Subtly Vintage Engineer

[John in Covina]

I think it was either geographers (transit in hand) or geologists.

 

[kyboots]

I think you should still hang a Post slide rule from your belt ( converted to a flask ), cripper tread black shoes,black pants, and the short sleeve white shirt. You will be in true fashion for the 1960's.--John

 

[John in Covina]

There was a discussion some time ago about white dress SHORT sleeved shirts. I always equated that with the NASA types.

 

[rjb1]

There was a good reason for the NASA types to wear the short sleeve shirts. Since a lot of them were mechanical engineers (as I am, who used to work for NASA), the rule that dates from way before there was a NASA was that you either wore short sleeeves or rolled them up if you went into the machine shop to work on something or supervise those working there. The same goes for wearing no tie or a tucked in tie (more common).

The LAST thing you want to do is get caught up in a lathe or milling machine. It might be the last thing you ever do.
It was drilled into you (pun intended) while you were in engineering school at that time, since in those days engineers really had to know how to do practical things.
And you wouldn't be caught dead with a Post slide rule. They were for high school students. A good engineer would have a wooden K&E (1930's -1950's) or a magnesium Pickett (late 1950's- 1960's).

However, since you asked about the 1940's engineer look, not the 1960's NASA-engineer look, all the discussion about them (even though it's fun) isn't all that helpful.
In the 1930's and 1940's engineers would dress mostly like everyone else, but probably tending toward the conservative and possibly cheap side. Gray wool suit, white shirt, conservative tie, fedora for travel to and from work, etc.

 

[carldelo]

I think it was either geographers (transit in hand) or geologists.

Hey John, you remembered correctly, it was civil engineers, specifically those graduating from the Colorado School of Mines. Traditionally, seniors bought an Open Road and bashed it to identify themselves as bona fide engineers while in the field. They bought it a year before graduating so it wouldn't be too new when they finally went to work. The thread is here:
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?34638-Interesting-Stetson-Open-Road-article
The linked article doesn't seem to be there anymore, although the Colorado School of Mines website does mention the tradition of the 'Senior Stetson'.

As an engineer myself, I tend to favor medium brimmed fedora and the tweedy sport jacket look, as I'm now an academic. This look would work well in the field - tweed is outdoors wear, after all. I'm not a fan of the 1960s NASA look - those guys wore short sleeves because they were cooking in the heat down in Alabama and Florida. They wore ties because it was required. The modern look at NASA (and in most of academia) is only a modest improvement, I'm speaking of the Dilbertian wardrobe of khakis and polo shirts. This is made even worse by wearing one's ID and security pass on a lanyard around the neck - feh.

PS - good point about ties and the machine shop - I tuck my ties into my shirt when going in a lab or a machine shop. This must be the only viable reason that one could wear a clip-on tie - a drill press can't kill you by grabbing your tie if it's only a clip-on.

PS - I found the gist of the article published here:
http://www.johnnydepp-zone.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=34610

How about that website name? There's a good sketch of the odd rectangular bash of the CSM engineers Open Road - the crease is called 'the Brick'. I'd go for a standard pinch-front fedora crease, but then I went to the Cooper Union.

 

[Springer]

I love my wooden K+E slide rule (and white short-sleeved shirt)