The Hanson family again? Yes. as the Hanson's are turned out in this photograph in clothing that ably demonstrates the standards of the day. Mayor Hanson is dressed in a wool suit with a starched, no doubt detachable, collar. Starched detachable collars would make it for about another decade before disappearing. He's also wearing dress boots, something that would also soon disappear, reflecting the advance of the sidewalk and paved streets, but oddly enough, have recently made a comeback. The women in the photograph, and we'll include the teenage women for this purpose, are wearing typical dresses which would appear to us to be highly old fashioned, but in fact they represent a new style that was regarded as revolutionary and liberating. The lightness of one of the dresses in the upper row, moreover, suggest that the new revolutionary undergarments were making an appearance in the female wardrobes of the Hanson household.
Small stuff, really. Not things like Poland became a state.
Well. . . maybe some aren't all that small. But probably stuff you haven't really thought of or maybe didn't associate with the Great War.
World War One had a big impact on certain types of clothing. So did World War Two. But with all things World War Two, we tend to more immediately recognize them, although even with it we miss a lot and misunderstand other things. World War One, however, we tend to pass over in this area.
Indeed, quite frankly, sometimes in starting a thread we realize that we don't know anything about the topic at all.
Exploring topics from this point in history, in an effort to expand our knowledge of them for a novel, was the original purpose of this blog, and its still a main purpose. We've covered a lot of ground in learning things in the ten years (yes, on May 1 this blog will be a decade old. . . incredibly. . . ), even if we haven't covered hardly any ground in writing that novel. Indeed, we published an entirely different book in those years.
Work takes up a lot of time, I fear, that would be productive writing time.
Anyhow, we've learned a lot and know a lot more about life in the 1910s than we did when we started out in 2009, but we still run into topics that we know nothing about, and this turns out to be one of them. I.e, in looking at this topic, clothing, even though we thought we knew a fair amount, and we've published on quite a bit on this topic on odds and ends, for the most part, we're blisteringly ignorant on the topic of dress.
Particularly female dress.
We're frankly not alone. Almost all current folks are. We think we know something about how people dressed, but by and large we don't. And this is all the more the case as a lot of what people wore was not visible to the naked eye, and was quite a bit different than it is now.
Particularly female dress (yes, I"m repeating myself).
Indeed, quite frankly, sometimes in starting a thread we realize that we don't know anything about the topic at all.
Exploring topics from this point in history, in an effort to expand our knowledge of them for a novel, was the original purpose of this blog, and its still a main purpose. We've covered a lot of ground in learning things in the ten years (yes, on May 1 this blog will be a decade old. . . incredibly. . . ), even if we haven't covered hardly any ground in writing that novel. Indeed, we published an entirely different book in those years.
Work takes up a lot of time, I fear, that would be productive writing time.
Anyhow, we've learned a lot and know a lot more about life in the 1910s than we did when we started out in 2009, but we still run into topics that we know nothing about, and this turns out to be one of them. I.e, in looking at this topic, clothing, even though we thought we knew a fair amount, and we've published on quite a bit on this topic on odds and ends, for the most part, we're blisteringly ignorant on the topic of dress.
Particularly female dress.
We're frankly not alone. Almost all current folks are. We think we know something about how people dressed, but by and large we don't. And this is all the more the case as a lot of what people wore was not visible to the naked eye, and was quite a bit different than it is now.
Particularly female dress (yes, I"m repeating myself).
Let's take a look.
How folks dressed, a sort of kind of introduction.
Originally, this entry was only going to deal with clothing items that were heavily influenced by, or introduced by, the Great War. But then in dealing with the topic of . . . women's dress. . . it became pretty apparent that we don't know that much about how people really dressed in this period and neither do very many other people. There are some people who know a great deal about it, however, and who publish blogs on the topics. Unfortunately I don't know if they publish blogs about one of the topics that's actually really important to this story. . . . on women's dress. . .and I know that trying to Google it will pull up a whole lot of stuff that I don't want to pull up, so I'll confess that I remain pretty darned ignorant on some of the topics here.
But let's just start with some basics. I could post another topic on this entirely, but then, as noted, there's entire fashion blogs and going into that in that sort of detail isn't something I think I want to attempt, as long as I get the basics down.
But, as I don't know a lot of about this, if you see an error, correct it!
So a few things.
When we speak of clothing in the this period, and indeed at any period prior to the 1960s really, we need to speak of men and women's clothing separately. Men and women did not dress alike for the most part or even close to alike. There were very few clothing items that were worn by both sexes and even those that were rarely were identical. It was so rare that when its depicted, even now, even if we aren't really conscious of it, it strikes our eye.
This is one of the numerous ways in which movies and television have really portrayed things inaccurately.
By the 1920s, when the photo set out above was taken, clothing standards that we've addressed elsewhere were already beginning to change. We note this as starting in the 1930s, but more particularly more in the 1940s, then very much in the 1950s, films began to really inaccurately portray past clothing styles, relying instead on what was then contemporary. Indeed, from the very first movies many styles depicted for even the near past were completely erroneous. Nowhere is this more the case than in Western movies, which even by the 1930s typically inaccurately portrayed 19th Century cowboys as wearing blue jeans, which they didn't.
Anyhow, that sort of film, movies depicting 19th Century America and in particular frontier and Western life went way off the rails in terms of how clothing was depicted, and we still have a massive amount of erroneous information in our collective minds as a result. Either you have scenes like in Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers in which a stunning Vera Miles is shown, on occasion, in men's shirts and Levis, something that would have been blisteringly uncommon in the 1870s when the film is set, and in fact difficult for a woman to decently wear at the time, or you have scenes like that in Gone With The Wind which give the impression that every woman in the United States wore a hoop skirt (and by implication a whale bone corset) all the time. Neither of those presumptions would be correct. Men and women's clothing were hugely different, and they didn't cross much, but women's clothing in particular and all clothing in general was much less impractical than it is sometimes portrayed as being.
Additionally, people wore a lot of clothing.
It's interesting in an era when all people were outdoors a lot more than they are now, people were very heavily dressed year around as a rule. And not only were they very heavily dressed, they were often very heavily dressed in wool, even in warm weather and warm locations.
Cotton and linen, and other lighter fabrics, were of course known and had been for a long time. And not surprisingly, they were favored in warmer regions. But the dominance of wool for certain types of dress was widespread everywhere. Therefore, while we do indeed find cotton clothing for men and women everywhere, particularly cotton shirts, in this and earlier eras, we find wool clothing in use everywhere as well.
And we also find that no matter how hot it was, in this era we very rarely find people stripped down to the extent that they are now. There were some exceptions by this time, so we are finding lighter, but not light, attire for those playing tennis, for example, or golf, or playing polo (we all play polo, right?). But in contrast, and giving a good example of how things were, baseball, which is a summer sport, was played in wool uniforms with players wearing a cotton layer, i.e, underwear, under their wool uniforms.
How folks dressed, a sort of kind of introduction.
Originally, this entry was only going to deal with clothing items that were heavily influenced by, or introduced by, the Great War. But then in dealing with the topic of . . . women's dress. . . it became pretty apparent that we don't know that much about how people really dressed in this period and neither do very many other people. There are some people who know a great deal about it, however, and who publish blogs on the topics. Unfortunately I don't know if they publish blogs about one of the topics that's actually really important to this story. . . . on women's dress. . .and I know that trying to Google it will pull up a whole lot of stuff that I don't want to pull up, so I'll confess that I remain pretty darned ignorant on some of the topics here.
But let's just start with some basics. I could post another topic on this entirely, but then, as noted, there's entire fashion blogs and going into that in that sort of detail isn't something I think I want to attempt, as long as I get the basics down.
But, as I don't know a lot of about this, if you see an error, correct it!
So a few things.
When we speak of clothing in the this period, and indeed at any period prior to the 1960s really, we need to speak of men and women's clothing separately. Men and women did not dress alike for the most part or even close to alike. There were very few clothing items that were worn by both sexes and even those that were rarely were identical. It was so rare that when its depicted, even now, even if we aren't really conscious of it, it strikes our eye.
Young middle class couple, 1920s. The man in this photograph is typically attired for a young man just out and about. He's wearing a coat that doesn't match his trousers and therefore is likely a sports coat. He's not wearing a suit, even though many modern Americans would likely assume that's whats depicted,, our day to day familiarity with such dress having declined so phenomenally.*
By the 1920s, when the photo set out above was taken, clothing standards that we've addressed elsewhere were already beginning to change. We note this as starting in the 1930s, but more particularly more in the 1940s, then very much in the 1950s, films began to really inaccurately portray past clothing styles, relying instead on what was then contemporary. Indeed, from the very first movies many styles depicted for even the near past were completely erroneous. Nowhere is this more the case than in Western movies, which even by the 1930s typically inaccurately portrayed 19th Century cowboys as wearing blue jeans, which they didn't.
Anyhow, that sort of film, movies depicting 19th Century America and in particular frontier and Western life went way off the rails in terms of how clothing was depicted, and we still have a massive amount of erroneous information in our collective minds as a result. Either you have scenes like in Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers in which a stunning Vera Miles is shown, on occasion, in men's shirts and Levis, something that would have been blisteringly uncommon in the 1870s when the film is set, and in fact difficult for a woman to decently wear at the time, or you have scenes like that in Gone With The Wind which give the impression that every woman in the United States wore a hoop skirt (and by implication a whale bone corset) all the time. Neither of those presumptions would be correct. Men and women's clothing were hugely different, and they didn't cross much, but women's clothing in particular and all clothing in general was much less impractical than it is sometimes portrayed as being.
Additionally, people wore a lot of clothing.
It's interesting in an era when all people were outdoors a lot more than they are now, people were very heavily dressed year around as a rule. And not only were they very heavily dressed, they were often very heavily dressed in wool, even in warm weather and warm locations.
Cotton and linen, and other lighter fabrics, were of course known and had been for a long time. And not surprisingly, they were favored in warmer regions. But the dominance of wool for certain types of dress was widespread everywhere. Therefore, while we do indeed find cotton clothing for men and women everywhere, particularly cotton shirts, in this and earlier eras, we find wool clothing in use everywhere as well.
And we also find that no matter how hot it was, in this era we very rarely find people stripped down to the extent that they are now. There were some exceptions by this time, so we are finding lighter, but not light, attire for those playing tennis, for example, or golf, or playing polo (we all play polo, right?). But in contrast, and giving a good example of how things were, baseball, which is a summer sport, was played in wool uniforms with players wearing a cotton layer, i.e, underwear, under their wool uniforms.
"Shoeless" Joe Jackson mimicking a catcher while a player in the 1919 White Sox, which were soon to be called the "black sox" due to the infamous 1919 World Series. Jackson's uniform would have featured baggy wool trousers and shirt, cotton underclothing, and socks. At least I think the socks were likely cotton, but I don't really know.
Indeed, at some point in the late 19th Century it became a common medical belief that people should be wrapped up in warm clothing all the time, and not only individuals but officialdom took note of it. the U.S. Army in the late 19th Century fretted about troops in the Southwest not wearing wool around the middle of their torso during the summer months, feeling that the failure to do so contributed to ill health. They tried, therefore, to encourage troops to keep wrapped up.
Only people who worked in blisteringly hot conditions, like black smiths, actually stripped down to what we'd regard as t-shirts today. There was no "t-shirt weather" prior to World War One, no matter how hot it got.
Only people who worked in blisteringly hot conditions, like black smiths, actually stripped down to what we'd regard as t-shirts today. There was no "t-shirt weather" prior to World War One, no matter how hot it got.
We've only barely touched on it, and we'll deal more with it below, but not only did people wear a lot of visible clothing, but they wore undergarments as well, not surprisingly. This had actually been undergoing a lot of change in this period. Things weren't hugely different for men than they presently are, if we stay rather loose in our definitions, but this topic is one that's hugely confusing in regards to women's apparel.
On women's apparel, that topic is confusing in general as women's clothing had been undergoing a revolution that takes a person with a really dedicated interest in fashion to follow, which I lack. Suffice it to say, starting at some point in, I think, the mid 19th Century women's clothing changed decade to decade, or even quicker. Manners of female dress that were common in 1919 weren't in 1890, and those in 1890 were different from those in 1860. For that matter, young women in particular weren't dressing in the same fashion in 1909 as they were in 1919 or in 1929, let alone 1939. There was a lot going on.
And part of that lot going on had to do with female undergarments, which we hesitate to even address. However, for reasons that are explained below, that story oddly enough has a historical expressions that's really significant, although we would not have guessed that and learned of it via podcast, as we'll discuss.
Well, with that introduction, let's turn to the topic. Clothing impacted and changed by World War One. Some of it significant, and some if it just of interest, taken up in no particular order.
American officers in post war Germany in 1919. The two officers in the center are wearing private purchase Trench Coats.
I have a Trench Coat. I bought it when I was first practicing law as it seemed like a necessary piece of lawyer apparel. For some reason, and I don't really know why, my trench coat has seen less and less use over the years even though its still in fine shape. One odd thing about it is that even though its a really nice London Fog trench coat, it's taken on a little bit of an orangish hue to a slight extent, along with the khaki, which is, I suspect, because it likely contains a small amount of synthetic thread. Still, it's a nice trench coat. One of my partners has a really nice olive green trench coat by the same maker which strongly recalls the design issued to U.S. Army officers during World War Two (an original of which I could have bought at a surplus store years ago for a reasonable price, but passed up on). Another one of my partners has a black one.
1916 Burberry advertisement for their military overcoats. The Trench Coat is on the right.
Trench Coats are a British World War One item.
American Major General in 1919 at the opening of a Red Cross facility. The weather must be damp as he's wearing a trench coat that's completely buttoned up, which we rarely see, with the rain flap covering the upper buttons, which is how this is designed to function. He, like the other soldiers here, has also used the belt buckle to secure the middle belt, but the fashion conscious know that the belt in civilian use is supposed to be rakishly tied, rather than buckled.
It's easy to yawn and say so what about this, other than noting that trench coats are really cool, but the back story on trench coats is pretty interesting really.
If we go back to, let's say, 1819, rather than 1919, we'd find that clothing designed to protect against rain and inclement weather, other than snow and cold, which are different stories, were much different than they were a century later. At that time, oiled sail cloth garments were just about your only option, other than simply getting wet, which is what many people opted for.
Sailcloth, heavy canvass, has been used, not surprisingly, as wet weather fabric for a long time, in no small part, probably, because sailors have it available and what to do with it occurred to them. And what to do with it is to wax it. Waxed, it's impervious to rain.
This is still done today. For people who are familiar with the Australian drover's rain coat, called a Dry As A Bone, in their real rather than prettified American form, you've seen one. The Dry As A Bone comes from sailors rain coats itself, adopted for riding use by drovers, and features heavily waxed sail cloth.
This type of wet weather clothing really works, but it has certain disadvantages. For one thing, it smells, at least a bit, as the wax has a distinct odor. You need to keep them waxed, or re wax them over time, or they'll loose their water proofing, and with each treatment, the smell returns. The wax itself is infused with oil, and for that reason the fabric is called "oil cloth"
Additionally, as a waxed item, they attract dirt and they get things waxy. If the only things you are worried about are in the category of tack, you probably don't care, but if you have any other items you are carrying, you might. They're great, but with limitations, therefore.**
Around mid 19th Century rubberized cloth began to come in.
Rubber's been known about for years but it rots really quickly if not vulcanized, and that process wasn't figured out until mid 19th Century. Indeed, the first patent for a rubberized rain coat came about in 1824. The Macintosh, named for its inventor, is still a style of raincoat, although very much updated.
Macintosh, circa 1893.
The Macintosh lead relatively quickly to rain coats and other rain wear that were suitable for outdoor use. You can find some examples of private purchase rubberized rain ponchos, for example, being used during the Civil War. American cowboys were wearing rubberized yellow slickers by the late 19th Century, and they still do.
Like oilcloth, however, rubberized fabrics have some disadvantages. For one thing, they're a bit bulky and not ideal, therefore, for soldier use. Also, while they can be durable, a person has to be pretty careful with them. Just stuffing them in a duffel bag, for example, isn't a great option.
Additionally, both rubberized rain coats and oilskin coats don't breath at all. They're both great if its raining or somewhat cold, but if it isn't, they get oppressive really quickly. If you can tie them to a horse or hang them in a closet, that's one thing. But if you can't, this can be a problem.
That's a problem that Thomas Burberry set out to fix in the 1890s. During another war, in fact.
Thomas Burberry, a British clothing and fashion designer, designed a rain and inclement weather coat for British officers serving in the Boer War. Burberry was already making clothing of tightly woven cotton with some chemical treatment, and indeed the Burberry company is still around and it still makes clothing for nasty British weather. When the Great War commenced, the British War Board authorized a new updated design to be produced for combat officers. The coat was hugely popular in trench conditions and it spread down to British enlisted men.
American officers on board ship after having returned to the U.S. from World War One. The officer of the far right wears a trench coat which has taken on the stylish rumpled look that helped contribute to their popularity.
The design Burberry came up with for the First World War was a chemically treated cotton overcoat lined with wool featuring items specific for military use. It was double breasted and had huge buttons. The collars were enormous and could be buttoned up tight around the face and neck for protection against the weather. A rain flap on the right shoulder allowed the collar and coat to be further buttoned up against inclement weather, and even today that item of cloth distinguished a real Trench Coat from a sad poser. It had large epaulets to help keep equipment in place. It had an integrated belt with brass loops to hanging small items of equipment which came to be called "grenade rings" in the erroneous belief that they were designed specifically for hand grenades. It's pockets were enormous so that a person could not only keep their hands warm, but also stuff needed items in the pockets.
U.S. Army female radio operators. The woman on the right as viewed is wearing a Trench Coat specifically made for a woman, as its button pattern is reversed, as is its rain flap placement.
The practical and good looking coat rapidly spread to Britain's allies. French officers were soon sporting it as an unofficial item, giving them a khaki coat to contrast with their blue uniform. When the U.S. entered the war American officers immediately took to the item. Everyone who could carried one home with them when the war ended.
War time Burberry advertisement aimed at American servicemen in France. The soldier is depicted wearing an American overseas cap, which the British did not wear.
They've never gone out of style or production. To this day, the best looking ones are the ones that are very closely modeled on the original British design. Some, like London Fog's, are so close that from a distance they'd be indistinguishable from those made a century ago. Burberry still makes theirs.
2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, on occupation duty in Germany, March 1919. The officer on the loft of the photograph is wearing a buttoned up trench coat.
During the post war era they spread to the point that they virtually defined the rain coat in certain circles. Highly durable and a recent military item, when affected they sent the message that the wearer was not effete and spent a fair amount of time out in the weather. There was a reason that movies had tough detectives sporting Trench Coats. Lost now to modern audiences, when Humphrey Bogart appeared as Sam Spade wearing a Trench Coat, the audience knew that Sam was a veteran of the Great War and a really tough guy. Not surprisingly, the style spread wide and by some date in the 1930s the Trench Coat was generally regarded as the best of the rain overcoats. In many ways, they still have that reputation.
Indeed, because of their association with World War One combat, and their early adoption by the movie industry as a clothing prop for tough guys, they acquired early and still retain a sort of dangerous masculinity, to use a current stupid term, air about them. They look great, but they also suggest the wearer might live in his trench coat and have a secret double life as a detective or perhaps as a spy, or something. The Black and Tans wore then in The Informer, but they so did the head of the local IRA (in this film, based on an earlier 1929 silent British movie, the Black and Tans are the baddies and the IRA are the goodies). Sam Spade, of course, lived in his.
As a military item they've declined in popularity but never disappeared. They remained in British use throughout World War Two. In the US military they were officially adopted during the 1940s in a green OD shade specifically for field use, but they didn't tend to be used that way. In spite of their being an issue item, many American officers bought the khaki British item and wore that as a semi dress item instead. In the 1950s a synthetic version was adopted by the Army as a rain coat in a pattern that was very close to the original, and it hung on all the way into the 1980s for Military Police use. The Marine Corps adopted a version that's close, but not entirely faithful, the original British design as an officer's raincoat and it may still be in use to this day.
Photograph from Ebay showing a 1960s/1970s version of the Trench Coat as then used by the U.S. Army as a rain coat. This version was very faithful to the original. It's also a nicer coat than the black rain coat that I was issued in the 1980s, or the blue rain coat that my father had from the 1950s Air Force, the only raincoat he ever owned.
The Trench Coat is a fashion item, and a practical one, that has come down to us nearly unchanged. It's a World War One item that's still very much with us.
Wristwatches
Recent Timex retro watch which uses a watch band that's identical to the Trench Watch type commonly used in World War One. While Timex hasn't marketed this watch in this fashion, the design is so close that it'd be fairly amazing if they did not have the centennial of World War One in mind.
People my age wear watches. At least men do, and certainly a lot of women do as well.
This is something that the cell phone is impacting, although I suspect that this will only be temporary to some degree and watches will return, unfortunately to some degree in the Dick Tracy Apple IPhone style, but return nonetheless. Indeed, in recent years we've seen a real rise in not only high tech Apple Phones, but also high tech field watches that, quite frankly, make the old Rolex watches, which originally were a very high quality mechanical watch for serious duty, look rather sad in comparison. Today's modern G Shock watch pretty much takes the Rolex out in the back alley and beats the pulp out of it, utility wise.
This is a Hamilton from the late 1930s, and its typical of men's post World War One watches. This one was my grandfather's, and it doesn't work anymore.
Therefore, it's odd to think of an era in which wrist watches were not common. But they weren't.
Prior to World War One, wristwatches were largely a female accessory. Indeed, while wristwatches were made for men, they were sufficiently rare that wearing them raised questions about a man's orientation. Smoking cigarettes and wearing a wristwatch nearly guaranteed that a man had certain inclinations.
Then the war came.
The war changed everything about wristwatches. Officers, and some men, went into the war carrying pocket watches. But the circumstances of the war suddenly required watches in a fashion that no prior war had. Officers had to keep track of assault times, artillery officers had to keep track of timed artillery barrages both in their start time, and just as importantly, their stopping points. Pilots had to keep track of time for all sorts of things.
This Orvis watch is one that's put out to mimic the appearance of the watches of the 1930s, which it does a good job of.
Pilots in particular couldn't really carry a pocket watch and went almost immediately to wristwatches, but they weren't alone. Nearly every other soldier whose duty required him to carry a watch, followed almost immediately by Naval officers who required the same, went to wristwatches. A pocket watch is easy to loose and difficult to really keep track of at the same time that Landser Heiser is firing at you with a MG08. Wristwatches stay there.
Indeed, so immediate and pressing was the need that watch bands were rapidly developed to carry your bulky pocket watch on your wrist. But that soon gave way to the widespread use of wristwatches, including a lot of watches that were marketed with bands for military use, such at he example above. There are quite a few varieties, in fact, as the use was so widespread, including bands with leather covers to cover the watch and protect its face when not in immediate use, and watches with reinforced glass to protect the crystal prior to it really being perfected.
This is a Hamilton field watch of a type that was once sold by L. L. Bean. These are excellent watches and Hamilton still makes them. Their case is nearly identical, if not identical, to a field watch made for the military during World War Two. World War Two saw all the various armies buy some really good wristwatches. Since the Vietnam War, however, military watches have simply tended to be serviceable, with some being really good but still not what they were during the Second World War. The exception would be pilot's watches, and perhaps some others. Possibly because of that, and the widespread general use of watches in society, lots of current servicemen wear really good watches which they've purchased themselves. Current special operatives tend to strongly favor the G Shock Mud Master, which can perhaps claim to be the best watch ever made, and which is certainly the best field watch ever made.
Following the war, there was no going back. Wristwatches were so much more useful and easy to use than pocket watches that they rapidly replaced them. As they did, they interestingly took on a very delicate appearance at first, thereby putting some distance between themselves and their more rugged Great War versions. But almost from the onset watches that would be very recognizable by today's' standards came in, and very quickly the Swiss watch industry developed a niche of not only keeping precision time pieces, but pieces specifically designed for rugged outdoor use. Having said that, American makers did the same.
During the Second World War the war watch returned and watches were specifically made for military use, with some featuring black faces and illuminated points of the clock and illuminated hands for nighttime use. Pilots watches also evolved very much during the Second World War. Post war, the Swiss took their big lead in outdoor watches and dominated the industry, and Rolex introduced the GMT watch that defined aviation watches for eons. Today, the Swiss have a real rival in the Japanese who have taken up the outdoor challenge and who have redefined the military use with the Seiko G Shock, with the Mud Master version of that being the real field watch of the special operator today.
But it all goes back to World War One.
T-Shirts
Okay, the spread of the t-shirt to what it is today is, quite frankly, a World War Two story, not a World War One story. So why are we noting it here?
Particularly as I've covered it before, in the significant context of its real spread due to World War Two?
The T-Shirt.
Just the other night I watched Air America.
Okay, I didn't say that I limited myself to high brow movies. Sure, I like good movies. And sure, people who know me have heard me complain about vapid American comedies (why anyone can stand to sit through Wayne's World or Grownups I have not a clue). But that doesn't mean that only the really good stuff shows up on one of the two televisions around here. Besides, I've seen, I think, darned near every movie set during the Vietnam War at some point, so when there's one I haven't seen, I have to watch it, lest I miss something. And I like airplanes, and the film has some interesting airplanes.
Not that this thread has anything to do with Vietnam or airplanes.
Rather, this is a thread about t-shirts.
Okay, how does this make sense. Well, in the film, at one point, Morton Downey, Jr., is depicted wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. I'm not exactly sure what year the film is set in, but it's probably roughly 1965 or so. Most of the ARVN soldiers are depicted using M1 Garands, with a few using M16s, which would be about right for that period, and the plot and other details generally fit in to the mid 1960s, rather than later in the war. Not that this matters. Rather, what surprised me is that Downey was wearing what appears to be a contemporary t-shirt. The film was made in 1995, and the shirt looks much more like something you'd buy at that time. Indeed, Hendrix was such a guitar titan that he remains really popular amongst guitar aficionados today, and you can easily still find some very artsy t-shirts with Hendrix portrayed on them. I suspect that they got the period t-shirts a bit incorrect, actually.
T-shirts themselves apparently date back to the late 19th Century, but they didn't start getting widespread civilian use by the general population until the Navy issued them during the Spanish American War. They're another one of those clothing items that demonstrate the menswear maxim that all men's clothing original was for use in the field, or for war. They started getting some use then, but they didn't begin to achieve the incredible dominance they now have until World War Two.
U.S. Merchant Marine, World War Two.
By World War Two the US armed forces had gone to issuing the t-shirt to everyone in every branch of the service. Everyone received at least some "plain white t's", but combat soldiers and Marines also either were issued the dye to dye t-shirts an "olive" green color or they were actually issued some in that color. Either of the latter. T-shirts weren't really designed to be a stand alone item for wear, but they came to be in areas or conditions that were very hot, such as in tropical areas or in the hot areas of ships. Not quite to the extent that a person might think, however. It was only in very hot places that you can find examples of servicemen wearing t-shirts only during World War Two.
Michigan farmer out on the town, early 1940s. Interesting example of how dress standards have changed. He appears to have had a few too many, but he's still wearing a suit vest, a dress shirt, and, under that, what appears to be a "wife beater" t-shirt. I.e., a t-shirt with no sleeves.
World War Two also, I think, saw the introduction of the t-shirt with a slogan. I've seen, for example, photographs of U.S. airborne troops who are wearing t-shirts with the Airborne insignia, a large set of wings surrounding a parachute, on them. And I've read that these were available in small sizes for children at the time, and that solders in airborne units bought them for their own children for for the children of people they knew. This doesn't appear to have been extremely common, but it did occur, which was all that was required to start off what would become an iconic clothing form. Soon after the war, the practice spread to universities where athletic departments and teams started issuing t-shirts with "Property Of" printed on them. That sort of t-shirt continues on today, and you can buy "property of" t-shirts which were never "property of" anyone other than you.
World War Two had a big impact on everything, and that brought the t-shirt down into stripped down use. After that, you'd see photos of men, but not women, wearing them in the summer. I've seen, for example, photos of my father out on the lawn in the late 1940s wearing one. Most were white t-shirts, however, not ones with slogans. Slogan t-shirts were quite rare at first, save for the examples noted above.
Marlon Brando soon had an impact on this, however, oddly enough. First of all, he wore a t-shirt in the film The Wild Ones, the classic move about post war California motorcycle gangs. Its not the world's greatest movie, but it isn't bad either. Brando famously war a t-shirt and leather jacket. He followed up that look in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront and the t-shirt as edgy wear was born.
I don't know when t-shirts with slogans came into widespread existence.. Tie Dyed t-shirts appeared as Hippie wear in the 1960s, however, and that's not far off from that. I remember actually making tie dyed t-shirts in a YMCA summer youth camp, which might have actually been in the late 60s, or perhaps the late 70s, so they had made it even as far out as here. When I first had a t-shirt with a slogan on it, however, I have no idea. I'm sure I had them by the mid 1970s, however, when I was in junior high. About this time t-shirts started being worn by girls as well, which had been quite rare prior to the 1960s, and which was only associated with some sort of sweaty work prior to that time.
By my recollection those early slogan t-shirts weren't exactly the works of art depicted in Air America. More typically they had beer logos on them, or a name brand on them. I recall that the beer slogan ones were banned at school. By high school, t-shirts were very common everyday wear, with many having name brands on them, or the logos of sports teams, and some just being colored (IE., not white). The very first ones that had something that a person would regards as art didn't come in until then, but they were nothing like some of the ones that are around now.
Back in the late 70s and up through the mid 80s, I wore t-shirts routinely in the summer, and even the winter, a lot. My father cautioned me on that, as you can really get some damaging sun exposure that way, but like most young men I ignored that. In basic training, at Ft. Sill, we wore t-shirts as our only outwear all the time, as it was so hot, a practice that seems to have (wisely) disappeared from the Army, which now emphasizes wearing your clothing as protection from the sun. At any rate, for whatever reason starting in the mid 1980s I found that I was pretty much cold most of the time, even often in summer, and started to abandon that. About that time also I started to retreat to the sensible practice of the past and wear regular shirts, often with long sleeves, when working outdoors in the summer. I'm cold anyhow, but I like the protection a longer sleeved shirt provides. Now, I hardly ever just wear a t-shirt. I suspect that the widespread use of t-shirts for summer wear has been a bit of a bad thing, although there's clearly no turning the clock back on that.
Funny, anyhow, how an item of very simple underwear has gone on to being nearly universal outwear. In the early part of the 20th Century, hardly anyone ever wore an item like this as outwear. Indeed, people wore their shirts no matter what. Photos of soldiers serving in Mexico during the Punitive Expedition show them wearing their wool shirts in the summer. . . in Mexico. Try as you might, it'd be almost impossible to find a photo of anyone working outdoors wearing a t-shirt until World War Two.
World War Two had a big impact on everything, and that brought the t-shirt down into stripped down use. After that, you'd see photos of men, but not women, wearing them in the summer. I've seen, for example, photos of my father out on the lawn in the late 1940s wearing one. Most were white t-shirts, however, not ones with slogans. Slogan t-shirts were quite rare at first, save for the examples noted above.
Marlon Brando soon had an impact on this, however, oddly enough. First of all, he wore a t-shirt in the film The Wild Ones, the classic move about post war California motorcycle gangs. Its not the world's greatest movie, but it isn't bad either. Brando famously war a t-shirt and leather jacket. He followed up that look in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront and the t-shirt as edgy wear was born.
I don't know when t-shirts with slogans came into widespread existence.. Tie Dyed t-shirts appeared as Hippie wear in the 1960s, however, and that's not far off from that. I remember actually making tie dyed t-shirts in a YMCA summer youth camp, which might have actually been in the late 60s, or perhaps the late 70s, so they had made it even as far out as here. When I first had a t-shirt with a slogan on it, however, I have no idea. I'm sure I had them by the mid 1970s, however, when I was in junior high. About this time t-shirts started being worn by girls as well, which had been quite rare prior to the 1960s, and which was only associated with some sort of sweaty work prior to that time.
By my recollection those early slogan t-shirts weren't exactly the works of art depicted in Air America. More typically they had beer logos on them, or a name brand on them. I recall that the beer slogan ones were banned at school. By high school, t-shirts were very common everyday wear, with many having name brands on them, or the logos of sports teams, and some just being colored (IE., not white). The very first ones that had something that a person would regards as art didn't come in until then, but they were nothing like some of the ones that are around now.
Back in the late 70s and up through the mid 80s, I wore t-shirts routinely in the summer, and even the winter, a lot. My father cautioned me on that, as you can really get some damaging sun exposure that way, but like most young men I ignored that. In basic training, at Ft. Sill, we wore t-shirts as our only outwear all the time, as it was so hot, a practice that seems to have (wisely) disappeared from the Army, which now emphasizes wearing your clothing as protection from the sun. At any rate, for whatever reason starting in the mid 1980s I found that I was pretty much cold most of the time, even often in summer, and started to abandon that. About that time also I started to retreat to the sensible practice of the past and wear regular shirts, often with long sleeves, when working outdoors in the summer. I'm cold anyhow, but I like the protection a longer sleeved shirt provides. Now, I hardly ever just wear a t-shirt. I suspect that the widespread use of t-shirts for summer wear has been a bit of a bad thing, although there's clearly no turning the clock back on that.
Funny, anyhow, how an item of very simple underwear has gone on to being nearly universal outwear. In the early part of the 20th Century, hardly anyone ever wore an item like this as outwear. Indeed, people wore their shirts no matter what. Photos of soldiers serving in Mexico during the Punitive Expedition show them wearing their wool shirts in the summer. . . in Mexico. Try as you might, it'd be almost impossible to find a photo of anyone working outdoors wearing a t-shirt until World War Two.
Well, there's a variety of reasons.
Soldiers in a period postcard from 1912. They're wearing a variety of fatigue related uniforms, including what are probably civilian overalls, regulation (probably cotton) breeches and t-shirts of two different patterns. The significant thing is that these soldiers were already wearing, in some instances, the modern t-shirt, and its a year prior to the Navy officially adopting them.
As I noted in my original entry on this story, the modern t-shirt really dates back to the Spanish American War period when the Navy started issuing an early version of the shirt as an undershirt. By 1913 that pattern had assumed its basic modern form.
U.S. Army soldiers in 1914. In this photo some of these soldiers are wearing modern t-shirts, some of which have had the sleeves cut off, others are wearing the "wife beater" type of t-shirt, and the soldier in teh center is wearing a button up shirt, likely as an undershirt.
The Army is assumed to have been slower to adopt the Navy pattern and there's a little disagreement about when it really first occurred, with some sources claiming it was not until the 1920s, or even the 1930s. Some sources even claim that the adoption came about as American soldiers were impressed with the cotton shirts of other armies, which is almost certainly a misunderstood claim. Those claims aside, there are photographs of U.S. soldiers wearing t-shirts of the current basic pattern during World War One and even as far back as 1912. In that same period, a cotton short sleeve shirt will also show up in the odd photograph showing a similar shirt with a partially buttoned front. Also common in photographs of that era were photographs of t-shirts with the sleeves cut off, a pattern of undershirt that you can still acquire that some folks call a "wife beater" undershirt.
National Guardsmen on the border in 1916. The two wearing undershirts are wearing the old banded collar cotton shirt.
Okay, that brings in a "so what" perhaps, and indeed, that doesn't complete the story. In part it doesn't complete as with that recitation we've left out what came before, as indeed we did with our first t-shirt entry.
In the introduction on this long post I noted that one of the things about the period of a century prior, and before, was that people wore more clothing, and indeed wore more clothing that we don't see. We'll deal with that (delicately, we promise) below. But that's why the story of the t-shirt is significant.
Underclothes and undershirts at that, had been around for a long time. But the style of machine knitted cotton undershirts of the t-shirt type were fairly new, dating back only to the 1890s, as we've noted. Men, and we are speaking about a strictly male item of apparel here, at that time, did wear undershirts, but they didn't wear one resembling a t-shirt.
I'm not going to track undershirts back to their earliest days and I don't know the story at that. I don't even know it completely here, but what we can say is that by mid 19th Century, when machine fabrication of clothing really started to come in, a type of underclothing started to evolve. What was around, for men, before that I don't really know and it'd have involved, interestingly enough, a fair amount of home manufacture as clothing was generally manufactured at home at that time or by local tailors or seamstresses.
Starting in the mid 20th Century store bought and mass produced underwear came in. That underwear was either of the "union suit", a full length neck to ankle flannel suit.
Union suits have an odd history in that they were, oddly enough, introduced as women's apparel. We've noted already that it was exceedingly rare for men and women to wear the same item of any clothing in the era we're speaking of, and indeed prior to that, but the union suit provided a rare exception. Introduced in 1868, the union suit was a radical item of female attire that was actually advertised as "emancipation under flannel".
That makes, of course, less than zero sense in the current era, but it did at the time as it fit into a period in which evolution in women's clothing was accelerating and part of that was a rapid abandonment of really restrictive female attire. The union suit was the far edge of abandonment of that restrictive attire, and for various reasons, including that you could pick it up at the store and not have to deal with something that your family made itself, it soon appealed to men. Probably the fact that it was underwear, and therefore not really visible to the naked eye, helped in that transition, and that something in a later era worked its way into female attire, probably, as well.
Anyhow, the union suit came in just after the Civil War and spread rapidly. It was made of wool flannel, often, but not always died red.
Yes, you read that right. It was made of wool flannel.
Wool.
Not too many people would really be keen about wearing wool underwear year around now, and the union suit in the modern context survived, but as winter underwear. "Long handles" as they're sometimes called, are union suit, often made now out of modern poly blends. At the time we're speaking of, however, they were wool.
And that, once again, tells us something about the era.
By the late 19th Century it occurred to people to split them into two pieces so you had a shirt and a pair of long trousers, and that was the common male under garment of the time. Most remarkable about it, perhaps, is that it was almost always worn that way. To give an odd example, if you examine Edgar Paxon's fantastic painting of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, he's giving an accurate representation of the probably state of dress of the combatants when he shows the 7th Cavalry troopers wearing issue wool shirts with their sleeves pushed up, revealing their red long sleeved, button front, undershirts or union suits. That battle was fought in July.
Even as late as the 1980s, fwiw, the Army still issued a wool/cotton blend button front winter undershirt for cold weather wear. I still have one, and they strongly resembled the period undershirt as separated from the Union suit. Indeed, the likely varied from it not at all.
At some point by the late 19th Century men's cotton underclothing began to introduced. How and when I'm not exactly sure of, but it seems clear enough that by the the turn of the century they were coming in. For men, that meant that a button front shirt made of cotton came in. At some point after that, they were offered in short sleeves. What was going on with underpants I don't know, but around here somewhere baggy boxer shorts came in, a topic we don't know anything about and we're not inclined to research.
Officers in training, 1918.
Um. . . Ladies Underthings
That brings us back around to this story. Starting in 1898, more or less, the Navy started its issuance of short sleeved t-shirts which means that the machine made shirts were around in some form. The Army rapidly followed suit. By the early 1910s photographs show that solders were routinely wearing white t-shirts of the modern pattern, along with some older button up undershirts.
Well, okay, so what?
Well, try to find a button up undershirt in use today.
Actually you can, but it'll be called a "Henley" shirt.
Henley's are a type of cotton shirt that's worn today as a casual shirt which are pretty much identical to one pattern of underwear shirt in use prior to the t-shirt. Indeed, according to one source, the modern Henley shirt came about after fashion designer Ralph Lauren had been shown a collection of vintage underwear. The shirt's named after an English rowing club, which no doubt has worn it forever, but because they were wearing their cotton undershirts. It probably wasn't really unique to them in any fashion.
Actually you can, but it'll be called a "Henley" shirt.
Henley's are a type of cotton shirt that's worn today as a casual shirt which are pretty much identical to one pattern of underwear shirt in use prior to the t-shirt. Indeed, according to one source, the modern Henley shirt came about after fashion designer Ralph Lauren had been shown a collection of vintage underwear. The shirt's named after an English rowing club, which no doubt has worn it forever, but because they were wearing their cotton undershirts. It probably wasn't really unique to them in any fashion.
Anyhow, the "so what" may sound flippant, but over 4,000,000 American men went into the service during the Great War. Everyone one of the was issued a series of white t-shirts. The Army didn't issue OD t-shirts until World War Two as, other than some really heavy fatigue duty, extreme barracks room informality (something very much the case in the pre feminized military), or physical training, troops didn't hang around just wearing their t-shirts.
Indeed, this was so much the case that people are often surprised to find that the color of the shirt the British soldiers wore underneath their service coats, which they wore year around, was light blue. By 1914-1918 we would have expected that shirt to be khaki. Nope, it was blue. As it wasn't worn without a coat on, except in very unusual situations, it didn't particularly matter.
By World War Two that same shirt was khaki.
And during World War Two, as previously noted, the Army started issuing an OD t-shirt, showing how things were changing.
Anyhow, while the t-shirt and American society is largely a World War Two story, it's a World War One story as well in that the war pretty much pushed alternative undershirts off the shelves and the t-shirt became the American undershirt, but it remained an undershirt. From there, the evolution, however, was on.
As early as the 1920s that same design had been colorized for children, and children started wearing t-shirts of all colors, including white, during the hot summer months. What therefore became the American standard wear was worn, in that manner, by children first. In the 1920s it was considered indecent for a man to be seen in public wearing a t-shirt as outwear alone, but by the Dirty Thirties it was not, and it became pretty common for men to perform hot weekend work, like mowing the lawn, in their t-shirts.
Casper College Geomorphology field trip, 1983. Almost everyone here, including the professor, is wearing a t-shirt. Off hand, there appears to be four exception, and the exceptions are pretty casual as well. Indeed, this photography, which I'm in, and I'm not one of the exceptions, says a lot about the evolution of clothing from 1914 to the mid 80s. Everyone is lightly dressed and several men are wearing shorts, which American men would have not had done prior to the 1950s. There are no broad brimmed hats in the picture, which there would have been prior to the 1960s. The two women in the photograph are decently dressed for 1983, but would have been regarded as indecently dressed prior to 1940. For what it's worth, this photograph of a group of people in a highly outdoor setting demonstrates an incredibly bad set of clothing for the outdoors. I'd never dress the same way for the same thing now.
So we can say that the t-shirt was something that came into currency, in a way, because of the Great War. Chances are that the design, which is frankly just better for its original purpose, than the alternatives, would have come in anyhow. But not at the rate it did and the manner in which it did, but for the Great War. By World War Two it was already acceptable to mow your lawn wearing your t-shirt. And so the story of its expansion in the modern form from there, becoming the seemingly dominant form of American dress, picks up from there, and can be followed in the item we linked in above.
Well, having started talking about undershirts, let's continue to talk about under things. . . .
Sixteen year old Betty Baker who won the Women's Indoor Tennis Championship in New York City in 1919. Why is she shown here? Because this photograph demonstrates a revolution in what it doesn't show. Women played tennis in the 1800s, and indeed they did in the 1700s, but not dressed like this. Baker is undoubtedly taking advantage of clothing changes that came in within the prior decade, including much lighter undergarments we'll discuss below, which revolutionized women's freedom of movement, and dress, in every respect.
Office girl, age 15, in 1917. Her dress would be typical apparel for a woman of this age in everyday wear. She's no doubt much more heavily dressed in every fashion than the girl depicted above.
Bras and stuff?
Yes, women's. . . well you know.
This actually turns out to be a significant story, and a socially significant story at that. Indeed, it can be argued to be hugely socially significant. Much more so than the t-shirt. Indeed, it allows for women to wear t-shirts.
Women's clothing change a lot during World War One and this is one way in which they not only changed, but the change was surprisingly significant. It can be argued that changes that came about during the Great War are directly related to the status of women today, and not at all in the way that people might suppose. Indeed, while feminists of the 1970s liked to put the Zippo to bras in protest, they probably actually should have put up a bronze bra in celebration of the liberating undergarment somewhere.
Camp Fire Girls hiking near Los Angeles in 1915. These young women have dispensed with the uniform of that time save for the blouse, which would have featured a long skirt, in favor of really voluminous breeches, shirts, and leggings. About half their attire, therefore, would be largely male attire in this photograph. 1915 would have been early for most women to have adopted bras, but given their loose clothing, they may have and are certainly wearing something under their shirts, but it's doubtful that its even the more modern emancipation corset Frankly, a lot of rural women at this time probably just wore some sort of slip type garment and called it good, and these young women may have as well. This photo actually argues against some of what I've noted here, as its clear that the change in women's clothing was already underway before the war.
Now, I'm not an expert on the history and evolution of these things, and I'm not going to search it on the Internet either, as I'm sure a person would get all sorts of weird hits. This has, quite frankly, something to do with one of the purposes for female undergarments that are absent in the case of male underwear, and we're not going to go there, research wise.
Beyond that, I'm not an expert on fashion in general and I'm definitely not an expert on women's fashions, which are frankly baffling and very hard to follow. But in this particular instance it's actually historically significant, somewhat, as well, so we'll go into it a bit.
The problem with addressing this is, of course, like all such things, is that its really hard not for it to become a (boring) treatise on the history of female fashion, which like the history of male fashion, if not concentrated for some purpose is not only longish, but dullish. However, as its necessary in order to appreciate it, we'll try to tackle it. . . delicately, and to a limited extent.
Women hunters in Idaho prior to World War One. The squirrel from a pole is obviously a joke, but they likely really were hunters. Note the bulkiness of their attire, even though its plain.
And by delicately, we mean that.
When we addressed women in trousers, which we link in again below, we did that a bit. But since that time I caught a podcast in which the revolutionary aspect of two items of women's clothing were mentioned in passing (it wasn't a podcast on that topic). Now, frankly, I hadn't really considered these topics. As this purpose of this blog is to learn stuff, and that's why I listen to podcast as well (listening to history is listening to learn stuff) I pass this on, as its actually a fairly significant historical development I hadn't grasped previously.
We are aided here by a blog entitled History of Women's Fashion that deals with these things. I'm not going to directly link stuff in, but people researching it can track back to that.***
Okay, with that long winded introduction, we launch in.
Women's fashions changed very quickly in the 18th and early 19th Centuries. Given that, it's hard to know when to start in looking at any one point as a base point, as there really isn't one. If we do that, we'll end up back in Medieval times, if not before, and it'll be a mess. So what we're going to basically sort of do is sort of land in 1800 and go forward, very rapidly, and on a limited number of topics. In doing that, we'd note that if we go that far back, and as we continue to go forward, there's a separation of style between high fashion, if we want to call it, and what the mass of women wore on a daily basis, depending upon their station in life. The emphasis, unfortunately tends to be on what the wealthy or socially superior wore, and we get very little information as a rule on what most women wore most of the time. Because of that, we get a really skewed view of women's clothing.
At any rate, if we go back to the late 18th Century, what we'd find is that many of the assumptions people have about women's dress in the Western world are just flat out wrong. The one standard we can say is that women's dress and men's was consistently different.
Going back to that period, most women most days wore fairly plain dresses as exterior clothing. Indeed most women of most classes wore fairly plain clothing as a rule, on a daily basis. Women of common means, it might be noted, made their own clothing, and that in some ways emphasizes this fact.
High society women, however would have been expected to wear very elaborate opulent dresses with hooped skirts. We didn't deal with men's dress going back this far as we didn't need to, but we'd note that men's dress in the same social circles of that time also tended to be somewhat elaborate by modern standards, and even somewhat effeminate by current standards, which given current standards is really saying something.
Anyhow, in the early 19th Century that really changed enormously for women with means and their clothing altered to very simple styles as a rule. A cinematic effort that does an extremely good job demonstrating this, I'd note, is the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice which is excellent in material details. If you watch the film, and I highly recommend you do, the Bennet sister characters are dressed exactly correct for their period and their class. If you catch the outdoor servant class of characters, who do appear in the film, although usually in the background, not surprisingly, they're also dressed exactly correctly. The directors chose to dress the Lacy Catherine de Bourgh character in the fashion of the immediately prior era, for the upper class, which is also appropriate for her character and age. The film does such a good job in these regards, right down to undergarments, it's easiest just to refer to that. A film that does a similarly good job, and again deal s with undergarments (which we're getting to) is 1995's Sense and Sensibility, which includes a decent scene of women assisting each other dress. By decent, we mean not pornographic.
Okay, that's all well and good, but before we move on, perhaps we better touch upon a delicate era. Those underthings.
In the era in which we're on now, women wore a series of undergarments. And I don't know a great deal about them. We will note, however that this is before the weird corset era we're about to touch upon. Anyhow, even by the period we're talking about women's clothing often included some element of support, shall we say. This is for both a practical and attractive reason. Practical in that women in this agrarian era required at least some support for their . . . you know, if for no other reason than the heavier the region the more painful it can apparently get. Some of this support, as well demonstrated by the aforementioned Sense and Sensibility, was in the form of a garment that was laced on shirt fashion, from the back, and which required the help of somebody to put on. However, during the same period, and perhaps because not everyone has such help, a similar garment lacing from the front and which was outerwear, was also common. Anyway you look at it, these garments weren't the only under garment worn.
And before we go on therefore, and because it relates to pants, what we'd note is that there were no women's underpants. Nope. Just long under apparel. This gets significant for a social reason that we'll deal with in the topic of pants.
Anyhow, this takes us to the weirdness of the the Victorian Age, which we cannot, of course, blame on Queen Victoria..
Starting around 1820s or so women's well dressed fashion began to really take a weird turn. There were some signs of how it was going to go before, but it was bizarre.
Dating back to the era prior to the French Revolution there had been high fashion effort to really emphasize women's breasts, but that had passed in the early 19th Century. It came roaring back in a strange fashion around 1820, when corsets, often whale bone corsets, started to emphasize an highly exaggerated female form with really narrow wastes and large breast. Think Barbie. Even the posture women were required to affect due to this style was horrifically unnatural.
Now, it's commonly thought that this is how every woman dressed everyday, but of course that's nonsense. Women who had some working role, which was actually most women if we consider that farm women are indeed working women, couldn't have and didn't dress in that fashion. This large section of women were impacted by evolution of style, particularly if they had means to go into town in some setting at least occasionally requiring adopting the formal standards of the day, but if they were working on their family's farm or working in town as domestics or the like, they wouldn't have and couldn't have dressed in that fashion. More plain styles with nothing anywhere so restrictive would have kept on keeping on. This is nonetheless relative here as the formal standard meant that underwear for those not engaged in labor (and many women were engaged in labor) featured unnaturally shaped corsets, probably the most hideous appear item ever inflicted on women, as the well dressed standard. And that wasn't the only item of women's underclothing, but just part of women wore underneath their dresses.
Christian Klackner illustration of farm workers, 1889.
Now, before we go on, we best note something before we contribute to an erroneous view of things which I noted above, and which carries on in this era as well. Because almost 100% of the focus on women's fashion is just that, focus on fashion, it leads to an extremely skewed view of what the vast bulk of women who didn't dress fashionably wore every day. We have a lot better recollection, although still skewed, of what men wore daily in the late 19th Century than we do women, as a rule.
This again? What on earth? Yes, this is a Soviet realist painting, but one thing about these is that as highly stylized as they are, they're "realist" paintings and they generally get a romanticized depiction of clothing correctly. These Russian farm women of the 1930s in this image are dressed very closely to what we generally find farm women of the late 19th Century well into the mid 20th Century dressed like, and they obviously wouldn't have bothered with corsets.
Because women in their daily occupations were rarely photographed, and indeed "action photos" of anybody are pretty rare from the period given the limitations of photography at the time, we have to turn to agrarian romantic art to a degree, which tends to be highly romanticized, and what photographs there are of women working at the time. If you do, what you tend to find is that by and large a lot of women were very simply dressed and they were dispensing with corsets, not surprisingly, if they worked in agriculture, which a lot did. Most of them would have worn something under their shirts but it'd be something on the order of a chemise and a lot of times, that's about it. It'd be hard enough working in a field wearing a dress, which is what they did do, without bothering with corsets. I have no way to document that and I'm not going to try to, but I'm certain that's the case.
Confederate widow in mourning clothes, American Civil War. The baby is wearing his, and I do mean his, father's kepi.
Coming in during this period, looping back, bloomers came in. I.e, ladies' underpants, albeit of a different type than today. But then men's underpants were also of a different type as well. Without going into fine detail, this means that women's cycles were being handled in a somewhat different form than previously.
Not too surprisingly, even by the mid 19th Century there was rebellion against against corsets in women's fashion, partially lead by women. For the first time, a movement of this type was associated with a Woman's Movement, and the terms "liberation" and "emancipation" were applied to such developments. The liberation, of course, was both symbolic and physical, given the corsets of the Belle Epoch were restrictive in the extreme.
That movement was already up and running by the 1860s and saw the introduction of corsets emphasizing a more natural shape.
Emancipation Corsets which featured a more natural shape.
It also saw the introduction of such things as the Emancipation Corsets. More radically, it saw the Union Suit as well, which we've already discussed, which simply covered a woman neck to ankle. Of course, something like a corset could and almost certainly would be worn over the Union Suit, but that there was a rebellion going on against the high fashion of the Victorian Age was pretty clear.
Renoir painting of happy Parisians showing a realistic, rather than exaggerated, scene of well dressed men and women during the Victorian Age as it was beginning to yield to the Belle Epoch.
Real rebellion against this restrictive style of dress had really set in by the late 19th Century and a bunch of clothing changes began to really set in for women, including undergarment changes that get us to our story. A common sense in ladies dress movement set in and in 1908 Paris fashion started emphasizing the natural female form. Corsets remained but rapidly reduced in size and restriction as a natural form was introduced. One last blast of impracticality came in the form of Hobble Skirt, which allowed for a natural female form but which emphasized the female rear end and which was hard to walk in. Contemporary with it however, were walking skirts that allowed women to walk fully naturally and wear clothing with a fully natural form.
Changes brought about following 1908 came very rapidly, and its important to note that the onset of this change, which was really earlier, came at a time which was basically on the eve of the Great War. More radical changes, however, were in the works.
As early as the 1880s, a French women involved in fashion had introduced the brassier, a total alternative for the corset. It was not widely accepted, but due to World War One it was soon to be.
At the Great War in 1914 nearly every woman would have owned corsets. By that time, the majority of them would have had one the less restrictive type. And then the war came.
Women employed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1917. All of the clothing here, except for the women who appear to be employed as domestics by the railroad, would have been highly problematic for their occupations. They're wearing, it might be noted, a lot of loose clothing, which is likely in part due to their bulky undergarments.
As we've already noted, World War One pulled thousands of women into work they weren't already doing. A fair amount of that work was industrial. Lots of women went to work everyday wearing corsets of the less restrictive type, but all corsets were singularly unsuitable for the work that thousands of women were doing. The bra was. Not insignificantly, Crossley patented her brassier on November 13, 1914.
New York National Guard bandsman Edwardina Lavoie, 1917. This photograph demonstrates a woman wearing what is likely a male uniform which would have required a least a partial change in the development of ladies' undergarments in the form of more modern underpants, another thing that was coming in at this time. No wearing bloomers with breeches.
It would be untrue to claim that women's clothing changed overnight, but it would be close to true. Belle Epoch Edwardian fashions like hobble skirts and the like gave way nearly overnight to women's fashions that were business like and plain, and often based on military fashions of the day. They remained clearly female, but they were very plain in comparison to what had only recently been the case.
NLWS volunteer driver during World War One, as depicted by J. C. Leyendecker.
Same organization, but with the color of the uniform more accurately portrayed. For that matter, the female form is more accurately portrayed. Leyendecker was a great illustrator, but he had some trouble with conventionally clothed women in his illustrations. His women were uniformly tiny in comparison to men, and their forms weren't always correct in modern clothing. If portrayed in 18th Century or 19th Century clothing, or if portrayed as odd historic fantasy type figures, he was generally much more on. Leyendecker pretty clearly had certain attractions that were unconventional and its been noted that this his illustrations may have reflected this to some degree.
The thousands of women in factories, moreover, had to switch to largely male influenced apparel. Dresses were dangerous in factory environments. Women's clothing designer attempted to accommodate women in factories but lots of women simply accommodated themselves by adopting men's overalls and coveralls, end trousers. Corsets didn't work very well with any of that, and as a result, they adopted bras as well.
Women loading ice in 1918. Both are wearing overalls, the one on the left as viewed is likely wearing men's overalls. Probably neither are wearing corsets.
Bras were safer in every fashion. They protected a woman's. . . you know, which needed to be restricted simply because the machinery of the day has a million catch points which unguarded protrusions of any kind were liable to be caught in. Indeed, machinery was large unguarded at the time and most of it would be regarded as a massive OSHA violation today. Corsets, in comparison, restricted a woman's movement and actually pushed a woman's . . . you know, forward and into machinery. Silhouettes of the day make it pretty clear that even heavily dressed women, if they were somewhat well endowed, were projecting rather far forward. Thsi wouldn't have matter in work like domestic work, but it very much did in work such as industrial work. Indeed, by this time it was becoming pretty significant in farm work, as farming was becoming mechanized as well, and even though women had always done farm work, and farm work had always been dangerous, machinery added new elements of danger that had not existed before.
Member of the Woman's Land Army during World War One. This work would not actually have been that unfamiliar to women from farms, but the clothing here is very new and reflects the effort to come up with working clothing for women during World War One. Once again, this clothing is highly bulky and probably reflect the wear of undergarments that were about to be dumped.
Once women went to bras by necessity, the end of the corset was in sight, no woman adopting bras was going to go back to corsets is she could avoid it. Indeed, not only did the new element of apparel allow for greater freedom and safety at work, there was no setting in which it didn't beat out the former garments. Women in sports, and women had been in sports for decades prior to the Great War, clearly were benefited. But simply women in everyday settings did. The change came pretty quickly.
Now, that may seem like just a fashion change, and it was that, but it was a lot more than that. The change lead to a revolution in fashion in the 1920s which featured a more natural form, but it really became apparent in the 1930s when everyday women would wear much less restrictive clothing, and did so. By the 1930s, moreover, women were wearing clothing items that had been pretty significantly male routinely. Simple cotton shirts, which hadn't been a real option for the most part prior to the bra, became everyday standard wear. That change alone helps demonstrate why the extremely formal type of dress shown all the way at the top of this thread, with a young man and woman posing for the camera, was gone by the 1930s and even seemed old fashioned then.
While it'll discussed more below, and indeed has already been discussed elsewhere, that change also helped bring about tousered women. We discussed that, as noted, earlier but one thing to note here is that prior to World War One it wasn't really possible for women to easily accommodate their upper underwear with pants. You could, and some women did, wear a corset with trousers but when you consider that you also had to wear some sort of top and underpants of some sort, you were wearing a huge amount of clothing just to accommodate pants. During World War One women took to overalls in large numbers for industrial work not only because they were more practical than dresses, rather obviously, and not only because they were common working men's clothing at hte time, which they were, but also most likely because its a lot easier to wear overalls or coveralls with corsets and bloomers, or maybe even corsets, bloomers and a slip, than it is with regular trousers. It would be uncomfortable, to be sure, but not nearly as uncomfortable as some of the alternatives.
This also explains why early women's overalls introduced during the war have such a voluminous appearance.
By the 1940s, during World War Two, the danger to women in the workplace wasn't their torsos, but their hair, which had to be addressed during the war in order to keep it from catching with dangerous and even lethal effect.
An advertisement for women's riding attire from 1901. These are trousers, although split skirts for riding existed at this time as well, but from this model's figure we can tell that she's retained the traditional unnatural shape corset and the blousey trousers mean she's likely wearing bloomers. She's probably have to ride side saddle in this attire, as it'd be uncomfortable.
A woman in a dress, 1905, riding side saddle and probably largely attired, in terms of underclothes, just as described immediately above.
Kitty Canutt on Winnemucca at a rodeo in Rawlins Wyoming, 1919. No way she's wearing a corset or bloomers.
While it'll discussed more below, and indeed has already been discussed elsewhere, that change also helped bring about tousered women. We discussed that, as noted, earlier but one thing to note here is that prior to World War One it wasn't really possible for women to easily accommodate their upper underwear with pants. You could, and some women did, wear a corset with trousers but when you consider that you also had to wear some sort of top and underpants of some sort, you were wearing a huge amount of clothing just to accommodate pants. During World War One women took to overalls in large numbers for industrial work not only because they were more practical than dresses, rather obviously, and not only because they were common working men's clothing at hte time, which they were, but also most likely because its a lot easier to wear overalls or coveralls with corsets and bloomers, or maybe even corsets, bloomers and a slip, than it is with regular trousers. It would be uncomfortable, to be sure, but not nearly as uncomfortable as some of the alternatives.
This also explains why early women's overalls introduced during the war have such a voluminous appearance.
This poster will be seen below again, but it also deserves a place up here. These coveralls look bizarre by modern standards, but if we keep in mind that the woman shown here is likely wearing a large set of bloomers and maybe a corset, the appearance makes a lot more sense.
If we contrast this photograph to the one above, the difference is remarkable. All the young farm women in this photograph are wearing apparel that would have been regarded as fully male twenty years prior. Indeed, the women in the coveralls probably is wearing men's coveralls. Three out of the four people photographed in this photo are wearing nearly identical clothing, irrespective of their sex, and the fourth women is wearing a woman's light cotton shirt with what are probably a pair of work trousers for women, sometime that basically wouldn't have exited twenty-five years prior. Not obvious, and something no doubt not even in mind to the subjects of the photo at the time it was taken, this image is made possible because the women in the photographs were all wearing, no doubt, the more modern underwear that came in during World War One. At least one of the males subjects is also wearing a t-shirt under his shirt.
And the social impact was huge.
Now, that's a bold claim, and it wouldn't have occurred to me but for hearing it, but it's pretty clear that it did.
Most clothing, most of the time, does have a practical origin. The really restrictive corsets of the mid 19th Century are a bit of an exception, but only a bit. The fact that women's clothing has long featured upper torso support is for a real reason, or rather set of reasons. One of those reasons, no matter how much women may claim it isn't true, is to attract men, who take notice of . . . you know. But part is also because women's upper torsos can get in the way of some work and they hurt under other circumstances. Clothing was designed accordingly. It still is. The introduction of the bra just prior to World War One, and its wide spread during World War One, meant that women now had an item of clothing that allowed them to address the everyday aspects of life that their varying upper torsos create, and to be much more free in doing so. In real terms, for most women, that change made them as free for the first time since aboriginal times in their daily physicals movements, and even at that, that freedom in an aboriginal state rapidly becomes restricted due to the ravages of nature and gravity. It was a revolution.
It's an unappreciated revolution, however.
Of course, it might have been an inevitable revolution too. My guess is that it was. But the war brought it right on and suddenly. The immediate post war fashions for women in the 1920s completely rejected the fashions that existed prior to the war overnight.****
Of course, it might have been an inevitable revolution too. My guess is that it was. But the war brought it right on and suddenly. The immediate post war fashions for women in the 1920s completely rejected the fashions that existed prior to the war overnight.****
Much earlier in this blog there's a post on how it was Maytag, not World War Two, that altered women's place in the workplace and then in society. In that thread we argue that it was the invention of effective domestic machinery that caused that change to come about, not simply working during wartime, and we note that women did work during wartime during the Great War. But here's part of that story we missed. Added to domestic machinery was the bra, and that was due to World War One.
And then there's pants.
Women in pants?
Yes, women in pants.
We've dealt with women and trousers, and the Great War already. So here we're not going to repeat ourselves, other than to put that post back up.
Women and Trousers. No big historical deal, or the triumph of the harpies in trousers?
This overalls wearing lass, whom is portrayed an industrial giant (take that, Rosie the Riveter) is wearing overalls, albeit one of the baggiest pairs of overalls ever. She's also wearing a canvass cap to cover her hair, with hair styles being voluminous at the time. She doesn't look very happy, we might note.
Munich Authorities Put Ban On Bloomers
Military Aroused Because Women Have Been Wearing Them To Church
A review of the article reveals that Bavarian authorities were appalled by women taking up trousers, which they'd done as they were working in male roles given World War One. Perhaps they were feeling like Rooster Cogburn in True Grit by that time of the war:
I'm a foolish old man who's been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpie in trousers and a nincompoop.Well, probably not. Their concern seemed otherwise, as the article also noted:
In Bavarian health resorts "attention-challenging imitations of peasant girls' costumes" are also under the official ban. This action is necessary because, according to the police, visitors at the resorts and especially women not taking part in Winter sports had adopted bloomers and similar costumes, "even wearing them to church".
In other words, when the headline writer wrote aroused, he meant it. The authorities found these costumes, as well as the traditional German, or rather Bavarian, female clothing distracting. The latter may seem particularly odd, but in fact if you take a look at something like the St. Pauli Girl beer label you'll note that, surprisingly for an item of traditional European dress, Bavarian female peasant attire did in fact emphasize certain female features, although unlike modern Oktoberfest costumes, the skirts were certainly long and the overall costume was not licentious, although apparently the Bavarian authorities thought they were, along with the indecency of trousers.
Well, this means I may have been off the mark on something.
Frankly, I've long thought the entire "harpie in trousers" thing to be a myth, and that while women probably didn't wear trousers as a rule, except perhaps in agricultural work but that it was unlikely that it was a big deal when they started too. But, it would appear, I may been off.
And this (changes around this time period, not women in pants) is just the sort of very thing that this blog supposedly looks at it.
So, let's take a closer look at women wearing pants.
No, don't run out and do that. Rather, let's see what we can find out about this story.
Okay, traditionally, in modern times, women have not worn trousers. Rather obviously, when a person says something like that, they have a certain idea of "modern times" in mind (and I'm not about to get into that hyper absurd use of the term "post modern", nothing is every "post modern"). What I basically mean by that is the last several hundred years. And yes, that's a long time.
And, rather obviously, something has changed within the last couple of hundreds. Women seem to wear pants most days, after all.
Okay, lets start there.
Wearing pants and skirts, whether male or female, is a cultural deal. Most cultures most places dress men and women differently. Indeed, they all do. And it's likely that there's a functional reason why skirts are widespread wear for women, crossing innumerable cultures, while trousers are much more common for men, as a rule.
Good Woman Plenty Strike and her daughter, both in typical native dress and finery, circa 1900. Dress amongst Native American cultures varied considerably but as a rule, male and female dress varied, not surprisingly. At least in the West, dresses were the rule for Indian women and breaches for men. Women never wore breaches.
Native American woman circa 1910.
Japanese mothers and their children, fishing, early 20th Century.
Which of course doesn't mean that no woman had ever worn pants anywhere until the 20th Century.
Indeed, there were a few cultures, although they are a distinct minority, that featured pants wearing women. The Scythian's, for example, had women who wore pants, rode horses (hence, probably, the pants, as we'll further explore) and fought with the men on horseback, at least to some degree. The Greeks were horrified and impressed by them, and found them to generally be huge.
Indeed, there were a few cultures, although they are a distinct minority, that featured pants wearing women. The Scythian's, for example, had women who wore pants, rode horses (hence, probably, the pants, as we'll further explore) and fought with the men on horseback, at least to some degree. The Greeks were horrified and impressed by them, and found them to generally be huge.
Male Scythian warriors. The women who fought dressed about the same way.
The Scythian's would be ancestral predecessors to the Iranians, partially,and frankly compared to the Greeks, they were huge. Greek warriors, based upon what we can tell about them now, were tiny people. Probably about 5'4" or so on average. The Scythian were no doubt much bigger and so to the Greeks they looked like giants, including the Scythian women. If you are short, and you are encountering women who are pants and armored wearing gals of about 5'6" or so, they're really darned big and more than a little scary.
That's what gave rise to the myth of pants wearing Amazons, a much exaggerated Greek myth.
But they weren't the only women to affect such dress over time. At least according to some, Gallic women in some cultures did as well. Trousers, it should be noted, were a nifty Gallic item much commented upon by the Romans, who took up wearing Gallic trousers, made out of fabric that was basically denim, themselves.
Okay, so some women wore trousers before modern times. But culturally, it was limited. It's limited, it should be noted, for practical reasons, but I'm not going into them. I'll merely hint at them by noting that undergarments, i.e., underwear, are a very recent invention for men and women actually.
So, for most of human history, in most places, most of the time, women have worn skirts.
Moreover, and contrary to what some feminist theorist would have it, working women typically wore skirts, even when doing fairly heavy labor (but for that matter, certain types of skirts have been worn by men in some places, including ones doing heavy labor). That is, women certainly worked, but they worked wearing skirts.
Moreover, and contrary to what some feminist theorist would have it, working women typically wore skirts, even when doing fairly heavy labor (but for that matter, certain types of skirts have been worn by men in some places, including ones doing heavy labor). That is, women certainly worked, but they worked wearing skirts.
A rather manly looking Baron Simon Joseph Fraser Lovat,1908. His son, the next Lord Lovat, was a notably eccentric field commander during World War Two. He's wearing the re-invented Scots kilt, which actually wasn't quite what the traditional Scots actually wore. It is, however, a skirt.
Recruiting poster aimed at Scots during World War One. Scotch soldiers actually did wear kilts into battle in the Great War, or at least at the start of the Great War.
A well dressed Greek brigand, armed with an Arab rifle and dressed in traditional Greek clothing. Yes, that's a skirt.
No, it wasn't simply hard labor that caused women to take up pants. Indeed, again contrary to what some might suppose, and previously explored here at length, women have always worked, and in more agricultural and agrarian societies, women's work has typically been as arduous as men's. It's simply been, however, different.
Women with fairly heavy skirts were perfectly capable of the arduous work of a lightly mechanized, no non mechanized, agricultural society. Their dress was not a deterrent to any of the domestic labor they were tasked with, nor, in the cases where their roles were outside of the home, was it a deterrent. Again, without going into detail, given the nature of the clothing below the clothing, it was suited for their natures and the reality of existence.
So what changed?
Rosie the Riveter went to work in overalls, right?
No, that wasn't it.
Women with fairly heavy skirts were perfectly capable of the arduous work of a lightly mechanized, no non mechanized, agricultural society. Their dress was not a deterrent to any of the domestic labor they were tasked with, nor, in the cases where their roles were outside of the home, was it a deterrent. Again, without going into detail, given the nature of the clothing below the clothing, it was suited for their natures and the reality of existence.
So what changed?
Rosie the Riveter went to work in overalls, right?
Rosie the Riveter. First working woman, right? Well not so much.
No, that wasn't it.
It's hard to really say how the change came about, but we know that women in the Frontier West of the United States (and almost certainly Canada as well) were wearing trousers by mid 19th Century. I've quoted True Grit above, but that comment isn't far off the mark in some ways. If you read the book or watch the newer version of the story on film, you'll note that Matie Ross takes an old pair of her father's trousers to wear while riding. And that's exactly, or nearly exactly, what a lot of frontier women did.
The common denominator in pants wearing by women seems to be . . . . the horse.
Consider the example of the Scythian's above. Their women, the Greeks noted, we wearing trousers. Their men were too. The Greeks (men and women) were wearing skirts. What was up with that? Well, the Scythian's were a mounted people.
The common denominator in pants wearing by women seems to be . . . . the horse.
Consider the example of the Scythian's above. Their women, the Greeks noted, we wearing trousers. Their men were too. The Greeks (men and women) were wearing skirts. What was up with that? Well, the Scythian's were a mounted people.
Riding a horse had become a frontier necessity for those living a rural life in North America the further West Americans went. Not an option. Riding side saddle was the preferred, even mandatory, method of riding for a woman out of Frontier conditions, for a bunch of reasons, but it didn't suit Frontier conditions well. This had a lot to do with distance, and it had a lot to do with agricultural practices. In the East, horses drug a plow and pulled a cart, and maybe were used for riding some. Indeed, one well known American breed, the Morgan (which probably actually started as the Canadian, which probably started as the Norman Horse) was valued as it could be used for everything in that fashion. Plow, cart, buggy and saddle.
Female rider in Texas with a heavy side saddle, circa 1905.
Riding suit, 1901. This suit is for riding side saddle, but it features a type of trouser.
Martha Jane Canary, "Calamity Jane", circa 1901. This is likely at some sort of a Wild West show.
She didn't always dress in that fashion, however.
Lucille Mullhall at rodeo at the 101. Mullhall is dressed in a fashion fairly common for young female Western riders at the time, including ones who rode rough stock. She's likely wearing split skirts, a sort of skirt/pants combination designed for riding.
Riding suit, 1901. This suit is for riding side saddle, but it features a type of trouser.
But this wasn't the case the further West you went. By the time women were living West of the Mississippi, if they were living on homesteads, they needed to know how to ride, and how to ride fairly readily.
Indeed, as this became more common, clothing designers reacted and women's clothing began to accordingly change. As depicted above, in the West, the "split skirt" came in, a sort of skirt that had legs, like pants, to allow the female riding to place her rides over the horse, in the male style, and use the stirrups on both sides of a stock saddle, rather than have to use a side saddle. Women had been riding before that, to be sure, but this meant where wearing trousers was regarded as indecent for them, they had a somewhat practical option.
Once you go down this road, however, the results begin to play out for themselves. As at the same time it wasn't just the introduction of a certain type of riding that began to drive things, but labor of all types became more mechanized. That was about to play a major role in things. But riding, I think, lead the charge. Indeed, we've somewhat noted that before:
Subtle evidence of changing times?
Two photos, taken on the same day, December 3, 1919, in the same location.
Top rider is well turned out, and riding side saddle. Younger rider below is wearing puttees, broad brimmed hat, and an English saddle.
Subtle evidence of changing times? Or just different disciplines?
Mrs. Delos Blodgett & daughters, December 5, 1919. The daughters are riding English saddles, Mrs. Blogett is riding a side saddle.
Things clearly did not change over night. Indeed, the change would be a long time in coming. By 1900 certain types of trousers were showing up here and there, but it wasn't universally well received. Nonetheless, they were showing up. It's interesting to note, in the context of the headlines posted above, as women wearing pants was something that was going on by the turn of the prior century, albeit only in context as a rule.
But then something started to accelerate the change.
Teenage female hikers, in breaches, in 1915.
Woman in overalls working on a Stutz Bearcat, 1916.
"The New Woman". Stereocard, intended to be comedic. Woman wearing nickers supervising man in dress doing laundry. "Who wears the pants in this family?" It's sort of difficult, frankly, to really get the comedic content of the card now, in 2017, and its even more difficult to grasp why anyone thought that this was sufficiently amusing so as to dedicate a stereocard to it.
This didn't happen overnight, but by 1916 it had become pretty obvious that things were beginning to change.
Early in the war, when women went to work in place of men, either on the factory floor or in the fields, they went in their usual attire. I.e, dresses. But fairly soon it became obvious that this was dangerous. Fairly soon, women were wearing overalls, an event sufficiently newsworthy that I've read three different period articles about it from major newspapers, all from the 1916-17 era.
And that was the Great War.
Now, it isn't as if World War One came around and women all went to trousers. But it is definitely the case that the idea that women went in mass into industrial employment, or employment during World War Two, is a fallacy. Women were hugely critical to industry during World War One and it's really World War One that provided the big jump of women into traditionally male work; and in everything from the farm to the factories. And with that came an absolute need that women be clothed in attire that suited the work that they were now doing.
Now, it isn't as if World War One came around and women all went to trousers. But it is definitely the case that the idea that women went in mass into industrial employment, or employment during World War Two, is a fallacy. Women were hugely critical to industry during World War One and it's really World War One that provided the big jump of women into traditionally male work; and in everything from the farm to the factories. And with that came an absolute need that women be clothed in attire that suited the work that they were now doing.
This didn't happen overnight, but by 1916 it had become pretty obvious that things were beginning to change.
Early in the war, when women went to work in place of men, either on the factory floor or in the fields, they went in their usual attire. I.e, dresses. But fairly soon it became obvious that this was dangerous. Fairly soon, women were wearing overalls, an event sufficiently newsworthy that I've read three different period articles about it from major newspapers, all from the 1916-17 era.
Women turning artillery projectiles. Note the vast number of unguarded belts.
The reasons for this are fairly apparent. It isn't that women had never done any work before. Far from it. Given the laborious nature of domestic labor, and farm labor, at the time, they worked constantly. But this new type of work involved a vast amount of machinery. And the machinery was extraordinarily dangerous for somebody in loose clothing.
This had reflected itself in male clothing for quite some time, amongst those who engaged in fairly heavy labor, including farmers. Work with belts and moving machinery put a premium on not having floppy clothing. Men's clothing had, accordingly, become less and less bulky and less and less superfluous in the 18th Century. Compare, for example, the standards of dress of the late 1700s with those of the late 1800s. Women's clothing was required to catch up virtually overnight.
Female British mechanic. Noe, while not easily visible, she's wearing an overcoat and trousers. This woman was working in this role during World War One, but it should be noted that as the British introduced female drivers to the military support it also required them to be very mechanically knowledgeable.
Woman of the Woman's Land Army. Women had farmed for eons, and in largely female clothing, but the early 20th Century was the start of a much more mechanized era in farming. This woman is using a walking plow but is dressed in trousers, a frankly more appropriate form of clothing than a dress, although you can find plenty of examples of women plowing in dresses during the period.
As this occurred the new female clothing reflected looser traditional female clothing to a degree. So it was not as if, as a rule, women simply affected male clothing for the Great War, although there was definitely some of that which occurred. Purpose designed clothing for women was, however, longer and looser, reflecting dress design a bit.
Depiction of girls in the Women's Land Army in clothing typical for that organization. Breaches with a loose overcoat.
And oddly enough, in that strange way in which war changes everything, the First World War had the collateral impact of changing women's undergarments as well. Existing women's undergarments, when worn, and contrary to widespread popular myth they weren't by all women every day, were quite restrictive. Women going to work wanted to be, of course, decent but wearing restrictive undergarments under heavy clothing is not a recipe for comfort. Somewhere on the Roads to the Great War blog there's a thread on this, but I couldn't find it. What it would reveal, if I could, is that the flood of young women going to work not only brought in a revolution in female outwear, but female underwear, given that women who wanted to present decently in the company of men, frankly, wanted to also be comfortable at work. In other words, no stiff corsets in town, if you worked in a factory in town.
Depiction of various types of women's working clothing during the Great War, including military style clothing and labor clothing which was approaching being very close to male in style.
As we've noted before, for the most part women did not remain employed outside the home in large numbers, although larger than often imagined, following World War One. This had to do with the nature of labor at the time, as we've discussed. But the war seems to have affected a permanent clothing change to a degree. It's definitely the case that in fairly short order all forms of female dress was less bulky than it had been, probably reflecting a variety of things. And trousers, having come in, stayed.
Female motion picture cameraman, 1916.
They didn't come in for all uses, however. Dresses and skirts remained the daily rule for most women. But, in certain context, it was certainly no longer that odd, and even the rule.
Sharecropper couples, late 1930s. The women here are dressed, on the left, in men's overalls, and on the right, in women's working trousers.
Now of course most women wear trousers every day. That is a definitely real change from a century ago, or even, really, a half century ago. The pace of change in these regards accelerated enormously since World War Two.
While no longer shocking to dress, in context, in trousers by 1950, it definitely wasn't daily female attire. Now, of course it is. This seems to really have become the case during the 1970s.
What made the final change is difficult to state. Probably a lot of simply is that the introduction of women to trousers, and the change in female underclothing that made it easier to wear, simply made the change inevitable. Some of it, however, had to do with 1960s rebellion as at that time young women took up Levi's in droves, a definite rejection of the prior women's clothing standards. Levis, it should be noted, did not make women's jeans at the time. Nobody did. Even as late as the 1980s when I was a geology student many women simply wore men's jeans, which were always a fitting chore for them. That was solved by soaking them in a bathtub and then putting them on. As Levis' "shrink to fit", they shrunk to fit.
By the late 1970s, however, there were jeans specifically marketed to women; and not only by the major jeans manufacturers, but also by specialty companies that used very definite female aimed marketing and products cut for women.
Indeed, while its only a theory, a certain creeping feminizing of American society soon started to reflect itself at this time as "designer jeans" began to cross from female clothing over to male clothing, where it's remained. Very often today you can find men on "casual Friday's" wearing jeans that men of 1980 would have never worn. Men in 1980 wore Levis, Lees or Wranglers. Even now, to my rusticated view, jeans that you wouldn't gut a fish if you were wearing are suspect. Having said that, even ranch hands now sometimes wear jeans with fancy details, something that was definitely not he case some decades ago.
At the same time that jeans started coming in for women the "pants suit", lately sported by candidate Hillary Clinton, came in. They've largely went, but by the same token formality had enormously declined as well. Pants suits left a lot to be desired and seeing them go has not been missed even at the same time where most women wear jeans or trousers most day.
So, everyone has accepted this and the comments such as those that started this article off have totally disappeared, right? Well, not entirely. In some circles, surprisingly enough, wearing jeans remains a shocking inappropriate example of female rebellion. Consider the following:
However, the initial question still remains. Is God pleased with a woman wearing pants? At this point, one may definitely say that the garment itself is not the real issue. The Apostle Paul said, “I know. ..that there is nothing unclean of itself (Rom. 14:14).” There is no sin in the garment, for it is but a piece of material. The real issue is what it represents on the woman. Pants on the woman have become the symbol for the feminist movement. Gerritt Smith, an early feminist, said, “Your dress movement involves the whole woman’s rights cause.” Therefore, the woman who wears pants, be it men’s or ladies’, is identifying herself with the feminist movement. It is ironic that many women refuse to openly associate themselves with the radical feminist movement of our day, yet lend their support through the manner in which they dress. More importantly, however, is that this symbol represents a complete rebellion against the principles revealed in I Corinthians 11 :3. Thus, any woman who sincerely believes in the doctrines of the Holy Bible should seek to “abstain from all appearance of evil (1 Thess. 5:22).” Without question, God is not pleased with that which rebels against His revealed Word.
This is something I pulled off the net while trying to research this piece. It's from a very fundamentalist Protestant website, although it doesn't reflect the views of most Protestants and probably not very many fundamentalist for that matter. Its interesting, however, in that women's pants, and clothing in general, remain a topic of debate in some quarters. And a matter of practice as well. If you look at a group of Catholic nuns today you are nearly as likely to find them in trousers as traditional simple dresses, but in contrast if you look at the collection of Duggar girls, you're never going to find one in trousers.
Indeed, there's an entire traditionalist modesty movement going on today that angles towards conservative dress for women, although not necessarily dresses for every occasion by all means. To some degree, this is a welcome change if for no other reason that Americans really don't know how to dress and have a just reputation as the sloppiest people on earth. Its interesting to note, however, that at least one such movement's blog, probably done by a Christian author (but not disapproving of trousers by any means) praises the dress worn by an Islamic fashion model. That dress might be a bit disapproved of by fundamentalist Muslims, but its very conservative by Western standards. As we know, female dress in the Islamic world is a real item of controversy and its become so even in those Western nations which have large Islamic populations, such as France.
Well, pantaloons are hard to put down and I'm sure they aren't going anywhere. In trends we've looked at over a century, here's a definite one. A century ago, women almost always wore dresses. Now, most don't, in the Western world, most days. And trousers do not shock any longer.
"Stubby", i.e., modern, Cowboy Boots
We have a long post on the topic of cowboy boots. And here too, it was the Great War that did it. And while we're repeating ourselves, seeing as we have done that, we'll link it back in here as well.
The more old fashioned kind of cowboy boot.
Cowboy boots basically assumed that form quite early, and indeed they retain it if they're really traditional boots. A working 20th Century cowboy with high shank boots could walk into a 19th Century camp and pretty much not have anyone take much notice of his footgear, assuming that he went for something relatively traditional.
Well, like a lot of things, the boots changed as a result of a war. World War One to be exact.
Stretching leather, about 1915.
Because World War Two was such a colossal war, and because we tend to simply accept the line that the United States was the "arsenal of democracy" during the Great War, we have a pretty skewed concept of American production in the World War One time frame. Simply put, it was a mess.
Not only was the Army trying to raise a force, at breakneck speed (more rapidly by quite some measure than during World War Two) but it was trying to deploy it overnight. It was also trying to equip it overnight. The peacetime Army didn't have anywhere near the amount of stuff necessary to equip the huge Army that the US was trying to raise, equip, ship and deploy in 1917.
And this included leather goods.
The US didn't really even know what it needed in the way of leather goods, so it let out contracts for things like saddles and boots in absurdly large numbers. There's a real reason that M1904 McClellan saddles are so common. They made so darned many. Same with boots, the numbers made were astounding. Absurd, even.
With that sort of demand going on for leather goods, the supply became very strained, and cowboy boots were the victims of that. The leather for high topped boots just wasn't there. So, as a wartime measure, bootmakers introduced the "stubbie" or "pee wee" boot, which is what most people, at least those who aren't cowboys, wear today.
Tom Mix, 1919. Mix was an actor, not a cowboy by trade, although the World War One veteran did buy a ranch in Wyoming after the war and he actually ranched here. Anyhow, actors make notoriously bad examples of what cowboys actual wore, and this is no exception. The hat is far too large for anything outside of Texas (where sugarloaf sombreros were really large), the pistols are M1873 cavalry models, which had 7" barrels and which were not favored by cowboys, who instead favored the 5" artillery model. the pants are way too tight. The boots, moreover, are peewees. The heels, however, are just right for the era, and not uncommon amongst working cowhands now.
That was the wartime solution. And it impacted how the boots were actually worn. Prior to WWI cowboys normally tucked their trouser in their boots, and they still sometimes will, as the photo posted above shows. This was the routine habit, although sometimes they'd pull their pants down over their boots. Having worn boots both ways while riding, if I'm going to ride for a long time, I'll tuck them in. More comfortable, for the long haul.
But you really can't do that very well with pee wees, and cowboys who had to buy new boots during the war were embarrassed by the economy of leather and how it looked, so they took to pulling their pants down over their boots. Better to wear out your pants and get them dirty than to look like a boofador.
Traditional boots do not go on as easy as peewees. And you'll want some high socks if you wear them also. My Olathe traditional mule hide cowboy boots.
And in truth mid height boots worked out okay for a lot of working applications. So the peewee, unless it was really low, quit being a mark of shame and became the common boot fairly quickly, save for the ones that had really low tops (which some did). By the 1920s a boot like that sported by Tom Mix above was pretty common, probably more common than the kind that ran to the knee. With the spread of this sort of boot on the range, and in town, cowboy boots really entered sort of a new era. The old style kept on keeping on, but a new style, worn by a lot of people in town, arrived.
These aren't cowboy boots, they're Wellingtons. Marketed, however, as "Ropers".
All along a similar low shanked riding with your heels, down with your head boot was around as well, the Wellington. Named after the Duke of Wellington, who favored them, Wellingtons' were a peewee variant of the common Riding Boot, that boot worn by those who rode flat, or "English", saddles. Low topped, and low heeled, they always had a following amonst those who rode a bit or who rode flat saddles but whom didn't favor the knee high boot generally worn by those who used steel stirrups. They were quite similar, in some fashion, with some of the lower shanked boots worn by Army officers in the 1860s through the 1890s, and therefore had a natural retained following there. Some European armies, including the English Army, flat out adopted them as riding boots. At some point in the 20th Century, and at least by the 1940s, the U.S. Army allowed them as alternative footgear for dress wear and they became particularly popular with pilots as dress gear. So much so, in fact, that after the USAF was officially separated from the Army after World War Two black Wellingtons were allowed as private purchase dress shoes for officers.
Working rancher with very low heeled boots, perhaps Wellingtons.
The popularity of Wellingtons plateaued however until some marketing genius at the Justin company thought of re-branding them as "Ropers'. Where this idea came from is anyone idea, but it was a marketing stroke of genius. With the rebranding Wellingtons crossed over into the cowboy boot market and somewhat remain there. Their popularity seems to have diminished a bit, but then boots with "walking heels" have increased in popularity as well, with those two boot types occupying each others niche, more or less.
So, there you have it. Trench Coast, Wristwatches, Bras, Women's Trousers, and Stubby Cowboy Boots.
War changes everything.
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*While this will be a subject for another post, and has been the subject of prior ones, the decline in men's formal dress has not only been remarkable, but it's accelerating. This has, in fact, been the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal article.
**I have two drovers coats, both of which are fairly early ones before they became really popular in the United States. The first one is a short one, and the second one a full length one. The first I acquired with a matching set of over pants that was acquired as it seemed that when I lived in Laramie it rained all summer and I got sick of being stuck indoors. The second I acquired specifically for cattle work. It's great in that role, but as noted, these items are really outdoor items and they frankly have a distinct odor. I've never kept either one of them in any house that I've lived in.
Probably because of their net appearance, they became popular at one point and the companies that manufacture them starting making ones that weren't oiled. If they aren't oiled, they serve no purpose, but I'll see people who assume they're really cool western wear sporting them anyhow. In that guise, they resembled old fashioned dusters which, contrary to the common perception, weren't a cowboy item at all but rather were an item designed to keep the dust off of your wool suit while riding. They were sort of a gentleman's item, for that reason. They survived into the 20th Century and spread to women's use as well as they were very popular with early drivers who did indeed confront a great deal of dust in early convertible automobiles.
Dusters do not shed rain, however.
***And also the on line source The Impact of World War I on American Women
’
s
Fashion
Bethany L. Haight
Western Oregon University citing 6 National Cloak & Suit Co., Women’s Fashions of the Early 1900s: An Unabridged
Replication of “New York Fashions, 1909” (New York: Dover Publications, 1992).
7
Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress (New York: Knopf,
1995), pg. #127.
8
Ewing, pg. #63.
****One of things that I should mention is that the first quarter of the 20th Century was seeing rapid changes in men and women's swimwear, with the changes in women's being more rapid. By World War One, but completely unrelated to it, both men and women were wearing swimwear that resembles the modern one piece women's swimsuit, albeit made of wool, which is really hard to imagine. New fabrics for swimwear would come in by the 1930s and at some point during the 20s or 30s the swim trunk became the norm for men.
Anyhow, I'm noting this here as a complete treatment of this would note that the bra resulted in the bikini swimsuit for women by the 1930s. It was regarded as scandalous at first, and now that I'm older I frankly don't know that I don't agree it is. The bikini gives Sports Illustrated an annual excuse to engage in pornography, for example. Anyhow, the bikini gave rise to developments to the pint where it's not really regarded as indecent for women to wear "sports bras" which are basically underwear while engaging in athletic activities.
