Dress revues showed off women’s creativity

“The highlight of [North Carolina’s home demonstration] program was the dress revue….As participants walked across a stage in full view of an audience and panel of judges, they announced their names and the cost of their homemade ensemble….

“The 1933 competition held at North Carolina State University featured county winners from across the state. Forty-eight women modeled outfits in six different categories: house dresses, general wear, ‘remodeled,’ sack garments, afternoon and evening…. Included were a dress made of 20-year-old lace curtains (sewn at no cost), a woman’s suit made of a discarded man’s suit and a woman’s suit made from a fertilizer sack….”

— FromPageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South” by  Blain Roberts (2014)

 

‘Not an ear-bob nor a plucked eyebrow among ’em’

“After speaking before a statewide convocation of demonstration club members in North Carolina in 1923, one agent noted approvingly that there was ‘not an ear-bob [earring] nor a plucked eyebrow among ’em…. Guess they get their plucking exercises with the broilers,’ referring to their work in the chicken coop.”

— FromPageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the Twentieth-Century South” by  Blain Roberts (2014)