Welcome! Imaginary Shirt is a project where I research visual elements from high schools’ histories and then use them to make new t-shirt concepts. If you’re associated with one of these schools and would like to make any of these imaginary shirts a reality, let me know! I’d love to help you accomplish that. This companion newsletter gives some more details on process and on the schools featured. Enjoy!
Instagram Week in Review
Monday, 31 July 2023—North Little Rock Wildcats, North Little Rock, AR
North Little Rock, Arkansas began life in 1871 as Argenta, Arkansas. It was named “Argenta” (a much better name, in my opinion) for thirty years until it was incorporated on June 17, 1901. (NOT July 17, 1901, as Wikipedia would have you believe.) That day’s Arkansas Democrat reported on the goings-ons with the punchy headline, “NORTH LITTLE ROCK—Was Incorporated Into a Town This Morning.”
So that was that. North Little Rock it was. Unnnnnnnntil January 1906, when the Daily Arkansas Gazette revealed (in its article “EXIT NORTH LITTLE ROCK”), “The city of North Little Rock has ceased to be officially designated by that name, and by the approval of the Board of Municipal Corporations the name will hereby be Argenta.”
So that was settled. Argenta it was. Unnnnnnntil the October 9, 1917 Daily Arkansas Gazette exclaimed, “ARGENTA BECOMES NORTH LITTLE ROCK.” The article somewhat dramatically explained that, “Argenta was wiped off the map last night. There is no town in Arkansas by that name. The City Council changed the city’s name to North Little Rock and by this action Argenta, as such, passed into history.”
The Gazette went on to explain about Argenta:
The name was derived from the fact that silver had been found a few miles north of the city, although never in paying quantities.
Most of the former bitterness of the over-river inhabitants against the city of Little Rock now has disappeared and the reasons which caused the change of name from North Little Rock to Argenta no longer exist, while the advantages of the new name may be many.
So North Little Rock it is. For now.
See more designs from the North Little Rock set here.
Tuesday, 1 August 2023—Washington Rams, Phoenix, AZ
Washington High School opened in the fall of 1955, and in at least one respect the opening was a bit bumpy. The October 6, 1955 Arizona Republic featured an item entitled “Teenager Seized As Knife Wielder”:
Sheriff’s juvenile officers yesterday arrested a 16-year-old Washington High School Student who slightly stabbed another student in front of the school at 23rd Avenue and Glendale Tuesday.
The victim, Kenneth Francis Kohlbrecher, 14, of 8709 N. 30th Dr., was stuck in the leg with a pocket knife but didn’t tell his parents until it started hurting early yesterday.
He was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital to have a stitch taken in the cut. Deputy Jack Klomparens said the suspect has some reputation as a bully but insisted he was “just fooling around.”
See more designs from the Washington set here.
Wednesday, 2 August 2023—Tucson Badgers, Tucson, AZ
Tucson High School started classes in 1906, and in December of that year its fledgling football team took on the University of Arizona’s team of prep students. “University” beat “High School” 6-0, but you would hardly know it from the December 17, 1906 Tucson Citizen’s effusive praise:
Chapeaus off and high in the air to the gamest, grittiest bunch of lads that ever mixed up in a play on a Tucson gridiron—the High School eleven.
Football is essentially a game of brain and brawn in which at times brawn overcomes brain. Naturally sympathy goes with the under dog and even many of the University graduates who saw the game between the High school and the University preparatory immediately took the side of the High school and rooted for the diminutive lad.
The Citizen on Saturday said that there would be glory enough in it if the High school lads held the preparatory to three touchdowns. They did this and more—they held the University “preps” to one touchdown and that touchdown was due to the element of luck.
The University Preps, perhaps predictably, did not take kindly to this characterization. A letter to the next day’s Arizona Daily Star addressed the Citizen’s article, claiming that the High School had taken advantage of several technicalities that adversely affected the University team (“Had the ‘Prep.’ coach taken up the matter the Preps. would have easily tripled the score.”) But these weren’t idle words. The letter writer laid down a challenge:
If this is not the truth a game can easily be arranged before Saturday by seeing “any” of the Prep. men. It would give them a better appetite for turkey and other Xmas dainties, and would easily prove the Preps.’ superiority.
The High School will probably say that the Preps. are “sore” and wish to take all their credit from them; far from it. The “Babes” played a good clean game and lost like men, but the Preps. can easily beat them and would like to prove it before Saturday. That’s all.
I didn’t find any evidence of a rematch.
See more designs from the Tucson set here.
Thursday, 3 August 2023—Junipero Serra Padres, San Mateo, CA
Tom Brady, Barry Bonds, and Lynn Swann all went to Serra, but I think enough ink has been spilled about their sporting exploits.
I like to watch old gameshows, and one of my favorites is To Tell The Truth. As it happens, Lynn Swann was recruited to host the 1990 incarnation of the show when the producer’s preferred host became embroiled in a contract dispute. Below is his first episode; I was happy to see Khrystyne Haje as one of the panelists—she played Simone on one of my other old favorite shows, Head of the Class.
See more designs from the Junipero Serra set here.
Friday, 4 August 2023—St. Mary’s Rams, Stockton, CA
On October 22, 2008, St. Mary’s graduate Jason Bartlett was playing shortstop for America’s greatest baseball team, the Tampa Bay Rays, in Game 1 of the 2008 World Series. In the bottom of the fifth inning, Bartlett drew a walk. With second baseman Aki Iwamura at the plate, Bartlett took off and stole second base, making him the second person to ever net all of America a free taco as part of the Steal a Base, Steal a Taco promotion. If you’d like a baseball card to commemorate that occasion, you can get one for around two dollars here.
The first man to earn a free taco for America was Jacoby Ellsbury in the prior year.
See more designs from the St. Mary’s set here.
Saturday, 5 August 2023—David City Scouts, David City, NE
The David City People’s Banner ran this item (which seems to be attributed to the New York Evening Post) in its August 5, 1898 edition:
Sir Arthur Sullivan discourses interestingly to an interviewer about his methods of work. It appears that there is a vast deal of drudgery and manual labor in the work of musical composition which cannot be avoided or delegated to another—much more than in the case of literary composition. But the two are alike in this, says Sir Arthur, that it is as vain in one as in the other to “wait for an inspiration.” This seems to him very like “a miner seated on the top of a shaft and waiting for the coal to come bubbling up.”
Based on the podcasts I listen to, this still seems to be the gold standard in songwriting advice one hundred and twenty-five years later.
See more designs from the David City set here.
Sunday, 6 August 2023—Cathedral Phantoms, Los Angeles, CA
Cathedral was built on the site of an old cemetery in 1925, which is the inspiration for their nickname, the Phantoms. (Of course there are rumors that the school is haunted.) Cathedral’s football stadium is known as the Graveyard, and they have some of the old unearthed tombstones displayed around the outside. There are some pictures here.
See more designs from the Cathedral set here.
A Recommendation
I recently listened to Pulitzer Prize winning 1974 book The Power Broker by Robert Caro. The book was pretty long, but absolutely fascinating. The audiobook reader was great, too!
See you next week! Tell your friends!