The Real Story of the T-Shirt: How Underwear Became a Billboard

October 22, 2026 C.B. Shaw

Where did the T-shirt come from? It started as underwear. For most of its life it was a thing you hid under your real clothes, and wearing one alone in public was a bit like walking out of the house in your boxers. Then sailors, soldiers, workers and eventually movie stars wore it on its own, printing turned it into a billboard, and today it is the most ordinary garment on earth. This is the story of how that happened, and, because the internet loves a confident origin story, a fact check on the ones that are not really proven.

One thing first. Nobody knows who invented the T-shirt. We checked, and the honest sources say so directly. What we do have is a trail of dated evidence, and we will show you what each piece is worth.

Step one: underwear, but make it long

The V&A museum in London (in a 2014 piece by Kristian Volsing) explains that before the mid-1800s, men's underwear was basically a long-tailed shirt tucked between the legs. In Britain, woollen undervests arrived in the 1840s. Then came the union suit, a one-piece knit flannel outfit that buttoned up the front and had a flap in the back, patented in 1868. If you have ever seen a cartoon cowboy in red long johns, that is the union suit.

Gizmodo says the T-shirt is thought to have evolved from the union suit, but also admits that the exact date and the inventors of the pullover undershirt are not known. Wikipedia adds that in the late 1800s, miners and dock workers (stevedores) wore cut-down, two-piece versions of union suit underwear. We only found that in Wikipedia's summary, so call it plausible rather than proven. But it fits the pattern you will see again and again: the T-shirt keeps getting adopted by people who work with their hands, because it is light, cheap and easy to wash.

Step two: the Navy

The V&A says the early-1880s US Navy uniform included a V-neck jersey over a white button-up undershirt, which sailors often wore alone at sea. Then in 1913, US Navy regulations added a white, buttonless, short-sleeved crew-neck undershirt, roughly T-shaped, that could be worn on its own. The V&A, Wikipedia and Mental Floss all agree on 1913. Gizmodo points to the 1905 Navy uniform regulations as a possible earlier step toward a buttonless white undershirt, but we could not check the regulation itself. So the safe phrasing is “about 1913.”

The V&A also says US soldiers in World War I noticed the lighter cotton undershirts worn by French soldiers and brought the idea home. That is from a single source, so it is likely but not confirmed. Gizmodo says undershirts reached “tens of thousands” of soldiers in the war, but gives no figure. The big idea is simple: millions of working men got used to a light cotton shirt that you could wear on its own on a hot day.

So where does the name come from?

Here is the one everyone argues about. The honest facts:

First known use in print: 1920. Merriam-Webster dates the word “T-shirt” to 1920, defining it as a collarless undershirt. F. Scott Fitzgerald used it in This Side of Paradise that year. Gizmodo calls it the “first known” use. That makes Fitzgerald the earliest known writer to use it, not the inventor of the word.
“Named for its T shape”: Plausible, and the most repeated theory. Wikipedia states it flatly, but we found no source giving a document that proves it.
“T stands for Training”: Unknown. We found no primary evidence. One blog that repeats it contradicts itself on whether it was World War I or World War II.
“T stands for Transport”: We found no source for this at all. Treat it as a viral claim.

Verdict: “The T definitely stands for ___” is false as a settled fact. Nobody has proven it. The shape theory is the most believable, and the word itself first appears in print in 1920.

Step three: Hollywood puts it on display

In 1951, Marlon Brando wore a T-shirt as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1955, James Dean wore one under a red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause. Wikipedia, CNN (covering the Fashion and Textile Museum's “T-shirt: Cult, Culture, Subversion” exhibition) and Maine Memory all say these roles helped make the T-shirt acceptable as outerwear. None of them gives a measurement of how much, though.

Be careful with the stories attached to this. Mental Floss says T-shirt sales hit $180 million by the end of 1951 but cites no source, so we're leaving it out. Gizmodo claims Brando caused a nationwide sales spike but offers no figures. And the popular claim that Brando invented wearing a T-shirt as outerwear is false: Wikipedia notes people wore them outside the underwear role before 1951, for example in the Depression, after World War II and in 1942. He popularized it. He didn't start it.

There is also a famous story that Clark Gable took his shirt off in It Happened One Night (1934) and wrecked undershirt sales. Gizmodo says there is no proof it did. Verdict: unproven, and probably a good story that outlived its facts.

Step four: the T-shirt learns to talk

Once the T-shirt was an everyday piece, somebody had to put words on it. Here is a timeline from the Maine Memory exhibition (a museum project) and other sources. Most of these dates come from a single source, so we've flagged those:

Year	What happened	How solid is it?
1932	USC printed “Property of USC” on football team tees to deter theft, and sold them in its bookstore.	Single source
1938 and 1941	Sears sold “gob shirts” in 1938 and rebranded them “Army style” in 1941.	Single source
1939	The Wizard of Oz tees (green with a white “OZ”), called the first documented color graphic tee.	Single source, hedge it
1942	An Air Corps Gunnery School T-shirt appeared on the cover of Life (July 13).	Good (Wikipedia, citing Life)
1948	“Dew-It with Dewey”, called the first documented political tee.	Single source, hedge it
1955	Disneyland sold the first Mickey Mouse tees.	Single source
1959 to early 1960s	Plastisol ink invented (1959), then plastisol and heat transfers spread.	Consistent across sources
1960s	Ringer tees, tie-dye and screen printing spread. Printed tees used for ads and protest.	Good (Wikipedia)
1970s	Licensed band, sports and movie merchandise boomed. The Rolling Stones tongue-and-lips shirt and Milton Glaser's “I Love NY” design arrived.	Supported

That plastisol ink in the 1959 row is the same stuff we talk about in our guide on washing a graphic tee: a rubbery ink that sits on top of the shirt. It is one reason the shirt turned into a canvas.

Step five: rebellion, bands and slogans

Maine Memory says fans were wearing band support shirts from the 1960s. The Woodstock tie-dye look (1969) comes from Mental Floss. In London, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's boutique opened in 1971 (per CNN), and in March 1984 designer Katharine Hamnett wore a protest tee to meet Margaret Thatcher. Also in 1984, Paul Morley put the banned “Relax” catchphrase on shirts for Frankie Goes to Hollywood (per Mental Floss). We found no source on who made the “first band tee,” so we are not going to name one. Anyone who tells you with total confidence probably hasn't checked either.

Brand myths: Fruit of the Loom and the cornucopia

A bonus fact check, because it's fun. The brand name Fruit of the Loom dates to 1856, and trademark no. 418 was granted to Robert Knight in 1871, according to Wikipedia. And the logo? Lots of people clearly remember a cornucopia, a horn of plenty, behind the fruit. It never had one. Wikipedia cites a Snopes check of newspaper ads from the 1920s to the 2020s (the Snopes article is dated March 21, 2024) and found no cornucopia. This is a classic “Mandela effect,” where a lot of people share the same false memory. Verdict: true that it's false. There was never a cornucopia.

We went looking for Hanes facts as well. We could not verify Hanes's own history from any source we could reach, so we're not repeating any of the “Hanes invented the T-shirt” stories you may have seen.

T-shirt history myths, graded

“The T stands for Training.” Unknown. No primary evidence.
“The T stands for Transport.” Unknown. No source at all.
“The T stands for the shape.” Plausible, unproven.
“Brando invented the outerwear T-shirt.” False. He popularized it.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the word.” Unproven. He's the earliest known use in print.
“Clark Gable killed undershirt sales.” Unproven.
“The Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia.” False.

Why does this matter to us? Because a shirt is a surprisingly good history lesson. Workers made it popular, soldiers carried it home, movie stars made it cool, and printers turned it into the thing you are probably wearing right now. And fabric choice still matters: if you want to understand what yours is made of, start with GSM and cotton vs polyester blends.

Questions people ask

Who invented the T-shirt?

Nobody knows. Gizmodo says the exact date and inventors of the pullover undershirt are not known. It is thought to have evolved from the union suit, and the US Navy added a white crew-neck undershirt in about 1913.

When was the T-shirt invented?

There is no single date. Navy regulations added a T-shaped white undershirt in about 1913, and the word “T-shirt” first appears in print in 1920, according to Merriam-Webster.

Why is it called a T-shirt?

Nobody has proven it. The most repeated theory is that it is named for its T shape. Claims that the T stands for “Training” or “Transport” have no solid evidence we could find.

What was the first T-shirt?

It evolved from men's undergarments such as the union suit, patented in 1868. A white short-sleeved crew-neck undershirt was added to US Navy regulations around 1913.

What is a union suit?

A one-piece knit flannel undergarment that buttoned up the front and had a rear flap, patented in 1868 according to the V&A.

When was the word T-shirt first used?

Merriam-Webster dates it to 1920. F. Scott Fitzgerald used it that year in This Side of Paradise, the earliest known use in print.

Did Marlon Brando invent the T-shirt as outerwear?

No. People wore T-shirts outside the underwear role before 1951. His role in A Streetcar Named Desire helped popularize the look.

What did James Dean wear in Rebel Without a Cause?

A T-shirt under a red jacket, according to CNN's coverage of the Fashion and Textile Museum exhibition.

When did printed T-shirts start?

One museum timeline dates a printed “Property of USC” football tee to 1932 and a color Wizard of Oz tee to 1939. Both dates come from a single source.

When did band T-shirts start?

Maine Memory says fans wore band support tees from the 1960s and licensed band merchandise boomed in the 1970s. We found no source for the first one.

Did the Fruit of the Loom logo have a cornucopia?

No. Wikipedia cites a Snopes check of ads from the 1920s to the 2020s and found no cornucopia. It is a common false memory.

Why did sailors and soldiers wear T-shirts?

They were light and easy to wash. The US Navy allowed its white undershirt to be worn alone at sea, and the V&A says World War I soldiers brought the lighter cotton undershirt idea home from France.