The 19th Century Origins of Business Attire-- The Lowly Clerk

[scotrace]

From a daily email digest of book excerpts comes this outline of the beginnings of business wear in the 1800s.

http://www.delanceyplace.com/lf-index.php?p=2524

"Clerks' attire was a glaring target for the barbs of the press, since the very concept of business attire (not to speak of business casual) came into being with the mass appearance of clerks in American cities. 'In the counting-room and the office,' wrote Samuel Wells, the author of a 'manual of republican etiquette' from 1856, 'gentlemen wear frock coats or sack coats. They need not be of very fine material, and should not be of any garish pattern.' Other fashion advisers pointed to a whole host of 'business coats,' 'business surtouts,' and 'business paletots,' which you could find at new stores like Brooks Brothers. Working-class Americans would be seen in straw hats or green blouses; what distinguished the clerk was his collar: usually bleached an immaculate white and starched into an imposing stiffness. But collared business shirts were expensive, so stores catering to the business customer began to sell collars by themselves, half a dozen collars running to under half of what a cheap shirt would cost. The white collar, detachable and yet an essential status marker, was the perfect symbol of the pseudo-genteel, dual nature of office work."


Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace
Author: Nikil Saval
Publisher: Doubleday a division of Random House
Copyright 2014 by Nikil Saval
Pages: 12-15

 

[tropicalbob]

As I remember, there are also fairly detailed descriptions of clerks' attire in Poe's "A Man in the Crowd" and in Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener." Poe goes into some detail about the hierarchy of clerks and how they differed in dress.

 

[Richard Warren]

Someone who does not know the difference between an office worker and a dry goods clerk, or recognize sarcasm, probably ought not try to write history.

 

[LuvMyMan]

Not to really alter the topic of clerks and fashion input history, prior to this time period, was there not collars that could be removed and discarded (along with cuffs) on some men's shirts, (formal if not any other type)? What about paper collars and cuffs?