Fashion for the People: Maine's Graphic Tees

Curated by Tilly Laskey and installed at Maine Historical Society from October 11, 2022 to April 8, 2023.

Athlete in an early t-shirt, circa 1930

Athlete in an early t-shirt, circa 1930

Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media

From their humble beginnings as undergarments to today’s fashion runways, t-shirts have evolved into universal wardrobe staples. Named for the silhouette resembling the capital letter "T," the t-shirt—also called a "tee"— is usually a short-sleeved, collarless shirt made of a stretchy stockinette or jersey knit cotton.

The modern day t-shirt’s origins stem from wool union suits and underwear worn by male navy sailors. During World War I, US soldiers saw the advantages of the French military’s lighter and cooler cotton undershirts, and brought this innovation back to America. In 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the first use of the word “t-shirt” in his novel, This Side of Paradise, with Merriam-Webster’s dictionary adding the term that same year.

Paper winder, Lincoln, ca. 1950

Paper winder, Lincoln, ca. 1950

Workers Louis Gerry (left) and Peppy Millet (right) wearing t-shirts at Cameron Company mill in Lincoln.

Item Contributed by
Lincoln Historical Society

Sears, Roebuck, & Company advertised t-shirts as men's outer garments for the first time in 1938, called a gob shirt—slang for sailor. Early t-shirts were almost always solid white without designs. The first documented color graphic t-shirt appears in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, where three characters wearing green t-shirts printed with white "OZ" lettering stuff the Scarecrow on an assembly line.

In the 1950s Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean popularized t-shirts, further shifting the public perception of them from underwear to streetwear. Beginning in the 1960s, t-shirts became blank canvases for people to express their opinions—everything from civil rights to a favorite band—and perhaps as a tool for cultural change. Technological advances in ink and printing techniques in the 1960s and 70s led to a boom in printing on t-shirts, providing companies a new marketing venue—the walking t-shirt billboard.

This exhibition examines how, through the act of wearing graphic t-shirts, people in Maine own a part of history relating to politics, economics, and commemorative events.


Work, Sports, and Leisure

Norma and Tom Bennett, Pleasant Mountain, ca. 1950

Norma and Tom Bennett, Pleasant Mountain, ca. 1950

Item Contributed by
Ski Museum of Maine

Girls' Basketball team, Winslow High School, 1931

Girls' Basketball team, Winslow High School, 1931

Item Contributed by
Winslow Historical Preservation Committee

T-shirts gained popularity with athletes, college sports teams, workers, and for camping attire because of their sweat-absorbing qualities and easy cleaning after rough use.

In 1932, the University of Southern California (USC) introduced plain t-shirts for the football team to stop shoulder pad chafing. To discourage student theft, USC printed the tees with a “Property of USC” logo, making them immediately more desirable to students. USC responded by selling the t-shirts in the campus bookstore, capitalizing on teenage consumer culture and creating a new revenue source for colleges across the country.

In 1941, Sears rebranded their “gob” shirts as “Army style” t-shirts, with the slogan “You don’t need to be a soldier to have your own personal t-shirt.” World War II news coverage featuring soldiers wearing t-shirts in newsreels and magazines associated the t-shirt with the marketable qualities of the heroic soldier.

Players on Winslow High School’s 1930-1931 girls’ basketball team were early adopters of the t-shirt style for women. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, female actresses and singers began wearing t-shirts. By the early 1970s, society and the fashion industry marketed the t-shirt as a unisex garment.


T-shirts and Politics

Re-Elect (David) Crook District Attorney, ca. 1994

Re-Elect (David) Crook District Attorney, ca. 1994

Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society

T-shirts are a portable, visible, and non-verbal way to express individual viewpoints and collective concerns. When produced for political campaigns, t-shirts—along with campaign buttons and bumper stickers—display endorsements of candidates, ballot issues, or a particular platform.

New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s 1948 campaign for president printed t-shirts with the slogan, “Dew-It with Dewey,” creating the first documented use of a graphic t-shirt for political purposes. Although he lost to Harry S. Truman, other campaigns and causes followed Dewey’s slogan t-shirt idea, using printed messages to stimulate conversations and visually support or oppose candidates.

This display of Maine campaign t-shirts demonstrates the state’s range in political perspectives from Democrat Joe Brenan’s 1986 run for congress, to Green Independent Party Pat Lamarche’s 1998 governor’s race, Independent Angus King’s gubernatorial campaigns, and Republican John McKernan’s 1995 gubernatorial race with his spouse, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe’s patch affixed to the shirt.

Printing Innovations and Novelty Tees

The first graphic t-shirts used a screen printing process. Plastisol inks and transfers, introduced in the early 1960s, allowed printers to apply designs to T-shirts with heat. This new technology transformed t-shirt printing from specialty shops to something anyone with a hot iron could accomplish at home, facilitating do-it-yourself t-shirts sporting a wide array of messages. Today’s digital printing and the introduction of inkjet-printable transfer paper further revolutionized and democratized the process.

Pro nuclear message, Wiscasset, 1980

Pro nuclear message, Wiscasset, 1980

Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society

As custom printing on t-shirts became more widely available, novelty t-shirts emerged in Maine to broadcast information about grassroots activism, landmarks, social justice, and celebrating favorite foods like ham Italians!

Lawrence Carolan of Wiscasset showed his support for the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in 1980 by wearing a homemade “Down with pukes, up with nukes” t-shirt and painting "Vote No" across his house in Wiscasset. People like Carolan use t-shirts to silently show support for collective concerns—sometimes sensational responses to controversies.

However, the slogans on t-shirt are often as short-lived as the shirt itself. The average American throws away 68 pounds of clothing each year, including many t-shirts worn just a few times. The materiality and boom of t-shirt manufacturing has become environmentally problematic. Cotton farmed for one t-shirt takes 713 gallons of water, and contributes 24% of insecticide use and 11% of pesticides. T-shirt production for 2021 estimates there were 2 billion shirts made, usually in foreign factories where people are working for little pay in hazardous conditions. The shirts are shipped all over the world before reaching their final destination, wasting fossil fuels.


Advertising T-shirts

Good Will boys with calf, Fairfield, ca. 1960

Good Will boys with calf, Fairfield, ca. 1960

Item Contributed by
L.C. Bates Museum / Good Will-Hinckley Homes

By the 1950s, corporations actively advertised their products on t-shirts. Disneyland sold the first Mickey Mouse t-shirts in 1955, adding to the trend of marketing graphic tees to children and teenagers, inspired through the rise of television sets in homes.

A Good Will-Hinckley Homes student, shown at left, wore a ringer t-shirt, where the collar and cuffs are a different color material than the body of the shirt. Their shirt also sports a screen printed design. Introduced in the 1950s, ringers gained popularity in with teenagers in the 1960s and 70s.

The lucrative practice of licensed designs on t-shirts increased during the 1970s . Popular sports teams, bands, and the film industry widely marketed branded merchandise, while fashion designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior started selling t-shirts during this period.

Some Maine examples include promotional giveaways, such as radio stations WBLM in Portland and WZON in Bangor. Others licensed designs advertised Maine breweries, ski resorts, and even Maine Historical Society.


Commemoration Tees

Remembering Louis Sockalexis, Indian Island, 1980

Remembering Louis Sockalexis, Indian Island, 1980

Item Contributed by
Maine Historical Society

Since the 1930s, people in America have shown their event participation or witnessing places of interest by wearing commemorative t-shirts, or purchasing them as gifts—think, “and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” graphic designs.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, printing t-shirts for clubs and local events such as marathons, fairs, and car rallies became common practice. This trend increased over the following decades, with examples like the Common Ground Country Fair, Maine’s Bicentennial, and the Ice Storm of 1998.

In 1980, Chris Sockalexis (Penobscot) seen at left, stood at the grave of his uncle, Louis Sockalexis, the famous baseball player. Sockalexis wore a graphic t-shirt printed with A.S.T.C. for the Andrew Sockalexis Track Club, honoring another relative, track and field Olympian Andrew Sockalexis (1892-1919).

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