no-name labels

[mulceber]

So here's an interesting question that occurred to me and I thought it might drum up some useful discussion: we're all aware that there are four contracts (Fried-Ostermann, Knopf, Cable 27753, Perry 1756) that don't have a name on the label. There also seem to have been a few Doniger jackets with an unnamed label. I have some thoughts on this issue, but there aren't any firm answers so far as I know, so I thought I'd open it up for discussion. Why/how do we think this happened?

Some relevant points:

• this change doesn't seem to be like the collar stand, where once the the AAF stops requiring it, nearly everyone drops it. Names seem to drop off the labels piecemeal. Sometimes they only drop off some of the labels in a contract.
• manufacturer's names seem to be a lot less common on other flight garments (for examples, gloves - as we saw in that thread by Carl that recently popped up) than they are on jackets.
• The jacket makers did not make their own labels. The labels were made under contract by specialists, just like every other material in the garment.
• Sometimes the same label maker made labels for multiple jacket contractors: we can tell because they just *look* the same. The most famous example of this is probably the Cooper label, which you can just *tell* was made by the same people who made Rough Wear's labels. Likewise, the company that made the labels for the Perry 1756 looks to have also made the Knopf labels:

Anyway, I hope this generates some fun banter and speculation.

 

[33-1729]

Excellent! I have wondered about this and didn't know the labels were made by someone other than the jacket manufacturer.

David D. Doniger & Co. had both signed and unsigned labels for the 5,000 jacket contract W535AC29971, order number 42-21539P, from 9-Jun-1942 (it was the only one that did). Perhaps the jacket manufacturing company didn't provide the label design details, but the label manufacturer set them up. And Doniger just happened to use two different label manufacturers, with two different designs, for this specific contract?

 

[YoungMedic]

Or perhaps Doniger realized the oversight on the first batch of labels and corrected mid spec

 

[mulceber]

Excellent! I have wondered about this and didn't know the labels were made by someone other than the jacket manufacturer.

David D. Doniger & Co. had both signed and unsigned labels for the 5,000 jacket contract W535AC29971, order number 42-21539P, from 9-Jun-1942 (it was the only one that did). Perhaps the jacket manufacturing company didn't provide the label design details, but the label manufacturer set them up. And Doniger just happened to use two different label manufacturers, with two different designs, for this specific contract?

Also interesting is that one label type shows the contract number while the other shows the order number. The only other company I know of that did that was Star Sportswear.

Or perhaps Doniger realized the oversight on the first batch of labels and corrected mid spec

Or the other way around - label maker is initially making them with the manufacturer's name, is falling behind schedule (probably making labels for other military garments besides just A-2 jackets) and phones whoever their contact person in the government is: "hey, y'know we could weave these a LOT faster if we didn't have to weave 'David D. Doniger & Co.' 5,000 times. And nobody's ever gonna care who made these garments, right?"

 

[Nickb123]

Totally guessing, but maybe they just found it cheaper to not include the extra mfg.name text?

I’m not sure how well the naming did for marketing, if at all?

 

[mulceber]

I’m not sure how well the naming did for marketing, if at all?

After reading masters of the air, I can just imagine how advantageous name brand recognition would be: “Rough Wear - say, that takes me back: I was wearing one of their jackets when my buddy got decapitated by flak over Regensburg.” (read in Jimmy Stewart’s voice)

I think whoever anonymized these labels might have been doing the jacket manufacturers a favor.

 

[Nickb123]

After reading masters of the air, I can just imagine how advantageous name brand recognition would be: “Rough Wear - say, that takes me back: I was wearing one of their jackets when my buddy got decapitated by flak over Regensburg.” (read in Jimmy Stewart’s voice)

I think whoever anonymized these labels might have been doing the jacket manufacturers a favor.

Truth.

 

[blackrat2]

Maybe the label makers, assuming there wasn’t that many, just knocked them out hoping that they would become “the norm” for any jacket, from any maker from any contract??, I mean let’s be honest most folk would look at several A2’s next to eachother and probably the majority wouldn’t notice any difference, therefore perhaps the label makers were trying to push for one label fits all?

 

[Flightengineer]

After reading masters of the air, I can just imagine how advantageous name brand recognition would be: “Rough Wear - say, that takes me back: I was wearing one of their jackets when my buddy got decapitated by flak over Regensburg.” (read in Jimmy Stewart’s voice)

I think whoever anonymized these labels might have been doing the jacket manufacturers a favor.

This is an interesting topic, Jan.
However, I'm pretty sure the crews weren't very interested in the manufacturer's name, if at all.
It's here now that fans and collectors are examining every stitch under the microscope cause it's a hobby and it's interesting.

Unfortunately, I had war experience in my youth and I can tell you for sure that we absolutely didn't care what was written on the stamp of our uniform (and there were names of factories, too). The main criterion was whether it fits or not (correct size or not) and whether I feel comfortable in it.
I do not think that in the WW2 years it was much different.

Therefore, it was hardly possible to compromise the name of the company by the fact that someone died in this jacket nearby.

I'd rather believe that this really could have been done to reduce the cost of production. Flight jackets was a mass product and if you remove one line from each label, you can save a lot.
Or, even more likely, it was an attempt by the military to standardize everything and bring it to one uniform look. They love to do it in any army of any country of any era.

 

[mulceber]

This is an interesting topic, Jan.
However, I'm pretty sure the crews weren't very interested in the manufacturer's name, if at all.
It's here now that fans and collectors are examining every stitch under the microscope cause it's a hobby and it's interesting.

Unfortunately, I had war experience in my youth and I can tell you for sure that we absolutely didn't care what was written on the stamp of our uniform (and there were names of factories, too). The main criterion was whether it fits or not (correct size or not) and whether I feel comfortable in it.
I do not think that in the WW2 years it was much different.

I agree, and I've heard that elsewhere as well. I'm sure that's exactly how military men in WW2 felt. In the previous post, I was trying to be facetious about the idea of brand recognition and how ludicrous it would be in wartime. But you're right - I'm sure plenty of veterans bought clothing from former military contractors without even noticing it.

 

[YoungMedic]

but, if cost savings and uniformity were the goal, why are the cheaper, anonymous labels the minority? Also I know the wearers probably didn't care about brand identification but maybe the logistics / repair people did? And certainly the manufacturers of the jackets cared about branding, it's their product proudly protecting the war efforts in the air!

Didn't someone have a copy of a bid specification for one of the contracts ?

 

[mulceber]

but, if cost savings and uniformity were the goal, why are the cheaper, anonymous labels the minority?

See, that's why I tend to think it's more a time-saver than a money-saver. The contract that the label-makers sign tells them to put the jacket manufacturer's name on the label, but long names are a time-sink, and so individual manufacturers just skip the name (maybe with permission, maybe not) in order to finish the order on time.

 

[B-Man2]

After reading all of the possibilities here the cost savings one sounds the most plausible …UNTIL ….. you consider that all of the jackets made that followed the A2 jacket , such as the B-15 , B-15A , etc, all had the manufacturers names on their labels. So if the object was to save money, or time, wouldn’t that have been done with the jackets that followed the A2 as well?

 

[mulceber]

That's a good point - I think when this was happening is important here: the first no-name contract comes from December of '41. The last one is early '43. This is the period when the American industry was really struggling to ramp up into an all-out wartime economy. Masters of the Air talks about how the US couldn't get planes out of the factory and into the field fast enough, and there were days in '42 and '43, when the 8th Air Force didn't go on missions because the brass knew that there weren't enough planes to replace the ones they were likely to lose.

So it's a period when factories are REALLY struggling to meet production demands. At that time and place, it would make sense for them to say "screw it, drop the brand name, we need to finish this order." Then later in the war, when industry had fully ramped up and some of the issues had gotten worked out, they didn't have to cut those kinds of corners.

 

[Nickb123]

Did any of the no-name manufacturers have more than one contract apiece?

 

[33-1729]

The jacket manufacturer would have a clear contract with quantity and due date before starting, so Doniger may have required labels from two different manufacturers to meet the schedule resulting in two different designs (signed and unsigned) as shown in post #2.

Looking at all the different unsigned labels I don't see any cost saving measure, such as a reduced number of lines, nor a consistency that implies one label manufacturer did all of them. A complete listing is below, along with an original label example for each "unlisted" contract.

Australia encoded labels to hide the identity of the manufacturer to minimize the possibility of attack, but that wasn't done in the US. I placed an example label below for completeness.

Fried, Ostermann Co. (W535-AC-23383)

Cable Raincoat Co. (W535-AC-27753)

S.H. Knopf Mfg. Co. (42-18246-P)

David D. Doniger & Co. (W535AC29971)

Simpsons Gloves Pty. Ltd., Vic. Australia

Perry Sportswear Inc. (W33-)38AC 1756)

 

[mulceber]

Did any of the no-name manufacturers have more than one contract apiece?

Yep, Perry and Cable. And in both cases, it was their last contract where the name disappeared.

 

[33-1729]

Yep, Perry and Cable. And in both cases, it was their last contract where the name disappeared.

A complete A-2 contract listing is here https://www.vintageleatherjackets.org/threads/a2-contract-dates-up-dated.13491/post-248237

 

[Garylafortuna]

Another remote possibility may be that the type setting device had a malfunction that wasn't discovered until many thousands of labels had been manufactured. So what to do with all those imperfect labels?

 

[WBOONE]

And another possibility is that the AAF supplied the labels to the contractor but in some cases, like the 27753 jacket, the contractor had not been assigned so the AAF simply had the labels made up then simply sent them to whoever was given or awarded the contract for that A2 order. No name because that would be decided later.