Housedresses

       When I was a little girl, women wore dresses - all the time! The dresses they wore to do housework were called housedresses. They were the same fabric as men's dress-up shirts, usually had a small print design, and they had waistlines, often with little belts that matched the print of the dress. I remember my mother wearing her dresses a little below the knee, but that could vary with fashion or with what she could find for her 6' height. They had to be ironed so they wouldn't be wrinkled. Ladies rarely wore pants, which were called "slacks." If a farm lady helped her husband on the tractor, she might have worn pants, but usually they were their husband's pants. My mother didn't do that, however. First of all, she didn't usually help with the farm work because she taught school, and second, it wouldn't have worked - my mother was much, much taller than my father and his pants wouldn't have fit.

        Most ladies wore regular stockings with their housedress - like pantyhose or tights, but without a panty attached. The stockings were somewhat see-through and skin colored. They were held up with straps called garters. Actually, if you cut pantyhose straight across just below the leg holes (including some of the heavier fabric), and then connect the legs to the top section with a kind of thin, flat bungee cord, you'd get the idea.

        Women wore slips. Slips for dressing "up" might have been made of nylon or rayon with lots of lacy trim. Everyday slips were usually white and were made of cotton, but might have some lace trim at the top. Housedress slips were rather plain. They were worn as a liner for the dresses, and instead of shoulders and sleeves, they just had straps. They covered a lot and were the same length as a dress. A sundress today doesn't cover as much skin as a slip did when I was a little girl.

        My mother and all my friends' mothers did not wear shorts. It would have been considered very improper. Most homes weren't air conditioned, and clothing sometimes made doing housework very uncomfortable. On very hot days, when we were not likely to have company or dad was not likely to have helpers, my mother would just wear her slip without her housedress. Ladies who lived on the farm could do that, but I wonder if women in town ever wore only slips.

        A man from the creamery stopped every other day to pick up cans full of cream skimmed off the cows' milk, and boxes of eggs we gathered from the hen house. My mother would be wearing her housedress because it was fairly early in the morning and still cool. Other times, salesmen would stop in to sell various products, but we would hear the car and mother would run and put on her dress. One very hot afternoon, the Watkins salesman came in a brand new car! It was very quiet. When he knocked on the door, my mother had to run past him in order to get to the other room where her dress was. She was so embarrassed because she considered her slip underwear.

        When she returned to the door (in her dress), she apologized, and the Watkins man said, "I have to report to my wife how many ladies I have seen in their slips, but other than that, it's a pretty ordinary thing."

        As a very little girl, I didn't have to wear dresses, although I often chose to do so. When I went to elementary school, high school, and college, girls were required to wear dresses or skirts and shirts (which we called blouses). A lot has changed.