Among the gifts I received for Christmas this year were flour sack towels. Three of them, to be exact. Two were sweetly embroidered for my husband and me by our young granddaughters, and the third was screen-printed with a Christmas-themed gingerbread man with a stack of books from my sister.
With this towel came a slip of paper noting the history and benefits of flour sack towels. Of course, I suspect we all have a flour sack towel or two in our kitchen drawers right now, and we all probably have a pretty good idea how the towels came to be, but I especially found interesting the foresightedness of feed companies that led to their practical use and popularity.
I didn’t realize just how widespread that popularity was!
In 1850 or so, flour was shipped and sold in big wooden barrels to the general stores. Cumbersome and not particularly sanitary, right? About this time, cotton was more easily harvested and became plentiful. Grain mills took to shipping the flour in thick-weaved cotton bags strong enough to hold fifty pounds and later, one hundred pounds. Soon, sugar, animal feed, fertilizer, seeds, etc., followed in those bags, and it wasn’t long until frugal housewives, loathe to throw anything useful away, found new ways to use them.
Towels, aprons, diapers, bedding, and all sorts of clothing were just the beginning. But alas, who wanted to wear a shirt or a dress with the flour company’s logo branded across the front? Housewives determinedly removed the labels with rounds of soaking and washing with bleach and lye soap. After the chain stitching was pulled out of the side of the bag, the cotton could be cleaned, starched, and pressed.
(These leggings were made by a Lakota woman sometime in the 1920s using leather and dyed porcupine quills on the lower half visible below a dress. On the upper part which would be hidden by the dress, she used flour sacks from Rex Flour.)
Eventually, seeing the growing popularity of up-cycling the feed bags and seeing a potential rise in sales, manufacturers switched to paper labels. Housewives found removing the glue-backed labels with kerosene much easier but still a chore. The feed companies and flour mills took continued compassion (with an eye toward higher profits, of course) on housewives and began to print their logos using water-soluble vegetable inks.
Popularity for the bags soared in the 1920s when the cotton mills hit upon the idea of producing fabrics in colorful flower prints, designs for pillowcases and curtains, embroidery patterns, and even patterns for children’s clothing, teddy bears, dolls, and so on.
How fun, right?
(Isn’t this a pretty pillowcase? Sacks were sewn with string and a large needle, and when the sacks were taken apart, small holes were left behind. Can you see the stitching on the edge of this pillowcase?)
Women had to compete for the bags, often bringing their able-bodied sons or husbands with them to the store to maneuver through a pile of heavy sacks to get to the bottom where the choice prints could be found. Rural wives, of course, had an advantage of plenty of bags on hand to feed their livestock. Others had to collect, save, and trade to have enough yardage for their projects. Others bought larger bags called “empties” from bakers for only pennies a piece.
One 100-pound bag of feed netted a yard of 44 inch fabric. You can see how many bags would be needed for a large project or multiple clothing items.
Even President Calvin Coolidge, known for his frugality, benefited from the women’s enthusiastic creativity by receiving a gift of handmade flour-sack pajamas. It took five flour sacks to make the pajamas and were a show of support for his economic program.
During World War II, due to a shortage of cotton fabric, the government strongly encouraged use of the bags. Women sold their surplus bags for extra cash. After the war ended, rural women developed a sense of fashion from their frugality, and national sewing contests were held so they could show off their skills, netting prizes like expensive sewing machines, automobiles, or even a trip to Hollywood!
It’s easy to see how the cotton bags boosted the cotton industry. Once the sacks were cleaned and readied for use, there were as comparable in quality and design as any new percale sold in stores, thanks to top textile designers from New York City and Europe who jumped on board to produce designs with colorfast dyes. One of the earliest collections was by the Percy Kent Bag Company, still in business today in Missouri and have even done bag work for Disney films.
(Staley Milling Company of St. Louis and Kansas City was one of Percy Kent’s biggest customers. Here are packaged animal feeds in Percy Kent dress-print sacking.)
I don’t know that flour sack towels are used much to sew clothing these days, but they are the absolute best for drying dishes and being used in other ways in the kitchen. They’re fun to use in crafts, too, like stamping, painting with paint pens, screen and digital printing, all things those 19th century grain mills and the cotton industry never dreamed of!
To win a set of these pretty flour sack towels, tell me how and if you use flour sack towels for anything besides drying dishes!
Have you gotten your copy of JOY TO THE COWBOY yet? Book #2 of the Christmas Stocking Sweethearts series by the fillies!
She was sunshine. He was clouds. Until a sprig of mistletoe changed everything.
Griff Marcello must live with the shame of the crime he once committed for his mobster father. As he grows into a man, he’s found security as a cowboy living in Glory Hill, Nebraska, but the memory of his sin never leaves him.
Joyanna Hollinger is devoted to the community of Glory Hill, and with Christmas approaching, her plans for a special Christmas Eve service consumes her. All her efforts are falling into place–until she loses a key part of the celebration.
When Griff receives an unexpected gift from his former piano teacher, he never thinks her kindness will fill him with the spirit of Christmas, even when Joyanna needs him most.
Could the simplicity of a hand-stitched stocking and the Christmas carol tucked within chase away the clouds in his heart and warm him from the sunshine of Joyanna’s love?
#kindleunlimited
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When her life is turned upside down by her aunt’s death, beautiful Noelle Cutler must leave Texas for Indian Territory, to live in her family-owned cattle ranch dynasty with a relative she barely knows. Noelle’s Christmas wish as she boards the stagecoach is something she’s yearned for the past several years. Now, with an uncertain world unfolding for her, would it be so much to wish for her very own true love this Christmas?
Stone is working hard to help his lonely widower father find love again. When a pretty, new teacher moves to Angel Falls, Danny believes she is the perfect choice. But so far, his matchmaking attempts have not been successful until a snowstorm hits and strands Miss Holly at their farm.
