Pearce, Herb, 2005 August 3

Herb Pearce grew up in New Haven, graduated from Commercial (later Wilbur Cross) High School in 1935, and went to work for the A. C. Gilbert Company in Fair Haven for the next twenty-one years. Pearce knew the Gilbert family because he delivered newspapers to their home and it was this personal relationship that helped him secure a full-time job during the Great Depression. Pearce discusses the various jobs that he performed at the toy factory. He began building models for department store displays, then became an inspector, a manager, and, after World War II, represented the company's sales department in Ohio and Michigan. He remembers A. C. Gilbert as a family-oriented man who paid attention to workers' grievances and interests. These traits, Pearce believed, kept workers happy and prevented unions from getting a foothold in the factory. Pearce also touches on the factory's shift to wartime production from 1941 to 1945, the large number of female workers in the factory, and what the average work day looked like. The interview concludes with a discussion of his decision to leave the factory in 1957 to start his own business, A. C. Gilbert's death in 1961, and the sale of the company the following year.

Interviewer: Horowitz, Andy