QUARANTINE BLOG # 494

August 6, 2021

When Allen Gant was developing the first pantyhose, or “Panti-legs” as his company called them, there was a great deal of experimenting with the fabric.  The process was one of trial and error.  “At first, they’d come up to your chin,” seamer Margaret Minor said.  “You could get your whole body in it – that’s how stretchy it was.  They had to learn to put some control into them so they would fit at your waist.”

A Panti-legs advertisement, featuring “the 4 enemies of glamour.”

But while the new pantyhose were convenient, it wasn’t until the rise of miniskirts in the mid-’60s that they started to become popular.  Once models such as Twiggy put on their minis and added pantyhose, young shoppers rushed to department stores to get their own pairs.  Part of the reason for that was because of the minis’ short hems, as it wouldn’t look proper for a garter belt to peek out from under a short mini.

Before Gant’s invention, stockings were very different.  Before the 1890s they were made of woven cloth such as cotton, linen, wool or silk.  Before the 1920s, women’s stockings were worn for warmth.  

The 1920s stockings were sheer, made first of silk or rayon, followed by nylon after 1940.  Chemical company DuPont’s introduction of nylon in 1939 began a high demand for stockings in the United States.  As nylon stockings were inexpensive, durable and shear, up to 4 million pairs were purchased each day.  

As America entered World War II, DuPont ceased production of nylon stockings and switched their focus to the manufacture of parachutes, airplane cords and rope.  WW II created a mass shortage followed by a black market for stockings.  Nylon stockings became increasingly popular on the black market, and sold for up to $20 per pair ($300 today).

During times of wartime shortage, women would sometimes draw a black line up the back of their bare legs to simulate the seam effect of a stocking.

At the end of World War II, DuPont resumed production of stockings but could not meet the demand leading to “nylon riots” in American stores.  The riots occurred between August 1945 and March 1946, when the War Production Board announced that the creation of Du Pont’s nylon would shift its manufacturing from wartime material to nylon stockings, at the same time launching a promotional campaign.  In one of the worst disturbances, in Pittsburgh, 40,000 women queued up for 13,000 pairs of stockings, leading to fights breaking out.

More on Monday.

👉  A Texas GOP official whose social media posts include anti-mask and anti-vaccine rhetoric has died from COVID-19.  H. Scott Apley, who was a member of the Galveston County Republican Party and Dickinson City council, was 45 years old.

In his last Facebook post July 30, Apley shared a Twitter post mocking COVID-19.  “In 6 months, we’ve gone from the vax ending the pandemic, to you can still get Covid even if vaxxed, to you can pass Covid onto others even if vaxxed, to you can still die of Covid even if vaxxed, to the unvaxxed are killing the vaxxed,” the post read.

Apley was admitted to a Galveston hospital two days after that post with pneumonia-like symptoms.  He tested positive for COVID-19 and was placed on a ventilator.  He died around 3 a.m. Wednesday.  His wife and 5-month-old son also tested positive for the virus.

👉  Imagine for a moment that you have just had your flight canceled.  Whatever the airline told you was the reason for the cancellation, and no matter what they told you they were going to do to make it all better, you would probably not be in the best of humor.  So what do you do?  Say bad words?  Stomp and storm?  Guzzle an adult beverage?

Well, Angela Caravella, of Kansas City, Missouri, flying out of Tampa, Florida, chose to pass the time by buying a scratch-off lottery ticket.  She bought a few to pass the time, started scratching, and as sure as Bob’s Your Uncle, she won the $1 million top price in The Fastest Road to $1,000,000 scratch-off game.  She chose to receive her winnings as a one-time, lump-sum payment of $790,000.  Pretty good payback for the inconvenience, I’d say!

👉  A trio of smiles from the comic strips:

👉  She was an embittered woman, Charlotte Elliott of Brighton, England.  Her health was broken, and her disability had hardened her.  “If God loved me,” she muttered, “He would not have treated me this way.”

Hoping to help her, a Swiss minister, Dr. Cesar Malan, visited the Elliotts on May 9, 1822.  Over dinner, Charlotte lost her temper and railed against God and family in a violent outburst.  Her embarrassed family left the room, and Dr. Malan was left alone with her.

“You are tired of yourself, aren’t you?” he asked.  “You are holding to your hate and anger because you have nothing else in the world to cling to.  Consequently, you have become sour, bitter, and resentful.”

“What is your cure?” demanded Charlotte.

“The faith you are trying to despise.”

As they talked, Charlotte softened.  “If I wanted to become a Christian and to share the peace and joy you possess,” she finally asked, “what would I do?”

“You would give yourself to God just as you are now, with your fightings and fears, hates and loves, pride and shame.”

“I would come to God just as I am?  Is that right?”

Charlotte did come just as she was, and her heart was changed that day.  As time passed she found and claimed John 6:37 as a special verse for her: “The one who comes to me I will by no means cast out.”

Years later, her brother, Rev. Henry Elliott, was raising funds for a school for the children of poor clergymen.  Charlotte wrote a poem, and it was printed and sold across England.  The leaflet said, “Sold for the Benefit of St. Margaret’s Hall, Brighton: Him That Cometh to Me I Will in No Wise Cast Out.”  Underneath was Charlotte’s poem which has since become the most famous invitational hymn in history.

Charlotte lived to be 82 and wrote 150 hymns, though she never enjoyed good health.  As her loved ones sifted through her papers after her death, they found over a thousand letters she had kept in which people expressed their gratitude for the way this hymn had touched their lives.

Here is Michael Eldridge singing Charlotte Elliott’s hymn, “Just As I Am.”

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