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Feedsack Fashion: How Thrifty Inventiveness Transformed America · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thanks for tuning in. Uh
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Speaker 1: I am one third of your some of your favorite
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Speaker 1: sartorial history host. My name is Ben Boland. I love
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Speaker 1: that word sartorial. It always makes me think of like
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Speaker 1: a satyr, which really would have more of a connection
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Speaker 1: with our previous episode about the absurdly debauched Emperor Tiberius.
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Speaker 1: But what's the atymology of sartorial? Ben? I'm noll by
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Speaker 1: the way, Yes, yeah, I'm so glad you asked I
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Speaker 1: have this one. So it comes from it comes from
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Speaker 1: Star Tour Taylor in Latin. But that actually comes from
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Speaker 1: sarcer which is to patch, So we're like patch people,
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Speaker 1: etymo logically patch people. I love that. That very much
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Speaker 1: ties in today's episode. Ben, Is that also where sear
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Speaker 1: Sucker comes from? I've always wondered about sear sucking? You know,
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Speaker 1: I don't know, No, I uh, I do have a
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Speaker 1: seal Sucker suit that I wear when the when, when
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Speaker 1: the season is right. You know, I love him. I
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Speaker 1: highly recommend we all get one. Uh. You know who
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Speaker 1: especially could rocket is our super producer Casey Pegram Casey,
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Speaker 1: would you rock a Sear Sucker suit? You know I would, Ben,
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Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram is nothing of not a true
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Speaker 1: Southern gentleman dapper. I like to stay dapper. Now. We
1:55
Speaker 1: all have our own sort of uh you know, I
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Speaker 1: wouldn't maybe go as far as to call us three
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Speaker 1: walking fashion plates though we are real smoke shows. That's
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Speaker 1: not our opinion the internet voted. But I like to
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Speaker 1: think we're we're aware of fashion trends. We're aware of
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Speaker 1: how to present ourselves. We like cool shirts, you know,
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Speaker 1: we like shoes. I'm digging myself a hole here. Null.
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Speaker 1: The point of this is we're talking about fashion. I'm
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Speaker 1: even wearing pants today, Ben so I I really rose
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Speaker 1: to the occasion for today's fashion related episode. Um. And
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Speaker 1: you know, sear Sucker actually is is cotton fabric that
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Speaker 1: has sort of these like pucker kind of like patterns
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Speaker 1: on it, like whether there's indentations in the fabric. And
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Speaker 1: we are actually talking about cotton today, but we're talking
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Speaker 1: about like an early form of up cycling and clothing,
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Speaker 1: one that started off as kind of a functional, practical
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Speaker 1: use of materials that were otherwise going to go to waste.
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Speaker 1: And then kind of became a fashion thing and then
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Speaker 1: kind of fell out of fashion again. Like that's sort
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Speaker 1: of the nature of the word fashion, right, sort of
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Speaker 1: has its time in the sun, and then it tends
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Speaker 1: to kind of disappear as people sort of move on
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Speaker 1: to other stuff and materials. And we're not talking about
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Speaker 1: sear sucker, We're not talking about fine linens today. We're
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Speaker 1: talking about sackcloth. Yes, yes, the very same kind of
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Speaker 1: sack cloth that you will hear in ancient texts, you know,
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Speaker 1: like they're clothed in sackcloth. It's that kind of stuff.
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Speaker 1: So the long story short of this of the origin
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Speaker 1: here is that at least a century before what what
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Speaker 1: soon maybe called the first Great Depression in the US,
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Speaker 1: there was a economic change in the way that goods
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Speaker 1: were transported. See. Before then, we used to whole grain
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Speaker 1: and stuff like that, like potatoes, flowers, staple sustenance in
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Speaker 1: these in barrels. You would stack um in barrels, you
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Speaker 1: would haul them, uh, and then they would get to
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Speaker 1: their destination and you would trade barrels with people. But now, uh,
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Speaker 1: you know, because of economy of scale. Again, about a
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Speaker 1: century before the depression in the eighteen hundreds, it became um,
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Speaker 1: much more cost effective to transport this animal fee, these
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Speaker 1: potatoes flour in sacks. You could stack it more efficiently, Uh,
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Speaker 1: it was a little more resilient, and it was also
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Speaker 1: now much cheaper to use fabric instead of lumber, right Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean it was also way less heavy. I mean
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Speaker 1: the material in and of itself that was inside of
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Speaker 1: the barrels was going to be super heavy. Not to
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Speaker 1: mention when you you know wrap it in steal uh
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Speaker 1: kind of frames that that make up the top and
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Speaker 1: the spines of those barrels, and then the actual pieces
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Speaker 1: of heavy lumber um really really logistically kind of absurd.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, it was a big deal to be able
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Speaker 1: to make that transition into into transporting this stuff in
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Speaker 1: fabric bags cotton bags. In fact, um you could see
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Speaker 1: those used by farmers as early as the eighteen hundreds. Um,
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Speaker 1: because they were also easier, like you could like flop
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Speaker 1: them over your shoulder on the way to uh you know,
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Speaker 1: feed the horses or whatever if you're going on to
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Speaker 1: the granary. Um, you could much more easily transport by
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Speaker 1: hand one of these sacks as opposed to having to
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Speaker 1: like you know, whip out some sort of whatever the
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Speaker 1: precursor to the hand truck is. When did the hand
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Speaker 1: truck come into being? I don't know, but there must
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Speaker 1: have been something, because it's not like you can carry
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Speaker 1: a barrel by hand. You could roll it. I guess
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Speaker 1: that's true. I'm not thinking about that. You can't roll
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Speaker 1: a sack. That is a one up that the barrel
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Speaker 1: has on the sack. I will say, if you had
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Speaker 1: a big enough Saint Bernard, like a Clifford the red
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Speaker 1: Dog level Sapernard, you could maybe put it a barrel
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Speaker 1: around its neck. But that's one barrel at a time
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Speaker 1: for a huge dog. But yeah, you're right, you're right.
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Speaker 1: These sacks had this um, this tremendous advantage. And I
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Speaker 1: love that you're pointing out the fact about the weight
5:58
Speaker 1: right that that's you uh, and the fact that the
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Speaker 1: early bags were also something that you could you could
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Speaker 1: make from a cottage industry. You know, cash strapped farmers
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Speaker 1: didn't have to have barrel making skills. They could have
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Speaker 1: this stuff sown at home from cotton. And we know
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Speaker 1: that right individual farmers were doing this in the early
6:22
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. By the late eighteen hundreds, people were mass
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Speaker 1: producing bags. There was some bright entrepreneur who saw some
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Speaker 1: local farmers doing something, and then capitalism being what it is,
6:34
Speaker 1: they said, I'll just make the bags forget the flower. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's right. And then that's because of a little, a
6:40
Speaker 1: little invention called the sewing machine that really revolutionized and
6:43
Speaker 1: made an economy of scale out of textiles. Right. Um,
6:47
Speaker 1: but here's the thing, you know, what are you gonna
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Speaker 1: do with these bags when they're done? You got all
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Speaker 1: these bags? What are you gonna do? You gotta have
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Speaker 1: a bag hutch? You got what I need? A bag
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Speaker 1: for all my bags? Remember bag hutch? Was that from
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Speaker 1: Mr Show I think it was for Mr Show Casey Pigram,
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Janine Garuffalo is the helpless woman who doesn't
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Speaker 1: know what to do with her bags and she just
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Speaker 1: throws her arms up in frustration. Goes helped me into
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Speaker 1: the bag hush of peers. What am I going to
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Speaker 1: do with all these bags? Well? That was a question
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Speaker 1: very legitimately that um housewives were asking themselves in the
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Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds with all these mass produced bags laying around. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And it was also a time where it's not like
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Speaker 1: they had ready made fashion. You know, I mean, there
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Speaker 1: was a lot of d I y clothing being made
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Speaker 1: UM and these early forms of these bags were made
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Speaker 1: out of like white or brown cotton fabric. They had
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Speaker 1: a big old branded logo stamped on the front, so
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Speaker 1: you knew what company the bag came from. UM. And
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Speaker 1: you know, they did find you know, kind of obvious
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Speaker 1: go to uses for them for like cleaning up around
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Speaker 1: the house. They could repurpose them as rags or you know,
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Speaker 1: making into a kind of a hand towel or whatever.
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Speaker 1: But it was in the early nineteen tens that bags
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Speaker 1: star did being made out of lots of different kinds
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Speaker 1: of fabric, fabric that was maybe even a little bit
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Speaker 1: appealing aesthetically, right, Ben Yep, yep, that's correct. They were
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Speaker 1: were a tighter weave and they were also lighter, which
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Speaker 1: meant that they were softer and they felt better on
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Speaker 1: the skin, which is hugely important because rural housewives recycled,
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Speaker 1: or it's better to say they up cycled these bags.
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Speaker 1: They made them everything from undergarments, two dresses, two bed sheets,
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Speaker 1: and curtains. But here here's the issue with this. At
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Speaker 1: this point, it's very uncool. There's a there's a great
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Speaker 1: article in New Prairie Press about this, and also a
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Speaker 1: good one in Vintage News. But at first, and spoiler alert,
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Speaker 1: my family had some distant personal experience with this and Appalachia.
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Speaker 1: At first, it wasn't cool to wear these, and kids,
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Speaker 1: you know, would be made fun of, or you'd be
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Speaker 1: the poor kid and your neighborhood if you were playing
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Speaker 1: with your friends and someone saw your underwear and your
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Speaker 1: underwear said like, you know, Jimmy E. Mccraikey's fine flower
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Speaker 1: and potato sprouts or something, because they would know that
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Speaker 1: you were poor. And the problem is that people who
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Speaker 1: are living in these places, in these rural populations, especially
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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, man, they didn't have access
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Speaker 1: to travel to a store, and if they traveled to
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Speaker 1: a lot of stores, they didn't have the means to
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Speaker 1: spend money there buying custom made underwear or dresses at
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Speaker 1: the store if they did travel there. And that's where
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Speaker 1: they started calling this stuff. Uh, what what's that term?
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Speaker 1: Chicken linen. Yeah, there's a bunch of good resources on
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Speaker 1: this stuff with some really great images, and one of
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Speaker 1: them is in Flashback with No Sea. Very edgy site
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Speaker 1: dot com uh called feedsack fashions and patterns of Depression
9:53
Speaker 1: era America or you can really get a look at
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Speaker 1: some of these. And there actually is a place in Inglewood,
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Speaker 1: Tennessee called the Textile Museum. Um. And there's some really
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Speaker 1: cool quotes of the time from um, you know, women
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Speaker 1: particularly that we're making these repurposing these goods. Uh. One
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Speaker 1: of them was, uh, I washed five feed sacks and
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Speaker 1: made me a bedspread. You know. It's just really pithy
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Speaker 1: and to the point. Um, And yeah, it's true. Women were, uh,
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Speaker 1: most exclusively, women were making these garments now, um and
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Speaker 1: not to mention things like bedspreads and curtains out of
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Speaker 1: these left over sacks. And the companies that were printing
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Speaker 1: their their logos their logos on those sacks really started
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Speaker 1: to take notice and started to realize that, huh, it's
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Speaker 1: it's coming to the point where the decision on which
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Speaker 1: feed to buy is based more on how nice looking
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Speaker 1: the fabric of the bag is than it is on
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Speaker 1: the actual company or on brand loyalty. So there's one
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Speaker 1: particular company that was really early to the party on
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Speaker 1: this called Gingham Girl Flower. And you might have heard
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Speaker 1: the name Gingham referred to in fashion as Gingham dresses, right, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: And you can also check out on that flashback article
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Speaker 1: you can check out some of the patterns that they use. No.
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Speaker 1: I love that point about this being something that can
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Speaker 1: influence farming family decision or a rural decision about what
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Speaker 1: feed to buy, because imagine you're a cash strapped a
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Speaker 1: couple of parents, right and you want to get your
11:27
Speaker 1: kids some new clothes, but you can't afford all of that.
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Speaker 1: So now you can say, hey, this is a great
11:32
Speaker 1: way to surprise my kids as well. It's a treat.
11:36
Speaker 1: And there's a issue of a magazine called American Cookery.
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Speaker 1: I love when people add the E R Y on
11:44
Speaker 1: stuff American Cookery that talked about it this way. They said,
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Speaker 1: in homes where little folks are growing up, not a
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Speaker 1: scrap of sack and need must be wasted for each
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Speaker 1: sack takes the place of an equal quantity of Muslims.
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Speaker 1: Since they are so many necessary little garments to be made.
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Speaker 1: The sacking, while not fine in quality, is most serviceable
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Speaker 1: for draws, petticoats, under waist, et cetera. These garments maybe
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Speaker 1: may plain or have a touch of crochet or totial
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Speaker 1: lace for the triment. Oh my ma, given me you'll
12:19
Speaker 1: get you're giving me the vapors right now with this voice,
12:22
Speaker 1: bambo and I love it. Yeah, it's great. There's actually
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Speaker 1: a really cool book on the subject called Feedsack to
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Speaker 1: Clothes Rack Love a good rhyme the use of commodity
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Speaker 1: textile bags in American households from eighteen ninety to eighteen sixty.
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Speaker 1: And there's a really great quote in that book that
12:38
Speaker 1: that takes this even further, um, in terms of how
12:40
Speaker 1: kind of the workflow of this situation kind of came together,
12:44
Speaker 1: um quote. Once the fabric was prepared, there was very
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Speaker 1: little difference between a length of feed sack dress per kale,
12:49
Speaker 1: which refers to a type of knit Uh. We've in
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Speaker 1: in cloth that's actually pretty fine. It's used for you know,
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Speaker 1: sheets and stuff, um. Continue, and a length of dress
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Speaker 1: per sale purchased in a store as a new yard good. Uh.
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Speaker 1: The Percy Can't Bag Company hired top textile designers from
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Speaker 1: Europe and New York City to create stylish prints with
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Speaker 1: color fast dies. Yeah yeah. And it goes on to
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Speaker 1: talk about how in nineteen seven, three yards of dress
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Speaker 1: prints cotton pre kale, the kind of stuff you would
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Speaker 1: use to make an average adult dress. It would cost
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Speaker 1: sixty cents if you got it from Sears and Roebuck.
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Speaker 1: We just can't get away from Sears in any shows
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Speaker 1: about this time in history. But by comparison, three yards
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Speaker 1: of gangan dress could cost forty cents and three yards
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Speaker 1: of the gangham used in that brand we mentioned earlier
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Speaker 1: in Old Gingham Girl flower sacks. They could be salvage
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Speaker 1: after the use of two or three one d pounds
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Speaker 1: bags of flowers, so you could buy It's like, imagine,
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Speaker 1: imagine you could buy an amazing snack like you bought.
14:01
Speaker 1: You bought bags of Derritos, and every bag of Doritos
14:05
Speaker 1: you got turned into actually a pretty nifty shoe when
14:07
Speaker 1: you were done eating. It makes me think of that
14:09
Speaker 1: that I've been rewatching the office since I know it's
14:12
Speaker 1: not long for this world on Netflix. And there's a
14:14
Speaker 1: part in one of the later episodes where Kevin has
14:17
Speaker 1: this brilliant idea called the big Mac idea, where he says,
14:20
Speaker 1: if every time you order a big Mac used take
14:22
Speaker 1: one ingredient and set it aside, and then at the
14:25
Speaker 1: end of the week, you've got enough to make yourself
14:28
Speaker 1: a New Big Mac And the kicker is you love
14:31
Speaker 1: it more because you made it with your own hands.
14:34
Speaker 1: I love that I watched The Office, I watched the
14:37
Speaker 1: British What It's fent? Yes, you should watch The Office.
14:40
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. I've probably rewatched the whole series like nine times.
14:43
Speaker 1: It's my like comfort food TV show. I'm gonna be
14:46
Speaker 1: really bummed when it goes because of course NBC is
14:48
Speaker 1: making their own streaming service. Who Isn't you know Casey
14:54
Speaker 1: is gonna make all our zoom calls part of his
14:56
Speaker 1: streaming service. And I'm not mad at you, Casey. It's
15:00
Speaker 1: we all signed the papers. I just I didn't know
15:02
Speaker 1: you would do it. I know, I know it's a
15:04
Speaker 1: It's Casey's nothing if not a an entrepreneur. And these
15:07
Speaker 1: are are troubled times. There's another quote I love from
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Speaker 1: this flashback dot Com article. I believe this is from
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Speaker 1: the Textile Museum as well. Uh, and this is someone
15:23
Speaker 1: referring to the concept we mentioned earlier about how husbands
15:27
Speaker 1: started kind of getting the drift and making choices based
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Speaker 1: more on the type of fabric that it would produce
15:32
Speaker 1: rather than like has some kind of brand loyalty or
15:35
Speaker 1: like the quality of the feed. She said, Uh, this
15:38
Speaker 1: this woman that was quoted. We had two big chicken
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Speaker 1: houses and used fourteen sacks of feed every week. My
15:43
Speaker 1: husband got most of the sacks. He always tried to
15:46
Speaker 1: get two or three of the same pattern so we
15:48
Speaker 1: would have enough to make something. He did a pretty
15:50
Speaker 1: good job of picking them out, so he knew he
15:52
Speaker 1: knew what was up. He was buying those those bags
15:55
Speaker 1: to suit his wife, uh, to keep her happy, so that,
15:58
Speaker 1: you know, they could make matching guard mints as opposed
16:00
Speaker 1: to having to stitch them together, because it became really
16:04
Speaker 1: important to try to like, you know, it's the same
16:07
Speaker 1: idea as like making kind of um d I y
16:11
Speaker 1: like luxury goods. Today, it reminds me of oh gosh,
16:15
Speaker 1: r i P Super Deluxe. By the way, they had
16:18
Speaker 1: a really cool web series called Cheap Thrills with this
16:21
Speaker 1: guy named Nate who goes by the pseudonym at Tabasco Sweet,
16:26
Speaker 1: and he shows you how to like d I Y
16:28
Speaker 1: up everything from like Gucci slides to like you know,
16:32
Speaker 1: Louis buiton belt bags and stuff using like a trusty
16:35
Speaker 1: uh exact oblade and some tape and some like you know,
16:41
Speaker 1: puff paint and like a little bit of ingenuity. And
16:45
Speaker 1: that's what this kind of became because there was a
16:47
Speaker 1: stigma that came along with wearing these sack clothes. It
16:51
Speaker 1: was a sign of of you know, being poor and
16:55
Speaker 1: so um. People would go to great lengths to try
16:58
Speaker 1: to make them pass for you know, again, the ready
17:02
Speaker 1: made clothing wasn't exactly a thing at least in the
17:04
Speaker 1: way we know it with like fast fashion and like
17:06
Speaker 1: H and M and made well and all that. But
17:08
Speaker 1: they didn't want to be pegged as you're wearing sack clothes. Yeah.
17:13
Speaker 1: So before the global exploitation slash slavery chains responsible for
17:20
Speaker 1: for fast fashion, we're we're in play, a lot of
17:26
Speaker 1: us households had figured out some fantastic rules, some fantastic
17:32
Speaker 1: techniques and strategies to make sure that your kid or
17:37
Speaker 1: your family members weren't mocked for being this frugal. So
17:43
Speaker 1: it's weird because now we look back on it like
17:45
Speaker 1: how charmie, how American dream, how industrious and clever. But
17:50
Speaker 1: people wanted to hide that they were doing this, at
17:52
Speaker 1: least at first they would, uh, they would soak off
17:55
Speaker 1: all those logos, you know, the Gingham Girls and so on.
17:58
Speaker 1: They would die the fabrics different colors. Perhaps most importantly,
18:02
Speaker 1: they would add stuff to it. Right, you would add
18:05
Speaker 1: some ribbons, you would embroider, you know, on on the shoulders,
18:09
Speaker 1: right or on the hem. You would also add buttons,
18:13
Speaker 1: things that made it look like, hey, my parents bought
18:17
Speaker 1: this at a store. But it's just not a store
18:20
Speaker 1: you've been to, because it turns out to you, my
18:23
Speaker 1: friend or the poor one. So maybe it's a little
18:26
Speaker 1: it's a little more American in that regard than that
18:29
Speaker 1: we'd like to admit. But there are also a lot
18:32
Speaker 1: of like um, there was a lot of advice. Like
18:35
Speaker 1: textile manufacturers. One thing I think is amazing they participated
18:39
Speaker 1: in this. You can find online a book by the
18:43
Speaker 1: Textile Bag Manufacturers Association from all the way back in
18:47
Speaker 1: three they published a pamphlet called Sewing with Cotton Bags,
18:51
Speaker 1: and it gave you advice on how to get logos
18:56
Speaker 1: out of the sack. And it was pretty you know,
18:59
Speaker 1: it was pretty involved. Had to soak it overnight and
19:01
Speaker 1: lard or kerosene, and then even the companies, the companies
19:06
Speaker 1: helped to race their own logos. Eventually they changed inc.
19:09
Speaker 1: In the nineteen thirties, So these households wouldn't have to
19:12
Speaker 1: spend all night soaking their kids future clothes and kerosene.
19:15
Speaker 1: Can you imagine been I I wouldn't think that that
19:18
Speaker 1: smell would be very easy to get out kerosene soak close.
19:22
Speaker 1: I bet that would take a while, some serious washing.
19:25
Speaker 1: So pretty cool that the companies were like on board
19:27
Speaker 1: with this. But it wasn't like purely like altruistic either,
19:31
Speaker 1: was it. I mean, they definitely had motivations. This was
19:34
Speaker 1: essentially walking billboards for their products, you know, the way
19:38
Speaker 1: like a NASCAR driver has all those like logos all
19:41
Speaker 1: over their racing suit whatever you call that thing. Uh,
19:45
Speaker 1: let's let's call it their action suit. Like love it.
19:51
Speaker 1: So you're right, man, this was this. This was a
19:55
Speaker 1: perfect storm of aligning interests and despite you know, the
20:01
Speaker 1: at times awkwardness or the social opprobrium that would be
20:04
Speaker 1: heaped on the less fortunate when they were wearing these
20:07
Speaker 1: uh clothes made from feed tacks. The First Great Depression
20:13
Speaker 1: changed everything. At the time, you know, the wave crash
20:17
Speaker 1: the Roaring twenties hit the shore and then created, uh,
20:21
Speaker 1: the wreckage that we referred to as the uh you know,
20:26
Speaker 1: the thirties the Great Depression. Uh. There's an article from
20:29
Speaker 1: history dot com that mentions at the lowest point of
20:32
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, some fifteen million Americans were unemployed. US
20:38
Speaker 1: residents were unemployed. Half of the country's banks had failed.
20:43
Speaker 1: Uh that's fifteen million out of a hundred and twenty
20:47
Speaker 1: two millions seven hundred seventies something thousand. So a lot
20:51
Speaker 1: of people were out of work. Half the banks were gone,
20:54
Speaker 1: people were in dire straits. Everybody had to make do,
20:58
Speaker 1: even the people who once used to laugh at the
21:01
Speaker 1: idea of being this creative. Yeah. So the folks who
21:04
Speaker 1: had already kind of mastered this technique were ahead of
21:07
Speaker 1: the curve. And and it's sort of like, ha ha,
21:09
Speaker 1: you mocked us then, but look at you now. You
21:12
Speaker 1: don't know how to sew suck us. Yeah. Yeah, and
21:15
Speaker 1: hopefully they came together. But you're absolutely right. The old
21:18
Speaker 1: people were making not just curtains now, but they're making diapers, awnings,
21:23
Speaker 1: really anything that you look around, like, depending on where
21:27
Speaker 1: you are in your house or outside now, you look around,
21:31
Speaker 1: anything that you see could have been made from that
21:33
Speaker 1: kind of fabric was made from, uh, this feedsack cloth
21:38
Speaker 1: at this time and businesses of course, is struggling to
21:41
Speaker 1: stay solvent. So they started doubling down on this. You know,
21:46
Speaker 1: they said, look, we can get more people to buy
21:49
Speaker 1: more cotton if we just package it. They're like, for
21:52
Speaker 1: god's sake, keep the lights on. We have to be
21:55
Speaker 1: on board with what's happening. They even did a at
22:00
Speaker 1: a fashion show, right, that's right. They had feedsack fashion shows.
22:03
Speaker 1: That was sort of a popular attraction, kind of a
22:06
Speaker 1: you know, what do you call it, like a publicity
22:07
Speaker 1: stunt kind of situation, And there was a real focus
22:12
Speaker 1: on actually having these uh sack fabrics, UM have colorful
22:18
Speaker 1: prints that would be appealing to two women. UM, and
22:22
Speaker 1: there would be lots of like flowers and kind of
22:24
Speaker 1: you know, sons and little patterns that you know, you
22:27
Speaker 1: would think of in terms of those types of dresses.
22:30
Speaker 1: It very much became this intentional thing. Uh. And then
22:34
Speaker 1: feed stores actually became fabric stores. It started to be
22:39
Speaker 1: a thing where like you, they were sort of one
22:42
Speaker 1: and the same, um, and you could buy like bolts
22:45
Speaker 1: of the stuff, right yeah, yeah, and they would you
22:49
Speaker 1: even also print. Not all of these were meant to
22:53
Speaker 1: be dresses later or curtains. Some even had printed patterns
22:57
Speaker 1: to make dolls or clothes for your dolls or other things,
23:01
Speaker 1: and so you could also you wouldn't maybe just by
23:04
Speaker 1: a dress for a kid, you would also maybe be
23:06
Speaker 1: by a present for their birthday later. And this is nuts.
23:10
Speaker 1: People were surprised, uh by how how the market responded.
23:16
Speaker 1: Just like you said, man, these turned into fabric stores
23:19
Speaker 1: at least as much as feed companies. And there are
23:22
Speaker 1: a couple of interesting firsthand accounts you can read. We
23:26
Speaker 1: found some good ones in digital commons dot U n
23:29
Speaker 1: L dot E d U. That E d U at
23:32
Speaker 1: the end makes you really, you know, let's you know
23:34
Speaker 1: that it's a good one. It absolutely adds an air
23:36
Speaker 1: of gravitas to it. And by the way, just this
23:38
Speaker 1: is into the forties. So I jumped the gun ever
23:41
Speaker 1: so slightly by saying that in the thirties, um, this
23:43
Speaker 1: this transition from feed stores exclusively to feed stores slash
23:47
Speaker 1: fabric stores happened, But it was around nineteen, you know,
23:51
Speaker 1: forty five or so that that they're kind of became
23:54
Speaker 1: this lack of distinction and the two kind of really
23:56
Speaker 1: blurred together. And the old school feed salesmen of the
24:00
Speaker 1: time didn't cotton to this, uh too, well, did they
24:03
Speaker 1: been right? It was like, look, I'm just trying to
24:05
Speaker 1: sell your chicken feed and gober Sproorgenson's certified noncannibal chicken
24:12
Speaker 1: feed is the chicken feed you need. I feel like
24:15
Speaker 1: you're just buying this because of the dress print. And
24:19
Speaker 1: then this was a real complaint because people were getting
24:22
Speaker 1: requests to move like these are not small bags either,
24:26
Speaker 1: to move hundreds of pounds of bags of chicken feed
24:29
Speaker 1: just to get to the dress pattern that someone likes.
24:32
Speaker 1: So it's more like they're showing them dresses instead of
24:35
Speaker 1: selling them the product they thought they were selling, and
24:38
Speaker 1: you had to One one guy remembers he had to
24:41
Speaker 1: go to the feed store as a teenager, and when
24:44
Speaker 1: he did, he and his buddies had to like posse up,
24:48
Speaker 1: They had to woot, hang up, assemble their avengers because
24:51
Speaker 1: they knew that his mom always seemed to want the
24:56
Speaker 1: dress patterns on the bottom of the pile, so he
24:59
Speaker 1: and his buddies would have to take turn like hauling
25:01
Speaker 1: these sacks off until they got the patterns his mom wanted.
25:05
Speaker 1: And then they also noticed that this applied to other things,
25:10
Speaker 1: so like, uh, they would buy, they would buy a
25:14
Speaker 1: brand of something called eggmash, right, and this sounds very gender,
25:18
Speaker 1: but this is how it was reported at the time.
25:20
Speaker 1: They would say, essentially, if the wife of the farmer
25:25
Speaker 1: already had a pattern from something else like flower or
25:29
Speaker 1: potatoes or something. Uh, if she already had that existing
25:33
Speaker 1: pattern and she wanted another pattern to match, then that's
25:36
Speaker 1: what the that's what the family would buy. They would
25:39
Speaker 1: just buy whatever match, not what was. It didn't matter
25:41
Speaker 1: what was in the sack. It didn't matter what was
25:44
Speaker 1: in the sack. Slap that on a T shirt. I
25:46
Speaker 1: don't know why, I just like the way it sounds. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 1: eggmash is like a particular type of feed for hand
25:51
Speaker 1: for laying hens that they would put out. Um. And
25:54
Speaker 1: so that was a thing that was that was obviously
25:56
Speaker 1: really important for these folks that had hand houses. But
25:59
Speaker 1: then we get into World War two and uh, the
26:01
Speaker 1: early post war years, and cotton became a real commodity
26:06
Speaker 1: more so than before because there was a shortage even
26:10
Speaker 1: in the civilian space, and recycling all the stuff that
26:14
Speaker 1: these farmers have been doing all along became an absolute
26:18
Speaker 1: necessity and was actually encouraged by the government. World War
26:27
Speaker 1: two brought a lot of industrial shortages to the forefront.
26:32
Speaker 1: You know, you had to support almost two separate states
26:35
Speaker 1: of people fighting, both in the East and the West.
26:38
Speaker 1: And they had supply chains that went across the world.
26:41
Speaker 1: So they all all the all the companies start leaning
26:46
Speaker 1: heavily towards patriotism. And they said, you know, recycling cotton. Now,
26:54
Speaker 1: it started off as something that people used to make
26:56
Speaker 1: fun of. Then it became something that everybody kind of understood.
27:00
Speaker 1: Now it became something that was actively encouraged. We found
27:04
Speaker 1: a newspaper column from May of nineteen forty four that says,
27:08
Speaker 1: best of all is the patriotic spirit you show when
27:11
Speaker 1: you're salvage fabrics. The housewife who provotes cotton bags into
27:14
Speaker 1: the menu use for items they are capable up and
27:16
Speaker 1: coming unto the magic with willing hands of minds. Not
27:18
Speaker 1: only subs house health, but kinss, essential fabrics, Fall Hall,
27:22
Speaker 1: Country Text Old Bag Manufacturers Association. We mentioned them before.
27:27
Speaker 1: They had lines like a yard saved as a yard
27:30
Speaker 1: gained for victory. Yes, I love that. Love that they're
27:34
Speaker 1: really getting in on that uh nationalistic propagandistic fervor. There
27:39
Speaker 1: aren't they um And it's crazy because these feed stores
27:42
Speaker 1: literally became like the fast fashion even though it was
27:45
Speaker 1: slow fashion like you know boutiques of the time. Um,
27:49
Speaker 1: because store bought clothes were really hard to come by,
27:53
Speaker 1: and so these little mom and pop kind of shops
27:56
Speaker 1: with handmade goods, um, really were kind of taking her.
28:00
Speaker 1: And bag manufacturers really felt that uh that you know,
28:05
Speaker 1: pressure to make sure that they were catering to that audience.
28:09
Speaker 1: Um and including you know, keeping up to the latest
28:12
Speaker 1: trends with their their prints, and then the colors that
28:15
Speaker 1: the bags were uh, you know died. Um. And it's
28:18
Speaker 1: crazy too how much this really created a huge boon
28:22
Speaker 1: for the US economy in the form of the American
28:25
Speaker 1: cotton industry. One thousand, two d and eighty three million
28:29
Speaker 1: yards of cotton fabric were used in these bags. Uh.
28:32
Speaker 1: And that account for eight percent of the entirety of
28:36
Speaker 1: all cotton goods produced and four point five percent of
28:40
Speaker 1: the total cotton consumption in the United States in the
28:43
Speaker 1: year nine. Big deal. Yeah, And they also gave um.
28:48
Speaker 1: They also gave women living in the rural demographic who
28:52
Speaker 1: had been treated so horribly for so long by so
28:55
Speaker 1: much of a society. They gave them this sense of
28:58
Speaker 1: agency and a sense of fashion. There were these sewing
29:01
Speaker 1: contests that were organized for women who had again in
29:04
Speaker 1: many cases been at this for decades. You know. They
29:07
Speaker 1: were the hipsters who were in it before it was cool, right,
29:11
Speaker 1: and so they were able to show off their skills.
29:15
Speaker 1: Manufacturers would show off their designs as as you said,
29:18
Speaker 1: people are selling off surplus bags, and you can still
29:22
Speaker 1: see examples of very high quality dresses just objectively that
29:27
Speaker 1: were made by different people across the US. Yeah, and
29:30
Speaker 1: they're even kind of like bled into pop culture. In
29:32
Speaker 1: the early fifties, Marilyn Monroe posed for this really high
29:35
Speaker 1: profile photo wearing a burlap sack of potato sack. Um,
29:41
Speaker 1: and it was kind of a publicity stunt that was
29:43
Speaker 1: set up by the studio. Because there's a couple of
29:46
Speaker 1: versions of the story. Either she was called, uh, you know,
29:50
Speaker 1: kind of a classless waif by some sort of like
29:53
Speaker 1: prudish you know, female journalists. Um, and this was her
29:57
Speaker 1: you know, I was saying that she was better suited
29:59
Speaker 1: to wearing up at hata sack and so this was
30:01
Speaker 1: her response to that. Or um, there was the notion
30:03
Speaker 1: that someone said, oh, Maryland so beautiful, she would look
30:07
Speaker 1: good wearing even a potato sack. So twenty century Fox
30:10
Speaker 1: set up this shot and you can definitely catch a
30:12
Speaker 1: look at that online as well. Um, but you know,
30:16
Speaker 1: like we said, fashions come and fashions go, and this
30:19
Speaker 1: one definitely went and and and what cotton feed sacks
30:22
Speaker 1: were once to those barrels, paper bags became much more
30:27
Speaker 1: of a cost effective thing. I mean, you look today
30:30
Speaker 1: there's it's it's kind of a fancy little gimmick for
30:34
Speaker 1: a company to you know, sell their goods in uh,
30:38
Speaker 1: cotton sacks, you know, that sort of a high end
30:40
Speaker 1: bag of rice. You know, if it comes in a
30:42
Speaker 1: little sack with a drawstring, typically it's all gonna be
30:45
Speaker 1: paper like this. Like look, yeah, I don't know if
30:48
Speaker 1: you guys can see this, but I've got a glass
30:51
Speaker 1: bottle here where I bought fancy milk just so I
30:54
Speaker 1: could use this as a container for my iced coffee
30:57
Speaker 1: for time, you know, from now on and forever. You're right, man,
31:02
Speaker 1: paper is just easier to use. It's way more cost effective,
31:06
Speaker 1: and it's because of economy of scale. Remember this, this
31:09
Speaker 1: story that we're spinning today comes from a time when
31:13
Speaker 1: a huge amount of chicken farms were smaller operations. Now
31:17
Speaker 1: it's been all kind of um agglomerated, right, monopolized, well,
31:22
Speaker 1: not monopolized, but you know what I mean, consolidated this
31:26
Speaker 1: yarn that we're spinning. Ben There we are, there we are,
31:29
Speaker 1: we got here we go, here we go. Yeah. But
31:32
Speaker 1: like you know, the feedsack industry really became kind of
31:35
Speaker 1: you know, like you can think of paper sacks is
31:39
Speaker 1: like disruptive technology in the same way that that that
31:42
Speaker 1: fabric sacks were too two barrels. Uh. And in the
31:45
Speaker 1: late fifties it all but ceased to exist. Um. And
31:49
Speaker 1: there were a couple of attempts to kind of bring
31:51
Speaker 1: it back by printing like comics and cartoons on them,
31:55
Speaker 1: like Buck Rogers and like Disney types, you know, princess
31:59
Speaker 1: story like Cinderella, And there was like an advertising campaign
32:03
Speaker 1: on TV that was trying to get American housewives back
32:06
Speaker 1: into it, but it just at the moment was gone. Um.
32:10
Speaker 1: And uh, like we said, it is something that you
32:13
Speaker 1: definitely see um, like on Etsy stores. Uh and you know,
32:17
Speaker 1: and like vintage clothing markets. It's certainly something that you know,
32:20
Speaker 1: is a is a look and is a style that
32:23
Speaker 1: is fondly remembered and you know, Um, something that people
32:27
Speaker 1: can still do themselves, you know, with this kind of
32:30
Speaker 1: patchwork kind of mentality, and it's it's really interesting. I
32:33
Speaker 1: really liked the story all up, and I agree. I mean,
32:36
Speaker 1: I think of my family. There's still a few examples
32:40
Speaker 1: of this stuff. People are wearing them day to day
32:42
Speaker 1: at right, but you know they save them because it's
32:45
Speaker 1: part of history. And of course, as anybody can tell you, Uh,
32:49
Speaker 1: this is this is not to say that there's no
32:52
Speaker 1: such thing as cotton dresses now. They're obviously everywhere. They
32:56
Speaker 1: just didn't have chicken feed in them first. Uh, you know,
33:00
Speaker 1: I agree. This is an inspiring story. Uh, it's a
33:03
Speaker 1: story of ingenuity. It's also a story of the fickle
33:06
Speaker 1: whims of fashion. If you are interested in hearing more
33:09
Speaker 1: about the history of fashion, we'd like to recommend a show.
33:13
Speaker 1: I believe we mentioned our previous episode, which is our
33:16
Speaker 1: pure podcast Dressed Now without without telling too many tales
33:22
Speaker 1: out of school as they might say in Tennessee. Uh,
33:25
Speaker 1: super producer Casey pegrub Casey, I understand you're affiliated with Dressed.
33:31
Speaker 1: That is true, just as one of the other shows
33:34
Speaker 1: here at my Heart that I produce every week. So um,
33:38
Speaker 1: we come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The show is
33:40
Speaker 1: hosted by April Callahan Cassidy Zachary. They're both fashion historians
33:45
Speaker 1: and you know, just lifelong followers of fashion trends. And yeah,
33:50
Speaker 1: the showed. The show every week looks at a different
33:52
Speaker 1: kind of period of fashion history. Sometimes it's contemporary, sometimes
33:56
Speaker 1: it's in the past, and really goes into all the
33:59
Speaker 1: kind of history coal um influences and forces of work
34:04
Speaker 1: that kind of shape fashion because you realize that fashion
34:06
Speaker 1: and fashion history is just another way of doing kind
34:09
Speaker 1: of world history, political history, and so on. So it's
34:12
Speaker 1: a very very interesting topic. I can absolutely attest to
34:14
Speaker 1: that really great show and and and they have a
34:16
Speaker 1: really cool rapport their lifelong friends and colleagues and really
34:21
Speaker 1: really enjoyable and and also we mentioned it made the
34:23
Speaker 1: list of uh in Vanity Fair that we were a
34:27
Speaker 1: part of last week. UM. Really high quality stuff. UM.
34:30
Speaker 1: Happy to have them in the family. UM. Huge thanks
34:34
Speaker 1: to you, super producer, Casey Program for all the work
34:36
Speaker 1: you do on this show and dressed and stuff you
34:39
Speaker 1: missed in history class. We couldn't do without you. Big
34:42
Speaker 1: big thanks to Christopher hasiotis here it Spirit Alex Williams,
34:45
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. Big thanks to Gabe Lousier. Big
34:49
Speaker 1: thanks of course to Jonathan Strickland Dak the Quister, who
34:54
Speaker 1: I need I need to write back. He actually I
34:57
Speaker 1: think he misses us. He sent us an email recently
34:59
Speaker 1: U where where he said, you know, he said like,
35:03
Speaker 1: I will reign wrath upon you, Uh, like I curse
35:07
Speaker 1: you to the ninth generation. It's like his way of
35:09
Speaker 1: saying he misses us. Basically, you know, that's Jonathan speak
35:13
Speaker 1: for I hope you guys are well. Did you get
35:15
Speaker 1: one of those postcards made up of like cutout letters
35:18
Speaker 1: from different like magazines and stuff. No, it was weird.
35:21
Speaker 1: He just he sent me like it looks like a
35:23
Speaker 1: close up picture my parents sleeping. I don't know how
35:26
Speaker 1: he got into the house, but you know, I like
35:30
Speaker 1: to think that was like and I miss you been
35:32
Speaker 1: kind of thing on his part. He's probably just looking
35:35
Speaker 1: out for your folks on your behalf. It's definitely an
35:38
Speaker 1: altruistic move. Yeah, So thanks to you, Jonathan, if you're
35:42
Speaker 1: if you're listening, Uh, thanks of course as always to
35:45
Speaker 1: our peer podcasters, including Eve's Jeff Coat, and thanks to
35:49
Speaker 1: you Noel Brown. I know we've gotta we've gotta call
35:53
Speaker 1: it a day, so we'll just let people know. You
35:55
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook.
35:57
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter. We'd like to recommend
36:00
Speaker 1: our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians. We want to hear your
36:03
Speaker 1: stories of fashions of yesteryear, especially if they are what
36:06
Speaker 1: you would call ridiculous. You can also find us as
36:09
Speaker 1: individuals on the internet. You surely can. You can find
36:12
Speaker 1: me exclusively on Instagram where I am at how Now
36:15
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. But you can find me on Twitter where
36:17
Speaker 1: I'm at Ben Bolland H. S W and i am
36:21
Speaker 1: at Ben Bolland on Instagram. We'll see you next time, folks.
36:31
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
36:34
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
36:36
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.