The amazing new invention of this T-shirt

John E asked: Who invented the T-shirt? ”

Sailor Arnold R Fesser in 1944

T-shirts are arguably the most popular outerwear in the world. Available in a variety of styles, colors and sizes, everyone can wear a T-shirt . But where did this iconic garment come from, and how did it become so popular?

Relatively speaking, the t-shirt is a fairly new addition to our collective wardrobe. Just an acceptable piece of clothing for half a century. Although the garment has existed in a recognizable form since the early 20th century (albeit with a wider neckline and shorter sleeves), it is almost universally considered undergarment, and if worn in public, is It is also rarely considered underwear.

So where did this t-shirt come from? It is thought to have evolved from a one-piece underwear made of red flannel that was known as a "union suit" and became popular among workers in the 19th century. Patented in New York in 1868, this union garment was based on a similar bra that had been popular among Victorian women. While a union suit does a great job of keeping you warm, it does little to keep a person cool in hot weather unless it's cut in half, which is what many workers do. In doing so, they inadvertently created what many today consider to be the upper half of the "long john," a similar garment consisting of two long pieces of underwear.

, although Long Johns themselves have been around since the 17th century, where they were equally popular with working people and the poor, they were most popular during the Victorian era, as well as Union suits, where they were Advertised to women as a way to keep their waists trimmed by wearing fewer layers of clothing around the waist while still staying warm. Unlike the union suits that later became the literal bastards of many comedy gags (due to the fact that they often had a built-in flap on the bastards), Long John never really diminished in popularity and has kept people entertained ever since. Stay warm until modern times.

Sometime in the 19th century, the people who made such grilled underwear began experimenting with fabrics that could be stretched into shape to make the product more comfortable. This resulted in buttonless undershirts made of wool and cotton that you could pull over your head without ruining the collar.

While the exact date of the invention of these so-called pullovers is unknown by who and when they started wearing them, we do know that they are definitely not what you think you can wear in your daily life without anything over them. As early as 1890, there were even laws in places like Havana that made it illegal to wear these revealing jumpers in public.

The T-shirt's fate began to change in 1904, when the Cooper Underwear Company began marketing it to single men as "Bachelor's Underwear," advertising slogans that simply read: "No Safety Pins - no buttons - no needles - no threads"

The meaning of this quote is that what was then known as "underwear" was made from a piece without buttons, meaning it would be smaller than its buttoned counterpart More durable and less maintenance.

Why is this an important historical t-shirt? Because not long after this ad ran (about a year), the U.S. Navy, which employed many young bachelors with limited sewing skills, officially incorporated buttonless white undershirts into its uniform. According to the U.S. Navy (1905) Uniform Regulations,

, the full transcript of which can be read here, this cotton undershirt is exactly that - a shirt that must be worn under the sailor's uniform. This is not to say that there are no exceptions, however; regulations dictate that in warm weather sailors may wear light cotton undershirts of "the same style" at the commander's discretion, and eetcar named Desire (1951) Why F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Dictionary It’s everywhere