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by: KathyAustin
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The account of the initial stages of the t-shirt is as just about as long as its arm. Pretty short, you might be inclined to think, but it is quite long and interesting evolution. An evolution Charles Darwin would have been particularly fascinated in, had he been around at that time to chronicle it.

The T-Shirt began its existence as a humble piece of clothing hidden under another layer of clothing or sometimes under layers of clothing that men wore. It spent its life hidden away, soaked in his sweat, either because of his toils or because of the climate or just because of some metabolic quirk that he had. Some times he sweated for some primeval reason.

In the beginning the it was known only as a piece of underwear. The concept of underwear did not really take off till the early twentieth century when in 1901 the P.H. Hanes Knitting Company started the manufacture of men's underwear. But it was the Navy that really accelerated my evolution when it issued my predecessor, a piece of apparel with a crew neck and short sleeves with a T like outline (hence the T-Shirt) during World War I.

From then on its development was extraordinary. It had to be worn. There was no discrimination between the sexes nor was it restricted to a certain age. It was considered to be cool - literally and figuratively. It became a national phenomenon and when it became a political tool for propaganda it reached its heyday. For a fact, the Smithsonian Institute boasts ownership of the oldest printed t-shirt on record, a shirt used during the then Governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey's 1948 presidential campaign with the phrase "Dew-IT with Dewey" on it.

Right from the very beginning this casual dress has been used for endorsing a variety of causes. Simple political messages, health messages etc. were what it was used to convey initially. It was used as a medium of protest during the Vietnam War. The invention, in 1950, of Plastisol, a more resilient and stretchable ink saw the shirt evolving into a more resourceful medium of just about any type of written or graphical communication.

Everything under the sun - Jokes, one-liners, graphic messages; just name it and they all would have at one time or another appeared on the simple, low-priced piece of dress shaped like a "T". The development of printing technology boosted its popularity and it became more and more graphical.

This simple and inexpensive apparel became a means of displaying opinions, jokes, one-liners, graphic messages and the like. Anything and everything printable would have at one time or another been printed on it. Further developments in printing technology only helped in increasing its overall reputation. Now that the Internet is here, customizing a t-shirt to suit one idiosyncrasies is just a matter of mouse and keyboard use.

What one wears speaks volumes of wearer; this is a well known saying but the humble t-shirt manages to say a lot more that the others. You just can't beat a t-shirt.

About the Author

Kathy Austin is a writer for an online gallery, Red Bubble. Red Bubble sells high-quality t-shirts, funny t-shirts , framed prints, mounted prints and more.

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