The Amazing Decade of Flour Sack Dresses
Surprising help during the Great Depression
The Great Depression illustrates the decade of the 1930s. In America, millions of people were forced to rely on their wits to survive.
1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.
When money was tight and times were lean, people did not waste money on new clothes. Mothers mended socks and sewed patches over holes in clothes.
About a hundred years before the Great Depression, there was an adjustment in how merchants transported the goods. Potatoes, flour and animal feed had previously travelled the world in barrels, but for cost reasons, the decision was made to replace sturdy wooden containers with fabric sacks.
Looking for ways to bring down the living cost, women noticed that flour came in cotton sacks when the family had livestock at home. The feed bags were also reused as a fabric to sew everything from girls dresses to boys shirts and even underpants. Other household items like pillows and kitchen towels were also made from that material.
When flour sack manufacturers caught word of the trend, they decided to reinvent how they styled their flour packages. Using patterns and colours that were diverse in styles, manufacturers tried to make something appealing for people of all ages and interests.
Sewing flour sack dresses became so popular that several educational institutions taught classes how to use feed sacks. A monthly newsletter was produced called “Out of the Bag” and a series of booklets called “Sewing with Cotton Bag”s, which gave instructions on how to use flour sacks.
The flour sacks were a big part of flour marketing. The pattern, colour and look of the sacks determined the flour sales numbers.
By the late 1930s, companies began to use soluble inks that removed easier from the bags much easier and started adding instructions on the bags.
Flour sack dressmaking popularity also spread into the World War II period, when the flour sacks were eventually produced in bigger sizes to eliminate waste and to make it easier to estimate required sewing material.
As a result of World War II, dressmaking-quality fabrics became short supply as textile manufacturers produced for war efforts, and cotton yard goods were rationed. But since feed and flour sacks were considered part of the “industrial” category, that material was still available.
Like wooden barrels were replaced with fabric sacks, the flour packing material was eventually replaced again with cheaper paper sacks. Starting the gradual decline for these bright, beautiful and functional fabrics.
In the world of today, recycling a package would be highly appreciated. Modern people love saving money and reducing waste through clever DIY projects, like turning old tires into lovely ottomans.
You could find quilts made from flour sacks or feed sacks material even now from Pinterest or Etsy. In that decade, “doing it yourself” wasn’t a trend; it was a necessity.
