Waco History Podcast

The clothing industry in the United States was at its peak in the mid-1900s. Reports show that by 1957, Americans were spending more than $25 billion annually on clothes, nearly twice the amount spent on automobile purchases and eight times the figure spent on private education. Waco was home to several clothing factories during this time that employed many women—companies like Hawk & Buck and J. M. Wood. Estelle Pederson, who moved to Waco in the early 1940s, worked for nearly forty-five years in the clothing industry, much of that time as an inspector. She describes the demands of the work: "They wanted you to make production, and that's for sure. And you really had to work hard to make production because if you didn't make production they would lay you off sure as the world. And, well, I was lucky all those years. I made production most of the time. But I mean it wasn't fooling around. I mean you had to work. And they inspected your work, and if they find a repair they throw it back at you. They'd get on t