The Fabric of Fall River

[Music] [Music] my family has been on this Bay since the beginning of the area far as the white man was concerned I think they were in this area by the late 1630s when another came from anyone and there was Entwistle and she comes from Rams fossum new Atlantis 21 and they came here cuz I'm after of getting a job village told me that he showed he showed you which is not far from one field I keep the Fall River from Aberdeen Scotland I was two months and a half home where my father God blesses so came the father from st. Michael's face or all they thought America that money was plentiful here they even pennies did throw them away arrivals new beginnings they came to a land of possibility trading the known for the what might be some came with only the promise of a job and a few faded photographs but they rose their lives together and built a city the spirit of its people is the fabric of fire river [Music] everything was here you had shellfish seafood and beautiful farming area and you had this great fantastic two lakes or ponds we call water because the water that made for if it was the Fall River the falling river the Indians call it click machine here in Narragansett Bay and my whole Bay we have this beautiful natural harbor that is unsurpassed Indians we're all over this area in canoes threatening Simcoe so now we'll use the same system to my family the church family they were involved here with the huge land purchases because Benjamin church was the one who organized the colonists against King Phillip in the 1670s we were famous we were farming around yet Pharoah was a typical agrarian community in 1811 was the first mill and a cuss these not men realized that if SATA could run a cotton mill in pawtucket with water power we could run a cotton mill in Fall River because we had the crook of Chen River only two years later they started the far of manufacturing in Detroit [Music] it wasn't say a Boston company that decided to go out and organize Mills on the river it was people that were basically farmers people that knew the value of land and how valuable it would become these people were visible in city affairs are visible in the building of churches or public institutions in the hospitals it's all the same names the family Yankee ingenuity vision and drive transformed a town of ponds and pastures into one of the world's great textile cities in less than half a century by mid-century the opportunity of the mills began to act as a magnet for English and Irish textile workers but the big boom came after the Civil War with a pent up demand for cloth spurring manufacturers towards ever greater production in one year alone 20 new mills opened their doors but whose labor would keep Fall River growing forever was the immigrant city compared to every other city in the United States it had the greatest percentage of immigrants I remember my father telling me that they used to be signs up help-wanted Irish need not apply my mother lived in coffee row they called it hero because a lot of the Irish people who emigrated here came from the County Cork in Ireland my grandma was Mary Anne Tuohy if you peppy wind is pretty they travel a spirit and Irish and my aunt Ellen she was very very prayer hospital and she was always fixing their windows they were Irish 100% [Music] [Music] it's the same old story these people came from the province of Quebec multitudes of them these young men didn't know what it was to have a dime in their pocket some of them had never seen money I mean that and they got a job earned it they get money they got money they can make a life of their own and many of them have two intentions in mind I'm gonna send some money to home when I made enough money I'll go back then we said it would double over here they used to call that at one time little Canada - Canada and I'd say about 95% French in the days when we were growing up they would call Frenchie baboon economics I don't think there's anything officious about it [Music] they look like stuffed sausages that have three coats and five skirts they wore everything into Fall River that day on forever needed immigrants in fact it could not possibly survive without them polish Portuguese Russian Jews Italians Ukrainians Lebanese Greeks by the early 1900's the city's factories were filled with immigrants 97% of the male textile workers and an even higher percentage of the women workers were foreign-born [Music] the largest group that has made an impact at far of the history in the 20th century of the Portuguese the reason why most people came from the Azores because of the poverty because they were looking for some opportunity Portuguese are a very industrious type of people close to the soil by their hard work the determination that there is strong family life they were able to make a name for themselves [Music] Jewish people eventually came to seventy two or three locations in Florida they one was in the Flint and the other was in the south end and each area developed a community of its own its own place of prayer and small schools people in business [Music] industry is the presiding goddess the Fall River and Isla man could no more live there [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the hours were long if they was small it's a car from the more interested o'clock in the evening each Weaver had eight moves apiece and they also keep the floor keep the wings off and there would be maybe two-three hundred balloons on one floor if you wanted to be anybody to have a go at the bottom [Music] it's important for people to understand that the labor system in Fall River required that children work in the mills to working parents alone couldn't earn an adequate living children had to work to help support the family puny child operative in Fall River was sent from a mill to wash him up in a pond and the mop I'm being saturated with water was too heavy for the child strength and dragged it into the water went for the thing was taken out drown at the funeral her age was registered as nine years I went to even and I learned quick my but I was proud when I got them first full of loons and first the noise is fierce and you have to bring the cotton all the time that you get used to it lots of us is deaf it's bad one way when the bobbins finds out on the girl gets hurt you're tied here hear shout not if she just screams you gotta wait till you can see her my 360 my trigger get caught of the gears I saw was I was screaming so much the force was way way far off but he come I can see him running when it came in knocked the belt so the speaker was going that this one was going in too and the boss was saying don't let her see [Music] who looks down [Music] all our little troubles he will help us to end ooh he will guide us in our actions to do the thing that's right so join the Weaver's Union join this very night just join the Weaver's Union join this Farina I don't think that there is any justification for some of the conditions that were going on but the people who came here were probably better off than they had ever been in their lives at least had the opportunity at some point to include themselves where they never had had that before Ronald or fees mill was built 100 years ago little acorns and big oaks how small beginnings grow merchants Milman employees will surely make ding dong while we go marching to go go together oh well hello the spindle on full-dome her know her the arrivals give us room merchants milkman employees will surely make things boom while we go marching together that was the song during the centennial [Music] years ago our city largest manufacturing center [Music] president taps visit in 1911 clearly demonstrated the important status for Ravana chief it had become a city of influence and great prosperity [Music] have the nation from presidents to captains of industry to the common people everyone preferred the failure alone [Music] then there drove the far River Line steamers were the most wonderful glamorous exciting things that people had seen and the food troopers absolute out of this world and you could get anything you wanted everything was bad at Meriter I just drove all that red green that was a fool come on now watch the new elbow go out everything was really refined if you know what I mean there was no loud talk and anybody want to get up and dance they for you [Music] when I was little when you're 12 o'clock I was with English we were voted the meal with the lunch pails made my supplier a big stick that little hooks on it and I was oh they would take six luncheon at the same time used to get ten cents a week for that in the bottom of the pail they used to put the teeth then they'd have a pot to write flavors and let the me renounce ha then illumine round him a little pastry in it any time I found coming down the batter back did she put a little bit of snow in her pastry the babyhood was all nationalities English Irish Scott huge part to keep everybody look together I was raised speaking Portuguese I never spoke English at all that ice cream we spoke I became home because our parents didn't know English that well and I could hear my mother three houses Vanja your mother's calling on my much fo ah we learned to publish a new thing it was a very very close they would sit down they would talk and they would play cards sweat you know okay mine beats yours and bang that table [Music] I prefer to play shorter term inevitably to Austin [Music] my grandfather is the first of our family to come to her even though he worked in a factory whenever I saw him at home he had a suit coat on a vest a white shirt and a tie I had a sister who was married and kids were delivered in our house we wake up in the morning find ourselves sleeping on the floor that meant my sister was having another baby because we had no bathroom at all we had to go outside and there was running water but no electricity no gas so if we moved from room to room and had to be with a kerosene lamp the milkman only bacon they just knew each other and they knew the families that were dealing with you'd have the same cop for a lifetime the same postman for a lifetime the little basil it's been live all over the place firstly Stiller's witch's kiss peddlers he was to come round with the wagon you could see in the windows the stacks of olive oil cans the garlic hanging in the windows the sausages hanging in the windows [Music] this rosary McClure's and there wasn't a better store in the world when there's you could go in there and buy from up the toothpick to finish in your home with almost a weekly ritual that you would take you a grad to the turkey theater on Saturday night and after theater you would go to the nonpareil spa and had ice cream sodas ice cream was the thing which a boyfriend took you for ice cream that was it no that was big friends Roswell's I have concerts in the South pack we had a beautiful living room and you could go in there another a strawberry sunny for 10 cents imagine they'll even put a couple of the pistols on the side and be sitting there listening to the concert enjoying that those days and never come back when I was growing up and I grew up on the Highlands which was a very protected area we just never went for over there I grew up on Island Avenue [Music] when I was growing up you have dressmakers that came a certain time and his lake would cut the dresses out and stitch them for them I don't know how much mother paid I know that she paid three dollars a week for the nearest girl the talents was the bakery in the highlights did on the cream rolled delicious and they had them in the Bake Shop lenders it would be drooling for one they having a lovely plate you know where the doily on there's no this wrap up fast and head for one of the things I remember well Sunday afternoons crowds of people walked up to [Music] she was a perfect lady every time I saw and talked with her you couldn't have asked for anybody nicer I'm one of the kids that used to go over in front of the house and we used to sing bluesy Borden took an ax she gave him mother 40 whacks and when she saw what she had done she gave her father 41 it was a terrible thing to do when we've got Lincoln's every time we did it but one day we were doing that and she opened the drapes and she smiled that she invited us in the house and there we all had a glass of milk and cookies it was something that a Yankee woman in high Victorian society simply couldn't have done or could she [Music] after 1833 five when the whole center of the city was the disaster the next day in the center of the burned area they put a big sign wrote try and so that was where our motto began [Music] the amazing thing about these forums is that they go so hot that they almost burn the granite block [Music] full River has a tragic history of fire fire that destroyed many of its greatest Mills homes and churches but the people of Fall River have always shown a spirit of survival and renewal a spirit based on faith [Music] hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee skirmish maria.wasvik owner pants double [Music] strong sturdy honest the religion of us vital and supreme importance to them because it is through their trash that they were able to and think can love the next president said the salamati Pendergrass verse together people I don't know guess he really was a symbol he was a very humble he was a very humble and extremely holy individual who had dedicated his life totally to the service of the underprivileged he was the apple of our eyes he was very very dear to us hydrate smooth was the first I ever heard of going out I was engaged at that time and I was being entertained at supper I was helping the old out and she said Florence if your future mother-in-law seems to be very cool tonight don't think it's anything that you've done she's just learned today that she's lost him I forgot the money and the Hargraves milk I told him if she don't modernize you cannot stay in business it was their own fair probably for not in diversifying the industry earlier period I didn't know 37 years or throw the clothes of those I moved all around to middles they were going down and down and down and down and they were close enough so I kept moving but of course I was going down lower your jobs when all the rest of the country was in the flush of great prosperity in the post-world War one era Farrah was already well on its way down the hill and by the time the crash came in October of 29 we were ahead of the parade we were in very bad so [Music] the only thing that seemed to offer a ray of hope to the population of Fall River where the smaller needle trade industries who occupied possibly one third of a single floor in a cotton mill [Music] we began to get economic leadership that helped us to understand that if you attract a new industry you could become healthy again I think a lot of people began to look at what was the matter and realized that if we came together and work together and we created a good image for our city that we would survive [Music] mr. it a sense of continuity about this place they're certainly put the better that is selling in their wooden sailboats and they've been sailing that's 300 years vanship coal just created in June of 1965 with the battleship came a new spirit in the city you had the creation of the marine museum within three years revival of battleships when the Veracruz came up the bay it was like fire ribbon was looking at another form of the line ship coming back in the same blooming Whitehall and the same sort of spirit of core and everyone came down to the waterfront to see that this was [Music] [Music] to one of my teachers she used to give us a spelling test every Friday as I don't want a bag but I happen to every one of them was a hundreds it's funny she says a farmer come in here and he gets 100% in all his teeth altogether you know justice I'm an American just like whoo-whah I says you were born here I was born here i'm american as much as you are my father loved education he appreciated it because in the vicinity because my father wanted me to be president the united states you know the first Portuguese president but when I finished my PhD he was just as happy with that I think the generally that the grandchildren of these immigrants are beginning to appreciate what their grandparents went through what principles what ideals and customs they brought to this country new beginnings they came to a land of possibility trading the known for the what might be we have a melting pot in the barriers of the broker my children our mixture of many nationalities my old feeling is that the people of Fall River are unique somehow or other there is inlets here that I think is powered by few American cities of this type they'll move their lives together and built a city the spirit of its people is the fabric of Fall River [Music] [Music] I've traveled here there and abroad and always I've come back to you because you're clean and you're a city to be proud of that is true not Main Street offers shops galore South Main we all sure adore you have churches of every kind and amusements at your lake sandbox will fly Oh [Music] you are a leading city of America not for stills but for cotton mills from your mills we are clothing the world the empire but bill and movies are a tree the Fall River Herald won renown we Mazda met you may carry and the river you're a grand old town oh oh river you are the leading city of America not for stills but for God and Mills from your Mills we are calling the world liam by a vaudeville and movies are a tree the Fall River Daryl's one renown we must Ahmed you make every forever you're a grand old time [Music]

Channel: Fall River Community Media

Views: 9,010

Keywords: Fabric, Fall River, Slide show, multi-image, history, MA

Id: 0kwj6M_HoDc

Length: 34min 17sec (2057 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 19 2019