Cotton Has Done Wonders in More Areas Than You Think!

I was watching a program about a month ago that talked about the East and West and the cold war tensions and why we won the cold war! Cotton played a very important role.

The role cotton played was through blue jeans. During the cold war in many of the Eastern Bloc countries and the former Soviet Union it was illegal to own or wear blue jeans because it was a sign of capitalism and many folks who protested the communist regimes were arrested for violating the dress code laws forbidding blue jeans. Those who opposed those oppressive regimes wore blue jeans as part of their protest for democratic societies.

In China most everyone in the country, up until the late seventies wore the same drab blue or grey clothing. The introduction of blue jeans created the idea of wanting the more western look and style and accepting more of the western democratic ideas, having sense of worth and independence and being an individual.

The folks who were wearing blue jeans in the 60’s and getting arrested as a protest for wearing them are many of the new leaders in the old Eastern Bloc countries today. In our country cotton blue jeans are a sign of work, dress and an everyday common occurrence. So when we think of the Berlin wall falling 20 years ago and the fall of the Soviet empire, it was cotton farmers in the cotton producing states along with blue jeans manufacturers that played a huge role in creating a more democratized world through the single act of creating an article of clothing out of cotton that symbolized American Independence, rugged individualism, and economic freedom to choose.