FOLKLORE
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NEW YORK Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Clarence Weinstock
ADDRESS 43 Morton Street
DATE July 14, 1939
SUBJECT Nurse's Story
1. Date and time of interview
2. Place of interview New York Hospital
3. Name and address of informant
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
NEW YORK
FORM C
TEXT OF INTERVIEW (UNEDITED)
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Clarence Weinstock
ADDRESS 43 Morton Street
DATE July 14, 1939
SUBJECT Nurse's Story "BOBBED HAIR"
Many years ago one of the junior nurses was fired for having her hair bobbed. I was far from being conscious of anything going on in the outside world at that time. I didn't even know what organization was, but I got all the girls together and told them would have to put a stop to that. We decided that everyone of us would get her hair cut even though we didn't care for that style. We went down to the barber in a body. He just took his scissors and in three snips left us with a straight line back of our heads. The girls all kept their hair so as to be able to pin it back after the demonstration and they let it grow back immediately, so you can understand what a sacrifice it was to cut it in the first place.
The next morning we lined up for inspection. The head nurse used to pass down the line and run her hands over our {Begin page no. 2}bosoms to see that their were no pins in place of buttons on our shirts. Then she went back of us to see if our heels were all straight, not run down. Well, this time we all stood with our backs to the door. When she came in there were thirty girls with bobbed hair who wouldn't even look at her. She caught on quickly enough. Margery got her job back. But the head nurse found out who had put them up to it. She called me in and said, "You're such a smart aleck, now I'll give you a chance to see how wise you can be in the syphilis ward. That's where you'll be from now on.
I could take most anything even then, but it was horrible. There were eighty patients and forty were bedridden. When you took off a dressing on the ulcers it was like removing part of them, the flesh clung more to the lint than to them.