Shirt Tale

Cloth shrinks because its fibres have been stretched taut during weaving and finishing, and under the gentle massage of washing the fibres swell, relax and partially return to their original shorter dimensions. This phenomenon has pained no one so much as the shirt-wearing male --that is, until 1928. That year Sanford Lockwood Cluett of Cluett, Peabody & Co. invented Sanforizing--a mechanical method of preshrinking cloth back to its true dimensions. No wearer of even a $2 shirt now need tug apoplectically to button his collar after it has been washed.

In brief, Sanforizing consists of heating and running a bolt of cloth over an elastic blanket, which contracts and pulls the moistened cloth back to proper length, and makes it stay that way. Cluett, Peabody has an exclusive patent on the process, not only uses it itself but collects royalties ranging from 1/4 -c-to 1-c- a yard from 63 U. S. cotton mills producing 60% of U. S. cotton goods. Last week Cluett, Peabody announced that cotton goods Sanforized in 1937 totaled 425,000,000 yds., against 352,000,000 in 1936, 238,000,000 in 1937. Royalties amounted to $412,000, over half of Cluett's $728,000 net for 1937. Cluett is the second largest U. S. shirt maker in a field of 800, but if Sanforizing continues to spread it may become the tail that wags the shirt.

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