The Art of the Apron

Authored By: Lisa Machos

Like many who were taken with the AMC television series Mad Men, after getting 'hooked' I became somewhat fascinated by the 1950's era.  When I purchased clothes, I noticed I started liking more of the traditional full A-line skirts and wiggle dresses.  I began researching more about what daily life was like comparatively to my own daily life.  Like many, I came across a blog post that commented on a 'Housekeeping Monthly' article from their issue of May 13, 1955, entitled, "How to be a Good Wife,"  as there were several.  The blog post I found was entitled "What Makes a Good Wife - the 1950s Ideal vs. Modern Day." 

Regardless of how anyone personally feels on the issues of traditional marriage and values and/ or feminism, I don't want to get into.  But the article that I, myself, felt drawn to, was the part about cooking dinner and having it ready for your husband and looking 'fresh' and beautiful and well put together, etc.  Even though I am one of those working women and usually put in about 60 hour weeks on average, I thought of this idea, not as some backward, misogynistic, unrealistic ideal, but more as an interesting challenge.  To be a modern woman who does the whole independence and career path, but can also demonstrate a respect for her significant other by making a dinner and looking fresh as opposed to tired and being bitchy at the end of the day.  Now that's one accomplished, well-rounded woman, in my opinion.

This challenge brought about my interest in actually purchasing an apron.  If I was short on time, I couldn't necessarily always change right away when starting to cook a meal, and I certainly couldn't work with ingredients like flour or sauces in my suit without some protection.  Thus I came to understand first-hand the need for an apron, something I believed to be a relic in the past and not necessary in a world of fast food and quick-made frozen meals.  Then as my eating habits changed more and more to eating fresh foods and ingredients, the need for protecting my clothing became even more of a necessity, i.e. ever work with beets?

Upon purchasing my well-known rose apron so frequently show-cased on this blog site, inside the package was this darling memo that I wanted to share:

Grandmother's Apron

I don't think our children understand what an apron is; the principal use of the cotton pinafore was to protect the dress underneath because a woman often had very few.  It was also easier to launder aprons than dresses.

An apron served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.  It was wonderful for blotting children's tears.  From the chicken coop, an apron was a pouch for carrying eggs, fussy chicks and sometimes half-hatched eggs headed to a warming oven.

When a company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.  When the weather turned cold, Grandmother would wrap it around her chilled arms.  Those big old aprons mopped many a perspiring brow, whether bent over a hot wood stove or picking snap peas in the garden.  Her apron served as a carrier for kindling and wood chips brought into the kitchen to stoke the fire.  From the garden, it carried the fresh vegetables.  After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

Come Autumn, the apron bundled the apples indoors for preparing apple butter and pies.  When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.  Toys and shoes were toted to bedrooms in it, as well.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch and waved her apron as an alert to the menfolk to come in from the fields for her buttery biscuits.

Times have changed.  While Grandmother once set her hot baked pies in the window sill to cool, her granddaughters now set theirs out to thaw.  There are many cooks today that would fret over the stains and germs on Grandmother's apron...but it is doubtful that anyone caught anything from her apron, but love.

It's probably just me, but I simply love that. I wish the author was noted to give them credit. I love the imagery this little memo inspires. It makes me realize that even though all the strides in progress are great on one side of the coin, on the flip side, there is a lot of good things left behind from that era that would not impede nor impose on that progress if reintroduced back into our modern daily lives.  Not the least of which is quality family time over delicious dishes.  

And perhaps that starts with something as simple as an apron.