Happy Birthday to the T-Shirt

 

 

 

The t-shirt turns 100 this year

That’s worth celebrating, as a red-blooded American.  I didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to look it up, I just knew the t-shirt was invented in the U.S. There’s nothing more American than the t-shirt. And we love our t-shirts don’t we?

I did some research and found out that the t-shirt was first used by the U.S. Navy, 100 years ago this year.  Our little undergarment was first called a t-shirt because of the shape. As you might assume, T-shirts started out as utilitarian, they did a job, they are workers, like us. And we Americans took to these shirts by the thousands, eventually by the millions.

My thoughts about t-shirts and how much they apparently mean to me, had me germinating this piece for a while. Then I saw on Good Morning America recently that the t-shirt was turning 100 and that was my cue. I don’t know why I like t-shirts so much. Maybe it’s my working class upbringing? Possibly I’m immature? Maybe I just have something to say? You think? Apparently a lot of us have things to say. I know that a lot of my friends, in talking about tee shirts over the years, have the same affinity.

There’s a part of me, as I am getting dressed that feels like, I really should grow up. I have this feeling that, as a 50 year old father of 3, it might be time to move beyond the t-shirt as a major component of my wardrobe. Maybe I should at least move on to golf shirts? They seem a little more grown up anyway.

According to “A History of the T-Shirt” on T-Shirt Spotlight, an industry website, our beloved t-shirt, after starting off as an ensign in the Navy, was coopted by other branches of the armed forces. It didn’t take long for the working man like: dockworkers, farmers, construction workers and the like to see the benefits of the comfortable and reasonably priced t-shirt in the early decades of the 20^th century.

By the 1930’s, USC football managers saw the tee as a tool to prevent chafing under football equipment. Of course if guys on the football team were wearing these shirts, they garnered a little cache. T-shirts became a prized possession on campus.  I would imagine girlfriends were the first to don the shirts, then other students started pilfering them. The t-shirt became cool. Apparently, to prevent the widespread theft that was going on, the school printed Property of USC Football on the shirts. As you might figure, that only encouraged more theft.

According to multiple sources, it was Brando’s 1947 appearance in “A Streetcar Named Desire” that caused an upswing in t-shirt sales.  Brando, in a thin t-shirt that barely hid his animal magnetism (I’m quoting here) drove women crazy. This in turn drove men to go out and buy t-shirts to be like Brando. Isn’t that the picture of the 50’s? Greased back hair, leather jacket and white t-shirt underneath? Who can forget James Dean, cool in a tee under his jacket in Rebel Without a Cause? The tee shirt, maybe with a rolled up pack of stogies in the sleeve, meant toughness, coolness, one of the defining images of the 50’s.  Some time during that decade, Walt Disney had the idea to put Mickey Mouse on a t-shirt and a HUGE industry, the vacation t-shirt, was born. In the 60’s, the t-shirt takes off as a means of self-expression, t-shirts with yellow smiley faces, groovy tie-dye t-shirts with sayings for protest make an appearance in head shops from Greenwich Village to Haight-Ashbury.

 

 

We Americans took this work shirt, something that is designed to do a task and morphed it into a vehicle for self-expression. Your t-shirt says something about you, Christ it says something FOR you. Your shirt can tell us about where you went to high school or college, or at least visited. We can learn, as we pass you on the street, where you like to vacation. In a split second encounter I will know what kind of music you listen to or what teams you root for. During an election year, I can find out what candidate you are supporting. Based on the shirts you wear, I can see what industry you work in or the company you work for. Often times I can find out about your hobbies. Maybe you like to run? Or ride a bike? You can show me that you are quirky, funny, odd, angry, cynical….Maybe you will share with me your personal mantra, on a t-shirt?

 

 

Maybe you’re like me but I love this stuff. I read people’s shirts, I assume they took the time to choose that shirt because they wanted a response. T-shirts keep us human, they are a conversation starter, an introduction, an attempt to connect. I love making conversation with strangers, “So you’re a Cardinals fan? How did that happen?”  “Did you go to Stanford?” “Elvis Costello, gotta love Elvis, he’s in my top 5.”  “I’ve never been to Yosemite but it’s on my list of places to go.”  “I love NY too!” I know that often times, some thought goes into the shirts that I wear, so I’m assuming others do the same. Sometimes we just grab what’s on top but it’s always fun to ask.

 

 

I was so happy to hear that other guys my age care about their t-shirt collections. I have friends whose wives complain about their husband's attachments to their t-shirts. A lot of us have our own t-shirt idiosyncrasies: patterns for folding, methods of storage, sequences for wearing our t-shirts. Initially, when a shirt is new, it will be in the “dressy t-shirt” category. I know that’s an oxymoron but guys know what I’m talking about. When a shirt is brand new, if it’s not too loud and doesn’t have something obnoxious printed on it, you can wear it out for a decent meal. Not to a nice restaurant but out for burgers or pizza. Once the shirt gets a little older it moves into the sports category, for working out, hoops, bike rides, running and stuff. After doing yeoman’s work, t-shirts get beat up, usually the collar is the first to go, and then it winds up in the yard-work category which is the last stop before the rag pile. That’s a really tough decision to make, to actually euthanize a shirt. The shirt has done so much work for us, 10-12 years depending on the quality and frequency of wear; so you can’t just throw it away. How can you toss it under the sink, waiting to be used to clean up dog puke or wipe grease off your handlebars? That does not seem fair. There are memories connected to these tees. I do buy them on vacation, at say Lake Placid or Montauk and then every time I put the shirt on, those memories come flooding back. I think of boogie boarding with my boys, or hiking in the Adirondacks. There is an inherent sadness with each retired t-shirt as we are confronting our own mortality.

 

Some shirts I hardly ever wear. We won some intramural championships at SUNY Buffalo, the pinnacle of athletic achievement I know, and I prized those t-shirts, wore them sparingly until they “shrunk” somehow since I was in college. I’m sure they are still around somewhere, deep in the recesses of a closet. My 9/11 memorial t-shirts are now in this sacrosanct category as well, for other reasons. They are too frayed to wear in public but I can’t just throw away a Captain Vinny Brunton memorial t-shirt. That would be sacrilege. Those guys deserve better. Maybe there should be a ceremony for burning tees like that? Kind of like the U.S. flag.

 

 

 

Every once in a while I will remember a shirt I have lost, Hey, whatever happened to that….Maybe I left it at the gym on the change-over? Lost at the beach? Laundry catastrophe? Sometimes they get stolen. Kind of cool to think that a girlfriend would keep a t-shirt just to be close to you but what happens when you break up? They don’t still wear the shirt do they? Do they burn it? Throw it out? Use it as a rag?

 

I have tee shirt envy sometimes. Knowing when I see a shirt that I might never be able to find it. One of my buddies has a Life is Good shirt that has a picture of a stack of books and it says, “Read ‘em and Reap.” I love that, but no amount of searching on the internet helped me to find it.
In closing, besides the ones we've already seen, let’s take a look at some of the more notable t-shirts we’ve seen throughout the past decades:

 

 

 

 

 

In reading up on the history of the t-shirt and contemplating this for a while, I have decided that No, I don’t have to grow up. Like a lot of guys my age, I am going to continue to celebrate the t-shirt. And I am sure you will too.