photo #9129265

This dress was made by Mrs. Dorothy Overall of Caldwell, Kansas, in 1959 for the Cotton Bag Sewing Contest sponsored by the National Cotton Council and the Textile Bag Manufacturers Association. Mrs. Overall was awarded 2nd place in the Mid-South section of the contest. (Smithsonian) The end of the war and the economic prosperity of the 1950s lessened both the necessity and popularity of sack dresses, even though they remained prevalent in rural areas well into the 1960s. Instead of “making-do” with available resources, housewives preferred to utilize their power as consumers to claim a more active role on households and farms. If today we think of sack dresses as a romantic relic of the past, their history shows us that far from being a precursor to environmental-minded trends from the coasts, the popularity of sack dresses in the 1930s and 1940s made the rural women of heartland America part of the national fashion system and trend influencers on their own merit. Become