Vintage Lee Union Made Sanforized Workwear Shirt 60s

Henry David Lee and four partners opened the H.D. Lee Mercantile Company in Kansas in 1889 selling groceries, not clothing. The first garment factory came in 1912 in Salina; the Union-All followed in 1913, after a mechanic asked for a jacket sewn to a pair of pants; the trademark landed in 1914. Within five years Lee was running plants in four more states.

Two words on this tag do the dating. Sanforized names the process Sanford Cluett patented in 1930, which stretches and shrinks cloth before it is cut so the finished shirt holds its size through washing. Union Made is a different kind of claim — not a process but a workforce, printed on the label because it meant something to the person buying the shirt.

Both were ordinary once. Both are gone from the inside of almost everything hanging in a store today.

Bought to be worn out. It wasn’t.