T-Shirt

For a while, however, it was on the loose by itself. The technology of textile printing was, by today's standards, rudimentary even among the few major manufacturers. Custom printing in small quantities -- the primary offering of the T-shirt shop -- didn't exist.

Clearly, some tinkering was necessary before the public's undeveloped appetite for printed apparel could be whetted. The necessary developments came in the mid- and late-1950s. But, first, let's backtrack a bit.

History hasn't recorded how the Atlantics of Brooklyn had their uniforms imprinted, and the surviving photograph of the team is of too poor quality to tell. Apparently, however, the custom of imprinted uniforms was not immediately picked up when baseball moved into its professional phase.

Atlantics Baseball Team 1800's Atlantics Baseball Team 1800's  
2000 Atlantics Baseball Team  

 

According to Bill Guilfoile, public relations director for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the first professional team to have its uniforms printed was the Cleveland Indians which, in 1916, pinned cloth numerals to its players shirts. The experiment was dropped after one game, said Guilfoile. It wasn't until 1929 that the New York Yankees had felt letters and numerals sewn on their jerseys for good.

However, neither felt nor tackle twill -- the more advanced type of sewn lettering which succeeded it -- are suitable for casual wear. Felt grays at the edges, tackle twill puckers and both tend to rip lose, according to Ray Gluss III, a partner in Raysons Sports of Chicago, a launderer of athletic uniforms for many professional teams.

"They both need a lot of maintenance," said Gluss. "Tackle twill, for instance really needs to be ironed to look its best. Most people wouldn't put that type of work into a T-shirt."

Surprisingly, though, garments have been imprinted with transfers since at least the 1800s. The Kaumagraph Co. of Wilmington, Del., began producing transfers on the "hot melt" rotogravure process in 1902, according to Dick Hobart, vice president of marketing for the firm. He explained that the process, which was imported from England, involves the use of pigment in a waxy substrate which literally melts a t-shirt when heated.

Hobart said that hot melt was and still is widely used for marking such items as Army blankets and tennis balls. In addition, he added, local fair operators used the transfers as novelties during the 1930s and '40s, marking children's shirts for a small fee.

"The big drawback was that it wasn't completely opaque," said Hobart. "It will mark a wide variety of substrates and it goes on fast, but it just doesn't cover completely. For many uses, that doesn't matter, but it does for apparel."

He added that the waxy substrate never cured, but only cooled and dried. If heated, as apparel is when laundered, the design would run or smear. The t-shirt business has began to bloom.



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T-Shirt brings you this lesson in history:

Edgar Allan Poe born Jan. 19, 1809

(1809�49), American writer, known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre.

Poe was born in Boston on Jan. 19, 1809. His parents, touring actors, both died in Poe's early childhood, and the boy was raised by John Allan (1780�1834), a successful businessman of Richmond, Va. Taken by the Allan family to England at the age of six, he was placed in a private school. Upon returning to the U.S. in 1820 he continued to study in private schools and attended the University of Virginia for a year, but in 1827 his foster father, displeased by the young man's drinking and gambling, refused to pay his debts and forced him to work as a clerk.

Poe, disliking his new duties intensely, quit the job, thus estranging Allan, and went to Boston. There his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), was published anonymously. Shortly afterward Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army and served a 2-year term. In 1829 his second volume of verse, Al Aaraaf, was published, and he effected a reconciliation with Allan, who secured him an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. After only a few months at the academy Poe was dismissed for neglect of duty, and his foster father disowned him permanently.

Poe's third book, Poems, appeared in 1831, and the following year he moved to Baltimore, where he lived with his aunt and her 11-year-old daughter, Virginia Clemm (1822�47). The following year his tale �A MS. Found in a Bottle� won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. From 1835 to 1837 Poe was an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. In 1836 he married his young cousin Virginia. Through the next decade, much of which was marred by his wife's long illness, Poe worked as an editor for various periodicals in Philadelphia and New York City. In 1847 Virginia died and Poe became ill; his addiction to liquor and his alleged use of drugs, recorded by contemporaries, may have contributed to his early death in Baltimore, on Oct. 7, 1849.