men in white coats

I think they actually wore that back then.

Professional Jayne Mansfield fanatic/lover™ since 1980.

Men in white coats

In the "not so good old days" hospitals were not kept as immaculate as they are now. In fact, it was common for families to have to help keep their family members (who were patients) clean; also the area around their beds.

And, the people who worked as "orderlies" were not the caliber of folks we have now. And, like many of the "lower classes" they did not all have access to "en suite" bathrooms at their boarding houses, hotels, or wherever they lived.

The "white coats at work" was meant to FORCE people who "helped" in hospitals (who used to be from the real underclasses, no education, low pay, and not the best hygiene) to LOOK as if they were very clean. If anything got on their "white coats" (or shirts, or pants; whatever they were issued that was "white") they could go to the laundry racks and get a clean one. Many of the orderlies wore a long sleeved white loose jacket that looked much different from the "formal" white 3/4 "lab coats" with lapels and pockets, that the doctors wore! Also, the doctors wore formal dark slacks with their lab coats, and usually a necktie. The orderlies wore "ice cream" pants (the kind of white pants that folks wear in milking dairies or if they were soda jerks). With white clothing it was VERY easy for patients and patients families to see if the hospital workers were "clean" and that was considered a part of "caring about hygiene for germ prevention."

Cleanliness became a "self-fulfilling prophesy" in that the cleaner the people looked, the cleaner they tried to be, and the cleaner they wanted to be. And, over time, people got better lodging, and they were able to be cleaner about themselves. (No, this did not happen "over night" but was a gradual process.) America made some REAL progress into how people lived (especially in crowded cities). People from the farm, or from the suburbs, who always had ways to clean themselves, and who had no access to large apartment buildings, or "public housing," or "tenements" or "inner cities" have NO idea how rough living was at times, in the inner city, in our history.

Much of what becomes part of our lore also had substantial importance in our history; not just "known" for the heck of it, but because it was part of a drive to constantly improve our quality of life.

All the doctors I encounter at clinics and hospitals here in southern California still wear white coats over their regular clothes. Up through the 1970s nurses still wore the traditional white uniform dresses, with the little white nurse hats. Then the colored pajamas like they all wear today started coming in.