Name: How Uniforms Came to Define the American Worker
Uploaded: 2025-12-17T05:01:00Z
Duration: 5 min 43 s
Description: Uniforms tell the story of America’s decadeslong dependence on workers made anonymous by design.

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Uniforms tell the story of America’s decadeslong dependence on workers made anonymous by design. Photo: Alexandra Mettler for WSJ

https://m.wsj.net/video/20251216/0bbda9ca-587e-4de4-b409-207025fbed87/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Uniforms tell the story of America’s decadeslong dependence on workers made anonymous by design.

How Uniforms Came to Define the American Worker

People have to go to work in clothes. You get up, you shower, and you get dressed, or you show up for your shift and you're putting your uniform on and it's like, you know, it's, you're gearing up, it's your checklist. My apron's good, my shirt's good, my collar looks good, my collar looks good?

Everyone has a uniform story about either some horrible uniform they had or some really fantastic uniform they had and how it transformed the way that they thought about themselves and their ability to do their job.

You know, it could be a chef or a security guard or a front desk concierge or a housekeeper.

The US is a very individualistic society, but if you look at uniforms, it tells a very different story about us.

I love walking into this building. There are sounds of the machines, the steam. One smell that I love is when steam and hot plate hits a piece of cotton. It reminds me of the old kind of hand laundries when you would walk in there. I have food on my face. My name is Wayne Edelman. I'm the president and CEO of Meurice Garment Care. We've been doing business since 1961. We got into the uniform business 20, 25 years ago. I was asked to provide cleaning and laundry services for Rockefeller Center, and my initial response was, I'm a high-end dry cleaner. I don't do uniforms. And then I gave it some thought and said, you know what? If it is a uniform or an Armani suit, what's the difference? I want them to feel good about what they're putting on.

I've been working 15 years, yes. It makes me feel proud because they're wearing something clean and particular, they're working as a professional, so that's why it's important for me.

When you're putting that uniform on, there's the moment when you're making that shift, you're going from Jane Doe to whoever it may be, almost like you are an actor and you are getting into your role, separates the guests from the people providing service.

What you wear tells a story, and uniforms are the same way. You don't necessarily get to choose what you're wearing that day so it reflects someone else's priorities. My name is Heather Akou and I'm actually a fashion historian. The way we teach history, it's presented in a way that tends to really focus on important men, economics, fighting wars, and not that those topics are not important, but what I was really interested in is the day-to-day material culture of our lives. And when I started studying American history in particular, I realized that uniforms are the landscape. Nurses come home from their shifts. The postal carriers delivering packages, high vis safety vests, those are occupations in which tens of millions of people are working, but they're not glamorous and they're generally not very highly valued. Different types of employers have a different logic to why the uniforms are needed and what makes a good uniform. If you are a firefighter, your uniform serves a very functional purpose. You cannot do the job without your uniform, but there are also uniforms that actually do allow you to take on a position of authority. You might not think about a hotel as a place where safety is a concern, but let's say there's a fire in the hotel and you need to get people out of the building quickly. You want someone in a recognizable position of authority and for the people who are in charge, putting on that uniform means that they are able to embody that in a way that they might not have if they were just wearing their own ordinary clothing.

Honestly, it's the first job I've ever had with a uniform. At first, I was kind of into it, like the vest, the whole like button up shirt. I know I like getting dressed up, so it was enjoyable. Now with this uniform chain, we have these like bright red vest, we just have black and we have the tie. It feels a bit clownish, but also I think there is something to be said for being in a room full of people all the same.

So if you're a delivery driver, people know who you are just based on how you're dressed.

It's a nice work uniform. It's very comfortable. I barely notice it's on at times. It's non intrusive. I very much like the pockets in it. They come very much in handy.

Occupations that tend to have uniforms, tend to be the ones that are actually really important to our economy in terms of healthcare, in terms of access to food, transportation. And I think that those stories are really important to tell too.

I think that everyone once in their life should be in service to the point where that they like wait tables or whatever it is. It just gives you a complete different perspective.

There are uniforms everywhere. If you start noticing them, you really can't help but continue to notice them, they're just truly everywhere and really the only thing that connects all of them is that they are choices that adults are making about other adults and telling 'em what to wear.

It almost feels like I never take this off, but it's something that I don't mind wearing while on the job.