McCall 4653 - Ladies' & Misses' One-Piece Overalls or Shorts

1942

Once you get your Victory Garden watered, you can change into a cool play suit and take a nice picnic out to the lake (provided you have enough gas coupons.)

Here's another fine entry into women's war-time work wear.  Miss A. wears the very get-the-job done overalls, probably made up in denim or chambray, with plenty of white top-stitching  The banded sleeves will be a little faster to make than struggling with sleeve plackets and buttoned cuffs.  The over sized right pocket with its pencil slot borrows from men's work shirts.

Miss B, who has finished her work for the day, looks cool and comfortable and ready for a game of badminton.  With her one-piece play suit, she won't have to worry about becoming untucked following one of her wicked overhand serves.

From the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas

This printed pattern has been cut out in Version A.

McCall 1090- Ladies' and Misses' Victory Apron

1943.

So that you don't have to find your reading glasses, here is the verse on the envelope front:

Tie this apron round your waist
And join the Victory war-on-waste,
Plan your meals for zest and vim
And don't forget Ye Vitamine!
Remember that the right nutrition
Is Uncle Sam's best ammunition!

I'm guessing that this was written by that nice Mr. Murple up in McCall's Accounting department - who knew he was so talented.

This is a lovely apron pattern - easy enough to be made by girls in home ec. classes as well as by ladies' groups.  Imagine refreshments tables at dances with all the attendants in their victory aprons worn over white dresses.  The rick-rack braid stars are very clever.

In my family we have a cookbook which we refer to as the Women's Victory Cookbook.  The correct name is the Victory Binding of the American Woman's Cookbook, an enormously popular cookbook of the mid-twentieth century.  The Victory binding edition provides a small appendix on wartime cookery, which includes such contemporary-sounding advice as eating more fish and whole grains and retaining the vitamins in vegetables by not boiling them to death.

Happy Memorial Day, everybody.