File: hughesemmett06-oh-housepartydress_M.mp3
Speakers:
EH – Emmett Hughes
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
EH: Back then nobody would dance with their overalls on. It was kind of a B The whole damn trouble was, back when I was a young man was B [to] get money enough to buy a suit. See in the winter time, the overalls is what you wore all the time, even going to church you wore overalls because it's warmer. You were in a sleigh, and it was warmer clothes than other. But if you had to go to a dance, you wouldn't go – You'd be kind of looked down on if you weren't rigged out like everybody else.
KP: So the men wore suits, to the dances? With jackets?
EH: Oh Yeah, you wore a full suit with shoes, and no overshoes or rubbers. And the thing then was when you had a hundred there, was to find your rubbers, with them all kicked into the corner. It was an awful battle to get them all dug out when it come time. You get a hundred pair of overshoes there, it'd be quite a job to find them.
KP: So what did the women wear to the dance?
EH: Well, they were pretty well dressed too. But they wouldn't wear slacks to a dance. That wasn't considered too good either. They wore dresses.
KP: And where did they get the dresses?
EH: There'd be stores sellin' them, and then a lot of them made dresses. There was people who done that for a livin', like.