Denim: The Fabric That Built America, 1935–1944

Denim: The Fabric That Built America, 1935–1944There is perhaps no other fabric so inextricably associated with a country as is denim with the United States of America. First popularized by Levis iconic jean designs in the mid 1800s, denim quickly became the material of choice for working class Americans, spurring an influx of other brands making workwear with the durable and ubiquitous fabricfrom Wrangler and Lee to OshKosh and Carhartt. In the 1950s, denim moved from a work fabric to

There is perhaps no other fabric so inextricably associated with a country as is denim with the United States of America. First popularized by Levi’s iconic jean designs in the mid-1800s, denim quickly became the material of choice for working-class Americans, spurring an influx of other brands making workwear with the durable and ubiquitous fabric—from Wrangler and Lee to OshKosh and Carhartt.

In the 1950s, denim moved from a work fabric to leisurewear. A large part of this transition was a new generation trying to connect with the rugged, patriotic spirit that the ordinary worker had come to symbolize after the onset of World War II.

This volume traces the origins of this shift through a compendium of photos, drawn primarily from the archive of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), featuring American workers in denim. In both black and white and color, we see ordinary American laborers in the fields, dam construction workers, women toiling on the Chicago railroad, unemployed miners and steelworkers prepa