Joseph and Faith Company.

If your ancestor was a Czech or Italian immigrant living in the west of Cleveland, he or she may have lived in Joseph &; Believe in the company, or at least have a relative or close friend who works there. Joseph and Faith are an enterprise in Cleveland since the middle of19th century, and 1930 became the oldest clothing manufacturer in America. It employs thousands of immigrants and second and third generation Americans in its huge factory on West 53rd Street. They worked there until 1989, and later acquired the company's German giant Hugo. Hugo Boss closed the Cleveland factory on 1998 and moved the remaining workers to another factory in the suburb of Cleveland, Brooklyn.

Joseph & ampFeiss was founded by Kaufman in 184 1 year. Kaufman Koch Company was founded. 1845, a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria moved his clothing business from Midville, Pennsylvania to Cleveland. At that time, after the completion of the Ohio-Erie Canal 10 years ago, many businessmen were moving to this fast-growing city on the bank of Erie Lake. In his early years, he opened a small shop in different parts of the city center and bought his clothes from immigrant tailors in the nearby Cleveland community.

One of the early contract workers was Frank idrac, a Bohemian immigrant. 1854 He was only four years old when he came to Cleveland with his parents. 1860, when he was 10, his father pulled him out of school and asked him to make clothes for Koch's business at home. This is idrac and Joseph &; The beginning of Faith's 60-year career. For the first ten years, he worked from home, and then, when the company began to transition to factory management mode at 1870, Frank became a cutter in the factory for the next 50 years. 1920, the company held a dinner for him, at which he told the people present the early story of the company. During the civil war, when Frank was a little boy, he would go to the company office downtown, and then go to the high street near West Sixth Street, taking clothes made by him and his father. Kaufman Koch will meet him at the door, take off his clothes and say, "OK, Frank, what do you want now?" "All the money," young Frank would answer. Koch would smile and pretend to be angry: "Oh, no! You can't have everything. We need some ourselves.

Frank idrac's story may have got some laughter at the dinner of 1920. However, in addition to humor, it also has allegorical significance to one of the most important problems in industrial enterprises such as Joseph and Faith in the late 19 and the early 20th century-labor relations. Before 1909, Joseph and Fez were typical clothing manufacturers of that era. The less they paid their employees, the better. The harder they worked, the better. But in that year, Julius Faith (Joseph &; Faith's son Richard Faith became the factory manager. From 1897 to 1904, Faith lived in Boston and obtained her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University. Later, he became a disciple of frederick taylor, a famous industrial efficiency engineer at the end of 19. When Faith returned to Cleveland, he began to manage the company's labor force to maximize productivity, create a humanized working environment and make employees healthy and happy. David Goldberger, a historian at Cleveland State University, believes that Faith achieved this goal by combining Taylor's scientific management principles with welfare capitalism in the progressive era and establishing what many people thought was the most progressive working environment in the United States at that time in Joseph and Faith. With the help of Mary Barnett Gilson, a reformer in the progressive era, Faith served as the head of the company's employment and service department, and redesigned the chairs and work desks for employees to reduce injuries and fatigue. Provide employees with a well-lit and well-ventilated work area; Sponsor employees to dance, picnics, chorus sports, clubs, orchestras and sports activities; Providing medical and consulting services; Establish employee savings plan; Promotion according to performance; Increase wages. In addition, in 19 17, Fez introduced a five-day working week for employees in the company's factories, several years earlier than Henry Ford.

Perhaps it was progressive policies like those mentioned above that made Joseph and Fez become non-joint stores in19th century,10th year and 1920s, when clothing manufacturers in new york, Chicago and other places were rapidly becoming joint stores. It was not until 1934, during the Great Depression, that is, nearly ten years after Richard Firth was driven out of the company by his father and brother in 1925, that American garment workers finally obtained the negotiation right and agency right of Joseph Firth garment workers.

Joseph Firth will continue to be one of the largest employers in Cleveland in the next 50 years, during which he has employed more than 2,000 employees in the West 53rd Street factory. However, in the end, the new factory technology, cheap labor source and changing market ended the company's operation in Cleveland 150. In 2003-2004, after the factory closed for several years, the main factory building was razed to the ground, and now only the company office building on West 53rd Street and the large warehouse building near Walworth Avenue and the intersection are left. 20 15 warehouse gained new life when it was acquired, with the aim of making it the new home of Menlo Park College, a charter school for gifted children. After the renovation and renovation of $654.38+07 million, the school opened in this historic building in the autumn of 2065.438+07.