The "T"

T’s

One of my favorites, and I think a very interesting popular culture example is the T-Shirt. Can you believe this item evolved into what we see today from the 1800’s? Miners would cut apart their union suits (one piece undergarments) and then tuck the top into the waist of the bottoms. This was much more comfortable when they had to be in very hot locations. In the United States, t-shirts gained popularity around the time of the Spanish-American War. Navy men wore the shirts as an undergarment. When they knew their uniform jackets might get dirty, they could remove them and work in their “undershirts.” The name T-shirt was given to this piece of clothing because of its shape.

Finally, in the 1950’s, additions starting appearing on the front of the shirts. The country, and the rest of the world, went wild over the next 60 years. The t-shirt became an early basic form of MySpace or Facebook – it told everyone around us what was on our minds or important for them to know. During the movie Forest Gump, we even got to see how a very popular design first came to be – the Happy Face!

Over the years, some of the other popular items that have shown up on t-shirts are:

· Peace sign

· Favorite sports teams

· Rock/Pop music stars

· Favorite automotive brand

· Political preference or who really ticks you off

· Phrases sure to shock (example- Everything I Know I Learned In Prison)

· Vacation spots

· The best of them all – tie-dye

What started out as an undergarment has now become more of a personal bulletin board.

AS LONG AS WE CAN WEAR T-SHIRTS, OUR OPINIONS WILL BE “HEARD”

T-shirt. (2009). Retrieved December 1, 2009, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shirt