Tem-Tex

In August 1951, a federal price order named Feldt Manufacturing Company of Temple, Texas in connection with “Tem-Tex Western Shirts.” The record is useful because it prints a company, a place and the line’s full name together. U.S. Office of Price Stabilization, Federal Register, 22 August 1951, Special Order 420 ↗

Two years later, Broadway Sporting Goods Store in Oakland advertised “Tem-Tex and Calif. Ranchwear Western Shirts” under the heading “Western Wear for Square Dancers.” The two documents do not make a full company biography, but they place the name in two different commercial settings: first in an official order, then at a retailer’s counter.

Tem-Tex is a case for following the paper trail carefully. A label, catalogue or factory record may yet tell us more about the clothes themselves; the documents already here make the starting point visible.