Who could fault the American people during the Great Depression, to resort to using flour sacks to make their clothes?

lt was a time of great poverty because 15 million Americans (out of an approximately 123 million population) were unemployed. It was also a
time for people to rethink their list of priorities of what to buy with the little money that they have.

Of course, first in their lists will always be food, shelter, and medicine. Clothes, although a necessity, would be further down the list.

But there came a time when they need to buy clothes when what they had were all tattered. But with food, shelter, and medicine alone, there
was not enough money to further stretch into clothes purchases.

What is there to do?

Somebody thought about fabric sacks. They were used, going back a hundred years, for the transport of flour, potatoes and
animal feeds. Now, because they were made of fabric, as clothes are too, they could be transformed into things that people could wear and that
they could recreate into things that are used in their homes.

Previously, the commodities mentioned were shipped around the world using barrels that were costly and bulky. For reasons of lowering
expenses, fabric sacks saved the day for traders of these goods.

Enterprising companies at that time saw a business opportunity in recycling these fabric sacks into attractive clothes with sunshine and flower
designs. Also, families with practicality in mind transformed these items which were just lying around uselessly, into other household
necessities like curtains, quilts, towels, underwear, and others.

The opportunity to make good money was so great that one company, Gingham Girl Flour, packaged its products in clothes worthy fabric and
made its packaging as an advertising point for selling its flour.

With people also trying to disengage onlookers from getting the idea that what they’re wearing is either from flour bags or feed sacks, there
was this psychological need to erase the company logos out of the sacks. There is even a mention of a booklet named Sewing With Cotton
Bags (made by the Textile Bag Manufacturers Association) gave tips to folks on how to smudge out the company names out of the sacks
and bags.

With these foods sacks becoming a necessary fashion need for people to be clothed, they also have this psychological need not to be caught
wearing flour sacks on purpose or even because of poverty.

Some of the advice being disseminated include soaking the ink of the company logos or brand names in kerosene or lard overnight. Seeing the
the behavior of people converting their bags and sacks into clothes, the companies concerned made their efforts much easier by using soluble ink
for their logos and brand names.

So, the lowly potato sack evolved from a means of transporting the basic potato commodity into a fashion style that even survives up to this day
in the vintage markets that you visit in your own city. The Great Depression was a period of great hardship, but now they’re treasured as unique
fashion novelties. More of a gypsy kind of fashion item, especially with the sacks with the sunshine and flower designs.

In a historical overlap in 1951, way long after the Great Depression, but with the American psyche forever scarred by the need to be clothed in
flour sacks, the iconic movie star Marilyn Monroe posed in a famous photo wearing a burlap potato sack.

You can take it either two ways depending on how you looked at it. You could side with a bitchy female journalist at that time who commented
that Monroe is far from chic and classy, and if yes, preferably clothed in a food sack.

But there were dissenters, like this grateful Idaho potato farmer. This rural gentleman obviously garnered huge revenues from his potato harvest
and there actually ensued a potato shortage after the Marilyn Monroe photoshoot. He sent her a sack of potatoes as a sign of his gratitude for
her generous publicity for the commodity.

The Great Depression brought out creativity in people because of the need for clothes. Most of the time, adversarial times bring out the
best in us, and the advent of flour sack fashion came into being. If your ancestors were the multitudes of people who had to use their initiative in
transforming these humble sacks into clothes. be proud.