Browse Items (42 total)

John "Herb" Rudolph (b. 1901), worked at the Stetson factory in North Philadelphia for forty-nine years. In his 1982 oral history interview, Rudolph provided a first-hand account of the changing nature of factory work and of the American hat industry…

Anna Lavin came with her family from Russia to Philadelphia in 1896 aboard the S.S. Pennland and landed in the immigration station at the foot of Washington Avenue. It was South Philadelphia where her family settled and where Lavin started to work at…

Anna Lavin came with her family from Russia to Philadelphia in 1896 aboard the S.S. Pennland and landed in the immigration station at the foot of Washington Avenue. It was South Philadelphia where her family settled and where Lavin started to work at…

When he graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1925, John Calpin (1904-1991) became a police reporter for The Philadelphia Bulletin. There, he witnessed first hand the impact of Prohibition on the city of Philadelphia and the…

David Kaplan (b. circa 1889) was born in a Russian village to a Jewish family. With his father in America, Kaplan had to work as a child to support his family. Fearing military conscription, he fled Russia in 1911 and immigrated to Philadelphia. In…

Interviewed at the Marconi Center in South Philadelphia, these two Italian-American men recount their early experiences with education and work life. Giovanelli emigrated with his family from Naples in 1918, working at Hog Island Shipyard during…

Catherine Ehrmann came with her family from Hungary to Philadelphia in 1904, when she was two years old. She grew up right around the corner from the Stetson Hat Company in the Kensington neighborhood. In 1916, at the age of 14, she began to work at…

Armand DiStefano (1912-1987), the son of Italian immigrants, grew up in a small row house in South Philadelphia. There, his father instilled in him the value of hard work and a love of opera. In his 1984 interview, DiStefano shared the story of how…

Dennis Clark (1927-1993) grew up in the Kensington neighborhood in north Philadelphia during the Great Depression. A glazer by profession, Clark's father could rarely find employment during the 1930s, so the family struggled to afford rent or food…

When he graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1925, John Calpin (1904-1991) became a police reporter for The Philadelphia Bulletin. There, he witnessed first hand the impact of Prohibition on the city of Philadelphia and the…