Protesting the high school dress code that banned slacks for girls, Brooklyn c. 1940

[demmiblue]

Link to tweet

[fierywoman]

1. When I graduated HS in 1968 we caouldn't wear pants.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. And then, came the summer of '68, the birth of the ubiquitous blue jeans.

One of the unsung important events of the era.

[secondwind]

2. NYC - 1964. No pants

[Donkees]

3. 'Beverly Bernstein was suspended from Lincoln for showing up to class wearing blue gabardine slacks'

Excerpt:


“She wore them to school, along with a lipstick-red sweater,” the Eagle wrote, explaining that she was then sent to the office of the dean of girls, who apparently issued the suspension. Outraged classmates showed their support by coming to school the next day in pants.

“Girls show up in slacks at Abraham Lincoln High School, in Brooklyn,in protest because a classmate, Beverly Bernstein, was suspended the day before for wearing slacks,” reads the caption on this Daily News/Getty Images photo.

These rule-breaking wartime students also circulated a petition, stating that girls should be allowed to wear pants because “they are better than skirts in the event of an air raid” and to “conserve silk stockings.”

The next day, the Eagle reported that Lincoln’s longtime principal decided that although he disapproved of slacks on girls, “if the girls wear them, we won’t get excited about it.”

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/the-brooklyn-high-school-pants-protest-of-1942/

[3catwoman3]

4. Finished high school in 1969.

Skirts and dresses only.

Froze my ass off waiting for the bus in the winters of Rochester NY.

[MuseRider]

5. My High School was campus style.

We were outside all the time and we had to wear dresses every day. It had to reach 20 below for us to be allowed to wear pants, not jeans, under our dresses when outside. No snow boots either. I graduated in 1971. The college I went to stopped requiring women to wear dresses AND WHITE GLOVES the year before I started there, also 1971.

[hostalover]

7. I love the photo! Those girls had gumption! I wonder what the outcome of their rebellion was.

[AwakeAtLast]

8. Nevertheless she persisted!