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Volume 6, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2050-0742
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0750

Abstract

Since their invention in the 1930s, t-shirts have become one of the most common styles of casual clothing in the United States – worn by all ages, genders and social classes. Although ‘graphic’ t-shirts have existed for decades, twenty-first-century technologies have made them much faster and easier to produce. Students protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s wore black armbands and grew their hair long; today, students (and activists of all ages) are more likely to wear political t-shirts. In a time when anyone with modest computer skills can design a graphic and get t-shirts professionally printed and shipped in just two or three days, this medium for self- and group-expression is well-suited to the turbulence of politics. This article explores the recent history of political t-shirts in the United States in two parts. The first focuses on legislation and legal rulings, including a case heard by the US Supreme Court in 2018 regarding whether activists can wear political t-shirts in polling places (a space where any kind of campaign activity is generally forbidden). The second part explores the definition of a ‘political’ t-shirt. This section is grounded in a study of t-shirts that are currently turning up in thrift shops in Bloomington, IN – a small, politically active community in a conservative state that voted for Obama in 2008 and then Trump in 2016.

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2019-06-01
2025-03-19
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/content/journals/10.1386/cc_00011_1
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Freedom of speech: A recent history of political t-shirts in the United States
Clothing Cultures 6, 179 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1386/cc_00011_1
/content/journals/10.1386/cc_00011_1
/content/journals/10.1386/cc_00011_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): activism; free speech; laws; politics; t-shirts; United States

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