MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In 1957 Joseph Manch became Superintendent of the public schools in Buffalo, New York. As he later recounted, one day he had a “feeling of profound shock” as he surveyed a high-school auditorium:

As far as I could see there wasn’t a single tie, buttoned collar, or ironed shirt in the school. Some of the girls looked like they were auditioning for a nightclub chorus—others looked like female stable hands. Parents and teachers alike were complaining of poor discipline in the classrooms, uproar on school buses, disrespect for teachers and disinterest in learning. What occurred to me was this: If we let our students show up for class dressed for a hayride or a clambake, can we blame them if they act as if they’re on one?

Manch brought his concerns about student’s clothing to the inter-high school student council, and the students themselves developed a dress code that gained the attention of local, and then national, press. Eventually, Congress proposed a nationwide “Dress Right” week inspired by Buffalo’s school dress code. The code resonated with educators and parents across the country concerned about juvenile delinquency and the influence of popular culture on teenagers.

Drawing on archival material, this paper examines the motivations behind the Buffalo’s dress code, its relationship to teenage culture, and explores why the dress code became admired on a national level. I argue that controversies over clothing reflected anxiety about class, race, and ethnicity differences that ran deep in American society. Controlling an individual’s self-presentation was an attempt to minimize the potentially harmful effects of difference, during an era in which conformity was valued.