TIP #891 – OF FEED SACK DRESSES
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TIP #891 – OF FEED SACK DRESSES
| sgorin (View posts) | Posted: 5 Nov 2009 1:12PM GMT |
Classification: Query
Now, I guess you’d call this a tip or a bit of nostalgia for the women folk on the list. If you were born after the 1950s, or perhaps born in a big town, the term feed sack dress might not mean anything to you. However, to those of us who grew up on farms or were born either during the Great Depression or in the 40’s … we knew the term. I remember my childhood days (and I’m post Great Depression!) how it felt to wear a feed sack dress. The richer girls wore really nice store-bought clothes and how we envied them! The fellows had slacks; the farmer boys wore bibbed overalls as a general rule. I guess we were the beginning of what others referred to a true “hayseeds.”
During and after the great depression, poverty ruled. People saved everything to be re-used. Soap was handmade and the slithers of the bars were all melted together to form another bar. We saved cans to be used for the war effort during World War II. Clothes and toys were recycled from eldest to youngest, whether they fit perfectly or not. The farm kids had an advantage however; people grew their own fruits and vegetables which were canned and put up for the winter; we made our own butter (I still remember that), normally the father did his own butchering so there was an ample supply of meat. The children gathered the eggs, picked strawberries and sweet peas. But, let’s get back to the feed sack dress.
In the beginning as they say, in Kentucky and everywhere, farm products and food products were stored and shipped in barrels. But, between the 1840s and 1890s more and more companies started using cotton sacks for their produce. The logo was on the sack – a big circle normally with the company name and location. Women were pretty smart and it didn’t take them long to figure out that they could make use of the food sacks, flour sacks, grain sacks.
After 1929 cotton had dropped out the top spot since prices were so low that many people stopped growing cotton; it was the era of synthetic fabrics such as rayon which was perfect for dresses and those dainty under garments. However, with the drop in price, manufacturers could buy cotton more reasonably and began packaging in cotton sacks. (Feed bags came in all sizes – from one pound for household use up to 12 feet long. By 1943 the sizes were standardized into six sizes ranging from 2 pounds to 100 pounds.) This is when the lady of the household got the bright idea of … well, making a dress for darling daughter (or herself); why waste some perfectly good cotton material?
The first problem came was getting rid of that label; it was a nasty thing to remove. Everything was used to remove them – soaking the material in kerosene (not such a good idea!), rubbing it with lard (a greasy bag then?) or washing it with lye soap. The tale is told of a young lady whose mother had given up getting off the big circular label and made her daughter some underpants with it. All was well until she took an ungraceful tumble in front of her beau – revealing those little undies marked nicely “Southern Best!” When Fels-Naptha was introduced – and then bleach – the problem was solved. The cotton at this time was a plain unbleached cotton; no pattern, no color. And for you gentlemen reading this, yes, boy’s underwear was often made for them from these same bags.
The wives and mothers weren’t the only ones to catch on to what was happening to all those food sacks. The manufacturers noticed it too. I can imagine the board meeting one day when the chairman of the board mentioned that his wife had told him that farm gals were using their food sacks to make dresses. “Well then, what if we produced those sacks in different colors or prints?” Everyone must have agreed because about 1925 the sacks began to be sold in colorful prints and were soon being used not only for dresses, but aprons, shirts and children’s clothing. To further help the ladies, they changed their labels to paper which was pasted on. No more embarrassing accidents!
Competition kicked into high gear in the 1930s with companies trying to outdo each other in producing the prettiest patterns. They hired artists to create designs that would appeal to the women. This also paid off. The women started going with their husbands when it was time to re-stock flour, grain and anything that came in a cotton bag. As today when one sees ads for “secret shoppers” at stores to see what items are purchased; I imagine these manufacturing companies kept their eyes open too. They noted what brand of flour, sugar, rice, cornmeal and animal feed was purchased when the lady shopped with her husband and noted that she was looking at the pattern on the bag more than the brand. Eventually these bags became so popular that manufacturers expanded into making pre-printed patterns on the bags for dolls, quilt blocks and stuffed animals.
Pattern making companies got into the mix and published patterns for making dresses and all. These patterns normally sold from 15 to 25 cents; a spool of thread cost 5 cents; and you had the dress! It took two bags with the same print to make a simple dress for an adult woman; for little girls, far less. If one had 4-5 bags, one could make a beautiful quilt. One dress for as little as 30 cents!
Women, who always have an eye out for a bargain and are looking for a new print or pattern, started trading bags with neighbors or bought from the traveling peddler (who might have some bags from a different part of the country, thus a different pattern). Chicken feed was used by all the farmers and the gals were there grabbing those bags too.
As time passed and the Great Depression was beginning a horrible memory, women still were careful in their spending habits and re-cycling. When World War II came, it was again a time of sacrifice for the population. It was considered patriotic to use printed feed sacks during the war times. It was noted on fabrics.net that by 1943 over 3 millions women and children of all income levels were wearing print feedbag garments!
By the 1950s, paper bags hit the market and fewer cotton sacks were manufactured. An era had died, except in the memory of those women who had patiently stitched by the hour to make a pretty dress for their daughter or themself. I am sure the Moms were very proud of those dresses, and they were pretty. But, little did she know as the daughter walked to school and saw the city girls in their beautiful store-bought dresses, just how badly those farms girls wanted a fancy dress too.
If one knows the materials and manufacturers, it is still possible to buy those old feed sacks. One store in a nearby town which sells about everything old, has hundreds of those old bags hanging on the wall for purchase. One has to be careful that it is not a reproduction of modern times, but the feed sack dress is still among us.
If any of your ladies have further information or tales to share on this topic, please feel free to write me and I possibly will have another “look back in time tip” to share.
© Copyright 5 Nov 2009, Sandra K. Gorin
During and after the great depression, poverty ruled. People saved everything to be re-used. Soap was handmade and the slithers of the bars were all melted together to form another bar. We saved cans to be used for the war effort during World War II. Clothes and toys were recycled from eldest to youngest, whether they fit perfectly or not. The farm kids had an advantage however; people grew their own fruits and vegetables which were canned and put up for the winter; we made our own butter (I still remember that), normally the father did his own butchering so there was an ample supply of meat. The children gathered the eggs, picked strawberries and sweet peas. But, let’s get back to the feed sack dress.
In the beginning as they say, in Kentucky and everywhere, farm products and food products were stored and shipped in barrels. But, between the 1840s and 1890s more and more companies started using cotton sacks for their produce. The logo was on the sack – a big circle normally with the company name and location. Women were pretty smart and it didn’t take them long to figure out that they could make use of the food sacks, flour sacks, grain sacks.
After 1929 cotton had dropped out the top spot since prices were so low that many people stopped growing cotton; it was the era of synthetic fabrics such as rayon which was perfect for dresses and those dainty under garments. However, with the drop in price, manufacturers could buy cotton more reasonably and began packaging in cotton sacks. (Feed bags came in all sizes – from one pound for household use up to 12 feet long. By 1943 the sizes were standardized into six sizes ranging from 2 pounds to 100 pounds.) This is when the lady of the household got the bright idea of … well, making a dress for darling daughter (or herself); why waste some perfectly good cotton material?
The first problem came was getting rid of that label; it was a nasty thing to remove. Everything was used to remove them – soaking the material in kerosene (not such a good idea!), rubbing it with lard (a greasy bag then?) or washing it with lye soap. The tale is told of a young lady whose mother had given up getting off the big circular label and made her daughter some underpants with it. All was well until she took an ungraceful tumble in front of her beau – revealing those little undies marked nicely “Southern Best!” When Fels-Naptha was introduced – and then bleach – the problem was solved. The cotton at this time was a plain unbleached cotton; no pattern, no color. And for you gentlemen reading this, yes, boy’s underwear was often made for them from these same bags.
The wives and mothers weren’t the only ones to catch on to what was happening to all those food sacks. The manufacturers noticed it too. I can imagine the board meeting one day when the chairman of the board mentioned that his wife had told him that farm gals were using their food sacks to make dresses. “Well then, what if we produced those sacks in different colors or prints?” Everyone must have agreed because about 1925 the sacks began to be sold in colorful prints and were soon being used not only for dresses, but aprons, shirts and children’s clothing. To further help the ladies, they changed their labels to paper which was pasted on. No more embarrassing accidents!
Competition kicked into high gear in the 1930s with companies trying to outdo each other in producing the prettiest patterns. They hired artists to create designs that would appeal to the women. This also paid off. The women started going with their husbands when it was time to re-stock flour, grain and anything that came in a cotton bag. As today when one sees ads for “secret shoppers” at stores to see what items are purchased; I imagine these manufacturing companies kept their eyes open too. They noted what brand of flour, sugar, rice, cornmeal and animal feed was purchased when the lady shopped with her husband and noted that she was looking at the pattern on the bag more than the brand. Eventually these bags became so popular that manufacturers expanded into making pre-printed patterns on the bags for dolls, quilt blocks and stuffed animals.
Pattern making companies got into the mix and published patterns for making dresses and all. These patterns normally sold from 15 to 25 cents; a spool of thread cost 5 cents; and you had the dress! It took two bags with the same print to make a simple dress for an adult woman; for little girls, far less. If one had 4-5 bags, one could make a beautiful quilt. One dress for as little as 30 cents!
Women, who always have an eye out for a bargain and are looking for a new print or pattern, started trading bags with neighbors or bought from the traveling peddler (who might have some bags from a different part of the country, thus a different pattern). Chicken feed was used by all the farmers and the gals were there grabbing those bags too.
As time passed and the Great Depression was beginning a horrible memory, women still were careful in their spending habits and re-cycling. When World War II came, it was again a time of sacrifice for the population. It was considered patriotic to use printed feed sacks during the war times. It was noted on fabrics.net that by 1943 over 3 millions women and children of all income levels were wearing print feedbag garments!
By the 1950s, paper bags hit the market and fewer cotton sacks were manufactured. An era had died, except in the memory of those women who had patiently stitched by the hour to make a pretty dress for their daughter or themself. I am sure the Moms were very proud of those dresses, and they were pretty. But, little did she know as the daughter walked to school and saw the city girls in their beautiful store-bought dresses, just how badly those farms girls wanted a fancy dress too.
If one knows the materials and manufacturers, it is still possible to buy those old feed sacks. One store in a nearby town which sells about everything old, has hundreds of those old bags hanging on the wall for purchase. One has to be careful that it is not a reproduction of modern times, but the feed sack dress is still among us.
If any of your ladies have further information or tales to share on this topic, please feel free to write me and I possibly will have another “look back in time tip” to share.
© Copyright 5 Nov 2009, Sandra K. Gorin
