dave in the backfield. And I don't know if she's Dave's daughter or Al's daughter, I'm not sure.

Fugett: Not sure.

31 Refers to Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner. 00:49:13 Bartos: And people like that, you know. So I'm following Lehigh, well all of these kids around here. So we used to go down, we go down to see Delaware and Lehigh play. So when we were down there, I liked the way those kids acted, you know Delaware kids, college kids. And I told him, I says, `Have you got an offer from Delaware?' `Yeah.' I said, `Why don't you go down there and take a look? We were down there Saturday, or when we were down to see Lehigh and Delaware play, I said, `The way those kids behave themself, I think it's a real nice school.' And the school is nice too. And I said, `The kids are well behaved.' So he went down there and that's where he stayed. And he likes it, he's down there down oh, it must nine years or so. I'm going by the oldest boys age. He had an offer last year for University of Michigan at one of their schools that are down— You know, it's like Penn State32, they have schools at different cities. And he and the daughter went out there to look over this thing. He was supposed to be the head of the department. Well, they liked the school but it's so far down, that the shopping they would've had to do like Sears Roebuck33, you know, by catalog, because the town wasn't much. And then they were so young compared to the rest of the faculty there that my daughter said, `No, I'd rather go back to where I'm living.' So that's why he didn't take that job in Michigan. And this one at Stanford34, that'll be just one year I guess. Well, are you still up here?

Fugett: Yeah.

00:51:39 Bartos: What year are you?

Fugett: I'm a senior.

Bartos: Senior. Did you make up your mind yet?

Fugett: I think I'll think about it next year. I'll probably go back to school, you know, go for graduate work.

Bartos: You need it today.

Fugett: Yeah. Well, thanks a lot.

Bartos: That's all there is to it? (laughs)

32 A public research university with locations throughout Pennsylvania. 33 Turning from a mail order company into one of the largest retailers in the United States, this company was known for its catalogues. 34 A private research university located in Palo Alto, California. Fugett: All there is.

Bartos: Sure you don't want a cup of coffee?

Fugett: No, that's all right. Thanks.

(end of recording) Time Topic

00:00:00 Starting at Bethlehem Steel 00:03:53 Recruited to play football 00:07:17 Job responsibilities as a recorder 00:08:34 Family 00:09:57 Job responsibilities as a heatist 00:11:09 Attitudes about working at Bethlehem Steel 00:12:56 Union activity 00:16:25 Family move from Pittsburgh area 00:17:12 Work accommodations to play semi-pro football 00:25:35 Participating on a track and field team 00:33:21 Getting a leave of absence to travel with a track and field team to Europe 00:35:53 Retiring 00:41:33 Attitudes about working at Bethlehem Steel 00:44:02 Son-in-law mathematics professor 00:49:13 Influence on son-in-law’s decision to accept position at the University of Delaware 00:51:39 Conclusion