Union suit

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union suit (front)

union suit (back)

A union suit from the 1902 Sears, Roebuck catalog.

A union suit is a type of one-piece long underwear. Created in Utica, New York, United States, it originated as women's wear during the nineteenth-century United States clothing reform efforts, as an alternative to constricting garments, and soon gained popularity among men as well. The first union suit was patented in 1868 as "emancipation union under flannel."^[1] Traditionally made of red flannel with long arms and long legs, it buttoned up the front and had a button-up flap in the rear covering the buttocks (colloquially known as the "access hatch", "drop seat", "fireman's flap", and other names), allowing the wearer to eliminate bodily waste without removing the garment. Depending on the size, some union suits can have a dozen buttons on the front to be fastened through buttonholes from the neck down to the groin area.

The garment remained in common use in North America into the twentieth century. As its popularity waned, it became chiefly working men's wear, increasingly replaced by two-piece long underwear, also known as "long johns". It was not uncommon until the mid-1900s for rural men to wear the same union suit continuously all week, or even all winter.^{[citation needed]} Normally, no other type of underwear was worn with it.

Union suits are still commercially available, but because of their association with "old fashioned" usage, and presumedly "unsophisticated" rural wearers, they are considered comical. The rear flap is also associated with humor, and in film and television the appearance of a union suit, viewed from behind, is a form of mild toilet humor. The 1999 movie adaptation of The Wild Wild West, the TV series Rugrats, and the Family Guy episode No Meals on Wheels are among those that used the rear flap on union suits for comical effects.

The Union Suit makes an appearance in Louisa May Alcott's book 'Eight Cousins', as a preferred alternative to corsetry under the name 'Liberty Suit'. The Union Suit also makes a presence in the 2003 film Cold Mountain. In the American band Panic at the Disco's 2008 music video for "Nine in the Afternoon", a parade scene features the band members in union suits.