apron

Apron; weaver's, blue and white striped cotton ticking. Half apron. Apron has one large pocket, 13.875" (35cm) deep; inside is a 1.25" (3.2cm) wide strip sewn with channels to hold reed hooks. The reverse has two pockets 6" (15cm) deep along the bottom edge of the apron. A strip, 16.75" (45cm) and 19" (48.2cm) is sewn at its center to each top corner of the apron; they appear to have been used to tie on the apron.

Girls built America. Girls’ work gave other women leisure time, they made industries more profitable, their cheap labor sparked a consumer revolution, and their activism reshaped labor laws. Through their labor and activism, they made workplaces safer for everyone.

Not all girls had a childhood because they had to work.

Young girls often worked as spinners or bobbin girls. Spinners ran machines that twisted fiber into yarn. Bobbin girls replaced full bobbins of yarn with empty ones. Often, girls wore aprons such as this one to protect their clothes.

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From National Museum of American History, released by the Smithsonian under CC0 through its Open Access programme. The Smithsonian does not endorse ModelsXi. Its own page has the object record and other copies, including full-resolution and print-ready files where they exist.