Lettered Shirts
 

So I know that obviously our founders did not wear lettered shirts, so when did the trend start?

Now we have the super bowl with the power outage, so my brain is wandering (and avoiding laundry.)

(this is observed-in-the-Midwest guessing) Early 1960's university yearbooks feature women and men wearing long-sleeved Greek-letter sweatshirts. Relaxed fashion attitudes between decades (50's into 60's) should explain the inclination.

Recalling from previous GC threads: Indiana State University yearbooks are available for perusal online. The 1959 edition reveals Greek women in group photos wearing vests, ties, blazers, or short-sleeve blouses bearing their Greek crests and/or letters. Perhaps a natural progression onto sweatshirts for the letters?

During late 1980's and early 1990's Women wearing Men's Greek-house letters on shirts, and Men wearing Women's Greek-house letters on shirts, existed as a very common trend. This was not necessarily due to any Big Brother/Big Sister group affiliations, just a fun thing to cross-promote Greeks.

By 1997 it was hard to find Greek-affiliated students wearing their letters OR placing Greek stickers/platecovers on their cars. Perhaps someone here from that collegiate era could explain how/why that occurred. It lasted ten years, and IMO has not recovered to the high-point of Greek letters worn by students seen 25-30 years ago.

Being targeted by campus police and/or virulent anti-Greek nuts leaps to mind.

Maybe it was just my school or the region I lived in, but I was in college from 94-99 and letters were worn EVERYWHERE and plastered all over cars. :-) My favorite were our homecoming sweatshirts that were the homecoming design and then you flipped them inside out and they were just regular letters. And our moonball t-shirts that glowed in the dark. Awesomeness! :)