But during the Depression, flour and seed companies saw an opportunity to help struggling families. Wearing a flour-sack dress got you labeled as poor and sent you down a rung or two in social ...

Women made garments out of the leftover sacks, and companies noticed. By 1925, at least one company, Gingham Girl flour, packaged its goods in dress-quality fabric and used its sacks as a selling ...

The practice became so widespread that one historian estimated as many as 3.5 million mothers and daughters wore homemade flour sack dresses during the Depression.

In 2012, decorative arts historian Margaret Powell explained that although the use of feed sack clothing experienced its heyday during the Great Depression and World War II, it had been observed ...

She read a poem by Colleen B. Hubert called “The Flour Sack.” She also said that making quilts and clothing using feed sacks brings to mind the poverty of the Great Depression.

The mills promoted the use of their feed and flour sacks by working with McCalls and Simplicity to create patterns that would incorporate these materials. "The history of the “sack” dresses is ...