Found Online, October 2018

Cover of Delineator magazine, June, 1914. The illustrator is Neysa McMein.

First, a new site for reading vintage magazines; next, a 1969 comic book about sewing classes for girls.

The Hathi Trust (working with Google) has been digitizing and posting vintage magazines, including Delineator, as soon as they fall out of copyright in the U.S.  The Hathi Trust is up to 1922 now. That’s the good news.

You can flip through the magazines (select the two page layout from the icons at the far right) until something catches your eye. You can download pages or more as Pdfs. Some pages are in color.

Niggling details: The quality of the scans is very variable, sometimes overexposed, sometimes with blurry text.

We can’t expect perfection on every page — I feel lucky the pages are there at all.

Bound copies of Delineator. The larger one is from 1920; the smaller format is from 1922. These are the bound magazines in my public library which I use for research.

Before 1921-22, Delineator was a large format magazine, 16 inches high, often with tiny, serif fonts that are hard to read even when I’m holding the original magazine in my hands, and even harder to photograph because the font is thin and low contrast.

I took this full page photo at a very high resolution from the March 1910 Delineator at my public library.This photo gives a fair idea of how hard to read the original is.

If you look at the same page on the Hathi Trust, at least you can magnify it greatly.

I sympathize with how challenging it is to get these resources online at all.

The Hathi Trust digitizes materials from the libraries of member universities. They are bound volumes, usually containing January through June or July through December, so they are cataloged as one book rather than six issues. You may need a little patience to find what you want, although the text of each volume is searchable, which is very convenient. In 1910, Delineator numbered all the pages in a volume sequentially, so that January began with page numbers in the single digits and June reached the 400s. That’s not hard to navigate.

By 1914, (I don’t have the intervening years yet) each issue began with page 1 — which means you have to search for February, March, April, etc., and the “go to page” function only works within one issue at a time — not the whole volume. Tip: just to the right of the “GO” button is an icon for “sections” of the volume. You can figure out when a new “section” begins — i.e., a new month.

Getting the right exposure for an entire page with images and text isn’t easy. Image from Hathi Trust and Google.

Two images of the same cape from Delineator, April 1920, from Hathi Trust and Google. I printed them, scanned them, and adjusted them.

I have successfully downloaded images from the Hathi trust site, printed them, scanned them and used them in this blog — and I now can search for patterns by number (the same pattern often appears more than once, illustrated in different views.) I used this search function for the capes I wrote about recently. I had only photographed the alternate view of cape 2319; I found the other views on Hathi Trust.

[EDIT 2/5/19: One shouldn’t look a gift online magazine source in the mouth, but I am finding that the color fashion pages have often been excised from the Delineator issues Google photographed,  sometimes without anyone noticing that the pages are missing. Exactly the same problem occurred years ago when many libraries replaced their bound periodicals with microfilm: the companies that photographed (and destroyed) the originals they worked from decided to describe a magazine with 90% of its original content to be “complete.” And librarians bought it — microfilms — and discarded magazines that could have supplied the missing content.  At least Hathi does sometimes photograph journals from more than one source. Nevertheless, I’m now prioritizing color pages from Delineator when I take photos for my own use.]

“How To” Lessons in Delineator:

Just in: Delineator ran a series of articles on dressmaking and millinery making. For example, in 1910, Delineator Vol. 75, page 241 (and following pages) illustrates and describes the steps for making a Spring hat — from the wire frame to the finished hat. Click here. (There are more milinery lessons in 1910.) A search of 1909 (Vol. 74) will turn up more hat-making instructions. Other issues simply describe the newest hats and show photographs of them…. Like these gravity defying hats from 1905, Vol. 66.

To find more, search for Delineator and the year (e.g. “Delineator 1907”;) then narrow the list by selecting “Journals” from the column at left.

I have been so absorbed in Delineator that I’ve just begun to see what other magazines are available.  Godey’s Lady Magazine for 1832 is there. Frank Leslie’s Ladies’ Magazine is there. Who knows what wonders you may find at Hathi Trust? I’ve added it to my sidebar list of Sites with Great Information,

Today’s second find is from a British site, The House of Mirelle, in Hull, England. It shares a glimpse of a comic book series aimed at teenaged girls in the sixties.

Bunty image from House of Mirelle article; image copyright D.C.Thompson. Please do not copy.

The 1969 Bunty Annual about Sewing Classes for Girls post will be nostalgic for some of us.

“The House of Mirelle was a high end fashion house that existed in the UK city of Hull between 1938 and 1978.” The website archives materials from these glory days of a thriving Hull city center.

Perfectionist sewing teachers probably caused a lot of tears over the years. San Francisco artist Dolores R. Gray has done a series of works using old sewing patterns and mannequins in remarkable ways. She told me there were uncut threads dangling from this one because, when she finished a dress she was really proud of, the only thing her teacher noticed was one uncut thread.

How perfect that the Bunty story was about a girl who really wanted to be an artist!

German Spies Pictured in Fashion Magazine, 1918

Images from an article in Butterick’s Delineator magazine, July 1918.

In high school, history was my least favorite subject. Now that I am older, I wish we had been encouraged to study history in a different way; I have always been interested in people and their daily lives. The faces of these women  intrigued me. [Caution: I may be guilty of doing superficial research — TLDR–while trying to find out more about these “Huns,” “spies, and “traitors.”]

My point is that more research might be rewarding, that starting with a face and a name might be a way into the past for people who think history is boring,  and that “women’s magazines” or “fashion magazines” should not be disdained by historians.

Historians may find more than they expect in “women’s magazines.” Especially in wartime,  Ladies’ Home Companion, Delineator, McCalls’ Magazine and several other “fashion” periodicals presented a ready platform for communicating with women across the country. During World War I,  Ladies’ Home Journal and McCall’s Magazine had over a million subscribers each. [Magazines in the Twentieth Century.]

“Huns, Here, There, and Everywhere,” a page from Butterick’s Delineator magazine, July 1918. Detail: top of page. “These are in jail, but other spies and traitors are at work for the Kaiser … WATCH FOR THEM.” Calling the enemy by a pejorative nickname (e.g., “Huns”) is a propaganda device, which made me want to learn more about these people.

When I leaf through a women’s magazine from 1925, or 1917, such as Ladies’ Home Journal, or Butterick’s Delineator, I find more than fashion — I get a little social insight into the era. The editors wanted to sell magazines, so the articles that surrounded the patterns for sale had to be of interest to readers, too. Often they are short stories, or serialized novels. But the magazines are not always about creating a fantasy world. “Real world” topics impinge.

How much money does a young married couple need, and how should they budget it? (1920’s)  What are the jobs open to a college girl? How much will they pay? Can she live on $18 a week? (1930’s) Why does one out of seven babies born in America die? (1917 Delineator series) Should doctors administer anesthetics to a woman in childbirth? (Delineator, September 1934.)

In wartime, women’s magazines cooperated with the federal government in spreading information.

How can you feed your family and understand wartime food restrictions?

Explaining wartime food restrictions, from Ladies’ Home Journal, August 1917, p. 16.

Herbert Hoover’s Food Administration answers women’s questions. Ladies’ Home Journal, September 1917. So many articles appeared in more than one magazine source that I stopped photographing duplicates.

What garments can you sew for the Red Cross?

Official Red Cross garments to be made by volunteers. A surgical gown, and two kinds of pajamas — one of which can be easily opened while treating wounded men. Delineator, November 1917, p. 77.

From an article on sewing for the Red Cross, Delineator, September 1917, p. 77.

In December, the same information appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal, illustrated with photos instead of line drawings.

Hospital garments to sew for the Red Cross, Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1917., p. 25.

What can you expect when your son goes off to war?

From an article in Ladies’ Home Journal, August 1917. “If he is the right kind of a boy… Nothing will happen to him.” — If he is “the right kind of a boy?” This is heartbreaking — and it is morale-building propaganda.

In this case, the topic was watching out for German Spies. (July 1918)

Top of “Spies and Lies” article, Delineator, July 1918, page 38.  The women are oblivious of the eavesdropper.

More of “Spies and Lies, Delineator, July 1918, p. 38. In World War II, the equivalent message was “loose lips sink ships.” But readers should also “Report the man who spreads pessimistic stories [or] … cries for peace.” I regret that I didn’t photograph the last few lines of the “Spies and Lies” article from this fashion magazine.

Huns, Spies and Traitors, 1918

A gallery of German “spies” — or is it? Delineator, July 1918.

This set of “mug shots” has been on my mind recently, especially since the San Francisco Chronicle published two 100th anniversary articles about the prosecutions following the “Preparedness Day Parade” bombing that occurred in San Francisco on July 23, 1916.  One 2016 article, by Carl Nolte, had the title “Bombing Centennial: Blast in July 1916 killed 10, left 2 innocent men in jail for decades.”

“Juries convicted two labor union organizers, Tom Mooney, 33, and Warren Billings, 22, … although, as it turned out, the convictions were based on perjured testimony and doctored evidence. The real bombers were never caught.

“Investigations later showed that Mooney and Billings had been framed by San Francisco District Attorney Charles Fickert, who was acting on behalf of the city’s business establishment, anxious to strike a blow at labor unions and what they saw as dangerous leftists and anarchists. “

Thanks to a crusading newspaper man  — editor Fremont Older — Mooney and Billings were finally freed — in 1939.

” ‘ It is impossible to know what really happened that day in 1916,” said Chris Carlsson, a local historian. ‘But for sure, it was not Mooney and Billings who planted that bomb.” — Carl Nolte, SF Chronicle, July 17, 2016.

If you want to read Nolte’s entire article, (the online version has a different title,)  click here. (And who doesn’t want to read about a newspaper man who lost his job — and got another– because of his investigation, but never stopped trying to free two innocent men?)

After reading about this incident,  I remembered Delineator’s gallery of convicted German spies, and I wondered about them –especially these two women. (It’s important to remember that activities which are lawful in times of peace — like organizing a strike, or opposing the draft — may be illegal in times of war. It can happen very quickly.)

Who Were These People?

They were all convicted. They were not all “Huns” or German agents.

Left, Missouri’s Kate Richards O’Hare, convicted of espionage and sentenced to five years. Right, California’s Mrs. Margaret Cornell, convicted of conspiracy. Images from Delineator July 1917.

In 1916,  Kate Richards O’Hare was the Socialist Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Missouri. She opposed America’s entry into the war.  O’Hare was arrested in July, 1917 because she gave a speech “deemed to be anti-war.”  (By this time, the U.S. was officially at war with Germany.) When sentenced to five years in prison, she said, “[if] it is necessary for me to become a convict among criminals in order that I may serve my country there, then I am perfectly willing to perform my service there.” She was guilty of “espionage”  because she violated the Espionage Act of 1917. She later devoted many years to prison reform; according to Britannica.com, “in 1924–26 she conducted a national survey of the contract-labour practice of prisons.” [A topic still of interest today.] A great deal has been written by and about her.

But Cornell is another story. Mrs. Margaret Cornell of San Francisco might be a rewarding subject for more research.  Was she a low-level office worker trying to keep her job at the German Consulate, or a willing participant in her boss’ plot to disrupt British shipping?  She was the only woman was among many workers at the German Consulate in San Francisco convicted in the Indo-German-Irish plot: “Just a few months into World War I, an Indo-German-Irish plot was established to ship American weapons to India for a revolt against the Raj with the intention of reducing Britain’s ability to wage war on Germany and Irish nationalism. ” See British Intelligence Station in San Francisco during the First World War.  (Yes, in the neutral U.S.A., spies of many nations were at work.)

Cornell received a relatively light prison sentence, and no fine. I found the record of her admission to San Quentin Prison, on Feb. 8, 1917, through Ancestry.com. Although newspapers sometimes refer to her as Margaret W. Cornell, there she is listed as Margaret E. Cornell; Cornell is presumably her husband’s name. Her occupation is “office clerk,” her age is 52, and her birthplace is Ireland. She was convicted of espionage (Sections 37 and 13 of the U.S. criminal code) because she passed coded messages between her boss (the German Consul-General) and Charles Crowley, another member of the “Hindu Conspiracy,” as the press called it. Was she a dupe? Was she suspected of having anti-British, Irish Republican sympathies? (The Easter Rising of 1916 was a rebellion against British rule in Ireland.) At one point in the trial, she said, “I am now a woman without a country.” She is mentioned — and quoted — in newspaper accounts of the trial;  in 1917, San Francisco had several competing major newspapers, so there is plenty of material for a student of history to explore. Cornell claimed to have TB, and feared that she would die in jail. What happened to her?

Here are brief descriptions of some of the other “huns” and traitors who were pictured.

Left, Louise Olivereau of Seattle, Washington,  and Carl Schmidt of Detroit, Delineator, 1918.

Louise Olivereau worked as a stenographer for the Industrial Workers of the World (a labor organization popularly known as the Wobblies) — but she was also an anarchist, and she distributed anti-war circulars which she had printed at her own expense, for which she was convicted under the Espionage Act of June 1917.

Left, German “Baron” Wilhelm von Brinken of San Francisco, and Gustave H. Jacobsen of Chicago.

If Wilhelm von Brinken (who looks as if he usually wore a monocle) seems familiar, it is because he became an American citizen in 1920 and had a long career playing Germans in 92 Hollywood war films (WW I and WW II.)

Von Brinken was indicted along with his boss,  Franz Bopp, the German Consul-General in San Francisco, Baron E.H. von Schack (the Vice-Consul)  and Charles C. Crowley.    Like Margaret Cornell, Crowley worked for the German Consulate.  [San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 9, 1917.] A well-known detective hired by the German Consul-General, Crowley was accused of trying to plant bombs in Canadian munition ships and elsewhere; Crowley and Bopp communicated — in “coded messages” — that were sent to Cornell. (Did she understand what they were about?)

Left, Baron von Schack; right, Charles C. Crowley. Von Schrack looks jaunty in a straw boater hat. Crowley was a private detective hired by the German Consulate.

Left, Franz Bopp, German Consul-General in San Francisco, who was convicted of violating U.S. neutrality as part of  the “Hindu Conspiracy,” among other charges.  Right, Captain Franz von Rintelen was chief of the German Secret Service in the U.S. during WW I. Delineator, 1917.

Homer C. Spence of Oklahoma (“sedition and anti-draft riots,) and David Lamar of New York (“planned munition delay through strike plots,”) pictured in Delineator, 1917.

David Lamar, who “planned munition delay through strike plots” and German spy-chief Captain Von Rintelen (pictured earlier) were convicted in a munition strike conspiracy.

“Anti-draft rioter” Homer C. Spence of Oklahoma — who looks like he stepped out of the pages of Time-Life’s “The Pioneers” —  was implicated in the “Green Corn Rebellion,” which was subject of a 1937 novel of that name by William Cunningham. The  inter-racial (white, black, and Native American) “Working Class Union” (WCU) of mostly young tenant farmers was involved. (The idea that rural Oklahoma was once a hotbed of Socialism was certainly news to me!)

I knew nothing about this part of American History, and I have not read every word of all the links I cited — some are book-length. (They are there for anyone to pursue.)

But it just goes to show what surprises you find while reading old “women’s magazines.” If you know any history students in search of material, you might want to steer them toward browsing old “fashion” periodicals. What a lot of questions they raise!

Since many of these “Huns” were arrested and tried in San Francisco, I used some news items from the San Francisco Chronicle archives for 1917 and 1918, accessed through my public library.

(For other ways World War I was reflected in women’s magazines, see “Up Like Little Soldiers,”  WW I Fabric Shortages , and “New Clothes from Old.”)

 

Dating Butterick Patterns Site Has Been Updated

Cover of Butterick Fashion News, October 1962. Image courtesy of PatternVault at ETSY.com. Butterick pattern 2452 dated 1962.

My project for dating vintage Butterick patterns using Butterick Fashion News flyers (Click here for an explanation) has some new information, thanks to the input of generous readers. I finally have some pattern numbers for 1962, thanks to Sarah at the Pattern Vault, and I’ve been able to fill in some missing information for other years, too. (Thank you, Monica, at Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.)

Cover of Butterick Fashion News, July 1962. Image courtesy of PatternVault at ETSY.com. Butterick pattern 2343, from 1962.

I’ve been neglecting my search for covers of Butterick Pattern News lately, because the pattern dating at the Commercial Pattern Archive (CoPA) is so comprehensive. However, if you have a vintage Butterick pattern that looks 1920’s through 1970’s and want to date it, my numerical charts  at witness2fashion.com are easy to use. If you go to witness2fashion.com, under Dating Butterick Patterns 1937 -1977 you will find a chart like this one — but larger and easier to read.

Dating Butterick Patterns 1934 -1977 chart from witness2fashion.com.

You can see from this chart that simply by listing the date of a Butterick News Flyer and the number of the pattern on its cover, a numbering sequence can be established. Of course, some patterns remain available for sale in stores for a very long time, but if you’re not sure whether a pattern is late 1930s or early 1940s, for instance, this chart can help.

At witness2fashion.com earlier patterns are listed on another page:  Butterick patterns 1920’s to 1937. Click on those charts to enlarge them.

I’m especially grateful to Sarah, because I still have a few years without any data from Butterick Fashion News covers, and she was able to supply us with numbers from 1962, an important year.  Butterick pattern numbers  reached the high 9900s by November of 1961, so re-numbering was due to begin in 1962. Thanks to Sarah, we now know that the new number sequence (1962) seems to have begun in the two thousands, skipping the one-thousands.

Some years — like 1953 and 1963 — have no information at all from Butterick Fashion News covers — yet. Detail of Chart from witness2fashion.com

For some years — like 1953, 1955, and 1963 — I have not found any BFN covers, but we can deduce that the 6000 series began again in 1952, since No. 5934 was for sale in January 1952. Did numbers in the 1960’s 3000 series begin in 1963 or 1964? It would be nice to fill in that two-year gap from October 1962 (No. 2452) to October 1964 (No. 3288.) If you have a cover from a “blank” year, please send the date and front cover pattern number(s) to witness2fashion at gmail.com. Sarah scanned the covers, enabling me to share them.

In 1973, Butterick reached the end of the 6900s in March and began renumbering in the three thousands in April.

A new numbering cycle began in mid-year, 1973. Cover pattern numbers from Butterick Fashion News.

Starting a new number sequence before reaching 9999 is sometimes triggered by a new logo or pattern envelope format.  Jumps in sequence (renumbering) like this are one reason that a chart is helpful in dating undated patterns. Another potential source of confusion is that the same numbers are reused every few years. (For example, Butterick pattern numbers beginning with five thousand were issued in 1924-25, 1933-34, 1949-52, the late 1960’s – early 1970’s, and again in the late 1970’s!)  I have not systematically collected numbers earlier than 1924 — so far– but a new numbering sequence, ending the 9990’s and starting again in the 1000’s, began around July 1918:

Pattern views from Butterick’s Delineator magazine, July 1918. The end of the 9000’s number sequence is side by side with the new 1000’s sequence.

 

Permanents and Marcels Bridge the Twenties to Thirties

An advertisement for permanent waves, The Delineator, April 1932.

“She raved about her experience in Paris.” Illustration from The Delineator, August 1931.

These women are enduring a hair-raising experience in the hope of looking like this:

Cover illustration, The Delineator, August 1931. A softly waved “Marcel” hairdo with a low bun in back.  The artist is probably Dynevor Evans.

The hairstyle known as a “Marcel” — and the permanent waving process named after its inventor — had been around long before the 1920’s, (click here for more about Monsieur Marcel Grateau’s 1872 innovation) but the combination of changing styles in hats and a switch from the “boyish” ideal to a softer, more feminine appearance as “the twenties” became “the thirties” made the deeply waved “Marcel” especially appealing to women.

Cloche hats could leave your coiffure seriously squashed when the hat was removed.

Gage hats, 1925. Ads from Delineator.

Many women who had bobbed hair in the twenties also had permanents. If they didn’t have perms or naturally curly hair, perspiring in a cloche could ruin a hairstyle. For more about early (and curly) 1920s hair styles, click here.

Permanent Waves, 1920’s

The C. Nestle Company sold electric permanent waving equipment like this to hair salons .

C. Nestle Permanent Hair Waving Machine, illustration from An Illustrated History of Hairstyles, by Marian I. Doyle.

Nestle also sold home permanent machines, which heated just one roller and plugged into an electric light socket, since most homes did not have wall-sockets in every room.

From Nestle Lanoil Home Permanent ad, Delineator, Dec. 1924. “A whole head can be comfortably waved in just a few hours.”

Nestle Home Permanent ad, Delineator, July 1924. Marcelled hair style at top. Early 1920’s bobbed hair on the right.

The satisfied customer on the lower left is only five and a half years old.

“If You Are Going to Have a Permanent.” Article from The Delineator, May, 1932

Many women now in their eighties must remember these machines, because they were still in use in the 1940s. In fact, I was even younger than the little girl in the Nestle ad when my mother took me to a “beauty parlor” to have my hair permanently curled.

Child after a permanent, about 1948.

What I remember is how very heavy the porcelain insulators — like those in this picture — were.

Other Ways to Marcel Your Hair

Ad for the Marcelwaver Company, Delineator, July 1928.

“A Perfect Marcel Wave in 15 Minutes” for only two cents. Ad, July 1928.

“American women can know the secret of the French woman’s always perfectly marcelled hair…. Marcelwaver — as it is now known — can be used by any woman in the privacy of her own home.”

The Marcelwaver seems to be a clamp that crimps waves into your hair, but the ad does not say it is heated by electricity. However, the photo at bottom seems to show a twisted electric cord leading to the appliance.

Marcelwaver in use, 1928.

Very Short Hair in the Mid-1920’s

All the women wear shingled hair at this fashionable dance. Illustration from The Delineator, July 1928. (Typo edited 4/17/15]

Hair worn very short, and “shingled” to taper close to the head in back, was part of the “boyish” look that was adopted even by chic older women in the mid to late 1920’s. (For more about bobbed and shingled hair in the mid-twenties, click here.) It was not bulky, so it “worked” under a cloche hat, leaving small amounts of hair visible on the cheek.

Four Hats for Spring, April 1925. Delineator.

Women who wanted to wear tight-fitting cloche hats in the 1920’s, but did not want to cut off their long hair, could twist it into a chignon worn very low on the neck in back.

From an article on hair styles, The Delineator, May, 1926. The waves on the far right are Marcelled.

Not all Marcelled hair was worn long.

Marcel waved hair styles from a Mulsified Cocoanut Oil Shampoo ad, The Delineator, February, 1929. A longish bob is worn by the model on the left; the two on the right have long hair.

Longer Hair Returns with the 1930’s

As early as September of 1928, The Delineator’s beauty editor, Celia Caroline Cole, was writing about the return of longer hair — and the confusion it was causing.

“The men who create the styles of today and tomorrow give their verdict on the return of long hair.”  Delineator, September, 1928.

“One of the most chic hairdressers in the world told me . . . that the bob is surely passing. Then two blocks down that same broad street, another hairdresser, equally swanky, assured me that  . . . the bob will never go — it is here to stay.”

The first hairdresser reminded her that “Styles are a part of life. And youth catches on to them first.  Youth makes us do what it wants. The young girls now are letting their hair grow — they don’t want to look like women of forty — and soon women of forty will let their hair grow because they don’t want to look like women of forty either. They will do what youth does.”

” ‘Have you seen women of forty with that little knot at the back of their heads?’ I demanded.

” ‘I know,’ he agreed, ‘they look their years, but they will adapt to their needs this new style as they did the bob. And they will dislike the hairpins, but they will let it grow, just the same — not right away, but gradually, like the skirts — you say that you will never give up short skirts, but here they are, an inch or two longer this autumn, still a little longer next spring, and so on. One is helpless before this evolution, this ‘style’ — Youth sees it coming, and catches it, and we follow. The bob is going. “

Celia Cole noted, “The general trend is much more hair about the face, framing it softly.” That is what the waves of the Marcel did for women in the late nineteen twenties and early thirties.

Waved hair softly framing the face. Butterick illustration, April 1931.

However, in 1928, the other “swanky” hairdresser Celia Cole consulted said, ‘The bob going? Not for years and years, maybe never. Women seek more and more freedom — and they will go on seeking it. . . . Oh, no, women like you will not go back to hairpins and something dragging at their heads. Young girls must try out the unknown — they have never had long hair dragging at their heads, hairpins jabbing in, but last spring all my young clients came in and had the hair they had been growing all winter cut off again.”

Cole concludes that “We can do as we like. . . . What is style for you? The thing that exactly suits your type.”

However, by 1931 she was writing about “The Return of the Long Lost Locks — Hair styles have completely changed.”

Longer hair returns, August 1931 article from The Delineator. The model is actress Tallulah Bankhead.

By 1931, fashions had changed, and hairstyles with them. Hemlines had plummeted. Young women were wearing “uplift” brassieres that separated the breasts instead of flattening them. The waistline had returned to its natural location.

“Nothing sleek and hard is left in the feminine world today.” “The masculine neckline has vanished as completely as the dinosaur.” “Weary of realism and boyish, frankly displayed bodies, we’re going to play at romanticism.” — Celia Caroline Cole, The Delineator, August 1931.

“There was a moment, in this evolution of hair out of restrained boyishness into feminine curls, when the fashionists and coiffeurists came to blows. ‘We’ll keep the bob!’ the coiffeurists cried…. ‘Let it grow!’ the fashionists shouted back, their minds on ruffles and bows and little tip-tilted hats.”

Tilted hats from Sears Catalog, Spring 1933. Both young and older women wore their hats tilted to one side of the head.

In fact, the change in hat styles took place very gradually, but as the cloche hat receded, more hair became visible, especially as the “tip-tilted” hats of the 1930’s began to be worn on the side of the head and tilted down over one eye.

In the late twenties, “the human parade that wanders up and down the streets saw only hats, close little hats that hugged every woman’s head and revealed only a wisp or two of hair making arabesques on her cheeks. Then all of a sudden [last March] forth they came — all those long lost locks! . . . In joyous abandon, they waved and curled and pushed hats ‘way over on one ear.” — Celia Cole, August 1931.

In May of 1932, The Delineator ran this article, “If You Are Going to Have a Permanent,” reassuring women that the process was safe — even for dyed or gray hair. Although they had been available for years, permanents still needed to be explained.

“If You Are Going to Have a Permanent.” Article from The Delineator, May, 1932

Top of Article, “If You Are Going to Have a Permanent,” May, 1932.

Bottom of Article “If You Are Going to Have a Permanent,” May, 1932 This hairstyle has a little roll of curls at the neck, just like the model wearing the $1.69 hat below.

The article concludes, “Most permanents have to be set after each shampoo unless you are very clever and use your combs or fingers skillfully. It depends on the setting, whether you look like a Fiji Islander [or a 1925 movie star] or a sculptured lady.”

The “long bob permanent” pictured above looks very much like the hair on this hat model:

Hats from Sears Roebuck catalog, Spring 1933.  Hats show more hair, and the “long bob permanent” Marcel wave ends in a soft roll of curls at the back.

Changes in hat styles and hair styles happen in reaction to each other.

Easter Bonnets for April 1917

A sheer hat for April, 1917. Delineator magazine, editorial illustration.

Just for fun, here’s a sampling of women’s hats from the Spring of 1917. All images are from Delineator magazine’s April, 1917, issue.

Go bold! (And watch out for low doorways.)

Lace hat, April 1917. Delineator.

Lace is always fun and feminine. Wearing a bag on your head? Only for the bold.

It’s hard to go wrong with flowers . . .

. . . or fruit.

Appliqued embroidery is elegant, and you can’t have too many roses. Or you could take your inspiration from a marching band:

And don’t be afraid of height:

Or of width. The people behind you probably don’t want to see anything, anyway.

Hats featured in this Delineator article, April, 1917, fit close to the head instead of being anchored to a mass of hair with long hatpins:  “The hatpin is merely a trimming.”

“You will notice how low the hats are worn on the head.”

“A high hat, but notice how skillfully the straw lace is used to lighten it.”

“The hat with the halo will suit any of our latter-day saints, especially the worldly ones.” — Delineator editorial comment, April 1917

You can borrow your hat ideas from the men . . .

Or be as prettily pink — or green — as you like:

Just don’t get too matchy-matchy, no matter how much you love that blue and white print:

Matching skirt, bag, and hat, Butterick’s Delineator magazine, April 1917.

Happy Holidays!

For those who’d like to see more of the outfits worn with some of these hats:

 

A Lament for Bound Periodicals

Cover of Delineator magazine, April 1917. Color illustration by Maud Humphrey.

I am still amazed to the discover full color fashion illustrations in magazines that are 98 years old, or even older.

Look at the unexpected notes of muted red in the embroidery on this blue dress:

Detail, Delineator cover, April 1917.

Hem embroidery, April 1917.

The Past Was Not Dressed in Black and White

Most of the movies and photographs that we have for the early 20th century are in black and white. It’s hard not to think of the nineteen twenties and early thirties in shades of gray, because, in the photos we have, we can’t see that a “black” dress is actually red, or burgundy, or blue, or green; or that a pale dress is not white but peach, yellow, or aqua, etc.

This is how a page from a 1925 copy of Delineator magazine would look on black and white film or microfiche:

A page from Delineator, April 1925, photographed in gray scale.

But this is what those old Delineators really looked like;  there were several pages of full-color fashion illustrations in every issue:

The same page as it actually appeared in Delineator, April 1925.

When you see it in black and white, the suit on the lower right seems to actually be black and white — but the blouse is vivid yellow. The hem of the red dress “reads” as black when you can’t see the color. The beading on the black dress is reddish, too.

Bound Periodicals Replaced with Black and White Film

There is a wealth of costume history and color information in old periodicals, but sadly, many libraries got rid of their bound periodical sections and replaced them with microfilm and microfiche about ten years before the digital revolution. Today, it’s possible to make full-color scans of old magazines (if you still have any), but the big, old, heavy, bound volumes of magazines are long gone; often black and white photos of their pages are all that libraries have.

When you can get your hands on a vintage fashion magazine, many of the illustrations look like this:

Delineator, June 1926, p. 29, photographed from a bound periodical in the library.

But this is what they look like when you read them on microfilm:

The same illustration converted to black and white. Would you guess that one dress has green roses on it? That the dress in the lower left is not black?

Why I Became Witness2Fashion

Originally, I thought I would write mostly about the 1950s and 1960s — because I was a “witness” to the fashions of those years. I was just becoming aware of clothing and its social impact then; I can remember exactly when I wore certain outfits, because I was young and had many milestones — first dance, first capri pants, first grown-up suit, first jobs, important interviews, etc. I can also remember which styles from the period looked stodgy and middle-aged to me at twenty, and what occasions called for hats and gloves.

McCall’s pattern 7981, 1965. Classy, but by 1965 a little “mature” for a college senior like me. The models are young, but chic women in their fifties also wore suits like this.

I handle a lot of clothing patterns, not always dated, and I expected to verify the memories they evoked by going to the library and looking through magazines from my youth: Seventeen, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Vogue, etc. I have access to both a major urban library system and a large university library. But . . . .

Information Was Lost in Translation to Black and White

. . . most of those magazines are now only available as microfilm or microfiche! They’re preserved in black and white — color fashion magazines, stripped of their colors. Knowing that half the information that used to be there is missing really takes the pleasure out of a library visit. (Neither library subscribes to Vogue online.) And black and white versions of color fashion photos do lose much of their information. If you need proof that red and green look the same when reduced to black and white :

Cover of Maureen Valdes Marsh’s book 70s Fashion Fiascos. Converted to black and white, the lettering is all the same gray, and the caftan loses most of its impact.

Also, for the benefit of anyone under forty, I’ll explain that it is very uncomfortable for those of us who wear glasses with bi-focal or graded lenses to read a vertical microfilm screen. With all graded lenses, you’re expected to look down to read and straight ahead to focus on things that are far away. This works for driving — but not for reading a vertical screen one foot away! I physically can’t spend hours reading that way.

So I switched my focus — in both senses — to the remaining vintage fashion periodicals that I could find.

Butterick’s Delineator Magazine, 1900 to 1937

Delineator cover, February 1933. The illustrator is probably Dynevor Rhys. Vintage color combinations are sometimes unexpected, like this hat. Makeup styles are also documented in color.

At the main library I discovered a huge treasure trove of really old Delineator magazines still in the form of full-size bound periodicals that had not been converted to microfilm. My library has a complete set of Butterick’s Delineator magazines from 1900 to 1937. They were not converted to microfilm, possibly because The Delineator stopped publication in 1937. The library stores them in a basement off-site, but will bring volumes to the reserve desk with one day’s notice.

I also discovered that, from the early 1920’s to 1937, Butterick put a list of each month’s new pattern numbers at the back of Delineator magazine,  which meant that those “undated” Butterick patterns could be dated — something not possible before. I made it my project to collect the numbers and publish my research online. (See Dating Butterick Patterns 1920s to 1937 by clicking here.)  The results can be found at witness2fashion.com.

Of course, I couldn’t help reading some of the magazines! At first I intended to photograph a few of the the color pages;  then I became fascinated by the ads, and the black and white pattern illustrations; I started taking photos of some of the longer articles to read later . . . .

My project kept growing. Trained to do academic research,  I wanted to compare the Butterick patterns illustrated in Delineator with contemporary patterns pictured in other available bound periodicals, like Ladies’ Home Journal and Woman’s Home Companion. My computer is getting very full of images!  I’ll share as many as I can.

“Got Anything Valuable?”  in Vintage Advertisements

I was taught to regard advertisements as a valuable source of primary research, because they often show occupational dress and stereotypical clothing far removed from high fashion. Here are a few informative ads in color:

“Customs Inspector: ‘Got anything very valuable in this trunk?’ The Traveler: ‘I should say so . . . . A whole carton of Chesterfields.’ ” Cigarette ad, July 1928. The Delineator.

Her big, orange scarf with green accents transforms a quiet camel suit and matching shoes. I expect The Vintage Traveler to covet that travel blanket. Could it be a Pendleton?

Camel Cigarette Ad, July 1928. This ad offers a fantasy of country club life. Ads are aspirational, always implying that using the product will improve your life and possibly raise your social status.

A costumer will note the different shades of blue (not gray or black) on the gentlemen’s jackets, worn with light tan or gray slacks, and a pink pocket square.

Ford was later than other manufacturers to introduce closed cars. This is one of a series of Ford advertisements aimed at women:

April 1924. Ford Ad for a Closed Car. A “Woman in Business,” but not a secretary; this is her office. From Delineator.

“Her habit of measuring time in terms of dollars gives the woman in business keen insight into the true value of a Ford closed car for her personal use. . . . inexpensive operation and upkeep convince her that it is a sound investment value. And it is such a pleasant car to drive. . . .”

Full color ad for Elgin watches, December 1928. Costumers need to know about period accessories.

If you’ve just started reading witness2fashion, it may seem like I hop around from era to era.

I do, on purpose, following whatever trail catches my eye — zippers, corsets, makeup, accessories . . . . I like them all!

I Love the Colors of the Past

There are fashions in color, as well as in styles. Some color combinations or seasonal colors may surprise us.

To end where I started, here are several color illustrations from Delineator, 1917 —  almost a century old.  Images like these are a reason I treasure (and want to share bits of) those bound periodicals that escaped conversion to microfilm.

February 1917, Delineator, page 51. The dress on the right looks like blue-violet changeable taffeta.

Up close, you can see the pastel print on the black dress, and the pink tassels on the blue one. Orange chiffon dresses with black and white trim are not a common sight nowadays:

Details, February 1917, Delineator, page 51.

The ladies below wear cocoa, tan, brilliant blue-green or reddish brown, no longer “Spring” colors to us,  with some rather remarkable hats:

Feb. 1917, Delineator, p. 52.

Up close, you can see the colors in the prints lining the white stole and used in the rust-red dress and hat:

Detail of color illustration, Feb. 1917. Is that a Valkyrie on the right?

These are fashions for January, 1917. It’s nice to know that the blue hat and bag are blue,  not black.

January 1917, Delineator, page 40. The vivid red and blue contrast would be lost in a black and white photo.

Detail, Jan. 1917, Delineator. The red and blue outfit has embroidered pockets; so does the pumpkin-brown dress.

“Here’s Looking at You, Kid”

Hats from Delineator, Feb. 1917.