Harold Bierner
Harold Bierner's father came from Brooklyn, New York, where he worked as a production man in the millinery trade. During the Depression in 1929, he was recruited by Mr. Lichtenstein of Lichtenstein-Mittenthal to come to Dallas on a temporary basis and manage one of their factories, an inexpensive-price operation located in the old Daniels building at 208 Lamar Street. He arrived around December 1929, and in June 1930 the family moved down from Brooklyn to make Dallas their permanent home.
Harold worked menial jobs at the factory during summer vacations, carrying blocks and handling hats. His father later worked for Goldstein Hat Company after recovering from a heart attack, then joined partners to form MB Hat Company around 1933. In 1934 his father struck out on his own, opening a business in a building owned by the Alex Camp family at 1009 1/2 Commerce Street. When Harold graduated from high school he joined his father, and the firm became Bierner and Son. The company grew into a high-volume operation, producing hundreds of dozens of inexpensive ladies hats a day and selling to hat stores, jobbers, and chains across the South.
After serving in the military during World War II, Harold returned in 1945, and his father died a few months later, leaving him to take hold of the business. He weathered a 1957 fire and a national union boycott aimed at him because of his father's past labor conflicts, ultimately deciding to unionize and raise the quality of his merchandise. The firm rebuilt, bought the Goldstein Building in 1961, and by 1980 had moved to a location off Stemmons near the old Zale building. Active in the Jewish community and a member at Temple, Harold became the last surviving hat manufacturer in Dallas, still designing and producing hats using materials imported from China, Taiwan, Czechoslovakia, and domestic mills in Pennsylvania.
Full Transcript
Biederman. This is Thursday, November the 6th, 1986. I'm here in the archives and I'm going to have a conversation with Mr. Harold Berner and he's going to be talking about the millinery business here in Dallas. How did your father happen to come to Dallas? He was interviewed by Mr. Lichtenstein of Lichtenstein-Littenfall in New York City at the time of the Depression, 1929, and he was invited to come down on a temporary basis to take over one of their factories. They had a moderate-price factory and an expensive factory. Both factories in Dallas? Both in Dallas, and the one building at 208 Lamar Street, it was the old Daniels building, and they had four floors in the front half of the building facing Commerce Street.
And he was invited to come down to operate the inexpensive factory. What do you mean by operate? Was he... He was a, what you call, a factory manager. Like a production man? A production man. And that was his basis of operation in New York. And with the Depression and things going the way they were, he was not employed weekly. He was doing day work. At that time there were special operators in the millinery business who could earn quite a bit of money by doing day work. on a piecework basis, and that's what he was doing. But evidently that was not a year-round employment? No, no.
Okay. And, of course, he wanted to find a regular job as a manager, production man. And when he came down, he came down in, I think, of part of 29, around December. Okay. And he stayed down there until June of 1930, and then we came down from Brooklyn. That when he decided to make this a permanent place in the world So he worked for Lichtenstein He worked there until 1931 or 1932 I don remember exactly because I worked two summers there in vacation time What did you do? I did just menial work. I carried blocks and things like that from one place to another. I picked up the hats off racks and gave it to the workroom girls.
Any menial job that was around there, washed up, cleaned up. And my dad had a heart attack and was confined to bed and didn't think he would come back to work. And eventually he decided to stay home for a while. After that, when he got well, and worked well enough to go back to work, he went to work for Goldstein Hat Company, which was another big hat company here at that time, again as a production man. And he spent about, oh, I guess about a year or Goldstein Hat Company. Then a salesman, a bookkeeper, and my father decided that they would go into the hat business.
On his own? On their own, all from Goldstein Hat Company. They felt that they could do better and earn more money. And in 19... oh, I think 1933, they opened up... Now, who was it exactly? Now, there was one guy who was named Williams, the other one was named Parnell, and my dad. Okay. And they opened up a firm called MB Hat Company. And that was in the building that had been torn down. It was on the corner of Quadras and Commerce and Main. It was a big office building. And they opened up a place on the second floor that had so much empty space in the building at that time that they were able to open up a little factory up there Ladies ladies hats Ladies hats Everything is ladies hats Okay And they operated that until 1934 when my dad felt that they were not getting along too well in the partnership And we actually moved into a building that was adjacent to that building, only it was two-story.
And recently took it, we could move over through a window onto a roof and into the next building without going down the stairs and around and have to have that extra expense. So we moved into a building owned by the Alex Camp family. And at that time, the building was known as the Blackwell Well Andy, I think, building it, but it had been vacant for several years. It was about 7,500 square feet. and covered three storefronts. And so we had that upstairs, which was 1009 1⁄2 Commerce Street. And that's where we started our business in 1934. Actually, my... And that was just your... Strictly my dad.
Just... Uh-huh. So that was strictly... Yeah, it had nothing to do. I just worked there. And when I graduated from high school, that's when I finally went to work with my dad. But did he continue with any partners, or just strictly his own? No partners, but strictly his own. And then on, it was strictly Bernard. Bernard's son. I don't know why he put me in there, but that was it. And the business did pretty good for a long time. We grew. The firms underneath us was Harris Pants Company, Advanced Neckwear, and Louis Sac Shoe Company. Who was Advanced Neckwear? That was Goidel. Oh, okay. There were two Goidel brothers, and Vance Neckler was the one Arthur Goidel, and Louis Sacks Shoe Company was a wholesale shoe distributor.
He was a distributor. And Harris Pants was the weak one of the lot, because they went out of business, and we took over that store. Did he manufacture Pants? No, no. Strictly distributor. Distributor. They're all jobbers mainly on Cummer Street. Was Goyle a distributor? No, he made ties. He made the ties. He made the ties. He made the ties. And distributed them In fact if you want any information about that business Joe Elfin is still alive and he He was with He was with. In fact, he was Johnny Goidel's brother, and he was the factory man in the cutters. I see him at Temple occasionally, so he's around.
Would you say that the millinery business or the production of millinery in Dallas was a large industry? Yes, of course. There was Lichtenstein, Mittenthal, and there was Dallas. Now, of course, I'm only interested in the Jewish. Well, no, no. The Jewish were Lichtenstein-Mententhal and Goldstein-Mullinary, ourselves. There was a lot of little ones, Felix Chapeau. Who was that? Felix Rosenfield. Who? Felix Rosenfield. He's dead now, but his wife is alive, and I think they had twins. I'm sure they're pretty old today. There was a lot of little companies. real small ones where there were people that had come down here that knew how to make, say, fabric hats or sew straw, and they'd have a little place with three or four people.
Well, who would they sell to? Who did you sell to? Well, they would sell to little stores, but they could have limited production. Maybe they could sell ten or fifteen dozen hats in a couple of days, you know, or something. Who did you sell mainly to? We sold mainly to really hatch stores, and still in business, that was Sidney Fruman, one of our big companies, and Lita Millinery, which was Milton Hurstein, who's dead now. And we sold all over the South. Did you sell to the Dallas department stores? No. A lot of those were syndicated, like Consolidated Millinery, Controlled Sanger Brothers. What do you mean?
In other words, those were leased departments. Who was Consolidated Miller? That's a firm out of Chicago. And they? They had the leased department in Sanger Brothers. I see. And another one had the leased department in A. Harris, which was a big department store at that time. Yeah. And Tites Kettinger was also, I think Tites Kettinger may not have been leased at that time, but there was a lot of people. The big chains we sold to, like Jacqueline, it wasn't Jacqueline and Sam, I'm just trying to think, Civil Hat Shops was on the corner of St. Paul and Main Street. That was our biggest customer. And that was out of New York, and that was called Millinery Stores.
And they had like maybe six or seven hundred units. So they would buy two and three hundred dozen hats at a time. And we had a lot of jobbers, big jobbers all over the country that would buy three, four, five hundred dozen at a time. Well, how large was your factory? Well, we were making about two hundred and fifty to three hundred dozen a day in Berner and Son. And then we had another factory called Monroe Hat Company that was in the Perkins Building, which is the State's Life Building today. And we made about 200 dozen a day over there. What was the difference? Well, that was a real cheap factory.
I see. That was inexpensive. Yeah. Then we had another little factory on Commerce Street called Delta Hat Company that made a few better hats. It wasn't very much, and it never really got off the ground. But we would fill up like three railway express trucks at about 11 o'clock at night. We worked all hours of the day and night. And we kept the huge inventories there. A customer would call in at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and say, you need 2,500 to like really store it. They had big miller stores, Elm Street and New Orleans all over. And they'd say, we need 20 dozen to go to Memphis and 25 dozen to go to New Orleans and 15 dozen to go in.
give you maybe 100 and 150 open orders. We just filled them right out of the bins, have them packed up and sent them out that night. So we kept a huge amount of, funny part it was all cheap stuff, you know, like $750 a dozen. Hard to believe. It's hard to believe today. Ninety cents. Not even nine cents. Was it the same type of markup as dresses, like 50%? Well believe it or not I think our volume was bigger than the dress people Dresses were cheap You could buy dresses for a dozen some for a dozen house dresses Marcy Lee over on South Lamar making hats for maybe garments for maybe Yeah, well, I think they did the wash dresses.
Wash dresses, yeah. That was a big market in Dallas. Because of the cotton. But there was a lot of that that went on at that time. launch manufacturing company was a foremost house. I don't think they did that very much volume. I think Osteen Molnary did a big volume. That was after Lichers team went out of business. Lichers team... Why did they go out of business? Lichers team went out of business. I think there was just the general decline in the partnership set up between the two men. And And they just decided that they didn't need it anymore. Evidently, they had made lots of money.
Now, someone told me that the millinery business in Dallas, the industry, was the second largest next to New York. It was second against New York. You believe that's true? I wouldn't, I don't know. I would say it was possible in volume, but maybe not in dollars and cents, because this This market was mainly a very inexpensive market where Chicago made a lot better merchandise, although they had much smaller factories. Dallas was a volume market where we turned out stuff and bought. St. Louis had a few manufacturers, but mostly a job is market. That was our big selling market was St. Louis. You'd have a salesman living up there, would buy and sell 800 to 1,000 dozen hats at a time.
Now, are you talking, you're talking, I assume, before the war, before the Second World War. What happened after or during the war with the millinery business? Well, I went, I was in service, so my dad ran the business there. The business was evidently pretty good. Of course, they made quite a bit of money during those war years, with not a big volume. What do you mean? Because there were so many people had gone, so there were fewer men. Are you talking about volume of production or volume of workers Well volume of workers and of course that led to a decrease in volume of production So they had to pick on things that were easy to produce or that women could make just as well as men And that changed the whole facet of the business.
That's interesting. And I would say it started, it was just a little bit tougher to operate. I got back in 1945, and my dad died just a few months after that. And I started taking hold of business not very well. I still went behind the ears. And the industry itself was not bad in Dallas. It was a lot of good business. And we just rocked along until about 1952, and then we decided to do some changing. I could see that we were not progressing as well as we should have. And so we started looking for new things to make, new items to work on. We tried to change our set up.
We used to make felt hats. Felt hats, we decided to make fabric hats and things like that. Cut patterns instead of doing block merchandise, which is... Well, you'll have to explain that. A block, items are definite shapes. Like a hat is, a felt hat is blown on the comb. And you can buy it in a cone shape, or you can buy it in what they call a capilline, which is a brim. Then you can buy sizes. Small brims or large brims. small hoods or large hoods. Now when you went into fabrics, then you cut everything by pattern just like you would a garment. So you cut to make a crown or you cut to make a brim, and it was a whole new feel.
And so we learned how to do different things, and that's the way we maintained our business into the 50s. What happened in the 50s? Well, we burned out in 57. We had a fire. And we were having some union problems. They put a national boycott on my firm. They said my father was the cause of them not being able to organize years before that in Dallas and that he was instrumental in having a Union man taught and feathered I don't know. It's in some legal journals somewhere around there. And so they felt that the sins of the father to be set upon the son, and so I was sent out to be the national target.
And so they put a boycott on my firm and a salesman in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Chicago and New York. So what did that actually mean as far as you can see? Well, it meant that a lot of my customers wouldn't buy from me. Millinery Stores, who was, I would say, possibly close to $100,000 a year account, which was big in those days, just said he couldn't buy from me because Railway Express wouldn't deliver his goods. from anybody if he insisted on buying my product. So he had to quit. So after the burnout in 1957 we opened up on 802 and a half comers and went through to Jackson.
It was a small narrowed off that was like 50 by 200, you know, from one end of the building, one end of the block to the other. It was right above the Greyhound bus station. The building is still there. And we went into that building and I made a deal with the union, become unionized, and I told the rest of the millinery people, forget about me, and just go on and do what they had to. And so in order to survive, we just decided that it was cheaper to go ahead with the union because they don't play by rules. According to the National Labor Relations Board, people are supposed to ask to join a union and they're supposed to be able to take their choice.
That's not the way it works. The way it works is you tell the people that If they don't join, you can't operate, and you're going to have to close up. So they go up there and they sign them up. And that's the way these things work. It's utopia according to the government, but it's not utopia when it comes into the business world and into real living. So we've gotten along, we still have the same union, and our people seem to be happy, and we're happy. It's very benign, and it never causes us any problems. But a lot of the others decided that they didn't want to sign up, and they wouldn't sign up, and little by little they started dropping out.
One guy retired, and they got afraid, and things like that. The first one was Goldstein Hat Company, which was a big hat company, and they decided that they were going to just retire. And so we just started going back into business in 1958 as a fire, and what we did, we started a new structure in pricing. Because of the union, we became a little better hat maker and raised our prices and made better merchandise, So we found an acceptance for it. Everybody said that we couldn't do it. And really, from that time on, we just really rode a good stairway right on up into being the only one left in Dallas and a very successful hat maker.
So what did you do? We wound up buying the Goldstein Building in 1961. In October 61, we bought the Goldstein Building in 1970. Let's see, we're in our building now. About 1980. Since 1980? We sold that property and moved out to our present location on Commonwealth. Is that in our... No, we're in Dallas, right off Stemmons. Okay. Right in front of the old Zale building. We have a building there. I want to ask, were there any problems with the Union in the 40s, before the war? Oh, yeah. They tried to organize both the hat people and the garment people, and they had some real knockdown and drag outs.
They had women, they just rode one woman on the street, and we were having to send our women home in cars with like an armed guard on them and things It was ridiculous The whole thing was crazy I think my dad even bought an old nickel plate and kept it in the safe Not that we ever fired it or anything So you're saying there was actual harassment? It was violent. Oh, there was violence. It was violent more than harassment? It was violent. In fact, there was some, some of the police were called in, some of the detectives were called in to help keep some water, because it was not what you would say a benign deal.
It was almost like you hear about the truckers now, or the coal miners, where they have them throwing things at people and stuff like that. And, uh... Well, were the unions successful? Were they able to? No, they were not successful either with the garment people or with the millinery people. The only garment firm that I know that had ever signed up was Nardis, and that was years later, not at that time. And since then, I think they've abandoned all ideas of unionizing any of the garment factories because I think a lot of them went out of business. Are you still union? Oh, yeah. But we negotiate every year, once a year with them, and we have no kit coming.
I think people understand that they can't bring any trained help in or anything like that. Now, they also have the Rallnick Resistall Hive Company and they have the Texas Miller Hive Company. Those are unionized. And that came about in just recent years. I think they had me before they had those other two. Do you remember the address of the Goldstein Building? Oh, yeah. Let's see. We're on, uh- I know it was on Commerce. No, no. It wasn't? No, the Goldstein-well, the first building was on Commerce Street. Yeah. It was in the 1000 block. It was one, two, about the third door below Aaron Brothers. Aaron Brothers was on the corner.
And then there was someone else, I don't know what it was, I don't know which firm it was, and then Goldstein. It was a narrow building too a small building Then they moved over on Yonge Street See and that where we owned the building They built the building on Yonge Street Oh See and that where we owned the building Okay They built the building on Yonge Street Do you remember that address Yeah. 1301 Yonge. Is it still standing? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, it's down. Okay. That property now is part of the employer's casualty. Oh. See, we traded that for the building that we have now.
Okay, okay. And we traded that right around 1980. I wanted to ask you, when you, in the 30s and before the war, was it mostly women who worked in the millinery factory, or was it, or did it matter? All the trimming and all, and most of the machine work were women. And all the others were men. What's the other, the blocking? The other was the blocking. That was men. It was a little heavy work. It was pressing and different things like that, but that was all men. All the hand work. And Goldstein did a lot of that. They made the ladies' turbans. That was all handmade and done all by hand.
And the big workroom, they had maybe 40 or 50 girls doing that. And Mr. Burr, who was Mr. Rolnick's father-in-law, he had a little factory in the same building where Bayer Rolnick was in Boydler Street. Mr. who? Burr. What's the- Harry Burr was the manager who resist all hats, and it was his father and Mrs. Rownick's father, who had this little hat factory. He was also made fine turbans, things like that, handmade stuff. There was a whole group of them like that. Max Goldberg had a little factory. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think of his name. I can't remember. There were two Goldberg brothers. Yeah.
And then they separated. Yeah. Well, Max was the nice one, and the other one was the more volatile one. And then there was Jan Leslie Hat Company which was Dave Robbins and I just just trying to think the other guy name That what that was Rabinowitz is that what Yeah. Okay. But they made very expensive hats. And what was the name of that hat company? Jan Leslie. Jan Leslie, that was Robbins. Mm-hmm. Okay. And they made expensive... And the other guy whose name was Lazarus, the other partner. He came out of Fallot, Texas. Did most of the people, as your father came from the East, learn their trade in the East and came here, do you feel?
Well, not too many. My dad came from the East, but like Dave Robbins, he used to be a salesman. I think he was with Lichtenstein or one of them, maybe Goldstein, I don't know. But he was strictly a salesman, and Link Lazarus was a shopkeeper in Tyler at a ready-to-wear store. Oh, really? So Jan Leslie, Jan was the designer, and her husband, Sam Poteet was his name, worked with my dad at Lichtenstein-Mittenthal. And that was my dad's protege. He thought the sun rose and set in Sam Poteet. And so when they opened up Jan Leslie's hat, he was the factory man, and his wife was the designer.
And they were an excellent combination, and they did the job for Jan Leslie. I see. I think they retired to Padre Island. They have a place down there. So you're saying he learned from your father. And Bernstein Ad Company, Mitchell Bernstein, worked with my dad at Lichtenstein Mittencourt. Oh, really? And he worked with my dad, and then he decided, he went in business and opened Bernstein Ad Company. And he was the last survivor that went out, well, when he died, they went out a couple of years ago, three or three years ago. And we bought some of the equipment and some of the materials and stuff from Bernstein.
Now Charlie Bernstein is still alive, he's just retired. And David Bernstein, who is the son of Mitchell, is in the Well, that's the jobbing company by himself, and we sell him a lot of goods. Well, what do you make now? We make strictly $0.80. You do? Is there that much of a market? Yeah, oh yeah, there's a pretty good one. We sell nationwide. I understand. And we have one customer in Australia, that's the only one. Is that right? But you'd be surprised. The demand isn't as great because it's more of a fashion item today and an accessory item rather than something that would be just part of your outer garment.
When they had Miller, he said, my goodness, everybody wore hats just like all the men wore hats. Now it's really just a sign of fashion. Good accessory, a good look. And we get a lot of women that wear them. I think you find a lot of social events afternoon social events will find women wearing hats And particularly the women in I would say more expensively dressed, and black women will wear them on any church occasion, any type of function. They will definitely wear hats. They're still wearing hats. Oh, I see. Well, it's an attraction. Yeah. You have your own designer? Oh, sure. So you do the complete everything in Germany?
We buy, I've been going overseas, I bring in imports from China. Oh. You mean the material? Yeah. We buy goods out of China, we get it through Hong Kong, and from Taiwan, and the felt bodies are domestic, that's the only thing domestic. And where did you get that? That comes out of Pennsylvania. Has that always been the case? There's two big mills still left, and they furnish everybody in the United States with the felt-hat bodies. And any of the better-quality bodies, like made from fur, we get out of Czechoslovakia. And that we get.