Short pants: The long and the short of it
The Heat Wave That Made Bare Legs Legal
Wertynews.com – In the summer of 1936, temperatures across the eastern United States reached levels that proved lethal on an unprecedented scale. At least five thousand people perished from heat-related causes. Geoff Williams, author of The Summer of Death, recalls the devastation: cities including New York, Baltimore, Columbus (Ohio), Lexington (Kentucky), and Minneapolis endured weeks at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, setting records that still stand today.
"All day, you're suffering, and then you can't sleep. And this would go on day after day after day."
Because air conditioning remained rare in American households, residents sought refuge wherever they could find cool air — movie theaters, park benches, even the open street. The relentless heat forced a radical shift in daily habits, including what people chose to wear.
A City That Criminalized Shorts
In Yonkers, New York, the act of showing one's knees in summer was not merely frowned upon — it was against the law. In 1935, Alderman William Slater steered the city council toward an ordinance banning halter tops and shorts from public streets. Anyone caught violating the rule faced a $150 fine plus thirty days in jail.
Mike Spano, who now serves as Yonkers mayor, was asked whether he imagined Slater secretly wearing shorts himself. He laughed: "Isn't that usually the case?"
At peak enforcement, ten police officers were dedicated solely to hunting down shorts-wearers — a deployment Spano calls an absurd waste of resources. But on June 21, 1936, two reporters from the New York Daily News arrived in town wearing exactly what the ordinance forbade and asked to be arrested.
"They asked that they be arrested. A little bit of public disobedience, because they wanted to right what they saw as a wrong. Love it. It's so American."
The pair received a $10 fine. After an extended legal fight, their conviction was vacated and the ordinance struck down entirely. Yonkers attempted a replacement "modesty ordinance" in 1937, but that measure, too, proved short-lived.
Pumpkin Hose, Bermuda Cuts, and Disco
The history of exposed legs stretches far beyond one New York suburb. Erin Black, an associate arts professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts who teaches costume design history, notes that bare limbs were considered scandalous across multiple centuries.
In the Elizabethan period, men wore puffed garments called pumpkin hose or pumpkin breeches over stockings. To maintain their voluminous silhouette, the fabric was packed with sawdust and horse hair — an arrangement that, as Black puts it, made them prime real estate for insects during English summers.
"And in the summer in England, bugs thought it was a great place to live. So, you could have an infestation problem in your pumpkin hose."
By the late nineteenth century, shorts were confined almost exclusively to young boys. The modern adult version traces its origin to World War I, when British troops garrisoned in the sweltering island of Bermuda took army knives and sliced their trousers at the knee.
"The soldiers would take their Army knife and cut their own pants off at the knee."
"Correct," Black confirms. "They couldn't stand the heat. They had to do something."
Women waited considerably longer for equivalent freedom. The cultural influence of World War II pinup imagery — figures like Betty Grable among them — helped normalize shorter hemlines, and by the 1950s women's shorts had shrunk dramatically. James Brown released "Hot Pants" in 1971, yet Black credits disco with elevating the look into genuine high fashion. And no discussion is complete without Catherine Bach, whose character Daisy Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard made ultra-short shorts a cultural phenomenon.
"Absolutely. And we still call them Daisy Dukes."
From Forbidden to Everyday
Today, shorts appear in virtually every setting — offices included — and Mayor Spano himself wears them regularly in the very city that once jailed residents for doing so. Writer Geoff Williams, based in Ohio, says he loves them.
"Oh, I love them. I have thought so many times that if I went back to 1936, that summer, I would have been doomed."
This year's sweltering weather gives plenty of reason for complaint, but one small comfort remains: the freedom to keep a pair of shorts within easy reach.
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