Undergarments For Women From James McCreery & Co. 1919

The two illustrations seen here are excerpts from a full page ad. This advertisement comes from the April 27, 1919 New York Sun daily newspaper. Shown is an array of intimates of the late teens that a fashionable woman would wear beneath their clothes.

The uptown location of James McCreery & Co. at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street would commence its May White Sale the following day.  McCreery was catering to middle and upper middle class shoppers.

Low Prices?

With items ranging from 95 cents to $8.95, the bodice’s in this second ad are among the least expensive items.  While 95 cents may seem reasonable, that was still a lot of money for a working woman or a poor family in 1919.

Married women on a strict budget, strictly limited purchasing clothing. And single women typically earning less than $17 per week, with many earning just nine dollars per week, made the purchasing of any new clothing a luxury. For the working poor, purchasing anything at McCreery would be an impossibility.

“Rent, food and incidentals, shifts clothing expenditure into a secondary place,” according to Winifred Stuart Gibbs, the supervisor of Home Economics at the New York Association For Improving The Condition of the Poor.

Gibbs’ book, The Minimum Cost Of Living A Study Of Limited Income In New York City (1917), The MacMillan Company, points out that many poor women and their families  “depended largely upon gifts of clothing.” In one example of a typical household of a woman and three children, ten, nine and three years of age, the total annual expenditure for clothing was $53.44.

For the upper middle class shopper, the focus was not on watching pennies but getting a bargain at a sale.

In the first ad the Madame Irene Corset  marked down from $16.50 to $8.95 would qualify as a good buy. So would items five and six, B & J brand bras at more than fifty percent off their original price.

Not Licensed

One interesting detail in the second ad contains something we see a lot of today – using a celebrity to push a product or line.

Item number nine is intriguingly described as: “Billie Burke” of Flesh Color Witchery Crepe; daintily embroidered in blue and pink and blue stitching; sleeveless model, drop seat – Special $2.50. Witchery crepe

Billie Burke (1884-1970) was a beautiful, vivacious, talented theatrical star and wife of showman Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. With her sing-song voice, Burke would go on to a long film career typically playing daffy society ladies. Burke’s most famous film role was as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

It is almost a certainty that Burke was not given any remuneration for the use of her name for the product or ad.

Within a couple of years of this advertisement, the Flapper era of fashion would put an end to constricting undergarment fashion. Women would opt for simpler brassieres and more comfortable forms of  underwear.