I’ve lived in California for 20 years, but I might always be a Midwesterner at heart. My roots are in Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, and as much as I love the fashion and stories that I find from California, there’s a charm and earnest practicality about the styling and people behind Midwest garments. Kansas City became a major center for garment production in the 1930s, and as I’m working through a more in-depth post on the industry there, I wanted to highlight one label I found last year (I think? what is time): Mary Dean Original.
Mary Dean was founded in 1922 by Margaret and Dean Jones, on what almost sounds like a whim. Margaret and Dean married in St Louis in 1907, both in their late 20s, both living with Margaret’s parents. In 1920, the couple moved to Kansas City. Dean had a varied work background, coming to the wholesale clothing business from a career at Standard Oil, and the record doesn't articulate his reasons for making that leap beyond simply wanting to be in business for himself and hearing from a colleague that the women's clothing industry would be a good place to invest. Initially they made nightgowns and bloomers but soon realized that wash dresses (cotton housework dresses) would be more lucrative, and started selling them through his contacts at *checks notes* grocery stores. Though this seemed like an innovative and logical idea, it didn't really prove to be profitable, so they shifted to traditional retail, selling to local specialty shops throughout the midwest under the Mary Dean Original label.
(As a sidenote, these small specialty shops were the lifeblood of the Kansas City garment industry. Many rural women couldn’t easily get to a large city, and relied on the personal service and relative convenience of the closest Main Street shopping district. Once big box stores started to push out the mom and pops, it hastened the decline of the American garment manufacturing industry, particularly that of Kansas City.)
In the 1930s, Mary Dean expanded beyond cotton wash dresses to include sheers and laces ranging from $1 to $6 (about $20-$130 in today's dollar). I love this showcase of their offerings from a Kansas shop in 1933:
In the early 1940s they introduced a sportswear line, Dean Jones Sportswear, that would lean heavily into slack suits and even produced WAAC uniform skirts during the war. Margaret Jones, who oversaw the design and production of the operation, was also president of the Kansas City branch of the Needlework Guild and started the Mary Dean club within the guild for herself and factory girls to make and donate clothing and linens to the war effort. Both the Dean Jones and Mary Dean labels made a wide range of active and workwear in the early and mid-1940s.
Stripes were a common theme, and the wartime dress shape seen here on the left was updated after the war:
Dean Jones died of a heart attack in 1949 at just 67 years old, and his wife and business partner Margaret died the following year. Dean Jones Sportswear continued into the 1950s, run by Margaret's family, as the couple did not have children. I find this terribly romantic: they were married for 42 years and ran the business together, and although it’s some heavy speculation and projection on my part, but I feel like running a business and staying together, without children, as partners at home and at work, for 42 years and then dying within a year of each other? That takes a lot of love.
Based on the documented styles I found, I would place this Mary Dean dress somewhere between 1946 and 1949. In 1946, most Kansas City (and California, for that matter) labels hadn’t caught up to the New York trends and may of their styles were still very wartime in their structure. The one feels on the cusp to me, not quite wartime but not quite onto the next trend either.
On a completely different note, some exciting news: I’ve been asked to join the team at Thrilling on a freelance basis to help with user experience! So even though I just launched my Shopify store, I’m probably going to be moving my few existing listings there and launching new ones there as well. I’m still experimenting with the best way to list this stuff, but since I’m officially working with Thrilling now I want to utilize the platform as much as possible. Have you had any experience with Thrilling? If not, check it out and let me know your impressions. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts both as shoppers and sellers.
Until next time, dear readers, stay safe and stay curious.