August 5th is National Underwear Day. I have a few books on unmentionables in the library, that we get to talk about today.
The first book is “Health Culture, and the Sanitary Woolen System” by G. Jaeger, published 1886. This old book gives health tips and advice, along with discussions on wearing natural wool underclothes. The author claims that it is the healthiest material next to skin, and is breathable. He describes undergarments shirts, pants and coats, even socks with toe pockets-like gloves, along with nightshirts.
(side note: when I was helping as in-home caregiver to my 96 year old Grandmother, she once talked about after her wedding with Grandpa. He would still wear a nightshirt to bed. His family were old school Germans. She said the first thing she was going to change about her husband, now that they were married, was to have him wear pajamas, not a nightshirt.)
In the book, there were also chapters about the health regime of skin breathing free. Cotton, linen, or silk all do not work nearly as well as wool, according to the author. He said, the body skin needed to be able to easily breath, even at night. Perhaps while I read that in the book, my grandmother never ever talked about her or Grandpa sleeping commando-just getting him in pajamas-which was indecorous enough.
Another book on underwear is “Clothes Make the Man” by Elliott White Springs, published 1949. This book chronicles the Spring Cotton Mills, beginning in 1887. A fair amount of the book talked about advertising campaigns in the 1940’s. They used “Miss Springmaid” a Vargas-style girl, in peek-a-boo ads, showing parts of underwear in mainstream magazines and newspapers. It shocked consumers of Spring underwear and sheets. Also put in the print was “ham hampers and Bust Buckets” describing their underwear; and their sheets as “America’s favorite Playground!” Perhaps tame words now, but scandalous (and successful) then.
Speaking of scandalous, I have an underwear tome “The Lingerie Book” by Mitchel Gray, 1980. It chronicled lingerie from 1900 through 1980’s. It was mainly a photo study of models in undergarments of each decade, but there is text, as acknowledged by Mary Kennedy describing each period of time and the evolution of underwear. Interesting, was the torpedo, or bullet cone bra from the 1950’s.
I have one more story that would fall within National Underwear Day. It is also by my grandmother, but I need to give some background history first.
Around 1892, the S.B. Wilkins Co. of Rockford was sold to Charles, Henry, and Willis Cooper. They opened the Chicago-Kenosha Hosiery Company in Kenosha, Wisconson. They made hosiery and underwear under the name “Black Cat”. It was sold to the Allen Brothers. They later changed the name to Allen-A Hoisery.
In 1828, the Allen brothers bought new knitting machines that took away much of the human workforce. Then, the ones that would stay, needed to work at a faster pace that the union deemed unsafe. On February 15, 1928, the company locked the union workers out. They could only come back as non-union workers. The union picketed, and the federal court placed an injunction on the picketers. And the company arrested a bunch of picketers. It was to be a long strike, rather lockout, as the company was trying to break the union.
Picketers, funded by the union became more violent to the ‘scabs’ that broke the line. Bricks, then guns, then kidnappings began happening. Kenosha was a war zone that summer. Then there were bombings with dynamite. There were 22 area bombings, including one totaling the summer vacation home of the president of Allen-A, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
This is where my grandmother’s story came in. Around the same time, her father had just given up on the family, and had moved back to Tennessee. Louvinia, his wife, was left with three children, only the oldest over 18. That was my grandmother’s older brother, Hayden. He worked at Allen-A hosiery, and needed the money for the family. He also was one of those who crossed picket lines. My Grandmother said that he would ride to work every day with a group of workers so he was never alone-safety in numbers, though there were times they were shot at.
One night about 2:00 A.M., there was an explosion on the front corner of their home in Winthrop Harbor. A stick of dynamite had been tossed at the house. Luckily, it landed in the front yard, near the corner of the house. That angle, withstood much of the damage, at least to the inside of the house. Windows on two walls still blew in. In fact, glass landed on my grandmother who was sleeping on a couch in the living room. If the dynamite had been thrown through the window, it would have killed her.
Before the strike/lockout ended, the depression hit. The union ran out of money, and the strikers went back to work. However because of the depression, the company ended up closing in 1938. The orginal owner-Cooper, had another division of his hosiery company that he did not sell to the Allen brothers, under the name of “White Cat”, also in Kenosha. That company thrived, and in 1935 Cooper brought out the Jockey brand, with the first ever cotton briefs. In 1971, Cooper changed the name of the company to Jockey. While the headquarters is still there, the factory closed in 1994. My mom would take us to the outlet store in Kenosha every year just before the school season, shopping for underwear and socks.
Thanks for listening to ‘the skinny’ on underwear. I must say that National Underwear Day sure is ‘Neato Torpedo!’
Librarytomes 