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Audio Recording "So if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday."

"So if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday."

About this Item

Title

  • "So if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday."

Names

  • Costa, Marianna (Narrator)
  • Taylor, David Alan, 1951- (Interviewer)

Created / Published

  • 1994-08-10

Headings

  • -  Interviews
  • -  Italian Americans
  • -  Housework
  • -  Oral history
  • -  Sound recordings
  • -  Retirees
  • -  Hours of labor
  • -  Leisure
  • -  Ethnography
  • -  United States -- New Jersey -- Haledon

Genre

  • Ethnography
  • Interviews

Notes

  • -  Interview with retired textile union official Marianna Costa at her home in Haledon, New Jersey.
  • -  Summary of audio segment: Sunday work activities. "The work week was six days a week for most people. My mother worked six days a week. So that if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday. Alright, so on Sunday she had to do her wash, dress me up and send me to church and prepare for the following week. And that was the day we had our best meal because it was a cooked meal, or it would be meat or it would be homemade macaroni with gravies and different things because that was the day that we had the best. It was like, not a celebration but a nice day. It had, you know, the smell of cooking and everythig. The wash was usually done on Saturday night; hung out during the day. And during the week you'd iron as you went along." Types of visiting: "The main thing was you didn't miss a sick person to visit, to make a sick call. You didn't miss a condolence call. A visit to the hospital, which was very rare. Very few people went to the hospital in those days. All the wakes. The custom was, in our culture, you stayed up with the deceased maybe two nights in a row. Any somebody stayed up to watch over them. My mother volunteered for that because she didn't need much sleep."

Medium

  • Analog Audio Cassette

Call Number/Physical Location

  • AFC 1995/028: WIP-DT-A010

Source Collection

  • Working in Paterson Project Collection (AFC 1995/028)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Digital Id

Online Format

  • audio

Rights & Access

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Credit line

Working in Paterson Project collection, 1993-2002 (AFC 1995/028), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Costa, Marianna, and David Alan Taylor. "So if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday.". -08-10, 1994. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/afcwip000034/.

APA citation style:

Costa, M. & Taylor, D. A. (1994) "So if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday.". -08-10. [Audio] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afcwip000034/.

MLA citation style:

Costa, Marianna, and David Alan Taylor. "So if you worked ten hours a day and six days a week it only left you Sunday.". -08-10, 1994. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/afcwip000034/>.