Work dress: H. D. Lee's South Bend factory

1916 — the mid twentieth century

Overalls, jackets, and the Union-All: The third garment trade the city held was work clothing, and it arrived as a branch plant of a Kansas house. The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company of Salina, Kansas — a wholesale grocery and hardware concern founded in 1889 — began manufacturing the work clothes it had been buying from eastern makers in 1911: overalls, jackets, and dungarees. In 1913 it added the garment that made its name, the Lee Union-All, a jacket and work pants sewn together at the waist, made for men who worked around machinery, animals, and dirt. In 1916 the company opened two more factories, in Kansas City, Missouri, and in South Bend, Indiana. The 1921 city directory fixes the plant's place in the local trade: under the classified heading "Garment Manufacturers" it lists three firms — Lee H. D. Mercantile Co., at 405 East Madison; the Ridenour Garment Co., at 201–213 East Wayne; and the Victor Garment Mfg. Co., at 235½ South Michigan — the two local houses beside the Kansas one, carried at the directory's size, as names with trades and addresses. The trade had its organization as well: the directory's list of labor bodies includes Garment Workers' Local No. 182, meeting the first and third Thursdays of each month in Central Labor Union Hall, its secretary a woman, Gertrude Wesolowski. The Lee company's own published history carries the South Bend factory's opening; the sources reached for this section do not carry its closing, and none is printed.

Sources:

1. International Directory of Company Histories, "Lee Apparel Company, Inc." — the Salina founding of 1889, the turn to manufacturing work clothes in 1911 (overalls, jackets, dungarees), the Union-All of 1913, and the factories opened in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri, and South Bend, Indiana.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), classified business directory — "Garment Manufacturers": Lee H. D. Mercantile Co., 405 E. Madison; Ridenour Garment Co., 201–213 E. Wayne; Victor Garment Mfg. Co., 235½ S. Michigan.
3. Same directory, labor organizations list — Garment Workers' Local No. 182, Central Labor Union Hall, Gertrude Wesolowski, secretary.