The Overall League
It was spring,1920 and the season was ushered in with the notice that the yearly price of gasoline had been set at forty five cents a gallon and by the noticeable increase in Mr. Findley Watt's business. Mr. Watt was the district agent for motor vehicle licences and car owners were busy getting their Grey-Dorts and Hupmobiles out of winter storage and ready for another season of driving and of course with this came the first accident of the year when young William Anderson drove his father's motorcycle into Dr. Mulvihill's car.
The town seemed to be not only prospering but on the verge even greater prosperity. The British firm of Maguire, Paterson and Palmer had begun work on their new match factory near Moffat's Crossing and there was plenty of work for men who had returned home from the lumber camps. Plans were underway to construct a new East Ward public school and to establish a new park in Girouxville in the west end of town, a park that would eventually become known as Riverside Park.
The Local Council of Women were keeping an ever watchful eye on the youth and to this noble end they had persuaded the movie theatres to stop running serials and for the police to be more diligent in ringing the curfew bell in the evening. They had also established a committee to look into having a memorial erected to the memory of the fallen soldiers of the Great War and were instrumental in seeing this project through to its completion some years later.
There were two new restaurants on the main street. Mr. Fong Deen was opening the Oriental Cafe at 55 Pembroke Street west and farther up the street at 97 Pembroke Street west Mr. Willie Hong was converting his hand laundry business into what would soon be the Crown Cafe. At the block at the bridge the cafe, ice cream, confectionery and fancy bakery business of Brunette & Bergerron had just celebrated the opening of an addition to their business at 21 Pembroke Street west by having an evening of music by Van Gene's Orchestra in their new annex at 23 Pembroke Street west.
Earlier in the year the town had had yet another major fire on the main street when the Heenan Block, that row of buildings running from Prince Street eastward to Delahey's Department Store (now Bob's Music) caught fire and burned to the ground. But by early spring all the displaced businesses had found new homes, the cleanup of the old buildings had begun and even this near disaster couldn't put a damper on the mood of the town.
The newspapers in those heady days were filled with advertisements from all the major stores of the town and there seemed to be perpetual sales throughout the business section. Duff's Clothing had just moved to the corner of Pembroke and Moffat Streets, two doors east from their old location at 218 Pembroke Street and were having a big introductory sale. Eaton's Bootery had taken over Duff’s old store and they too were having an introductory sale to their line of boots and shoes. Up at the north end of Mackay Street Mr. Charles Shore who had just taken over the clothing store "next to Cecile's Hotel" from Mr. M. Addleman was having an "I Want To Get Acquainted" sale.
Men's suits were going for anywhere from $28.75 at Duffs, to $35 next door at The Oak Hall Men's Wear to $46.50 at Mr. Shore's new store. For the ladies, Delahey's was selling their new "Modes For Spring" that "pay tribute to womankind" with ensembles ranging in price from $20 to $65. Those essential accessories, gloves and scarves, were selling for up to three dollars and ladies hosiery went for anywhere from seventy five cents to three dollars a pair.
The Ladies Exclusive (later known as Doran's Ladies Wear) had a range of dresses costing anywhere from $15 all the way up to $75 as well as hats and accessories. Their ad stated "We can save you money and railway fare" underlining a problem that was as relevant then as it is now, out of town shopping.
It was not uncommon for local shoppers, especially the better heeled, to travel by train to the city to do their shopping, even at times, grocery shopping. It was estimated by the merchants that each year a hundred thousand dollars was spent on shopping trips to Ottawa and on catalogue shopping, money that could have been better used to support the local business community. To try and curtail this trend the merchants, allied with both newspapers, launched a "Buy Local" campaign, urging shoppers to support their local businesses saying "If You Buy Out of Town…..What Will Become of Our Town."
History now tells us that the average Canadian man earned just under one thousand dollars a year in 1920. In 1923, the carpenters in town went on strike until they achieved a wage of sixty-five cents an hour and in 1927 the town council decided to raise the wages of their workers to a flat thirty-five cents an hour eliciting howls of outrage from local industries. These industries, such as the match factory, the Steel Equipment and Superior Electric claimed to pay a top wage of thirty-three cents an hour but when pressed acknowledged that many were paid less than this and the Shook Mills was paying some workers as low as twenty-five cents an hour.
Into this mix of low wages and high clothing costs came the boys of the Pembroke High School on Isabella Street. Already used to wearing denim jeans after school they now formed an "Overall League" and took to only wearing khaki coloured suits of this material as a protest against the high cost of new clothes. The boys were said to look quite "correct" in their new attire which they kept clean and neatly pressed and it was said that at a distance it was impossible to tell if a fellow was or was not wearing overalls. The fad spread until it reached the Copeland Hotel where many of the boarders at that establishment, professionals and otherwise, signed a compact to discard their conventional business attire and don overalls exclusively. They not only signed the compact but proposed to levy a fine on anyone who had signed the pledge and was found to be wearing conventional clothing.
As the fad spread clothing stores had quite an extensive run on overalls and workmen's smocks and their windows now featured these items, replacing the pricey suits and natty ties of previous weeks. Their ads in the newspapers too reflected this shift in sensibilities. Previous to this if overalls were mentioned at all they were regulated to the small print at the bottom of an ad along with socks, underwear and handkerchiefs. Now they were the featured item. Delahey's had a full ad featuring drawings of young men looking very fashionable in their one dollar and ninety eight cent overalls and dollar twenty-five work shirts. Fenton & Smith's went more traditional using a drawing of a railroad man standing beside the driving wheel of a locomotive and wielding a tool as a conductor stands off to the side looking at his watch and the logo "Kitchen's Railroad Signal Overalls" between them. Prices here ranged from a dollar seventy-five to three and a quarter for overalls and workmen's shirts could be had for as low as a dollar.
The Oak Hall, known for it's fine line of gentlemen's clothing, deigned to advertise they had "Outfits for all classes" and while they never did sell overalls they did have “well made working pants in grey stripes.”
Even that venerable old shop for men, Watters & Bodell where fine materials, bespoke suits and Borsalino hats were were the order of the day, they too devoted a goodly portion of an ad to work shirts, overalls and smocks, shop coats, working suspenders, handkerchiefs and "Kant Krack Collars."
Some people felt that as well meaning as this protest or fad was all it did was to drive up the cost “of the very clothing that the poor working man needed for his daily labours.” They felt it would have been better to have had an "Old Clothes League," to have worn out all the old clothing and shoes rather than put more money into the very pockets of the merchants they were protesting against.
In the end it all died out rather quietly and by the latter part of April nothing more was heard of the Overall League. The men’s shops went back to advertising their usual items and perhaps the students turned their attention to an upcoming feature at the Grand Opera House, "The Eyes Of Youth" starring Clara Kimball Young or perhaps to the Casino Theatre where Alice Brady starred in "Marie Ltd." or later in the week when Bessie Basercalles played in "Tangled Threads."
That was almost the end of overalls playing any role in the news of Pembroke except for a short period mid-decade when Schultz’s Mens Wear declared an overall week and advertised a brand of overalls and jackets that offered cinder proof collars.
But then, on a warm September day in 1929 a pair of overalls again made the news. A young woman strolled up the main street wearing a pair of overalls but not just any overalls. These were a pair of bright pink overalls worn over a knitted silk shirt. On her feet she wore pink socks and a pair of “high heeled slippers” and this was all topped off with a jaunty sailors cap and a generous dab of pink rouge on each cheek. Cars zigzaged up the street and turned to follow the young woman and her somewhat bashful escort. Pedestrians risked walking into lamp posts as they stared at the young couple and a gaggle of children trailed along behind them.
Where they came from and where they went wasn’t reported but for a brief moment this “young lass in a vivid suit” brightened staid old Pembroke and gave it something to talk about.
