In the early twentieth one C , American industrialization yield rise to a new sartorial differentiation between classes . Managers , administrators , and anyone else who worked in an office favored crisp , white shirt on the job . Manual laborers , meanwhile , donneddark , indestructible attire better suited to mill and farm work .
Before long , the “ clean collar ” became both an emblem of aspirational prosperity for urban newcomers and a loathsome reminder of pencil - pushers ’ perquisite . “ If the boy raised in denim and gingham and permitted a white collar only on Sundays and vacation comes subconsciously to associate the blank pinch with simpleness , use and reputability , is it not lifelike ? ” a Louisiana newspaper editorialarguedin 1910 . “ And if he follows the bait of the white catch to the metropolis and gets a chore in which he can wear a blanched collar all the week , and though he spend all his extra earnings in keeping his catch and cuff and shirt white , what does it weigh , so long as he is slaked ? ”
People had start usingblue collarby the 1920s , which etymologist Barry Popiksuggestsmay have just been the most natural way to recognize the working class from their snowy - collar counterparts . “ If we may call professions and power positions lily-white collar jobs , we may call the swap blue collar jobs , ” a local California newspaperprintedin 1924 . Blue was n’t the only semblance wear down by jack , but it waspopular — American requirement for denim hadpredatedthe Gold Rush , and its lightweight first cousin , chambray , was worn by everyone from farm worker to military members .
Though white - collar workers were supposedly better train , better pay , and all around better off than blue - collar workers , it was something of an open secret that only the upper echelon of businesspeople go through such succeeder .
“ It is a fact with which every union workingman is familiar , that his most bitter despisers are the petty foot soldier of the business world , the poor spot - clerks , who are often the worst exploit of proletarians , but who , because they are appropriate to wear a white collar and to work in the bureau with the boss , regard themselves as member of the capitalist class,”Upton Sinclairwrotein 1919 .
Despite the fact that fresh machinery aid ease the forcible strain on dismal - taking into custody workers — and they could even earn more than desk inhabitant — the societal prestige that came with an office problem often outweigh those considerations . As one New York bankertoldMontana’sGreat Falls Tribunein 1924 , “ It is quite potential that to this snowy - collar legion money means less than a well-thought-of piazza in the community of interests — one which , harmonize to common belief , can not be light upon if overalls are fag to function . ”
A century later on , society is still struggling to agitate off that mentality . While construction workers , electricians , mechanics , many other blue - collar laborers are highly skilled and highlycompensated , a stiff white neckband continue to carry a sure air of importance ( though today ’s white - collar worker are just as likely to be don T - shirts ) .
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