When did people start wearing t-shirts with logos and/or slogans on them, as part of daily wear?
My research [television] would lead me to believe teens were doing it in the 70’s [That 70’s Show] but not in the 50’s [Happy Days].
If this becomes an anecdote thread, feel free to move it, Mods.
The mid to late 60s
I don’t know if this fits your description, which relates only to t-shirts, but it would have been common in the 50s to see young people with clothes bearing their school’s logo (bottom right).
I’ve seen pictures from the '50s and '60s of people wearing t-shirts with logos for auto racing parts and pop icons (i.e., Crower Cams, Rat fink, and the like.)
Silk screened and iron-on t-shirts really took off as a fad in the '70s. I’d guess that it was a Around 1975 or so, it seemed like every mall and neighborhood strip mall had a small shop with hundreds of iron-on decals, iron-on letters and t-shirts in every color, and of course everyone bought a t-shirt when they went to a rock concert.
Back in the '50s, some of the “beatniks” wore sweatshirts, not t-shirts, with the picture and name of a favorite artist, writer or composer, etc. I was barely a teenager, and I had a “Beethoven” sweatshirt which was way cool, man. The t-shirt phenomenon started in the '60s.
Quoting from the introduction to Vintage T-Shirts by Lisa Kidner & Sam Knee:
“The cotton T-shirt was standard issue as an undergarment in the US armed forces. WW2 also provided another preview of the T-shirt as soldiers crudely customised their vest-style tees to identify their station and using any materials they could find - often handmade, cut-out stencils and vehicle spray paint”
link to Uk edition There’s a US edition as well, which I assume has the same text.
