Boiler Suit 18" Doll Clothes Pattern

Back in the late 1870s Britain was fueled by coal. Steam trains used coal to power train engines, and the man who shoveled the coal into the furnace wore a one-piece garment as that was safer than wearing separate pants and a shirt – as an all in one garment was much less likely to get caught on all the levers and hooks in the driver’s cab. Large municipal and office buildings all had boiler rooms, where men loaded coal into furnaces that boiled water for the hot water and heating the building. The boiler suit was practical. Roomy and made of lightweight but robust fabric, it could be worn on top of regular clothing if necessary, and was suitable to be worn for indoor or outdoor work. This practical cover-all-garment was soon adopted by all sorts of workmen to keep regular clothing clean while doing jobs that could be messy: mechanics, painters and decorators, plumbers, and all sorts of manual workers adopted the boiler suit as an unofficial uniform. Amateurs adopted this garment for t