Overalls in Brown County and Beyond
“ You can wash my pair of dirty overalls, I’ ll ride that train they call the cannonball …”
— Woody Guthrie
~ by Mark Blackwell
Frank Hohenberger’ s photo of Felix and Chris Brummett.
I
have always liked old photographs taken back at the turn of the century before this one. The pictures I happened to be perusing lately have been compilations of work by Frank Hohenberger and Otto Ping, both based in Brown County. The pictures they took add to our understanding of the County’ s history. They captured a way of life that has all but disappeared.
While studying these moments in time I was struck by the fashions of those days. In those pictures the men and boys are usually wearing some sort of suit-coat and vest and some nondescript trousers. After about 1915, however, things changed. There were a goodly number of men and boys, sometimes women and girls, wearing overalls. Even my mom wore overalls back in the 1930s and 40s.
There is probably no more practical piece of clothing for folks who work for a living. You never see guys on Wall Street in New York or K Street in Washington D. C. wearing overalls. Out in rural areas, where you might have to mend a fence, fix a leak and / or nail some shingles back in place, you don’ t want to be running back to the barn for tools and supplies. You don’ t have to with overalls— they have pockets.
They have lots of pockets, generally around ten or so not counting the hammer loop.
You got your two patch pockets in the rear and they’ re good for several things. Bandanas for instance— you can put two or three in one back pocket. You can’ t have too many bandanas on a hot day. And I have found that a medium size paperback book fits real good, too.
In the front, you have two regular pockets. They’ re good for pocket knives, key rings, fidget spinners, etc. On the top bib part there is generally a multi-pocket. It is divided up in into pencil holders, a watch pocket, and a covered pocket for your“ Mail Pouch.”
Down on the right leg, just above the knee, there is a pocket for a carpenter’ s rule( I haven’ t seen one of those since Hector was a pup) or you can use it for your cell phone. And there’ s a pocket for a tape measure. Over on the left leg there is a handy hammer loop.
And overalls have built-in suspenders, so they can’ t slip down. They oughta make some for plumbers.
I think that overalls may be the pinnacle of practical fashion design. Built in to that design is comfort. You can’ t get“ skinny” overalls and that’ s a good thing on many levels. They are roomy so they are cool( er) in the summer and you can wear stuff under them to keep warm( er) in the winter.
Overalls have always been a bargain. You could buy good quality work pants for fifty cents or so in the 1908 Sears and Roebuck wish-book, and you could get your bib overalls for just a nickel more. In the 1927 catalog you could pay two or three dollars for a pair of pants, but overalls were a great deal at a dollar fifty-five.
Overalls made one of their many come-backs in fashion back in the late 1960s with the toes-in-the-dirt, tree-huggin’, back-to-the-land variety of Hippies. I still highly recommend them for anybody wanting to build cabins, goat sheds, and hen houses. They work for about every job from roofing on down to digging a cistern.
I recently learned that there are three different colors and style variations depending on your line of work. They make white ones for painters( my maternal grandpa was a union painter). Pin stripes were for the fellers working on the railroad( all the live-long day). But the most common are the blue denim, for farmers and laborers. I never did find out why they make’ em different. I guess, maybe, so
60 Our Brown County July / August 2017