Where did school uniforms come from?

Oh, for the love of Bobbin. Joy, whatcha up to? Brains On and Smash Boom Best host Molly Bloom? You're exactly the person I need right now. I'm trying out different designs for my ultimate podcast host uniform. So I got out this old sewing machine. It's jammed again. Ultimate podcast host uniform? You mean like a special outfit for hosting podcasts? Exactly. I need a signature look. Molly, how do you feel about ruffles?

You do realize no one can see you on a podcast, right, Joy? Yes, but they can hear me, and I sound my best when I look my best. Joy, be honest. What do we think about the feather boa? There's magenta, lime green, and aqua. Oh, hi, Molly. Hi, Hannah. I see you're also working on a podcast host uniform. I personally like the aqua-colored boa, but the feathers might make me...

Oh, sneeze. Oh, good point. That might be distracting on the pod. What about bangle bracelets instead? Beautiful, but noisy. Neon 80s style windbreakers? Rad, but too swishy. Molly, you're a podcast host. What's your go-to podcast host uniform? Well, my ideal podcast host uniform is all about comfy boots and a striped turtleneck sweater. Rain or shine, snow or sun, catch me in a turtleneck sweater. I admire your commitment, Molly.

It's so hard to decide what my uniform should be. Well, we can all agree on one thing, right? The ultimate podcast host accessory? Headphones! Yeah, how else are we supposed to hear how good we look? Welcome to Forever Ago from APM Studios. I'm Joy Dolo, and I'm here with Hannah from San Mateo, California. Hi, Joy.

Today, we're talking all about the history of uniforms to help us get inspired to make our very own podcast host uniforms. Uniforms are a set of clothing that's specific to your work, school, or organization. They can help tell you what job somebody does or what school they go to. If you deliver the mail for the U.S. Postal Service, you wear a blue shirt and pants and carry a special mailbag.

That's a uniform. If you're a royal guard in the UK, you wear a long sleeve red jacket and a big furry black hat. Also a uniform. There are different uniforms for people in the military, which can help show which branch someone serves in. And athletes wear special uniforms, too, which creates a unifying look for the whole team. And they help people keep track of who's on which team. Some schools have uniforms, too.

Uh, Hogwarts, anyone? Wednesday, Princess Diaries, Sailor Moon? Those are all examples from TV and movies, but it's true. School uniforms give a distinct look to each school and help show which students go to which school. It's like everyone is on the same team. Plus, it means no one has to feel bad at school because they don't have the latest looks. Hannah, you wear a school uniform, right?

Yes. Nice. Have you always had to wear one? Well, we have free dress days sometimes. Is that like one day a week or is it like Fridays and Mondays? It's like sometimes we do like... donation drives and whichever class gets like the most donation items, they can get redress day maybe. Oh, a nice incentive. Okay, so I have two questions. One, what is your uniform? What does it look like? And two, when you get a free dress day, what do you like to wear? My school uniform normally looks like...

A white polo shirt and navy blue pants or maybe black. And I think I like wide bottom pants or like something comfy maybe. So when you're at home on the weekends and you're hanging out with your family and you guys go to the park or something, like what do you like to wear when you're just hanging out and lounging? Well, kind of like maybe the same, like as free. dress day, or maybe if we're playing at the park, but maybe if I'm inside, maybe I like to wear pajamas. Yeah.

Oh, I love pajamas. I have a onesie pajama that I like to wear. It's like it buttons all the way down and it's got long sleeves and then I have like big thick socks that I wear with it too. That's cool. Hannah, if you could design your dream school uniform, what would it look like? Like, I think it would, like, be cool. Like, maybe, like, silky. With, like, bright-ish colors. So it's, like, not neon, but, like, red hearts or something.

Oh, yeah. Red hearts would be cool. Or like orange, maybe. Like, do you like those kind of bright colors? Like warm colors. So it's like a sunset. Oh, I love that. You know, blue and orange is like my favorite combination. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. And Silky would be nice on the skin, too. Listeners, we asked you to design the school uniform of your dreams, and here's what you had to say. Hi, my name is Abigail, and I live in Rescue, California.

I like to design my own uniform and I would like it to be have bright orange long sleeve shirts with feathers on the cuff and a bright pink skirt. Hi, my name is Alexander. I am from Olathe, Kansas. My dream school uniform would be a tie-dye shirt with buttons. There would be a shirt pocket. And on the shirt pocket, there would be a little bumblebee. But instead of yellow and black stripes, there would be blue and black stripes.

Hi, I'm Ellie and my design for a school uniform will be a light green skirt or pants and a blue and yellow striped shirt with a purple bow. If I could design a school uniform, it would be sort of like a mood ring where it changes color depending on what emotion you're having at that exact moment. For example, If you're feeling happy, it would be green. But if you're feeling angry, it would be red.

Hi, my name is Zara. I'm from India. I wanted the uniform to be a light blue dress that has a rainbow on it. Thanks to Abigail, Alexander, Ellie, Nathaniel, and Zara for sending in those awesome uniform design ideas. I'm writing all of this down to help me decide on my podcast host uniform. Joy.

Have you ever had to wear a school uniform? That's a great question, Hannah. You know, I've never had to wear a school uniform, but I can relate to...

The idea that like every day I had to think of something else to wear and I would get stressed out about it because I'd be like, well, I wore these pants already. I can't wear them again because I wore them on Monday and it's Thursday. And I don't know where that came from. It doesn't make any sense. Like I could have worn the same pants every day and it would have been.

And fine. Because I do that now. And nobody notices. Actually, nobody here knows that I've wore these pants for like two days in a row. But now you all know. And I wish I didn't say that out loud. But no, I've never had to wear a uniform. What about other uniforms?

I used to wear uniforms when I had my regular day jobs. Like, I worked at Red Lobster for a long time. But when I worked there, I had to wear black slacks and a white polo. And I don't know if you know this, but there's lots of, like...

greasy food stuff around so it was really hard to keep that white polo clean and they don't give you a bunch of them they only give you one so it's like my god yeah and then like sometimes when people came in you have to like take the little lobsters out of the tank and like show them

It was weird, but I had to do it all in my uniform, so it would always smell like shellfish. So I've got a lot of different uniforms from working in restaurants. Did you ever have to wear a cool uniform for an acting role? There was one time I did a show where I played a soldier and I had like a soldier uniform and they even had somebody from the army come in and show us how to do a proper salute so we could like look like real soldiers. Yeah, so...

I guess I've had a lot of uniform experience, just not necessarily in like the school context. So cool.

Every uniform has a story, and today we're going to tell the story of the school uniform. The first school uniform we know about is from 800 years ago in England. This was way back at a time called the Middle Ages. Most people spent their days farming and eating porridge. Instead of going to school, kids helped with farm work and other chores, too. In England, school was mostly for wealthy people.

like royalty or people who owned a lot of land. Schools were run by churches back in the Middle Ages. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was the leader of the Church of England, had an idea for his students. I, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hereby decree that all students of the church wear a kappa clausa. Kappa what now? Cappaclausa means closed cloak in Latin.

These cloaks were long, so they went all the way to the floor. They also had hoods. And get this, these early school uniforms were sewn completely closed, except for an opening in the front for the hands. Kind of like if you had a really long poncho with a hole in the middle of it for your hands to come out. This was the first known example of a school making students wear a specific kind of clothing.

Flash forward a couple of centuries to the mid-1500s, toward the end of the Renaissance. This is around the time when playwright William Shakespeare was born, the guy who wrote Romeo and Juliet. The printing press had been invented, which means more and more people were learning to read and sharing information with each other.

And clothing for students became a lot more practical than that big old cloak called the Kappa Klossa, which is a really cool name. This is when the first modern school uniforms popped up. It was around 1552, once again in England. Right. These new uniforms started at Christ Hospital Boarding School outside of London. This school was also tied to the Church of England, just like the school that made students wear cloaks. But these uniforms were nothing like a cloak.

They were made up of separate pieces of clothing with distinct colors. Yellow knee stockings and long navy blue coats with matching navy shorts underneath. The school gave these uniforms to the students who were mostly poor children or orphans. The people of London pitched in to help pay for the school uniforms too. Here's a fun fact.

The school is still around today, and the students wear the same uniform. Yep, they still wear blue coats and yellow stockings almost 500 years later. It's really cool that this look survived all the fashion trends over the years. It really has staying power. Thank goodness shoulder pads weren't in style in the 1500s. That'd be a tough look to pull off for hundreds of years. Hmm. But they might be just the thing for my podcast host uniform.

Large shoulder pads? Okay, so we know that school uniforms got their start in England, starting as far back as the Middle Ages. And more modern uniforms showed up later in England during the 1550s. Both of these school uniforms had ties to churches. So how did uniforms get to the U.S.? And why are they at some non-religious schools now, too? Great question. We're going to dive into the answers after the break. But first, let's play...

That's the game where we take three items and put them in order from the oldest to most recent in history. Today we've got three clothing items, penny loafers, which are a type of fancy slip-on shoe, neckties, and blazers, which are like a... A suit jacket. Hannah, have you heard of these three things? What exactly does, like, a blazer look like? You know, like, business folks, they have that, like, jacket that goes with the pants. It's like a suit.

You know, like a blazer, it's like that top part. And neckties, what is that? It's like a tie, like a suit and tie. Okay, cool. So I think first is maybe... Neckties? I mean, like, that seems like an old-timey thing that, like, rich people would wear with powdered wigs. Yeah. I don't know. And blazers? So...

I don't know, that just seems something in the middle that people would wear, like, in the middle. Yeah, yeah. And penny loafers, well, it sounds like a lot of shoe parts and, like, you have to slip it in. Yeah. Well, that's a good question, too, because it's like, which came first, like shoes that you slip on or shoes that you have to tie? Yeah. So right now we have number one as neckties, number two is blazers, and number three, penny loafers? Yes.

All right. We're going to lock that in. And those are some great guesses. We'll hear the answers at the end of the show after the credits. So keep listening. Hey, Forever Ago friends. We love getting your episode ideas and history questions. Hannah, what's something in history you'd like to learn more about? I think I want to learn more about... architecture like like how like skyscrapers came from like old-fashioned houses yeah

Oh, that's so cool. You know, I just read a book about cathedrals and how cathedrals were built. I think that's a great idea. If you all out there have a question about history or an idea for an episode, record it and send it to us at foreverago.org slash contact.

You can also send us fan art. Yes, like a picture of your personal podcast host uniform or a picture of your favorite cathedral or skyscraper or a picture of me, Hannah and my pet elephant Hermes stomping down the runway at the latest fashion. I can't wait to see what you come up with. Brains On Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Forever A Goal, you'll love the other shows in our universe. Come on, let's explore.

It's Alien Exercise Hour! Hi-yah! Hoo-ha! While I stretch my snoodles and bounce on my trampolini, I'll listen to a new podcast. going to try Brains On! The best science podcast ever! It's starting, yay! Hello, and welcome to Pop Planet, the only show that gets you up close and personal with space. I'm your host, Star Eden. Zorb! Come back here, podcast! Must listen to Brains On now! Listen to Brains On wherever you get your podcasts. Bye.

You're listening to Forever Ago. I'm Joy. I'm Hannah. Before the break, we learned about how school uniforms got their start in England. First in the Middle Ages with long-closed cloaks. And then again in the mid-1500s. with yellow socks and navy jackets at a boarding school outside of London. Both of these uniforms came from schools in England that were run by churches. So how did school uniforms end up in the U.S.? And why are they in some schools that...

aren't run by churches. To help answer that, I called up a fashion expert. Hi, okay, I'm here for the fashion emergency. It's fellow podcast host Avery Truffleman. She's burst through the wall and she's covered in debris and she's here to save the day. Avery hosts a podcast called Articles of Interest, all about what we wear. Parents, check it out. Hi, Avery.

Hey, you two. Joy, do you need more stain remover? I thought you'd learned your lesson after the melted chocolate pocket incident of last summer. No chocolate pocket here. Actually, this is a fashion history emergency. We're talking all about uniforms today. Avery, as a fellow podcast host, what would you say is your podcast host uniform? Hmm.

I kind of like a uniform that sounds almost like what the kids wore outside of London. I like to wear a little blazer. I like to wear a little collared shirt. I don't know. It makes me feel sophisticated. Ah, yeah. Sophisticated outfit. Yeah.

It sounds like you're like that too, Hannah. You got a sophisticated outfit too. I need some sophistication in my life. This is all really great intel for designing my own podcast host uniform. Maybe I'll have like a button-down collar and then like a blazer.

And then like navy blue shoes in honor of Hannah's. And then what else is sophisticated? I can have like a white fluffy cat that I pet all the time. Yes, yes, yes. And maybe like, you know, a shirt that says I'm sophisticated underneath. That's a great way to. Be sophisticated. Yes. I love it. Sometimes you just have to spell it out for people, you know? Big glasses. The thicker they are, the smarter you are. Yes. Ah, yes. I read that on the internet. Mm-hmm.

We've been talking about the history of school uniforms. We know they started in England, but when did people start seeing them in the U.S.?

That is a really great question. We don't see school uniforms becoming more popular in the United States until a couple hundred years later, in the 1800s, just after the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was this super important period in history when more stuff started being made in factories by machines instead of by hand.

Exactly. This meant that there were lots of new jobs in the United States. And lots of immigrants moved to the United States to work those jobs. Immigrants are people who move from their home country to a new country. Many immigrants were moving to the United States looking for a better life. At the time, lots of these immigrants were from Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe. But these new people were not always welcomed when they moved to the U.S.

In fact, many Americans treated immigrants poorly just because they spoke a different language or had different cultures and religions from their own. Some businesses wouldn't hire them as workers. And sometimes immigrants were mocked in newspapers and cartoons. Unfortunately, it's a story we hear again and again throughout history. The treatment of these new immigrants was unfair and wrong.

A lot of these immigrants were also Catholic, which wasn't a very popular religion in the United States back then. Right. The majority of Americans practiced different types of Christianity and viewed Catholics as really different from themselves. Even some of the public schools were super anti-Catholic. A lot of these Catholic immigrants didn't feel comfortable at these public schools. So they decided to band together.

Catholic immigrants started to make their own Catholic schools where students could be around other kids who shared the same religion and spoke the same language, like Irish or Polish or Italian. help these people feel more at home in their new country. It can be nice to be around people who understand you and your culture. Right. And one way to help a group feel even closer...

is to have a uniform. And that's what these schools did. They had students wear uniforms to make everyone feel like part of a team. So what did these American school uniforms look like back then? Some of these early uniforms were inspired by the military and had square collars, kind of like you'd see on sailors' uniforms, or Donald Duck, if you remember what he's wearing. This is also when we start to see navy pants or skirts paired with...

button down shirts. It's honestly very similar to some of the uniforms we see in schools today. Oh, maybe my podcast host's uniform should be navy with buttons. So sophisticated. So much to consider. Over time, newer uniforms were made with more colors and different shapes of jackets. By the 1980s, almost 100 years later, some public schools started using uniforms too.

Like at my school. We're not a religious school, but we still have a uniform. Exactly. And parents, if you want to hear more about school uniforms, I'm doing a whole episode about this on my podcast, Articles of Interest. And Hannah's in it too. Yep, and so is my mom. Subscribe to Articles of Interest so you can check it out. We'll also add a link to it in the show notes as soon as it's released. Thanks for sharing with us, Avery. My pleasure.

Sounds like I'm being summoned for another fashion emergency. Vogue Bulgaria needs to know if bows are in or not. Gotta blast. Bye, Avery. Today there are school uniforms in all sorts of schools, whether they're public or private, religious or non-religious. Just under 20% of American public schools require school uniforms. That's about one in every five schools. Most American students don't wear a school uniform, but that's not the case in other countries.

Right. In places like Japan, Australia, and India, the majority of students wear school uniforms. But there's a lot of disagreement about uniforms. Ah, yes. The age-old debate.

To uniform or not to uniform? That is the question. Some studies argue that school uniforms cause less distractions because everyone is wearing the same thing. They can make getting ready for school much easier, too. Because you don't have to think about what to wear. Some researchers even think uniforms might help kids do better on tests or improve their attendance. But other researchers say uniforms don't really change student behavior at all.

And some people say uniforms make it harder for students to express themselves with their looks. We wanted to hear what you think, so we asked you what you liked and disliked about school uniforms. Hi, I'm Devrat. I live in India and I think kids should have to wear their own comfortable home clothes to school. Hi.

My name is Abigail, and I live in Rescue, California. I think kids should wear uniforms because they'll know which class they are in. Hi, my name is Shoshi. I think school uniforms should not be allowed. Because at the school I go to, we have uniforms and they're very uncomfortable. My name is Elliot. I'm from Olathe, Kansas. My thing about school uniforms, I think everybody should wear the same school uniforms. Hi, my name is Ida. I think uniforms shouldn't be allowed because...

as they don't allow a kid to wear what they like to wear if they don't like what the uniform is or looks like. Hello, my name is Maxine and I go to school with uniforms. I am against uniforms. Because most of the time they're rich and if you shop for them in summer, then it's wasting your summer time. You could be playing games like Frisbee.

Thanks, Abigail, Devrat, Shoshi, Elliot, Ida, and Maxine for sharing your thoughts. Hannah, as someone who has always worn a school uniform, how do you feel about them? I think... I'm fine with them. I don't think they're bad. What do you like about wearing a uniform? You don't have to, like, rush your morning and say, oh, no, what do I wear?

Yeah, that's what I experienced when I had to figure out my school uniforms. Or like if you want to wear something you want, maybe like other people might not make fun of you because you're all wearing the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Are there things that you don't like about it or that you wish would change? Sometimes I think they could be more comfy, like not too scratchy all the time. Maybe like a bit more.

color into it to make it seem, like, cool. Yeah, yeah. What color would you pick? I don't know, because, like, mine is, like, Mandarin immersion, so, like, maybe red. That's what, like, our graduation t-shirts are. I love red. That's a great color. Well, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Anytime. Uh-oh. Joy, don't tell me you've had another melted chocolate pocket incident.

I leave loose chocolate chips in my jean pockets one time in the middle of the summer, and I never hear the end of it. But no, that's my fashion timer.

It means it's time to debut our podcast host uniforms. I finally decided on the perfect fit. Lights. Cameras. Fashion. A fashion show needs some MC. Hit it, Molly. First up on the runway, it's Hannah wearing her very own podcast host uniform. A polka dot vest with wide leg pants. Yes and yes. And don't forget my star hair clips. Yes. Who could forget?

Tens, tens, tens across the board. Next up, it's Joy Dolo here in her signature pink denim jumpsuit and fresh Converse. Peep the match and tube socks. They're key to regulating my temperature in those chilly recording studios. And here comes Avery in a pinstripe vest over a crisp button-up and are those... earrings made out of wall debris they're incredibly heavy but oh so chic and here comes hermy the elephant in pleather overalls so sleek and is that

Gumpy, Joy's sculpture come to life made entirely of chewing gum, and he's wearing gauchos. Love it! Cool-outs on back, people! Uniforms are specific clothes that show what kind of job you do school you go to or organization you're a part of. The earliest school uniforms date back to schools run by English churches 800 years ago. School uniforms didn't become more popular in America until the 1800s, when Catholic immigrants from Europe started their own schools.

Now people all over the world wear school uniforms. There are pros and cons to wearing school uniforms. Either way, uniforms and fashion continue to influence each other. This episode was written by Ruby Guthrie. It was produced and fact-checked by Nico Gonzalez-Whistler and edited by Sandin Totten and Shayla Farzan. Engineering help from Victoria Vajarado and Jean Baron with sound design by Rachel Breeze. Original theme music by Mark Sanchez.

We had additional production help from the rest of the Brains On Universe team. Beth Perlman is our executive producer, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Avery Truffleman, Grace Tarducci, Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs, and Elizabeth Lynn.

Okay, Hannah, are you ready to hear the answers for First Things First? Yes. I guess. I'm excited. Okay. So as a reminder, we're putting these three clothing items in order. And you said number one was neckties. Number two was blazers. And number three was penny loafers. You ready? Yes. Drum roll, please. Oh, Hannah. Oh, you got it right. So number one was neckties, and that was invented in 1636.

And the modern necktie can be traced back to 1636 when French King Louis XIII hired Croatian soldiers to help fight a war. The soldiers secured their jackets by tying colorful pieces of cloth at the neck. King Louis loved the look and nicknamed it the cravat, coming from the French word for Croatians. By the early 1800s, the cravat had spread to other countries, and England even published an entire manual on different ways of tying and knotting the neck scarves, hence the name necktie.

I did not know that. Cravat, coming from the French word for Croatians. That's cool. So when you see somebody wearing a necktie or a tie now, you can be like, nice cravat. It's pretty sweet. Also, side note, my dog's name is King Louie. Oh, that's so cool. So now I got to get him a little necktie.

So you're right for number one, neckties, and then you're also right for number two for blazers. There are different stories about the origins of the blazer, but both are in England during the 1800s. One story goes that the term blazer is traced back to a... College Boat Club in Cambridge, England back in 1825. Members of the club's rowing team wore bright red structured jackets that got the nickname Blazers like a fiery blaze. The other theory is that the jackets were named

after a Navy boat called the HMS Blazer in 1837. The boat's captain made his crew wear matching Navy blue jackets in hopes of impressing the queen on a royal visit. So we have the necktie 1636. We have the blazers in the 1837. And the most recent is the Penny Loafers. And they were invented in 1936 by a Maine shoemaker, G.H. Bass. Bass was inspired by Norwegian farming shoes that were made for loafing in the field.

The loafers have a small leather strap across the front of the shoe with a little cutout in the center. The shoes got the nickname Penny Loafers because people used to put... coins like pennies in the cutout of their shoes. I knew it. Fashionable and functional like a tiny coin purse on your foot. Like, so then I'm going to go to a store. Okay, one penny, please. And you take your shoe off and give him a penny. Why is this sweaty? Sorry. Were you surprised by any of these answers?

Well, like, I kind of expected it maybe, like, at a different point in time, maybe. It's interesting, like, the name of the inventors, like, to loaf around in the field. We're just out here loafing. Thanks for listening.