Clothes are the least of it. I also notice in those pictures that most women curled their hair. I suppose they used curlers or a heating iron, and pins. That must have taken 30 minutes every damn day.
OTOH, they didn’t need to exercize and they didn’t use make-up.
I once asked my grandmother about the clothes of the era. This is her, on the right, with three friends at the beach, back in the early thirties. (link leads to Snapfish, you may need an account to see the pics).
Anyway, my grandmother said that the clothes of the era were heavy, tight (no elastic waists!) and uncomfortable.
When I was a kid in the '50s, I used to go downtown with my mother (there were no department stores in the 'burbs). For a trip downtown, she got all dressed up, including heels, a hat (sometimes with a veil) and gloves. And a little extra makeup. She would never have worn the same clothes she wore at home. Same for flying; traveling was a special occasion, and people dressed up for it.
My mother could put in a full set of curlers in under ten minutes. While the rollers were in, she’d carry on with all the housework. It actually takes her longer with modern curling tongs and hair product, but it’s less painful since the curlers needed to be very very tight (think pulling your scalp into peaks) to get the right effect.
If for some reason you left your bath late, you’d sleep with your curlers in. I tried it once, but never ever again.
My aunt once burnt half her hair off with curling irons that had been left in the coal fire just a bit too long.
The pair of them sometimes speak fondly of their youth, where you just weren’t fit to leave the house without your white gloves and dress coat. That was the fifties /early sixties.
People still wear nice clothes, but just not all the time. Also, it seems like our definition of “nice” has changed. You can be casual but still dress well. Jeans and a tank top with the right accessories and such can look just as good now as someone all dolled up now.
As for all the effort with hair, it seems like a lot of women put all that effort into the exact opposite–which is to say, straightening their hair.
Another thing…back then, photography was a relatively expensive undertaking for the working class. When you had you picture made, you dressed up for it (speaking for photos other than news photos). That’s likely why most of the surviving family pictures most of us have, people are somewhat dressed up.
That’s just an effect of the photographic process. As film ages, people appear whiter. For example, check out this photo of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
And here’s one from the early career of Sidney Poitier. See what I mean? Eerie isn’t it.
Any hoo… some might find the photo archive of Charles “Teenie” Harrisworth a look. Harris was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier for 40 years, and his work comprises an extraordinary record of that city’s history pre- and post- segregation, particularly that of the Hill District. As the photos illustrate, both white and black folks took care to dress up for social events; but even then, blue-collar people were more likely to dress comfortably.
I well remember travelling with my parents when I was young, in the early 60s. We crossed Canada a lot in those days, since our family was pretty stretched out. Anyway, we have plenty of photos showing my mother, my father, and me in various airports and train stations–and in each one, we’re all dressed up (even me): suits and ties for Dad and me, a nice women’s suit or dress, and heels and a hat for Mom. Travelling was a special occasion and you dressed up for it–anybody who wasn’t dressed like that could still get on the plane or train, I guess, but they sure would have looked out of place.
I haven’t noticed it much lately (I don’t go downtown often these days) but in the 80s I used to enjoy the little old ladies in Victoria who went out and about. They made sure their shoes, gloves and hats matched. Another era, indeed.
I’m always a little amazed reading memoirs or biographies of cartoonists, illustrators and other commercial artists from the early part of the 20th century. Pictures of them hard at work in a home studio, dressed in a shirt and tie.
These days, the common concept of people who work from home involves a bathrobe at 4:30 in the afternoon…
Of course, there’s also the classic images of baseball games from the era, when the entire crowd is wearing wool two-piece and three-piece suits, even during the heat of summer. After all, it was better to look sharp than to feel sharp!
I don’t think everybody wore suits everywhere in the era, though. I’ve seen photos from the 1930s and 1940s that show people doing everyday errands wearing more casual clothing. Of course, it was mandatory during the era to talk through your nose, in a clipped newsreel inflection.
All silliness aside, are you familiar with the work of James Van Der Zee or other African-American photographers of the era?
Black men and women from that era also dressed up quite a bit in their daily lives. My family was definitely working class. I was brought up in the household of my grandparents, a sanitation worker and cleaning lady, and I can tell you that when they weren’t in their work attire they most definitely dressed up whenever they went out. Suits and hats; dresses and heels (or at least dressy shoes–my grandmother had foot troubles).
here’s a GQ about that: were the crowds at baseball games back then (pre 1930’s) mostly from the upper classes? Did people dress so nicely because it was important not to look like the lower-class rabble who did the dirty work?.
Society was much more class-conscious back then, with much less social mobility.
How much did a ticket cost, relative to a factory worker’s wages?
