Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article

September 26, 1993
By David M. Buchanan
Vigo County Historical Society

T-shirts now walking advertising

Before the 1950s the idea of people as walking billboards would have meant a man sandwiched between two boards advertising the best place in town to eat. The thought that people would actually pay someone for the privilege of doing that advertising would have been laughable. “. . . All the way to the bank,” as the old cliché goes, because the T-shirt, society’s modern form of the walking billboard, has become a world-wide billion dollar industry.

The origin of the word T-shirt is unknown. Some say it came about simply because of the shape of the garment, an obvious T-shape. A possible British beginning is found in the tale of British sailors being ordered to sew short sleeves on their undershirts, thus sparing royal eyes the sight of the sailor’s hairy underarm. Credit also is given to the 17th-century American longshoremen wearing undershirts while unloading tea at Annapolis, Md. Tea-Shirts was coined, which then became T-shirts.

How ever the shirt began, it wasn’t planned to be worn with logos, philosophies, art work or statements. It started as a plain white garment, usually without any sleeves. Sleeves did become common until the late 1930s, when Hanes and Sears were selling sleeved white undershirts for 24 cents apiece.

Service in the Armed Forces introduced the shirts to millions of people. During World War II, the Navy made white “skivvies” a part of the uniform; sage green followed for the Marines. The Army didn’t make the shirt a part of the uniform until the war’s end, but every inductee thereafter knew the T-shirt.

In the 1950s, the white T-shirt began to be worn as an outside garment, rather than under another shirt. Worn as a shirt in itself it usually was seen as a form of rebellion. A youthful Marlon Brando, flexed T-shirt-covered muscles in “A Street Car Names Desire” (1951) and in “The Wild One (1954). Indiana native James Dean, sporting leather jacket, jeans and T-shirt, starred in “Rebel Without a Cause” (1956). Posters of Dean in his white T-shirt remain popular today.

The earliest T-shirt in the Smithsonian Institute’s collection is a child’s dating to the 1948 presidential election. Printed across the front is “Dew It With Dewey.” In the 1940s and the 1950s, for the most part, it wasn’t common to use the T-shirt for advertising. Everyday advertising gained national prominence when actress Jean Seberg appeared in the movie “Breathless” (1959) wearing a T-shirt advertising the New York Herald Tribune.

The Tribune itself started the idea by manufacturing the T-shirts to be worn by the vendors, advertising the paper to the thousands of rebellious American young people who flooded Europe in the 1950s. The Tribune had been selling its papers from kiosks but decided that a uniform appearance for their vendors would help paper sales. When mass marketing to the young, the T-shirt made sense because it had become a symbol of rebellion. It was a brilliant strategy and one that created a revolutionary trend.

In the 1970s, the artistic and message emblazoned T-shirt blossomed. Hand-painted, tie-dyed, and printed shirt fronts were seen from village to city. Personal viewpoints, philosophies, sexual messages, politics, advertising and funny sayings could be found. What ever the message, it was on a T-shirt. They also became the collected memories of rock concerts, marathons, festivals, grand openings, sports events. The list is endless.

Because the shirts became so common, as time passed they either were thrown out or made into rags. What is common doesn’t seem historical, so it doesn’t seem worth saving. Local T-shirts have been made for more than 20 years. Many of those have vanished.

The Vigo County Historical Society didn’t begin actively collecting local T-shirts until 1992. Some of the local examples currently are displayed at the museum. Included are advertisements for local businesses, events like the Banks of the Wabash Festival, and those sponsored by local organizations such as the YWCA and the Vigo County Public Library.

Old and new high schools can be found. There is a “Celebrate Terre Haute, A Great Place to Live” shirt. (The museum is looking for so called alternative T-shirts like the one that states, “I know I’m going to Heaven--I’ve already been to Terre Haute.”)

A popular T-shirt has the statement, “My parents went to (?) and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” When collecting local T-shirts, the historical society wouldn’t agree. T-shirts represent an entire generation of ideas, viewpoints, philosophies and events.

The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

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