This collection features interview excerpts and photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994. Founded in the 1790s by Alexander Hamilton and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.), Paterson harnessed the power of the Great Falls on the Passaic River to become the largest silk manufacturing center in North America, as well as a leader in other types of manufacturing, from railroads to rifles. The documentary materials presented in this online collection explore how this industrial heritage expresses itself in Paterson today: in its work sites, work processes, and memories of workers. The online presentation also includes interpretive essays exploring such topics as work in the African-American community, a distinctive food tradition (the Hot Texas Wiener), the ethnography of a single work place (Watson Machine International), business life along a single street in Paterson (21st Avenue), and narratives told by retired workers.
- Subject:
- History
- U.S. History
- Material Type:
- Diagram/Illustration
- Primary Source
- Reading
- Provider:
- Library of Congress
- Provider Set:
- American Memory
- Date Added:
- 09/22/2004