|
HBC has begun to develop information on the companies manufacturing and marketing underwear. Here the situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that companies had a variety of brands and major retailers like Sears have marketed house or store brands. Several companies have specialized in underwear. We have included support garments like stocking supporters and under waists in the underwear category. Many countries have companies that have focused on underwear, both in their own country and foreign markets. Much of our infornation at this time comes from the United States. The principal companies in America are today Haines and Fruit of the Loom. Haines has been given considerable visibility as a result of television ads featuring basketball star Michael Jordan. There have been several other American companies we have noted in the early 20th century. We have less information on the 19th century. The advertisement here is from the Minnesota Kniting Company (figure 1). We do not yet have detailed information on foreign companies.
This is not a compasny that we know anything about at this time. We do note a 1923 magazine advertisement. The company's brand name was Forest Mills Underwear and Gordon Hosiery. There were offices in New York and Boston.
BVD is a major brand of underwear in the United States. We have only limited historical information on the company at this time. The B.V.D. brand of underwear became so famous in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s that "BVDs" after a time became the standard word for any one-piece summer underwear in the same way that "Frigidaire" became synomymous with any refrigerator or "Hoover" with any vaccum cleaner. An early BVD ad appeared in The Youth's Companion (1922).
Carters was an important American manufacrurwe of unbderwear. We have only limited information on the company. We notice ads for boy's briefs in the 1940s. Here we see a Carter's ad for briefs in 1948 (figure 1). We are not sure when the company began making underwear. Carter's is still an active company, but we think of it as mopre of a company making infantwear. We notice a lot of advertisements for Carter's infant and toddler clothes. We still notice advertisements for Carter's underwear. We note Penney's handles Carter's underwear, but it appears to be toddler and chikldren's underwear.
The manufacturer of the brand "Porosknit" underwear is Chalmers. We note their ads in the mid 1910s. An example is a Literary Digest ad in 1917. The company made shirts and knee-length drawers. We do not yet have much information on this company. The firm is the Chalmers Knitting Co. of Amsterdam, New York. They also made "Spring Needle Ribbed Underwear for Winter. All of the available information is from the 1910s. The full page ads that we have noted suggest that Chalmers was a substantial company.
A British reder writes, "The Yorkshire firm that made the underwear my grandmother bought us was called "Cherub" - or that may have been a brand name - again I don't recall that in London - why it stuck out.
Here we have some questions. We note references to Daisy waists and suspender stocking supporters. Presumably Daisy was a brand name. We note references in the 1890s, although the the company may have operated ealier. We do not, however, have any information about the company that manufactured them. The Daisy brand continues to be used through the 1930s.
Docker's is an American manufacturing producing a wide range of men's clothing. Underwear is part of their product line.
An advertisement for E-Z Waist Suits in Parents' Magazine [October, 1930, p. 72.] Note that the girl's suit is sleeveless
while the boy's suit has short sleeves. I believe, however, that both styles are for either boys or girls. These suits appear to have no reinforcement straps and are therefore, strictly speaking, untaped union suits rather than waist union suits. See the Hanes advertisement in the Parents' Magazine group, which gives options for both waist union suits with strap reinforcements and untaped union suits. We notice EZ Mills ads into the 1950s.
The Ferris Brothers Co. made corsets, corset waists, and other waists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. Their main headquarters was in New York City but they also had a branch in San Francisco. We know nothing about the actual brothers at this time.
The company were noted for introducing a brand of children's and women's waists
calle Ferris Good Sense Waists which became a brand name. These waists were considered healthier and more progressive than the traditional waists for girls and young women because they did not cinch in the waistline too tightly and, for the most part, they abandoned the custom of using whale bone or steel stays that actually did harm to developing bodies. The models for girls and women show some indentation but it was much less radical than what people had been used to. A woman called Emma Thompson is said to have invented a model of corset waist which
the Ferris Brothers adopted, manufactured, and advertised. The fact that bone
and steel stays were avoided, which boys would never have worn, made it possible for the Ferris Good Sense Waist to be designed in a model specifically for boys. This waist had short elastic straps with buttonholes for the attachment of button-on knee pants plus the customary tabs at the sides for supporters so that long stockings could be worn. The company advertised heavily in period magazines.
George A. Frost for whom the company was named was born in 1857 in
Massachusetts to parents, George and Almira Frost, who came
respectively from Connecticut and Maine. The family lived in Newton,
Mass. by 1870. By 1880 the family lived 310 Highland Street, Newton,
and George, the oldest son, was working for his father's business that
specialized in "ladies furnishings." George's father was a dry goods
merchant. Records indicate that the family business was called the
George Frost and Company, founded by the elder George Frost, and taken
over by his son, George the younger, at some point in the late 1880s.
The firm was located on Devonshire Street in downtown Boston, although
the store was damaged by fire in 1876 and it is not clear whether the
location changed after the fire. Two of its most famous products were
the "Boston Garter," a supporter for men and for older boys'
calf-length socks, and pin-on supporters for children's and women's
long stockings. Velvet Grip hose supporters were made by the George Frost Company which was located in Boston. We do note a Velvet Grip advertisement in 1911.
The principal companies in America are today Haines and Fruit of the Loom. We have few details on the company's history. They apparently was founded before the Civil War about 1850. I'm not sure what the original name of the companby was. Fruit of the Loom's principal activities are to design, manufacture and distribute men's and boys' underwear, activewear for the screenprint T-shirt and fleece market, women's and girls' underwear, casualwear, women's jeanswear and childrenswear and licensed sports apparel. The Group's products are generally sold to major discount chains, mass merchandisers and large wholesalers. The Group operates in the United States, Western Europe and Central America. The brand is ione of the most adveryized underwear companies. The company's outerwear products were marketed under the "Pro Player" brand. Fruit of the Loom introduced Underoos (1978). Until the 1990s, much of the manufacturing was done in the United States. The company was based in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and several of the factories were in that state. The company was unable to compete with competitors who marketed cheaper imported products, The comany was fiorced into barkruptsy (2000). The company was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, guided by by famed investor Warren Buffett, who saw value in the Fruit of the Loom brand. The company also controls another notable American underwear brand, B.V.D. (Bradley, Voorhies, and Day).
We know little about the H & W company at this time. It appears to have been a corset maker active at the turn of the 20th century. We have noted an ad for corsets date 1906. We have noted other ads which inclluded children's underwaists and stocking supporters that look to be from the 1890s. We do not notice any ads for the company by the 1910s when children's underwaists were very commonly advertised.
The P.H. Hanes Knitting Company was one of the principal makers of men and boys' union suits. The Hanes Knitting Company was located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but the Hanes brand was widely advertised all over America and sold in most local shops and department stores. We are unsure when the company was founded, but we note magazine adverts in the 1920s. One of the first is a 1922 ad in Good Housekeeping. We note more ads in the 1930s. The principal underwear companies in America by the late 20th century were Haines and Fruit of the Loom. Hanes has been given considerable visibility as a result of television ads featuring basketball star Michael Jordan.
The Kazoo Suspender Waist was made by the Harris Suspender Co., New York. The purpose of a suspender waist was to hold up long stockings. We are unsure where the idea for the Kazoo brand name came from. A kazoo is a type child's mouth organ, but were are not sure if it came before or after the Kazoo suspender waist brand. An example is a Kazoo suspender waist 1916 advertisement. The corporate history of the Harris Suspender Co. is complicated. It was founded as the Wire Buckle Suspender Co. consisting of William Silverman, Charles R. Harris, Joseph E. Austrian, and William Freeman in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. in the 1890s. Harris was also involved in the Cygnet Cycle Co. manufacturing bicycles in Williamsport around the same time.
In 1897 the suspender manufacturing company moved to New York as the Harris Suspender Co. manufacturing suspenders, braces and
garters at 142 W. 14th St. Interestingly, although Harris lent his name to the enterprise, principals included Joseph E. Austrian and
William Freeman but not Harris himself. Harris Suspender stayed for a protracted time on 14th St. (until around 1912). During this time the officers consisted of William Freeman, Edwin M. Silvermann, and Harry W. Silvermann (Joseph E. Austrian seems to have dropped out early on) until 1910. As of Feb. 5, 1910 this partnership was dissolved, and the two Silvermanns took control of the company. The company relocated to 694 Broadway (1912) and then 1230 Broadway (1921). Then in 1924 they seem to have closed down, only to re-surface in 1936 at 368 W. 148th St. In fact, there may be no connection between the Harris Suspender Co. of 1936 with the earlier firm that moved from Williamsport. They may have been totally unrelated enterprises, sharing the same name. This new version of the company moved to 50 W. 29th St. in 1938 and stayed until 1942. Like the earlier version, they then moved to two Broadway locations, with remarkably similiar addresses: 644 Broadway (1942) and 1239 Broadway (1946). This second version of Harris Suspender went out of business around 1948.
One of the best known brands of underwear in the United States is Jockey. Jockey International continues to be a privately held company, headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The company employs over 5,000 people around the world. Jockey International, Inc. was founded in 1876 by Samuel T. Cooper, a retired minister who wanted to help lumberjacks suffering from blisters and infections caused by their shoddy wool socks. Consumers learned they could trust him, and his tiny hosiery business grew and then expanded into underwear. Brief underpants are called jockey shorts. I am not sure if this was because the garment was created by Jockey. Even though the company was created in 1876, we do not note Jockey ads in the early 20th century. We are not sure when the company first introduced the Jockey brand.
HBC has archived quite a few advertisements during the period from 1937 to 1945 for garter waists sold by Sears and Roebuck. Most of these models are labled as "Kern's Dandy," "Kern's Daisy," "Kern's Button-on Sateen Waist," or simply "Kern's Garter Waist" or "Kern's Child's Waist." I have now discovered where the name "Kern's" comes from. This name refers to the Frank Kern Manufacturing Comany of Mattoon, Illinois, which specialized in making boys' and girls' hose supporters. The company goes back to at least 1914 in Mattoon, Illinois. About 1931 the company was bought out by two Neoga business men, Trace Higgins and Harry Hill. Neoga is a nearby town in Illinois. In 1942 the company went into backruptcy, and a Mrs. Oakley of Neoga, who had long been an employee of the company, became the receiver. After the company was sold again, Mrs. Oakley remained the manager of the Frank Kern Manufacturing Co and entered into an arrangement with A. Stein & Co. of Chicago (who made Hickory Garters, a related product) for the Kern Co. to do work on contract for Stein & Co. So Hickory Garters and Kern's Garter Waists are historically related products.
The Minneapolis Kinitting Works after World War I developed new styles of underwar for children. An ad in Parents' Magazine read, "Minneapolis "M" garments are universally accepted as the correct underdressing in juvenile styles. The fashionable French Type (short trunk) garments illustrated above are made for both boys and girls in all popular fabrics." The advertisement appeared in Parents Magazine during September, 1930, p. 45. This Minneapolis Knitting Works advertisement, timed obviously for mothers who were shopping for their school children at the beginning of the school year, advertises principally waists suits. The ad shows a wide range of underwear garments.
Musingwear was an important American manufacturer of underwear. The company was based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was a designer, importer, manufacturer, marketer, and licenser of branded apparel for men, boys, and women. The company was for many years best known for its union suits, an undergarment consisting of an undershirt and underdrawers combined in a single garment. The company is alsobelieved to be the creator of the classic golf shirt. Munsingwear was founded by George D. Munsing, Frank H. Page, and Edward O. Tuttle (1886). The partnership initially manufactured knit underwear for both men and women. The initial name when incorporated was the as Northwestern Knitting Company (1887). The compsny name was changed to Munsingwear Corporation (1919) and Munsingwear, Inc. 1923). We note many comany ads in the 1910s-30s). Munsingwear in 1936 introduced the 'kangeroo pouch' underwear which used a horizontal vent rather than the vertical vent intoduced by Jockey. The company acquired several smaller companies: Rollins Hosiery Mills, Inc. (Des Moines, Iowa) (1945); the Vassar Company (Chicago, Illinois (1951); and the Hollywood Maxwell Company (California) (1958).
The company in consisted of two divisions, one for men and the other for women. The men's division used the Munsingwear name and included the Grand Slam, Slammer USA, Cotton Classics, and Kangaroo lines of sport shirts and underwear. There was also sleepwear, underwear, and "rugged" sportswear marketed under the revived Northwestern Knitting Company name. The women's or intimate apparel division was marketed under the Vassarette Label and included brassieres, girdles, garter belts, camisoles, petticoats, full slips, teddies, tap or French pants, panties, body briefers, robes, gowns, and pajamas.
Munsingwear was acquired in 1996 by Supreme International, a Miami, Florida-based supplier of men's and boys' casual apparel (1996).
We notice the Nazaretyh Waist Company active in the 1920s. We do not know when they were founded and how long they operated. The company had offices in New York City and mills in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. We notice waist suits they offered. We do not know if they offered any other items.
Petit Bateau was a French company producing children clothes. It would be translated "Little Boat". The bottom line of the ad reads, "Cu;lotte 'Petit Bateau' pour bien habiller les enfants." I think that translates as, "Petit Bateau short pants for dressing children well." Petit Bateau "underwear is the most important French Brand . It was a widely recognized brand since the early 1900s. It is very highly regarded and the company's underwear garments served as basic styles copied by other companies and became standard styles. Since 1936 , practically all French children living in cities wore " culotte Petit Bateau ". The Petit Bateau underwear were for both boys and girls even in 1900.
Roots was aa imortant manufacturer of children's underwear in the early 20th century. The company was located in New York. The copy in a Root's ad read, "Root's Underwear is a comfort and a luxury at reasonable price. Made only from the best of the world's materials by the best American skill. No dye-stuffs. It is the perfect underclothing for the health of your children. It is made in different weights and to fit all sizes of people, from babies to
giants. Sold by principal dealers in New York and all large cities. If not by yours, write to Root's Underwear, 1 Greene St., New York."
Sexton Manufacturing Co was a major manufacture of underwear in the United States. The company was locted in Fairfield, Illinois. The Sexton Manufacturing Co. was locted in Fairfield, Illinois. The company was founded by George C. Sexton from St. Louis who took over the Woolen Mills in Fairfield, Illinois, in 1907. The remodled mill made blue shirts and overalls, i.e., men's and boys' work clothes. In 1909 the company was in financial trouble, but was saved from ruin by Mr. Sexton's brother-in-law, H. G. Ferguson. At this point the Sexton Company began making men's athletic underwear. By 1917 the business was booming. In one week during World War I the company produced 150,000 pairs of underwear for the War Department. The Sexton boys' waist suits, advertised in 1921, were a boys' version of men's athletic nainsook union suits widely sold by the Sexton Co.,
but the boys' version featured reinforcement straps, waist buttons for fastening on short trousers, and special tabs for supporters that allowed the garters to be worn either inside or outside the underwear (a feature similar to that of Alheneeds made by Sprague). Almost universally, boys in 1921 needed provision for long stockings. In 1935 Mr. Ferguson sold stock to workers and local people in Fairfield, Illinois. Then the factory went out of business
and most of the investors lost their money. The Sexton company provided employment and company-built housing for many people in Fairfield, Illinois, and was a major factor in the growth of the town. Sexton summer underwear (mostly union suits and waist union suits) was widely worn by men and boys throughout the United States for about 25 years (1910-35). Sexton often advertized in Goodhousekeeping Magazine. A good example is an 1921 advertosement.
Spencer & Co. was a manufacturer of corsets. We do not know much about the company. The appear to have also made back supports for children.
This little boy's summer waist union suit was made by the Frederick H. Sprague Co. and manufactured in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The company's brand is called "Allheneeds". The company also had similar "Allsheneeds" for girls. We note other ads for Allheneeds, suh as a 1915 ad. We also notice a 1917 ad.
This is an American manufacurer of underwear currently opetating. We know nothing about the company at this time.
The Stein Co. made Hickory Garters.
Hickory Garters were widely used by American children to hold up their long stockings. Hickory was a national brand name. They were sold all over the country in various stores and were widely advertised in magazines. They advertized extensively in Parents' Magazine. The fact that they were also sold by Sears doesn't rule them out.
Before A. Stein and his brothers established the firm for making the well-known Paris garters and Hickory hose supporters in Chicago, another Stein brother, Lewis Stein, had already set up the "Lewis Stein Company" in New York City. Lewis Stein was also in the hose supporter business, and an advertisement for his supporters had already appeared in The Youth's Companion (1885).
The H. Symington Company played an important role in the history of corsetry. There seems to be a relationship with the R. & W. Market Harborough company, but I am not sure what it was. The Symington Company manufactured corsets. The company began to make corsets inthe 1850s. Corsets were a very important garment in the 19th century. Their corsets were for fashionable Victorian ladies who wanted a narrow waist. They were also a support garment for holding up stockings. The company was quite successful and even sold overseas. One of its most noticeable proucts was the Liberty Bodice, a product produced for about 70 years. The Liberty Nodice was similar to the waist suits that American children wore. They were designed as support gaments, but some were advertised as being benefical for posture. As corsets began to be worn less in the 20th century. The company turned to swimwear.
We note an interesting illustrated catalogue from Warner Brothers, the largest manufacturer of corsets in America in the 1880s and, according to their claim, the largest in the entire
world. They exported corsets to England, Belgium, Germany, and other countries as well. Their headquarters was at 359 Broadway in New York and 257-259 State Street in Chicago. They also made underwear for men,
women and children featuring "camel's hair" (for warmth obviously). hey were very much into the production of "health underwear" for the entire family. The catalogue seems to be designed for retailers because
they sell their products in dozens and in larger quantitites. The name of the firm seems to be named after a "Dr. Warner" whose credentials as an expert on health seem to have been promoted by the company. Their
factory was located at Bridgeport, Connecticut, and they employed 1,200 workers and produced 7,000 corsets daily. Like several other corset companies, they also made stocking suporters for children.
The proliferation of companies is quite confusing and hard to remember. One of the problems is that the name of the product doesn't always coincide with the manufacturer. Thus the "Wilson corset waist" was manufactured, not by Wilson, but by Warner's. Similar to "Hickory" garters being manufactured by "Stein." This is one reason why HBC has gone into some detail in persuing the corporate history.
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing catalog/magazine pages:
[Return to the Main underwear page]
[Return to the Fashion magazines and store catalogs]
[Main photo/publishing page]
[Fashion magazines]
[Manufacturing]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Glossaries]
[Images]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Sailor suits]
[Sailor hats]
[Buster Brown suits]
[Eton suits]
[Rompers]
[Tunics]
[Smocks]
[Knickers]
[Waist suits]
[Long stockings]
[Underwear]
