Heritage Field Notes · Category A
During the Depression, the USDA Bureau of Home Economics documented mending as a genuine economic skill — one that could meaningfully reduce a household's clothing expenditure. The techniques require a needle, thread, and about an hour of practice.
In 1931, the USDA Bureau of Home Economics published Farmers' Bulletin No. 1640, "Clothing: Mending and Remaking." The economic context was explicit in the first paragraph: "The mending of clothing is one of the most economical practices a household can follow." The bulletin was written for families who could not afford to replace worn garments and needed to extend their useful life by years.
The bulletin documented four core mending skills: darning (for holes in knitted and woven fabric), patching (for tears and worn areas in heavier materials), seam repair, and button and fastener replacement. Each was treated as a teachable technique with specific steps, not as intuitive knowledge. The Bureau understood that mending had been transmitted through households for generations but was not being taught formally — and that without systematic documentation, the skills would be lost as the generation that held them aged.
A companion bulletin from 1934, "Remaking Clothing for Men and Boys," extended the framework to full garment alteration — converting worn adult garments into serviceable children's clothing, adapting outgrown garments, and making new garments from usable fabric salvaged from unwearable ones.
Primary Source
Clothing: Mending and Remaking
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics. Farmers' Bulletin No. 1640. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931.
Public domain — U.S. government work. Search the Internet Archive →
The Four Skills
Each skill addresses a specific failure mode in clothing. Together they cover the vast majority of repairs a household encounters.
For holes and worn-through areas in knits and wovens
Darning rebuilds missing fabric by weaving new thread across a hole. The bulletin's method: stretch the fabric over a darning egg or smooth rounded object, work parallel rows of running stitch across the hole in one direction extending slightly past the damage, then weave perpendicular rows over and under the first set. The result is a woven patch integral to the fabric.
Best applied to: wool socks, elbows and knees of heavy garments, knitted sweaters. The bulletin noted that darning extends a sock's useful life by years if done before the hole grows large — when a thin spot appears, not after a full hole develops.
For tears and worn areas in woven fabric
A patch is a piece of compatible fabric sewn over or behind a damaged area. The bulletin documented three types: the overhand patch (new fabric over the tear, edges turned under and sewn down), the underhand patch (new fabric behind the tear, edges of the tear turned back and hemmed to the patch), and the machine-sewn patch. The choice depended on the fabric weight, the location of the damage, and whether appearance or durability was the priority.
The bulletin's critical point: patch material should come from the same garment (inside seam allowances, facing fabric) or a closely matching piece. A visible patch from wrong material undermines the repair's purpose.
For opened seams and stress points
Opened seams are the most common clothing repair and the most neglected. A seam that comes open at one inch will become three inches if ignored. The bulletin recommended checking high-stress seams — underarms, seat, inner leg — at every laundering and repairing any opening immediately.
The repair method is straightforward: turn the garment inside out, align the original seam line, and sew with matching thread. For stress points, the bulletin recommended a double row of stitching and a back-tack at each end. A reinforced seam is often stronger than the original.
The most common repair — and the most neglected
A missing button renders a garment unwearable. The bulletin documented button attachment, buttonhole repair, hook and eye replacement, and snap fasteners. For buttons on stress points (waistbands, coat fronts), it recommended attaching a small backing button on the inside of the garment to distribute pull and prevent the button from tearing through the fabric.
Thread shank technique: when attaching a flat button to thick fabric, wrapping thread around the stitching between button and fabric creates a shank that allows the button to seat properly when fastened. Without it, the fabric bunches and the button tears out sooner.
The Kit
The bulletin recommended a modest mending kit that covered all four repair categories. The items have not changed.
Total cost: $15-25. The bulletin noted that collecting buttons from worn-out garments before discarding them was one of the most cost-effective household practices — a good button collection eliminates most button replacement costs entirely.
What It Teaches
The 1931 bulletin's economic argument was precise: a household that mended clothing regularly spent significantly less on clothing per year than one that replaced garments at the first sign of wear. In 1931, the gap was large enough that the Bureau quantified it. In 2026, the gap is still real — a pair of work pants repaired at the knee lasts another year; the same pants discarded cost $40-60 to replace.
The deeper lesson is about maintenance culture. Mending is not emergency repair — it is routine maintenance applied before small problems become large ones. A thin spot darned before it holes, a seam reinforced before it opens, a button resewn before it tears through — these take minutes and preserve garments for years. The same logic applies to equipment, tools, and housing.
From a resilience standpoint, functional clothing is a basic requirement. The ability to repair what you own — rather than depending on immediate replacement — is directly relevant in any scenario where shopping is disrupted, money is tight, or specific items are unavailable. The skill requires essentially nothing from the supply chain and produces immediate, tangible results.
The bulletin was documenting knowledge that had been transmitted informally for generations. Its authors understood they were writing it down because that informal transmission was failing — as households urbanized and commercial clothing became inexpensive, mending was being lost as a household practice. That trend continued. Most households today cannot darn a sock. The knowledge exists in writing; the practice requires only acquisition and application.
Sources