Blouse, c. Early 1900s

This blouse takes the form of a shirtwaist, a separate blouse constructed like a shirt with a turn over collar, cuffs and buttons down the front, appropriate for women entering the work force. The large-scale production of shirtwaists forms produced in unsafe sweatshops resulted in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 with a loss of 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women. Public outcry from the fire resulted in the growth of the worker's rights movement and the development of child labor laws.

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