Esther Peterson, Washington, D.C.: interviewed by Floyd O'Neil, 1 March 1991

Transcript (50 pages) of interview by Floyd A. O'Neil with Esther Peterson, on March 1, 1991

Esther Peterson (1906-1997) was born in Provo, Utah. Her father was Lars Eggerrtsen, a first generation American from Danish immigrants. Her mother was Annie Neilson from Veddham, Denmark, who crossed the plains with a handcart company. Esther describes her Utah childhood and talks about teaching physical education (dancing) for two years in Cedar City, Utah, at the Branch Agricultural College. She attended the Teachers' College at Columbia to get her master's degree in Administration of Physical Education. There she met her husband, Oliver. They married in 1932. Oliver encouraged her involvement in social issues. She taught at an exclusive girls' private school, Winsor School, in Boston for six years. She also volunteered at the YWCA teaching dance to girls from the garment industry. After visiting the slums of Cambridge to observe the union movement these girls were associated with, Esther became involved in creating the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She never stopped fighting for fair labor in America. She spent her summers at the Bryn Mawr College for women working in industry. Esher had four children, and balanced motherhood with teaching for Amalgamated Clothing Workers. She worked in Utah to organize the Utah Garment Factory, and was active in other labor causes. Oliver was a labor attaché, and later worked for the State Department. They spent many years in Europe. She continued working late into her life "on the Hill" in various departments. She has successfully influenced and established many of America's labor and fairness policies. Interviewer: Floyd O'Neil

ESTHER PETERSON Washington, D.C. Interviewed by Floyd O’Neil 1 March 1991 EVERETT L. COOLEY COLLECTION Tape No. U-1293 American West Center and Marriot Library Special Collections Department University of Utah THE FOLLOWING IS A TAPE RECORDING MADE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ON MARCH 1, 1991. ESTHER PETERSON IS BEING INTERVIEWED BY FLOYD O’NEIL OF THE AMERICAN WEST CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. FO: Esther, where were you born? EP: [ was born in Provo, Utah. FO: When? EP: On December 9, 1906. FO: 1906. EP: At Eight something North on Eighth East. We moved into our place, house, at 868 North University that was being built while I was a young girl at the house on Eighth North. FO: Who was your father? EP: Lars E. Eggertsen. And he was the son of Simon Peter Eggertsen. There was Simon, Peter, Andrew, and then Aunt Sara Cluff and Lars. There were four boys. He used to say, and he was the youngest, “There’s Simon, Andrew, and Peter. Where does Lars come in?” because they had been named after the Apostles, and it always bothered him that Lars was not one. [Laughing] FO: Was not one of the Apostles. EP: I can remember that very well. FO: Your father was an immigrant? EP: No, he was a first generation here. Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 FO: And they were from? EP: From Denmark. They came from Frederikshavn. Now that’s on my father’s side, not my mother’s side. FO: What did your father do in Utah? EP: He was an educator. He taught at Brigham Young University (BYU). Went to Ypsilanti, Michigan, to get his degree. Came back, married my mother, and became a professor at BYU, the Academy in those days. After that, he became superintendent of schools up in Ogden, Utah, then in Springyville, Utah, and then in Provo. He was superintendent of schools when he got ill. After he became ill (and now they know what to do with high blood pressure), he had to give up teaching. Then he taught for the Church. He taught Seminary in Spanish Fork. FO: [see. Who was your mother? EP: My mother is Annie Neilson. She was from Veddham, Denmark. She came over when she was seven years old. On my father’s side, my grandfather and grandmother walked across the plains in a handcart company. FO: I see. EP: Their romance took place on the plains, by the way. FO: Is that right? EP: Which is interesting. Then they settled in Provo. On my mother’s side, they were first generation. Came on one of the first trains that came to Promontory, Utah. FO: I see. Esther Peterson EP: 1 March 1991 And mother was seven years old when she arrived, when she came. Then they settled in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Before that they were in Lehi, and they got mother to write down her memories. We have her memoir. FO: Her memoirs, uh-huh. EP: That would be a good oral history, wouldn’t it? FO: Sure. EP: [ have that, by the way; it’s very interesting. We got her to sit down and write. FO: It’s a wonderful tradition, isn’t it? EP: It’s great. FO: Tell me where you first went to school. EP: First at BYU. [ went to the Parker School. After the Parker School, again up to the BYU High School, and then to the Provo High School, and then BYU. FO: How would you describe your education? EP: [ think I had a very good education at BYU, a very good education at that time. In fact, as I look back and talk with some now-a-days, I think I had courses that were absolutely fantastic. As I look back, they still stand me in very good stead. Psychology of religion, philosophies— FO: In high school? EP: No, no, no. This was up in college. FO: Yes, this is up in college. EP: In high school I had a very good education. I remember Mrs. Wilkinson. I’ve forgotten her first name. FO: All right, we’re going on again. What year did you start to college? Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 EP: I graduated in 27, so I guess that was four years earlier. I think I went to all these. FO: All the four years? So you started in ’23? EP: 1did grades very fast. I skipped twice, and did the high school in three years. FO: I see. How old were you when you started college? EP: Have to figure. 1906 and I graduated in °27, so— FO: You were twenty-one when you graduated. So you started at about sixteen or seventeen years old. EP: Probably. FO: Did you find college exciting? EP: Very, very, very! I think the thing is that I had some extremely good professors. I think I had William J. Snow, and I look back— FO: That’s a distinguished name. EP: [ had Poulson on Psychology, which was terrific. I had Swenson in Sociology, and it was terrific. [ mean, these come back to me. [ had Henderson in Biology. I had Hanson in Geology. Something I still remember— FO: Sounds like all of Scandinavia to me! EP: Doesn’t it though? But they were wonderful teachers. I hold the lessons, and what I learned there was part of opening my mind. I think it’s one of the reasons that I had difficulties with church leaders, because they were so broad, these teachers, so broad. FO: You say you had difficulty with church leaders. When did you first notice this inflammation? EP: I think I noticed it really not until I got through the college. I began dating a returned missionary. I think a lot of it started there. Then it started, also, with my books Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 on—they gave me The Theology of an Evolutionist to read. They gave me, oh, goodness gracious, I still want to pick up that book every once in a while. The things that they gave me, Ingersoll, to read; and they stimulated me so much in my thinking at that time, especially Swenson, Poulson, and Woodward. They come to my mind. Julia B. Jensen taught literature. I took Browning from her, and poetry. I didn’t have Alice Louise Reynolds. She had left just before I came. Anyway, I remember resenting the way he had everything so neat, so comfortable. FO: Who are you— EP: I'm talking about the boyfriend I started dating, this returned missionary. FO: Oh, [ see. This boyfriend had it all tied up in neat packages. EP: It was all neat, all neat. FO: And life didn’t appear that way. EP: 1didn’t think life was that way. [ had read too much. You know, [ hadn’t read outside—I didn’t know what was going on in Utah, which bothers me now as I look back. But certainly now that I know a little bit more about moral philosophy and things like that, I don’t know. FO: That’s a wonderful liberal arts sort of education when you can read broadly and deeply, but it never seems to stay there. It always has its affect. Tell me, when did you first, because you’ve been such a social activist, when did you become aware of social issues in your life? Certainly that was in you before you left Utah. EP: I think a lot of it came when Father got sick and Mother became the manager for Utah County. Well, it was the poor folks” house. What was it called in those days? Oh, you know, it’s where abandoned old people go who have no other place to go. Esther Peterson 1 March FO: The old folks’ home? EP: It was the poor house. Mother took in the boarders, but things were tight for us 1991 financially. I remember that. And Mother took this job as matron of that house. I used to go out with her, and we cleaned and worked, and she had us all work on that. [ remember fighting bed bugs with them. I remember these poor people. Why are they here? Why aren’t they home? I look back at that, and I see that still pretty heavily, and I began to worry about it a little bit then. I was a kid then; I was just a child, really. FO: There’s something fearful about seeing true poverty first hand. EP: But I saw it, and I smelled it. FO: Yes, it stinks. Always does. EP: It stinks. One of the things Mother did was to clean up that place. | remember she got Sister Roxy Peterson, who did laundry for us every once in a while, to come, and she took us all out there. She was the only one paid, but every one of us had to roll up our sleeves, and did we scrub and did we work! We put every one of the beds on cans of kerosene so the bed bugs wouldn’t go up. FO: Oh, I see. In other words, you put a tin can under each leg of the bed and poured kerosene in them. EP: In the leg. That kept the bed bugs from going up into the bed. FO: Sounds terribly flammable. EP: Can you imagine it? We did. FO: That is incredible. EP: We did. We did. I remember it very well. FO: And she was able to get rid of the bed bugs? Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 EP: Got rid of the bed bugs, and got the place cleaned up. FO: Oh, it must have been dreadful! EP: But Mother was just determined, and boy, did she make us work. But we were used to working. I think that’s one blessing that I have from there. You worked. FO: Indeed. EP: This is the way you—I get really annoyed when I see people who don’t know how to work. FO: That’s right. EP: It really bothers me. FO: And they don’t know what they’ve missed with that joy of really hard work. EP: Contributing! I take, and I give. It’s the ability to give and receive. It goes both ways. FO: Was your father terribly distressed during these times when his health failed? EP: It was difficult for him, yes. FO: Isee. EP: He was a beautiful man, oh boy, and he had a lot of difficulties. He wanted so badly to have a public high school. He had a lot of difficulties with that because he was criticized. BYU was a good enough school, and he wanted a public school. FO: Well, there was that struggle in Utah between trying to leave the education with the Mormon Church rather than make it public. It had been a long struggle when he was there. Now that surprises me that he worked for BYU, and he taught Seminary, and yet he was a public school man. EP: He was a public school man, but that was later on in his life, of course. Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 FO: Of course, as the rest of the state was moving toward public schools. EP: And when he was superintendent, Bennion was the head of the church schools in those days. I remember things were difficult, and it was my senior year of college. I'll never forget. But Father was very old. He had a stroke, and it was rough for us. He [Bennion] said to my father, “If you and your family can take care of your classes, we’ll continue to pay you.” So I took over my dad’s classes my senior year. So I went to Spanish Fork three days a week and taught Seminary--drove over, and then carried on my school work. But it was a wonderful time. It was difficult, and I thought, “I sure am going to have a rough time.” It was a very rough time for me, but I had evenings with my father, and I would go over the lessons. He did not have me do church doctrine. FO: Oh, he did not? EP: No. FO: You just blew up my next question. EP: He knew the problems that [ had, and he knew the difficulties that [ was having with one of the guys that [ was going with. So I taught history. I did some literature. I did the Book of Mormon as a story. FO: Isee. EP: Not as inspired by God. FO: Yes. EP: 1had a very liberal father. FO: That’s very interesting. Now, when you graduated and moved on, what was your first activity after graduating from school? EP: I taught school at Cedar City, Utah. Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 FO: Really? EP: At the Branch Agricultural College. FO: Yes. EP: And I taught there for two years. FO: What did you teach? EP: [ was a major in Physical Education, gym teacher, dancing. FO: And dancing. EP: Uh-huh. FO: Did you have fun? EP: Oh, I loved it, loved it. But I got scolded for it because I put on a big festival out on the lawn, and I was called in one day before school, and Mr. Maughan was very nice, the director. And here sat the Bishop and other church leaders. They’re sorry about it, the festival was really nice, but did I know that I was undermining the morals by having them dance there in these thin dresses and barefoot? And I thought, “What’s this?” They were beautiful, and I should have said to them, “You don’t see the beauty. You only see sex, and you don’t see beauty.” You don’t know how many times in my mind [’ve answered them. But [ went back to my room and cried. I couldn’t believe that could happen to me. I was scolded. I was “undermining the morals” of those girls. FO: Did they force you to stop? EP: Oh, I had to have them put thick dresses and slips under these Grecian robes that we had them dance in. FO: In the 1920s? Esther Peterson 1 March EP: Uh-huh, uh-huh. FO: God lord, people were wearing miniskirts in the twenties. EP: Well, let’s see. I graduated in ’27, so it must have been 28, and— FO: °28 and ’29. Already the vamp and all of that was everywhere. EP: You see, all of these were kind of these, um, church coming down on me, you 1991 know? FO: It must have been hard to put up with. EP: It was not easy. FO: Yeah, I can see that. Well, it invades one’s intellectual territory a long way. Too bad. What caused you to leave? EP: 1 was out there for two years, and then [ came East to Columbia to get my master’s. FO: To get your master’s. Now what impelled you to go to Columbia? EP: Well, I think one thing. It was the thing to do in those days. FO: Yeah, that’s right. It surely was. EP: You can understand. [ know that [ was admitted to Wellesley, and I kept thinking, why don’t I do that, and I was afraid. I crammed on French, and [ was not good in French. I was afraid it would be over my head. But I was accepted at Wellesley, [ remember, definitely. I guess in those days they were trying to find new people to come enlarge the place. FO: Sure. EP: But, anyway, | went to Teachers College. FO: And you went to Teachers College at Columbia University? EP: At Columbia, and I got a master’s degree in Administration of Physical Education. 10 Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 FO: Isee. Do you remember any of your teachers there? EP: Yes. I had Kilpatrick, and he influences me a lot; and John Dewey came to a couple of the meetings. I read all of his things. FO: Oh, of course. EP: And so that opened up a tremendous field for me, which was great. FO: Now Dewey would have been pretty old then. EP: He was a very old man. He died. Ah, when did he die? I know I went to a big dinner for him. I don’t know. But Kilpatrick was one. What was his name? His first name? FO: I can’t think of it. EP: But, you know, he was a big educator. FO: Oh, yes. EP: He’s really great. FO: Now, did you meet Breasted while you were there? Do you remember that name? Teachers College was a big college then, and it was absolutely the center of ferment in the United States. EP: Thing to do. FO: Oh, it was the thing to do. Perhaps in the thirties they became over confident, as a matter of fact, but at any rate, it was a remarkable institution then, wasn’t it? EP: Uh-huh. FO: Did you have fun? EP: 1 am supposed to be a distinguished alumnus, and of course I don’t give any money, you know. I’'m kind of turned off on the whole thing. FO: Did you have fun in New York? 11 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 EP: Oh, yes. FO: Where did you live? EP: At first I lived with a friend from Utah. What was their name? They rented a room to me and to Hazel Brockbank. She had been a teacher with me down in Cedar City. Then I moved into Whittier Hall into the dormitory, which was a better experience for me rather than having to take the subway every morning, and then I wanted that kind of life. FO: Sure. EP: I was far too isolated living up 169" next to 120", FO: Oh sure. EP: Her husband was a doctor at Presbyterian Hospital, and they had this room we’d rent. It was one of these logical life things that one does. And I did it for a while, but not FO: Not too long. EP: Not too long. FO: Now you were there two years? EE: No. FO: Oh, did you do it one? EP: No, a year and a summer. FO: A year and a summer. Did you write a thesis? EP: Uh-huh. FO: Oh, we never want to look back at our thesis and dissertation. 12 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 Not at all. It's stupid. But I learned a lot by it, because being (it sounds funny for me to say this) I thought one of the things that bothered me the most was the women’s menstrual cycle. FO: Uh-huh. EP: These girls are always wanting to be excused, and dah, dah, dah. I’ve always been a healthy person, and it never bothered me one bit. I didn’t have to go to bed, and I was used to working if you had your period or not. Work, you know! FO: Sure. EP: It’s just not part of my—I remember thinking, well, I’'m really going to look into it. So [ did that. Then I looked up all the literature, and I went to these places, and I found these people who were writing that stuff didn’t know as much about it as [ did. [Laugh] [ became disillusioned with academicians, because [ had learned enough about the scientific method at BYU and verifying and all this. FO: Their stuff didn’t look good to you? EP: It just did not look good to me. But I did the thesis, and [ got an “A” on it, and such and such. [ remember that I criticized it pretty heavily. It’s a shame that this is the way we make policy, without solid information. You see, there it goes back again to my education at BYU. We did study the scientific method. We had that, and we had examples from it all the time. Cottam and Henderson kept drilling this into us. FO: Now which Cottam taught you? EP: Walter. FO: Oh, my old professor! In his last few years at the University, he taught me. I knew Walter. Oh, you’re not that much older than I am. 13 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 EP: Well, he was a young man then. FO: Yes. He was a marvelous teacher. Oh, absolutely. EP: Wonderful person. FO: He did absolutely superb things. EP: You see, these were good teachers, my dear. FO: Oh, I know. EP: Are they that good these days? FO: Well— EP: 1don’t think they are. FO: It’s become more fragmented. There are still stars that are just wonderful teachers. They still attract people. But the system is big, and we are not as rigorous in sorting out who shall go into academia. And then, alas, it isn’t as vivid as it was, I’'m afraid. EP: No, no. FO: And we have such an avalanche of kids now, good lord. The smaller institutions really can’t afford the stars. EP: I guess that’s true. FO: We used to grow our own. But now when we do that, they are hired away to better institutions, and it’s a different world. EP: When I think--it is interesting for you to ask me. Even their names come back to me. FO: Of course, yes, because they really are a part of us as much as our parents. EP: Oh, yes. I think of the college as my home, and those four years at BYU. Well, they shaped a lot of my life. FO: The quality of education was certainly on everyone’s lips, all the time. 14 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 You know, it’s interesting. I'm going through old papers because of working on this thing. I came across a paper that I wrote for Julia B. Jenson on Robert Browning. I saved it because it said, “A+! This is excellent work. You’re a joy to have as a student!” Can you imagine how I felt when I got that in school? FO: Of course. EP: It's one that I've saved. Isn’t that interesting? FO: Oh, it’s wonderful. EP: Julia B. Jenson. I remember struggling with it. I can even remember not being able to get some references that I wanted, and taking the old Bamberger, the old electric train. FO: Oh yes, the old train. EP: To Salt Lake to the library where I could get some things that [ wanted. Went up in the morning, worked at the library all day, and then came back at night on the Bamberger. FO: Surely. EP: That was to do this paper. Isn’t that interesting? FO: It certainly is. EP: It comes back to me. FO: Oh, I still miss the old Bamberger. Crazy old days. EP: Ran on electricity. FO: Have to have a car to do everything. EP: That’s one thing I feel so awful about—Bush’s energy policy. We won’t talk about that. FO: Well, we shouldn’t. It isn’t worth talking about. 15 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 EP: Well, that’s true. FO: There isn’t a policy. It’s drift. But, anyway, after Columbia, were you anxious to get back to Utah? EP: I don’t think so. FO: Did you go back? EP: No. Well, see, then [ met Oliver, my husband, at Columbia. FO: You met him at Columbia. What was he studying? EP: He was studying sociology. We met at a, well, [ remember seeing a sign on a bulletin board for a discussion group at the YMCA where they had kind of a club house for students. I remember one of the arguments that I had with Hazel Brockbank. “Oh, you can’t do that on Sunday. You have to go to church!” and I can remember thinking, well, I knew everybody at church; and, again, I think it’s part of my wanting to break out to new experiences. [ remember going to this, and they were having a great discussion about the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which I didn’t know a thing about before. I didn’t know a thing about arbitration for these great movements. [ remember seeing this fellow there, and he was, I thought perfect. I thought he was very handsome, and I decided I'd get acquainted with him. To make a long story short, 1 did, and ended up dating him, and falling in love with him. FO: Where was he from? EP: He came out of a very poverty stricken background. His people were immigrants. His mother came to this country when she was seventeen. His father died when he was a kid, left his mother with these kids. I never forgot somebody asked him once, “Well, did 16 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 you ever go hungry?” He said, “Oh no, but we skipped a lot of meals!” or something like that. Poverty was so deep in that. He became a real La Follette follower. FO: Oh, of course. EP: Of that period. FO: A progressive. EP: He became a progressive. So he opened up, and he kept saying, “Look, you don’t know from nothing. You mean to say you have a college degree, and you don’t know a thing about this?” [Laugh] FO: Had he gone to the University of North Dakota? EP: Yeah. FO: Did he think his education was better than yours? EP: Well, I guess in some ways, and in some ways not. He did not have the background in literature that [ had. But he certainly had it in social sciences. FO: Yeah, it was a different education. EP: It was a very different education. But we used to sit up and argue. [ remember I was defending Henry Ford in the argument that we had. But then he insisted on my going around with him. He took me down to Cooper Union. He took me to the union meetings. He took me to the squares. He took me through the slums. FO: Now, let’s see. The Cooper Union meetings? That would have been somewhere around ’28 or ’29. EP: Around in there. You said 28 because I graduated in *27, around *30 maybe. FO: Around ’30. Were the Cooper Union meetings mainly union things? 17 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 No, not only union. There were a lot of the new immigrants from the Slavic countries, mainly, I think. FO: Yeah. The Slavic countries were bringing in a lot. EP: They brought in a lot. I didn’t bump into the Irish people until I got up to Boston, certainly. Then in New York, when I began working over there, I ran into Jewish people pretty heavily in my union work. I touched these various ethnic groups at that time. FO: Isee. Slavic. The Slavic group in New York was having a tough time by then. EP: Very. But that’s where they began really, in a way. That’s part of the origin of the labor movement here. FO: When did you first become interested in labor as a subject? EP: Well, I think Oliver began to—he took me down to hear Dubinsky and Hillman, and Reinhold Niebuhr, and all the people of that period. FO: Surely. EP: [ remember hearing Dubinsky, and really liking what he said. I had been through, and [ remember hearing Hillman, and liking what he said, so I had it in the back of my head a little bit. But then, when I left Teachers College, I got a job teaching school at a private school for girls in Boston, the Winsor School, a very fancy school. And it was the plum job supposedly of the graduating class, and all that kind of fal-de-ral. But, anyway, here I go up to a place where the girls were brought to school in their limousines. A couple of them even had a maid to be sure that things were all right with these children. These were very wealthy people; very, very wealthy. FO: What age group was it? EP: It started in the fourth class, and went through high school. 18 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 R@:isee! EP: Winsor School. Very exclusive. I was in the head mistress’ office one day, and she got a call that somebody was pregnant; and if it was a girl, they wanted to be sure that her name was on the list right now for that school. Very prestigious to get into this school. FO: How did you like it? EP: Well, I had a miserable time. Because I was Westerner, I wanted to change the whole system. They were old fashioned, and they had a few good athletes that were given all the plums, and the slow girls didn’t have any chance at all. I went in to clean house, and oh brother, I had miserable experiences with these girls. I’ve never been treated so rudely in my life as [ was by some of these wealthy kids. Just rude! They didn’t know. | had to preside at the dinner table and the luncheon table. I would ask, “Well, please pass the potatoes,” or something. “The what? The what?! Oh, you mean po-tah-toes.” They were nasty to me. I said, “No, I mean potatoes, and if you don’t understand that, I’1l get up and serve myself.” I had to fight all the way. I finally won, but, oh god. But I had a wonderful head mistress who knew they were little bitches. FO: Isee. EP: Some of them, not all of them. But I had a rough time. FO: The head mistress did stick with you? EP: She is one of my heroines. So then again, at that time, [ started going to church. My sister was there, and her husband was going to school at Harvard, getting his degree. FO: Now which sister is this? EP: Anna Marie and Briant Decker. They live in Vermont now. Well, anyway, three of us came to church, and then Oliver, my husband. Then [ started to volunteer, you know. 19 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 We were taught that way. We had to give of ourselves, so what do I do? You can’t just do what you’re supposed to do. You’ve got to give of yourself. So I thought, well, Ill teach Sunday School, or I'll help with the MIA [Mutual Improvement Association for teenage youth]. [ was Stake Recreation Director in Cedar City, and I’ve always done a lot of other things like that when around the adults. Athletic programs and dance contests, and all the other kinds of things like that. My husband, my fiancée, then said, “Esther, do something else! Here’s an opportunity for you.” So I volunteered at the YWCA. FO: Oh, yes. EP: And I’ve told this story, but I’ll tell it to you again. You want this on tape, I guess. FO: Oh, I do. EP: So I did, and I was assigned to the Industrial Department. When [ went there, [’1] never forget—I went on Thursday nights to teach, and I was teaching kind of tap dancing and things. That’s the night that the maids could come. That was their one night out, Thursday night. And I found that some came from homes of the wealthy where my students came from, and then, in addition, the girls from the garment industry would be there. It was the Industrial Union Department, and that was the days when the YWCA was very liberal. It was quite different later on. FO: Yes. EP: So one night they didn’t come to my class.. I did current events, and dance and recreation, and stuff like that, and they said there was a strike. Of course, I had been raised to think a strike was a pretty awful thing. [ remember my husband then was at Harvard, my fiancée. He was working for his degree there. He said, “Well, go find out Esther. Don’t just accept it. Go find out 122 20 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 So he and I went through the slums of Cambridge, and I’ll never forget that as long as I live. We went up and down those rickety places in the slums of Cambridge. There, for the first time in my life, I saw industrial home work, and I’ll never forget it as long as I live. After all, these great, wonderful, strong families, everybody working so they could eat, in the face of depression. They were upset because the girl was not bringing home her money, and what was the cause of their trouble? They were getting $1.32 for making twelve Hoover aprons. I'll never forget as long as I live. The manufacturer had changed the pattern of the pocket from a square to the shape of a heart, and they couldn’t make the piece rate. They couldn’t make them as fast, and it was a spontaneous strike. They told me the whole story of'it, and I talked with them, and I talked with the girls, and I was on the picket line with them the next morning. It happened that fast. HO:lisee! EP: It happened that fast. Then I went to the director of the school. I said, “Look, this thing has got me, and [ just—this is deep inside of me, and I want to help them.” And that wonderful woman said, “As long as it does not interfere with the quality of your teaching, what you do on your own time is your own business.” FO: Beautiful. EP: I tell you, she and Mrs. Roosevelt are two heroines in my book. Really influenced my life. And Jane Smith. There’s a couple more, but anyway, that was it. I organized a committee. I got some fancy ladies to go down on the picket line with me. We got these kids organized. We established a union! That was my first experience. 21 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 FO: Did you actually then establish a union? EP: We got the charter. FO: In which union? EP: In the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. FO: Uh-huh. So you were back with David Dubinsky then? EP: Uh-huh. It’s very exciting for me, because I’ve been back, oh, how many years ago, and they had an Esther Peterson day. They had remembered that [ had—some of these old ladies that were around in those days. FO: Oh, that’s wonderful. EP: It was a real experience for me. Parallel to that, I was teaching at the Winsor School, you see, and Jane Smith, who was the Dean of Bryn Mawr College, helped to establish the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry. I don’t know if you’ve seen that movie they did on that, but anyway— FO: I’ve seen it. EP: On Women of Summer. Anyway, she also was a great inspiration to me, and she came and spoke to Winsor School to raise money for scholarships so these girls of the factories could get an education. I heard her, and I’ll never forget. [ had my gym suit on, and I had a skirt that I would put on over my bloomers, and then I would run over to the auditorium for the meeting. I just said, “This is where I’ve got to be. This is where I’ve got to work!” I went up to her and was interviewed, and I got a job. Got me started with— FO: Now was that 19307 EP: That was in—no, the first time. Then I got married in *32, and it was around in there 22 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 because I taught at Winsor for six years, and then I would go to the Summer School in the summer. FO: You were there that long? EP: Oh, yeah. FO: That surprises me. EP: Uh-huh. FO: Did you ever— EP: But I had the summers. That’s when I would go to the Bryn Mawr Summer School. FO: Oh, I see. And where was it held? EP: At Bryn Mawr College. FO: At Bryn Mawr College. You went in the summers down in Pennsylvania. EP: Uh-huh. FO: So, was it a pretty exciting bunch there? EP: Oh, very exciting. You see, the only thing that those girls had to have was to be able to read and write English, and to have supported themselves for three years. No academics. Not anything else. It was the most exciting teaching I’ve ever had in my life. FO: Is that right? EP: Because they wanted to learn. At Winsor, oh, how do I make this attractive to them? FO: Now, what did you do down at Bryn Mawr? EP: Well, I went in as Recreation Director, but then I soon became, ah, what was it called? Anyway, I moved in to being an assistant. They had units. What I tried to do was transfer and translate what they were doing in those classes into dance, into music, into drama. So every Saturday night we put on a program. I took the materials that they had 23 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 during the week, and had a spontaneous living newspaper. I was told that we helped start the living newspaper. We had people come and do the news there. I didn’t know that was an innovator, but I was! George Mason University is collecting a lot of these things. It pleases me to no end, because we did work very hard. FO: Now, are those things at the Labor Archives at Wayne State, or where are they put? EP: No, well, I guess whatever there is, a little bit of my papers are up at Schlesinger, maybe. FO: Up with Arthur Schlesinger? EP: I know that George Mason has wanted to collect all these things. You see, we didn’t write things down. Everything was spontaneous. FO: That’s the trouble with those things. They get exciting, and we fail to write them down. EP: Oh, and I think of putting on those plays, and they were wonderful. As I look back, they were simply wonderful. We did one on the immigration, and we called it, “America, You Called Us to Your Shores.” And we took the history of all of those students, and had them act out what brought them to the United States. When the Blacks came, “We didn’t ask to come. You forced us to come.” Silence! Oh, it was the most dramatic. Oh, when I think about it, I'm very happy. I’'m very proud of what we’ve done. FO: Oh sure. That’s a real contribution. EP: We did one on the Supreme Court, packing the Supreme Court. It was just as cute as it could be. It was wonderful. To dramatize, we did one on housing, and I’ll never forget trying to think, “How can I make this dramatic?”” [ had one person go in and sit down. We used the gymnasium. Then pretty soon, we did another one, and then finally 24 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 we had people just moving in and crowding into little—We had to dramatize to make real these issues. Now they call it “role playing.” I didn’t know what it was called. What the hell! [Laughing] But we put on a program every Saturday night, so I worked with the professors. FO: That’s a lot of work. EP: I worked hard. I worked very hard. But, we didn’t write anything— FO: How large were the groups? EP: There were about twenty-five in each group. We’d have about a hundred students, depending on how much money we would get for scholarships and things like that. FO: Tell me, because you identified with labor so easily and so completely when you identified, didn’t you have any experience like that in Utah? Labor was having a hell of a time in Utah. EP: The only thing in Utah labor that [ remember was just this one strike, the railroad strike. I think [ talked about that when I was out there. FO: Yes. Tell me how you got—That’s what [ didn’t get was— EP: Well, no, the thing that happened was that the strike was on. I think it was 1918, if [ recall correctly. They came to BYU to get strike breakers, and I can remember some of the students that were living with us. They could get ten dollars a day, which was fantastic in those days. “I’ll break that strike!” Well, I mean, they didn’t say they were strike breakers, of course. Then I can remember we had a car, a Dodge car. [ remember Algie, my wonderful sister, driving us up, and [ went along for the ride. As I said, we went through there, and I saw all these horses. [ saw all these lines. [ saw all the people and crowds, and the horses went ahead and opened up so we could get through. At one 25 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 point it stopped. and this woman looked at me, these little kids hanging at her side. I have in my books here how she just caught my eye and seemed to say, “Why do you do this to us?” I looked at those kids clinging to her, and I thought, something’s wrong. Something is wrong! I wouldn’t go up again. I would not go up again. That’s the first time that I remember that really hit me. Then it wasn’t until I came home afterwards, and began working in the campaign for Senator Thomas. I went out to be Recreation Director in Provo one summer. I didn’t have any labor experience, but then when I went back and started working for Thomas to help get him elected, I got into the racial question there in Utah. I met Frank Bonacci. Do you remember that name? FO: Of course. EP: He became a very good friend of mine. FO: I[s that right? EP: Oh, very dear friend. FO: Now, of course, he was of the coal mines in the state legislature. Very active man. EP: That’s right. He was a beautiful person. I used to spend my time when I'd go home and stay with them in Helper. I’d give anything if I could know what happened to his family. Every time [’'m home I keep thinking, oh, I loved him. I really liked that man. He meant a lot to me, and he talked to me about his childhood, and what it was like to be a person in those days. I think he and his brother were born in the side of a mountain. That was during the time that I was in school, honey. FO: Yes, I remember the history of those strikes, because my mother still lives in Carbon County. My family has been associated with the UMW 26 for fifty years. My father 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 was an organizer. So, yes, I do know about the Bonaccis, and I do know about Helper, Utah. That’s where I began my teaching career. EP: Is that a fact? HOEes! EP: That’s where I was when I was working for CIO Political Action Committee. [ was in Helper. That’s when Wendell Willkie— FO: Oh, yes. EP: [ remember that meeting of the board in Helper when John L. Lewis wanted them to—He was going against FDR at the time. Remember that period? FO: Yes. EP: I was to go and see what I could do for FDR. In a meeting of that board—and you know I look back on the women’s thing—they accepted me. [ didn’t have any trouble going in front of those folks. FO: Oh, sure. Let’s stop for a second. END OF SIDE ONE SIDE TWO EP: I can remember at that time going in to their Union Hall and seeing this old charter. Oh, why didn’t I take a picture of it? I didn’t know what history I was seeing then in those days. I remember what they said to me; I shall never forget. I was talking to them about Roosevelt and all that, and John Lewis. They said, “John L. Lewis is the president of our union, and he is good. He is not the president of our country, and we are going to 2 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 stick with Roosevelt.” I'll never forget that board meeting, the division with the miners between what they would do in following John L. Lewis or else follow FDR. FO: Utah owes a debt to those Italians who brought the idea of union with them. EP: Oh, yeah. FO: And Frank Bonacci. EP: Our Church didn’t like it. FO: Oh, not at all. The Church is still involved in strike breaking at every opportunity. EP: Is it really? FO: Itisn’t as direct as it used to be, but they still oppose unions. EP: Well, the little bit that I could tell when I was out organizing in Utah later on--the thing is they want loyalty only to the Church, and not to any other organization. It’s quite clear. But those were exciting times. FO: I find it interesting that you had been in Carbon County. Did you visit the mining communities? EP: Oh, yeah. FO: What did you think? EP: Well, I loved the quality of the people. [ remember going into their homes. I liked the people very, very much. | remember the Greeks were simply wonderful. FO: Oh, yes. EP: I thought why—but that was later on—why in the world don’t we embrace these wonderful people? But they were deep in their own church, and I don’t know if we tried to convert people there or not. I guess we did, probably. FO: Didn’t work very well. Their loyalty to each other was intensely deep. 28 1 March Esther Peterson EP: I've got a book that I've started reading, the story of a Greek family. FO: Helen Papanikolas. EP: Yeah. She gave it to me, and I haven’t finished it yet, but it tells some of those 1991 stories, I'm sure. FO: Isee. You'll find it very interesting. EP: Did she get into labor stuff that much? FO: Yes. What is the name of it? Is it her Toil and Rage in a New Land, or is it The Peoples of Utah? EP: I think it’s The Peoples of Utah. I'm not sure now. I can’t remember. FO: Sure. Well, you read Helen Papanikolas’ book. It’s really well worth it. EP: Uh-huh. Well, [ have it. It’s up there. FO: She’s just been a marvelous force in Utah. Great friend of libraries and the Historical Society, and so on. And then collecting all that history is so valuable. EP: Where does she live now? FO: They share their time between Salt Lake and St. George. Her husband, Nick, is in a bit of bad health, but she is still just marvelous. EP: I met her. FO: Yes. Wonderful force, and a very liberal family, too. The railroad strike—where was it that they were trying to do their breaking? EP: In Salt Lake down at the Roundhouse. FO: Oh, it was down at the Roundhouse that you saw these people. Those were tough times. EP: I still remember it. Ooh. 29 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 FO: I want you to tell me where you lived when you got married. EP: [ was living in Boston. FO: Did you continue to teach at your school after you were married? EP: Oh, yes, until we moved to New York. Then Oliver was with the old FERA in the early New Deal days. I was beginning to have children, and then we lived in New York. FO: Now tell me about— EP: But then I began working with the clothing workers. FO: Tell me about your engagement to Oliver. EP: That took place in, well, he began courting me when I was at Teachers College. He went home with me one summer, and he smoked, which my parents thought (well, my father was dead then), but it was not looked upon well. I remember that very definitely, and he was a socialist. So there were two big strikes against him. FO: [Laughing] A smoking socialist! Forgive me, but I think that’s so funny! EP: Isn’t that lovely? FO: Were you married in Utah? EP: No, no. No, we were marred at Little Church around the corner in New York City. FO: In New York City. Oh, for heaven’s sake. And when? EP: May 28, 1932. FO: Right in the depth of the Depression, wasn’t it? EP: Uh-huh. FO: Now there was an act of faith. Was he out of Harvard by then? 30 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 Well, no, he wasn’t out. He didn’t quite finish. He lost his job, you know, at Harvard. This is the kind of thing. Then he began working for the Affiliated Schools for Workers in Chicopee, and doing labor there. FO: Sure. That’s wonderful. You must have felt a great exhilaration with his work with that group. EP: Oh, I did, definitely. He went around and taught classes with the rubber workers and the furniture workers, Chicopee and Gardner and all that fermenting labor movement during that period. FO: That’s wonderful. That’s very exciting. Now, did you live in New York when your family was born? EP: Part of that time we were in Boston. It’s hard for me to remember exactly where we were. When he was working in Chicopee, that was near Boston. HO: Yes: EP: And he was going to school part time then, and I was teaching at Winsor. Then we went to New York and worked with FERA. That was with the New Deal. FO: Yes. EP: What was your question now? FO: Where were you living when your children were born? EP: Well, one was in New York, Eric, and one here. FO: In Washington, DC? EP: In Washington. Karen was born here because Oliver was transferred here for part of the time. Then Eric was born in New York. Iver was born in Vermont, and Lars was born here in Washington. 31 1 March Esther Peterson FO: Isee. And after your children started arriving, did you give up teaching? EP: Well, no. I gave up formal teaching, yes, but then I began teaching for the trade 1991 unions. FO: Of course. EP: I took my daughter, Karen, as a baby to Bryn Mawr. I was working for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. They always had to laugh because I wanted to nurse my children, and they had to arrange to schedule conferences so that I could nurse because they wanted me at the conference. They always had a lot of jokes about that. [Laughing] But, you know, today with the modern women and all this, I had no problem about that. [ said, “I’'m going to nurse my baby, and that’s it. If you want me, you’ve got to take me, baby and all.” FO: Of course. EP: They had to laugh. “Well, we can’t do that. That’s her nursing time!” [Laugh] Had a lot of fun about that in those days. I did a lot of work. Then I was here. We moved here in, well, let’s see. Karen was born in ’38, so we lived in Washington for a while; and then we went back to New York, and then came back here in *46. FO: In ’46. Now what did your husband do during the war? EP: He worked for the committee. Well, he was still somewhat in the New Deal agencies, and then he worked for the committee for the Marshall Plan. FO: Oh really? Now that was an interesting job. EP: That was a very interesting job. FO: So he became involved in overseas issues a great deal. EP: Uh-huh. 32 1 March Esther Peterson FO: Did you join him in that interest? EP: Not as much. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t do any work in that at all. FO: Isee. Yours was still with the labor movement? 1991 ERseshere: FO: Now, you went along through the thirties teaching in the Summer School. EP: Well, and also when [ was in New York I would teach at night. I taught for the Garment Workers Union. FO: Oh, the garment workers. EP: And then Oliver would take care of the baby. We were doing a lot of workers education. I taught classes at night. One night, I’ll never forget coming home on the subway, and Mrs. Roosevelt walked into the subway car. These girls that I had just been teaching said, “That’s Mrs. Roosevelt!” And I knew her a little bit. She had had some of us come, and [’m sure that she’d met them. So I went over, and she came over and shook hands with each one of them. One of the girls said, and I remember her holding onto the strap in the subway, and said, “Oh, no. I don’t believe that I shook your hand.” And Mrs. Roosevelt took out a handkerchief and wrote her name on it, and gave it to her. FO: Isn’t that amazing! She was a wonderful person. EP: Great lady. FO: I just hear more stories about that glorious woman. EP: So I did quite a bit of that. FO: Isee. So that you were never really completely divorced from your work in the labor unions while you were raising your children. 33 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 No. I felt the nice thing that is that I never had a nine-to-five job. I could never accept that. They would call and ask me, and they had to accept me on my terms. I was very lucky. Dubinsky used to say [in accent], “Es-stare, we need someone who can talk English.” Es-stare. They called me all the time. FO: Even to this dying day, his accent was terrible, wasn’t it? EP: Uh-huh. Even Hillman’s. He’s the one that I later on worked more for. I started with Dubinsky, and then went to Hillman. FO: Well, tell me about Hillman. EP: Well, I thought he was simply a wonderful man, really. FO: Where was he from? EP: 1 think he was from Czechoslovakia. I'm not sure. He’s first generation. But, of course, he got active in the Hart Schaffner Marx strike in Chicago, and Bessie Hillman, his wife, Bessie Abramovitch. One of the best stories I have about her and him—well, there were a lot of difficulties. Hillman assigned me to watch over her because she was one who just spoke whatever she cared, and he became a big shot in the White House. Here’s his old doting wife from the labor, and it was, he was a little--I thought she was beautiful, and I would have just had her walk in the front door like nobody’s business. But these are the differences in our philosophies. But anyway, I had the responsibility to watch Bessie. We were made director and co-director of the Department of War Activities under Hillman. (This is not Utah related at all; this is aside from Utah.) I’ll never forget making a speech saying to a group how wonderful Hillman was. He was terrific at what he did. I was saying how great Hillman was, and the ideas he had for mediation, and what he did 34 1 March 1991 Esther Peterson in getting organized labor and business together. Bessie had known him at the Hart Schaffner Marx strike, and said to me when I said how great Sidney was, [in accent] “Esther, I was Bessie Abramovitch long before he was Sidney Hillman,” which just tells the story, because she saw him as someone who was potentially a great leader. He admitted it. She made him. Isn’t that terrific? FO: That really is terrific! EP: I’ve done a big interview with the person who’s just finishing a definitive story on him, and I gave him all of these items. These inside stories I know so well because I lived through them. FO: That is very interesting. Now tell me, no one has worked in the labor union movement or not without coming under the scorn of a certain segment of society in the United States. Do you want to tell me abut feeling any of that? EP: Ah, you know it never really bothered me, because I believed in it. Yes, [ had a lot of that in Utah. “Why are you mixed up with the trade union and the labor movement?” My brother-in-law, George Baliff, Algie’s husband, was a great defender for me. FO: Was he? EP: Oh, yes. FO: Oh good. EP: He was great. Algie was always a bit liberal. Some of the others were not. Jess, Thelma’s husband, was not, and Ann Marie was not. She was a little ashamed of me, I think—I know. FO: Ashamed of your activities? EP: But no, I don’t--I remember going out, and I also can remember getting George to 35 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 help me get before the Kiwanis to speak, which he did. I remember getting him to invite Bob Watt, who was a big labor person in those days who was a friend of mine, out to lecture. We tried to have people understand the labor movement. I don’t recall having suffered from any of that. FO: You noticed it, however, in Utah? EP: Oh, I was aware of it, but it never bothered me. FO: Never bothered you. Did you feel that same thing— EP: I think when I went out and tried to buy time—I think I told you this, or did I tell you this? I'm telling all these other tapes so much that I’'m not sure what I’ve told and haven’t told. But, anyway, I went into the head of KSL there. Didn’t we talk about that? FO: You just mentioned it briefly. EP: I went to see a friend of Luther’s to get time to broadcast, and he says, “What in the world are you doing here?” I said, “I’m Esther. I’'m this—" He says, “Why are you here disturbing the peace?”” I remember that very well. FO: Is that right! And he didn’t sell you time? EP: No. FO: No? EP: He would not sell me time. He’d sell it to Campbell Soup, but not to the Garment Workers Union. FO: Which is probably illegal. EP: Well, I didn’t know about it then, but I’'m sure it was. I don’t know. Maybe it was illegal then. 36 1 March 1991 Esther Peterson FO: Might not have been, but a fair forum is certainly what we think about when we think of free public radio, and it didn’t get on, did it? That’s interesting. EP: Even at that time it was really difficult because I was trying to organize the Utah Garment Factory there, which I found the Church owned, which I hadn’t realized. I got into it a little more deeply. I got cards, and found different ways and people who worked there, and I found one or two who would help. You know how organizing is; you know how to do these things. So I started going around visiting them in their homes. I found that I was followed by Church teachers. FO: Oh, is that right? EP: I'll never forget going. Once I was told, “We had the most fun about you, because the women were told that they shouldn’t listen to you. You’re an outsider.” And then [ told them I was a graduate of Brigham Young University from Provo.” [Laughing] I remember that very well. FO: That is interesting. EP: I had to use that, that [ came from here! You know, I used that over and again. | remember being told, “You don’t understand our society. You don’t understand our mentality.” And I said, “Yes I do!” FO: Let me ask you this, Esther. In Utah, you mentioned that this was probably a way of wanting undivided loyalty to one organization. I might buy that, but was there an economic impulse in it as well? EP: I wouldn’t doubt it. You see, they’ve never supported standards. They’ve never supported labor standards for people. FO: No, not at all. 31/ 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 And just the brush I've had with Marriott on the Hill when I was working for minimum wage raises. I’1l never forget their getting up on the potato peelers. [ know [ told you we were testifying to get the minimum wage raised. I’ll never forget Senator Trumbull asking why? Anyway, it was about the potato peelers. I remember that so well. The rate was forty cents an hour. “A man can’t support a family on that. It won’t work.” And the company said, “Well, the job isn’t worth more than that.” Senator Trumbull asked, “How do you measure worth?”’ And he said, “Well, that’s just potato peeling. It doesn’t take skill. It’s a matter of peeling.” Then the Senator said, “Could you get along without it?”’ “Oh no, we have to have potatoes peeled.” “Well then, isn’t it worth more?” He kept pressing him, and then finally he asked, “So why do you do it?” And he said, “Because we can get them for that.” So don’t tell me it isn’t economic! FO: Oh, of course it’s economic. Which factory was it in Utah that you were trying— EP: It was on the Utah Garment over on Second West toward the Union Station. FO: Yes. EP: It was called Utah Garment. It was a Malouf Company, part of it. FO: Yes, I remember it. EP: Youdo? FO: Oh yes. This would have been post World War II that you were doing that. Yes, I remember. 38 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 EP: Uh-huh. FO: That’s an interesting story. Was it just that you were unaware, or was the fact that it was Mormon Church owned— EP: I wasn’t aware that it was Mormon Church owned. I didn’t go into thinking it was Mormon Church owned. FO: But you found out it was? EP: I found out afterwards. We finally got a union organized, and we had a big celebration at the Hotel Utah. We were determined we were going to. Gals were going to dress up and walk in with their heads high, and they did. FO: Darn right. EP: That’s very nice. We had a wonderful celebration. Dubinsky sent a telegram up with congratulations. I had a few good Utah friends that helped. FO: Did you find in working with this—how do I put this—that the Church had deliberately tried to make it appear that it was not Church owned? EP: That [ don’t know. I couldn’t in all honesty say. I don’t even know where I picked up that it was Church owned. FO: That’s interesting. Is it harder to establish unions in the West than in the East? EP: Well, I guess itis. Yes, certainly in Utah. My only experience has been there, and in Los Angeles. The only two places, and I’ve been in the South to organize. That’s very difficult. It depends on what the industry is. FO: What the conditions are, the wages. So many factors. Now there’s been a very heavy decline in the percentage of our total work force that’s unionized. Do you have any observations about that? 39 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 Oh, I've had to go into this just lots and lots. The whole demographics have changed. The work force has changed, and the nature of our industrial society—just so many factors. Then I think an awful lot, well, I guess probably the contrast that I have in working with labor, you see; Oliver was a labor attaché, so he covered movements in other countries. FO: Then he worked with the State Department. EP: And he worked with the State Department. I don’t know. I kind of felt that our people—I don’t like the high level of salaries and all that. I don’t feel that our people stay as close to the working people as they do in other countries. FO: That’s true. EP: I'll never forget a poem that one little student wrote at Bryn Mawr Summer School. “Please Dear God, if I ever become rich, don’t let me forget what it was like to work at the spindle. Don’t let me forget what it was like to mop the floors.” It was a beautiful poem. [ remember it so well. I don’t know; I’m not a philosopher. FO: Well, in a way you are. Now when you came here, you remember who was in the Senate? Was it Elbert Thomas? EP: Well, yes, and I helped get him elected. FO: Of course. You helped in the thirties. You helped in 1933 when he was elected the first time. 327 EP: Is that when he was elected first? FO: Yes, he defeated Reed Smoot. 40 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 EP: Elbert Thomas? FO: Yes, uh-huh. Thomas defeated Smoot in the election of 1932, and then he ran again in 38. EP: 38 is when I remember. I was not active in *32 for him, I don’t think. FO: I think you were probably in Boston at that time. EP: [ don’t remember that. I can’t remember. You mean he was in, and an incumbent? FO: Yes. EP: And I helped him get elected for his second term? FO: That’s right, because that was the big scandal that he would defeat a Mormon Apostle, which he did in the election of *32. Reed Smoot had been in for thirty years. Did you ever know Reed Smoot? EP: Yes, I did, because he came to our home in Provo for Sunday dinner very frequently. FO: Oh, is that right? EP: He always sent us—I’1l never forget that all these seeds came from him. He and my father were good friends. FO: Oh, I see. EP: I’ll have to look up my history. That doesn’t ring a bell with me. FO: Isee. Did you know Elbert Thomas well? EP: I worked with him very closely. Yes. FO: What’s your opinion of him as a senator? EP: Of course I thought he was great. He was on the Labor Committee. He had a far broader view than most of the Utah people. He was not easy to work with. I’ll never 41 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 forget during the Taft-Hartley time how rough that was, and he was chairman of the Labor Committee. I was in Sweden at that time. I’ll never forget Phil Murray calling me and saying, “Esther, you just got to come home. You’re the only one he’ll talk to.” And they had me fly home from Sweden so I could get him to— FO: That fight for the Taft-Hartley Act? EP: On the Taft-Hartley. Well, the point is that they had agreed that if the Democrats won, to see that it was repealed right away. It was up to Thomas to put it on the agenda. I have forgotten all the reasons. I’d have to look at the old oral history; should’ve done years ago. Arthur Goldberg was in the council for the CIO, and Arthur wanted him to put that on. It was to be number one. It was the big labor push to get moved, Taft-Hartley repealed. Thomas felt that it was not that important, and that it—and there were some other things—that it was kind of a political payoff. Anyway, I was flown home from Stockholm. FO: What were you doing in Sweden? EP: I was the wife of a labor attaché. FO: Oh, I see. So with him being in the embassy there, you just could fly home. EP: Sure. We had a good housekeeper that helped us with the kids and that. And Oliver thought I should. He was wanting to send some of the Swedish leaders over here, and it meant that I could do a couple of things. I came in, and I came back not under the guise of working on the Taft-Hartley repeal, but the real reason was to help raise the minimum wage. That was why they said, “Esther, we’ve got to have you. That’s your ball.” In fact, you know, [ have the pen that Roosevelt gave to Elbert Thomas when the minimum wage 42 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 was raised. I was in Sweden, and I had it sent to me. He said, “Esther, this is really your pen. It would never have happened without you.” I have it hanging out here in the hall. FO: Is that right? Were you interested or involved in any way in that campaign when in 1950 he ran— EP: You see then, I was in Sweden; no, [ was in Belgium then. FO: You were in Belgium? EP: I remember that’s when they said these nasty things about him. FO: Oh, they were terrible. EP: Absolutely nasty. I call it a black page in Utah history. FO: Yes. Bennett won on that one. Did you know Wallace Bennett? EP: Not very well. [ was so angry with him. FO: That you didn’t try to get acquainted? EP: Well, he was a different party. Then [ was abroad in those times. I didn’t come back until *58. FO: Did you know Reva Beck Basone? EP: Oh yes, very well. FO: What do you have to say about her? EP: Oh, I thought she was great, and one of the first women that could come in there and stand up. I’'m very fond of her. FO: Another Utah County person. EP: Yes. I liked her very, very much. She was good. FO: She was defeated in the same election. EP: Uh-hum. Bad time. 43 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 FO: Those were tough times for Democrats. EP: They were dirty times. Those were some of the very first dirty tricks. I don’t think the Democrats ever did those nasty things. I hope not; maybe they did. FO: Well, perhaps; and which Democrat and which time, and so on, you know. Both parties— EP: Of course. Hard to tell. But I thought Reva was splendid. The one that I worked most with was Walter Granger. FO: Really? EP: Oh, yes, because when I was in Cedar City, he was the Bishop. We lived at his house. FO: Really? EP: Uh-huh, so we were very good friends. FO: What an amazing connection. You lived at his house! EP: Yeah, Edna Snow and I. We rented a room. Hazel and Walt were our dear, dear friends. We maintained that friendship, too. FO: Now, was he in a law practice there? EP: I can’t even remember if he was Bishop. Bishop wasn’t a full-time—He’s the one who defended me when [ had this awful time about hurting the morals of the girls. I remember he’d say, “Esther, the dirt is in their minds, not yours.” FO: Yes, of course. That’s dreadful. Anyway, Walter Granger is an interesting man, but he hasn’t been well documented in Utah history. EP: That’s a pity. I think he was just a superb human being. Just a superb human being. Oh, I wish I’d kept a diary and notes in my work with these people. 44 1 March Esther Peterson FO: 1991 I'm interested in seeing more documents about Walter Granger. Do you know where his family is now? EP: Well, Hazel was in—1I think she died, too. They had no children. FO: [didn’t know that. EP: It’s very tragic. She was pregnant and had a still born, and oh, it’s so sad. She had to carry it around. It was very, very sad. FO: That’s too bad. What about Dave King? EP: Fine. I don’t think he was as strong as some of the others. FO: Youdon’t. Did you know Sherm Lloyd? EP: Sherman Lloyd? FO: Sherman Lloyd. EP: What was he in Congress? FO: He was a congressman. EP: I think I was abroad those years. FO: You didn’t know him well at all? EP: No. I knew him at school, I think. FO: Oh, you did? EP: Wasn’t he at BYU? FO: Yeah, I think so. EP: Is that his son that’s here now? FO: Idon’t know his son, so I couldn’t help you there. But Sherman Lloyd was a very conservative congressman. 45 1 March Esther Peterson EP: 1991 Very conservative, yes. No. I didn’t know him. [ have a good story to tell you. It’s Lloyd or somebody, but I can tell you this because it’s buried away. Mary Bradford called me and said that they were having a meeting at the Ward, and, oh dear, why did think it was Lloyd? I better not say that because I’'m not sure. I'd have to ask Mary who it was. He got up and talked about his wonderful father, and how great this man had been, and how marvelous he was, and bearing his testimony about his father, and how he was at BYU with Ezra Taft Benson and Esther Peterson, and then he went over to the microphone and said, “Who later became a ----,” oh, some very bad term about me, a labor agitator or something very nasty. [Laughter] Then Mary told me that afterwards he just went to the microphone and “Esther Peterson who became dah, dah,dah, who is, you know, just really a ----- . They said, “Esther, we resented it, those of us who know you.” This is right here. Then they said at the reception afterwards somebody went over to him and said, “Well, what about this Esther?” They said he said, “Well, we would’ve been lots better off if someone had tied a rope around her neck and a sack of sand and dumped her in the Potomac. She is a bad influence. She is a bad influence in our society.” That’s right here in the Mormon Church, right here now my friend. FO: In Washington? EP: Yes. FO: Good lord! EP: Mary Bradford told that to me. FO: Isn’t that awful? Surely you weren’t at BYU when Ezra Taft Benson was. EP: We graduated in the same class. 46 1 March Esther Peterson 1991 FO: Oh, did you really? EP: We doubled dated once or twice. FO: What was your impression of him? EP: Oh, he was very attractive and fine, but so religious. He and my boyfriend, they had answers for everything. FO: I see, and that got a little wearying did it? EP: Got a little wearying for me. But he was very attractive. He was voted the one most likely to succeed. We all like him very much; liked him very much. FO: Isee. [ understand he had a very— EP: He belonged to the YDD Club, the Young Doctors of Divinity, and Ross was part of that group, too. FO: Have you been closely associated yet with Wayne Owens? EP: Yes, partly. Not very close, but I like him very much. FO: He was here, and then he lost, and then he finally came back again. People were surprised that a Democrat could come back to Salt Lake. EP: I[sn’t that something? I’ve only watched him here. I’ve watched him. He’s on the sub-committee of the House of Foreign Affairs Committee. He’s in charge of the human rights. He’s done very well in those areas. FO: Is that right? EP: I’ve talked with people down at the United Nations. They think that he’s one of the best human rights persons to have in Congress. FO: That doesn’t surprise me, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know that he was doing that well. 47 Esther Peterson EP: 1 March 1991 There are a couple of them that I know that work with some friends of mine. I've worked with that committee a good deal, because it has to do with what I'm doing for the U.N., of course. Wayne is exploited as far as I'm concerned. He’s helped me to no end. But the thing that he’s known for is his work on human rights. I’ve watched him at the hearings. He’s good. He can ask questions very calmly and very fine, and he can get at the heart of things. I like that. I think he’s good. I think it will be interesting to see what Orton is like. FO: Tell me about Frank Moss. EP: Moss is good. I worked very hard to help him get elected. I have some reservations. [ don’t think he was as strong as [ wish he could have been. FO: Did you know Congressman Burton? EP: No. FO: Didn’t know him, even though he had served several terms? EP: Again, he was Republican. FO: Yes, he was a Republican. EP: [didn’t. In the lobbying, I don’t know why I didn’t. If he had been on a committee that I had been working on, I’d have known him. But, you see, [ don’t socialize with these people. FO: Yeah. What do you want to tell me about our current set of senators? EP: Well, I think it’s been very interesting to watch Hatch. He has changed remarkably from the early days. I keep bumping into him, and kidding him about it. He’s one who has his finger in the wind. He knows—I’ve seen it on a number of issues. Things that he does with Kennedy now, and the position he’s taken on women. I mean, he’s—if people 48 Esther Peterson 1 March 1991 remember what he said, you know. [Laughter] I saw him the other day, and I said, “Wow, Orrin, you are really quite a new person, aren’t you?” I was kidding about it. He said, “Esther, I am learning,” and he was very nice to me, and we’re friends. FO: Oh, he’s very nice. EP: But he’s slick. FO: Yep. What about the other senator? EP: Ijust don’t know him as well. He doesn’t figure—Orrin is more because he’s been active in the similar fields that ’'m interested in. FO: Especially he’s paid a lot of attention to the elderly and to women. EP: The elderly and women. It’s just that it’s a howl because he has only done that when his finger’s in the wind, and it’s coming. [ remember the early days— FO: Oh, you think there’s a lot of opportunism then? EP: Yes. In the early days he was not there at all. FO: That’s true. EP: Not at all. You couldn’t even crack the door with him a little bit. But, I tell him, “Hooray for you, Orrin. I might even vote for you!” I'm kidding a little with— FO: That’s interesting. EP: But I can’t pass judgment. ['m not on the Hill enough nowadays. I do very little work on the Hill. Very, very little. I worked with the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and neither one of them are on that. The only one in the house is Wayne, and I forgot the other one—it’s those two committees that I have most to do with. So I'm not on the other things. I’'m not on the consumer things anymore. FO: Of course. And consumerism has changed a great deal. 49 Esther Peterson 1 March EP: Oh, tremendously. FO: I remember very vividly watching you on NBC and the interviews. Who’s the 1991 woman in New York who used to interview you quite regularly? EP: Betty Furness. FO: Betty Furness, of course. B She’s a good friend. FO: She also has Utah connections, doesn’t she? EP: Yes, she does. FO: Yes, that’s right. She’s married to a Utahn, Leslie Midgley, isn’t she? EP: Uh-huh. I should call and find out how she’s doing. She’s been sick. FO: Oh, is that right? EP: [ haven’t the heart to call and ask, “How are you, Betty?” I was going to call Marsha and find out. FO: Well, I won’t get into consumerism. That’s a whole different world. At this point, [ think it’s a good place to stop the interview. Thank you. END OF INTERVIEW 50