AN IMPROVED SHIRT FRONT
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Edward Newton at thé
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 28th
June 1865. A communication from abroad by Evelin French, of the
City of New York, in the United States of America.
I, WILLIAM EDWARD NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery Lane,
in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED SHIRT FRONT," to be as follows:-
The most desirable form of shirt fronts, as well as the one most generally
worn and preferred by persons' is that commonly known as an "open front,"
the two parts of which have been secured or held together when worn by
means of studs, buttons, or other similar devices, either separate from and
independent of the front, or permanently attached thereto by sewing, or in any
other proper manner, so that if independent fastenings were employed it was
necessary to transfer them from one front to another upon every change of
the shirt or front for a clean one; the inconvenience and trouble of which, as
well as the annoyance and vexation occasioned by the frequent breaking of
the fastening threads in the case of fixed buttons, have been too often
experienced by all persons to need any particular recital herein.
This Invention consists in a novel and peculiar construction or formation
of the overlapping parts of the two sections or portions constituting the front
of a shirt, whereby they can be readily and easily fastened or held together
without necessitating the employment of any extra or separate devices such as
have been hitherto generally used.

page_text: The front is divided into separate parts, and is secured to a neck binding
and to the body or main portion of the shirt by sewing or otherwise. The
ends of the neck binding are held together about the neck by a button
attached to one end of the collar and inserted in or put through a button-hole
apon the other or overlapping end of the same. Upon and along the inner
edge of one part of the front from the neck downwards is formed a narrow
pocket by overlapping a portion of the material of which that part of the
bosom is made, or by sewing an additional piece or strip of cloth or linen upon
the same throughout its entire length and along the inner edge of the front.
In this pocket, when desired to fasten the two parts of the front together, fits
a lappel or flap piece made of suitable width and attached either to the other
or overlapping part of the front along its edge or forming a part thereof,
which flap is of the same length as the pocket. When this is inserted in the
pocket the front will be both smooth and even in appearance, and its parts
retained together as it is worn without danger of their flying open.
In lieu of forming one continuous pocket and along the whole or a portion
of one part of the front with a lappel or flap piece upon the other part of a cor-
responding length, two or more pockets at equal distances apart may be used,
it being only necessary that interlocking flap pieces or lappels of the same
number and length and at similar distances apart should be made upon or
attached to the overlapping portion of the front.