Flour Sacks

Flour Sacks (also known as Flour Bags, Feedbags, Feed Sacks and other terms), are the cloth sacks, usually made of cheap cotton, which are used to store flour. Over the years, the flour sacks printed with simple designs and trademarks to indicate the millers and companies making or selling the flour.

Later, especially at the end of the 19th century, the flour sacks were often printed in various colors and designs and recycled for clothing and other purposes after use with the flour. "With feed sacks and flour bags, farmwomen took thriftiness to new heights of creativity, transforming the humble bags into dresses, underwear, towels, curtains, quilts, and other household necessities." An example from Turkey shows the variety of colors and designs from different regions.

Various place names were named after flour sacks, since they were so ubiquitous in so many cultures. Blatobulgium in Scotland, and Pieniężno in Poland, for example, are possibly named after words for "flour sack" in different languages. The all white tower in the old city of Ravensburg in Germany is called "Mehlsack", which is German for "Flour Sack".

Reuel Colt Gridley famously carried a 50-pound bag of sack on his shoulder after losing a political bet in Austin, Nevada. The sack of flour was later auctioned off, then re-donated, then re-auctioned off again and again to raise money for the United States Sanitary Commission during the American Civil War. Eventually auctioning this single flour sack raised more than $250,000.00.

Flour sacks were used for clothing in many cultures from the 19th century. Because they came along with the essential purchases as flour, they were universally recycled and used by many cultures as a source of free textiles for clothing and other necessities. For refugees, the free cloth that came with flour helped replace worn out and inadequate clothing.

During the early parts of the 20th century, Chinese workers made clothing from flour sacks, sometimes called "Hunger clothes". A photograph of a man wering trousers made from flour sacks dates from 1904 to 1907. "Flour sack clothes." Lorenzo and Ruth Bennett Morgan were American medical missionaries in the Jiangsu and Anhui provinces of China, serving under the Presbyterian and Methodist mission boards from 1905 to 1946. The photo is marked 1904 but the Morgans did not arrive in China until 1905. The photo may relate to the famine that took place in Jiangsu in 1907. Another photograph from 1948 shows school children wearing clothing made from United Nations relief flour sacks. " A photograph of a large group of children posed for a group photograph. The children are all wearing uniforms made of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration flour sacks. Behind the group is a basketball hoop and farther back is a large structure."

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Wikipedia