From a non-existent article of apparel, to a luxury good, to an affordable necessity, to a cheap consumer good, the history of the lowly sock long and reveals much about what is viewed as human progress, industrialization and capitalism. The living memory of a time when socks were just costly enough that women darned heel and toe holes in her family's socks is rapidly disappearing. The need to do so for most disappeared a few decades ago. The skill to do so, may have already disappeared.
Unlike most clothing items, few people are required to manufacture socks. It has long been almost 100% mechanized. In the great migration of textiles from the northeast in the US to the southeast in the quest for cheaper labor, many sock factories ended up in Alabama. Labor to sew the toe together. The only step in the production process that has defied mechanization.
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