MAY CONTAIN NUTS
HOME
 
JUMP TO PAGE   100  >  200  >  300  >  400  >  500  >  600
VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

A Fair to Remember: 1941

A Fair to Remember: 1941

July 1941. "Carnival attractions in Vale, Oregon, on the Fourth of July." Acetate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

 

Pretty Prints

The mother/daughter dresses were likely made from feed bags. In the 1930s - 1950s feed bag companies used fancy printed cloth that farm women could make into clothing for the family.

An unusually spectacular example is here:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1105750

My great grandfather was in management at the Chase Bag Company in Milwaukee. I well remember wearing shirts made of this cloth which my mother's family called "pretty prints."

Like mother, like daughter

I notice that the woman and the little girl on the right are wearing dresses made from the same print material. I suspect that the mother made them, from fabric and patterns bought at the local sewing shop.

Syndicate content  Shorpy.com is a vintage photography site featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago. Contact us | Privacy policy | Site © 2023 Shorpy Inc.