Laborers Blues In praise of overalls & famous men by Jay Hardwig A new suit of overalls has among its beauties those of a blueprint: and they are a map of the working man. —James Agee I own one pair of overalls. They are deep blue, with stovepipe legs, inkstains on the pocket, and a bit of biscuit dough still clinging to the sides. I picked them up at Sears some years back, and the word Roebucks is printed proudly across bronze buttons. I do not always button the sides. I do not wear my overalls often, but when I do, I feel proud. The look on my face must give me away. It is all grin and innocence, the look of a countrified working-class rube whos got a nice breeze down near his privates. It is confident but not presumptuous, agreeable but still shrewd. It is a look that says, Im wearing overalls. Few of my clothes speak so loudly. Im not the sort of man who dresses to make a point, but whenever I step out in my Roebucks, I feel Im making one just the same. I wear overalls for the same reason I wear gimme caps, order PBR, and profess more admiration for Tammy Wynette than I actually possess. I am staking out my turf, announcing my allegiances, taking sides. I am saying what I am, and what I am not. I am aligning myself more with the carpenter than the stockbroker, more with the Southerner than those who would disparage him. I am dressing up. I am dressing down. In pulling on those shoulder straps, I am pulling on much more than a pair of work clothes. I am pulling on an identity. This kind of talk drives my friends batty. They think its a load of horseshit; they say Ive spent too much time in college. Maybe so. But I cant shake the feeling. When you step into a puddle, you get a little bit wet. When you step into a dog pile, you get a little bit rank. And when you step into overalls, you get a little bit country. There was a time when few would choose to be seen in overalls. They were strictly a low-class garment, and anyone who could do better, would. They date back to the 18th century, according to Nan Enstad, an American history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the time, they were called slops. Among slaves and sharecroppers they were known as Happy Jims. Coarse, cheap, durable, they were among the first mass-produced garments, and the working folk who wore them made changes as needed: watch pockets, hammer loops, spots for pencils and rulers. By the mid-19th century, the colors were standardized: painters wore white overalls, farmers wore blue or brown, and railway workers sported pinstripes. (Much of this history comes from Neda Ulabys fine report on NPRs Morning Edition: hear it at npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/overalls/.) Overalls were not widely associated with rural America until the 20th century, when Grant Wood, Walker Evans, and Hee Haw turned overalls from a generalized working-class symbol (think Rosie the Riveter) to a particularly countrified one. Grant Wood did his part with the painting of American Gothic in 1930. Seen by some as a celebration of stoic Midwestern values, and by others as a satire of the same, it remains the most instantly recognizable portrait of rural America. In case anyone missed the point, Wood gave his farmer a pitchfork, a dour expression, and a pair of overalls. (As it happens, the farmer in American Gothic was not a farmer at all: he was Byron McKeeby, the Cedar Rapids dentist, who worked on Woods teeth and occasionally modeled for his artwork. And now, a Knoxville connection: McKeebys son, also named Byron McKeeby, was a printmaker and member of the University of Tennessee Art faculty. His grandsons, Paulo and Neal, grew up in Knoxville, attending West and Bearden High; Paulo is now a Dallas attorney, while Neal plays guitar with Drums & Tuba. But I digress.) Walker Evans, in turn, published a landmark series of photographs in 1941s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, chronicling the month that he and James Agee spent with three tenant farm families in Hobes Hill, Alabama. Several of the poorer citizens of Hobes Hill—although by no means all—were photographed in overalls. The prose portion of that book, written by Agee, contains some of the most reverent words about overalls yet put to paper. Agee compares overalls, in various spots, to a harness, chamois, silk, and Cezanne; of a worn pair, he writes that the shoulders are of sewn snowflakes and the sunwashed fabric as intricate and fragile...as the feather mantle of a Toltec prince. I saw no [pair], he writes, which did not hold some world of exquisiteness of its own. The words, perhaps overwrought but clearly heartfelt, reflect Agees ability to see beauty in the plain, and his insistence that we see it too. In the preface to Famous Men, Walker Evans pokes gentle fun at Agees own deliberately cheap wardrobe, writing that wind, rain, work, and mockery were his tailors. He describes the delight Agee got out of factory-seconds sneakers and a sleazy cap, charging him with a knowingly comical inverted dandyism. Still, such shucking off of airs was central to Agees mission: He had gone to Alabama, in part, to escape the social pretensions of the New York literary scene. He felt that wearing good, expensive clothes involved him in some sort of claim of superiority, Evans writes, and Agee wanted no part of such claim. He, too, sided with the carpenters rather than the stockbrokers; the farmers rather than the bankers. The question might be asked: Did Agee consider overalls functional work clothes or emblems of working- class dignity? The answer, of course, is both. Although the average American was probably not familiar with Agees reverie, the association of overalls with rural life was soon firmly entrenched. Consider the classic exchange between Carla Thomas and Otis Redding on 1967s Tramp: Carla: You know what, Otis? Otis: What? Carla: Youre country. Otis: Thats all right. Carla: Youre straight from the Georgia woods. Otis: Thats good. Carla: You know what? You wear overalls! Ever cool, Otis shook off the insult—Woman, you goofy—and returned to the happier topics of love and Cadillacs. Despite Otis endorsement, country music was the genre that wore its overalls with the greatest pride. The Grand Ole Opry was sponsored, for a time, by Duckhead Overalls, and just about everyone in the Hee Haw cast wore them—a detail that Charles Wolfe, professor of English and Folklore at Middle Tennessee State University, finds a touch ironic. You have this ludicrous situation, Wolfe notes in Ulabys NPR piece, where people like Buck Owens and Grandpa Jones and Roy Clark—country music stars that have millions of dollars to their name—are dressing up in bib overalls. Ludicrous, perhaps, but the folks at OshKosh couldnt have been happier. Overalls had succeeded in transcending their low-class roots to become accepted clothing for the higher classes; at the same time, donning a pair signaled a connection to the very roots that had been transcended. Overalls were a way of proclaiming that, however much gold you might have in the bank, you knew where you came from and didnt care to hide it. In slapping on a pair of blue bibs, country stars were able to anticipate the hip-hop generation by 20 years and do their own job of keeping it real—however calculated that reality had become. James Agee was not the only one guilty of reverse dandyism. If Hee Haw hijacked overalls from the working-classes generally—casting them instead as pure country—the hip-hop generation has gone a long way in bringing them back. For at least 10 years now, overalls have been central to hip-hop fashion, and while you wont find that many overalls on The Nashville Network anymore, you can often find them on the cover of Vibe. To be sure, theyre cut a little different, stitched a little different, worn a little different, but the bib is still there, and the hammer loop too. If anyone defies my assertion that when you step into overalls, you get a little country, its surely the hip-hop crowd, for whom urban is the epitome of cool. (When you step into overalls, you get a little bit def?) By now, its simply a trend—perhaps even a waning one—but its fun to speculate what early rap stars were thinking when they buckled their shoulder straps (or not, as the case often was). Were they paying respect to another generation, remembering grandpas bent back in the Mississippi sun? Were they casting their net even farther back, embracing and appropriating a garment that their slave forebears were forced to wear, slyly noting how the tables had turned? (And if so, what fun to see a generation of white suburban teenagers follow their lead!) Or did they simply have use for a hammer loop? Ill never know. From Happy Jims to American Gothic to Eminem, overalls have long carried a lot of meaning: Perhaps thats why they have so many pockets. (A little overalls humor for you there; a gift for making it this far into the swamp.) Not laying much claim to the hip-hop symbol-system, for me that meaning remains a little bit country, a little bit real, a blue badge of integrity borrowed from those who earned it. Thanks for the loan. There are those days, however, when I wear overalls just because I feel like it. Just because they look comfy. Winter, as it happens, is a good time for wearing overalls. Not only does the denim bib warm a cold cold heart, but overalls are possessed of a—how shall I say it?—forgiving cut. There is ample belly space in there. It is often in winter that I need it most. While I am far from obese, I do have a touch of the paunch about me. I tend to have a touch more at this time of year, and as such, I often find myself at odds with my belt. A belt is dreadfully literal. It is exacting. It cinches up and squeezes, as if to admonish a growing belly, and holds tight and without compassion. On the last hole, it is particularly scornful. I hate my belt. Overalls, on the other hand, cradle the belly. They give it room to breathe, to expand and contract as it will, without the slightest hint of deprecation or reproof. Overalls love the belly for what it is, and assign no moral value to its size. For this alone, overalls can be celebrated. Plus they have lots of pockets. So there you have it: Some days I wear overalls as a signifier, an emblem of working class dignity and my desire to align myself with things that are calloused, principled, and/or Southern; I step out an inverted dandy of my own, pulling on a beaten cap and scuffed shoes to match, letting the world know where my sympathies—if not my paycheck—truly lie. Other days, I pull them on as a gift to my belly. And why do you wear yours?
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 04:32:10 +0000