These t-shirts are produced, printed and shipped right here in Sioux City, Iowa, USA!

All commercial art processing and photography is done in and of Sioux City. The high-contrast silk screen prints are fused to sweatshop-free Made-in-USA cotton t-shirts by American Apparel. (If Sioux City had a textile mill, I would have called them. Until then, this is the next best thing.)

$14 if I hand it to you; $18 shipping anywhere in the continental U.S. Just email me at ben@bertranddesign.com.

Women’s: 2012 Raspberry
SUX T 1: American Apparel: 2012 RASPBERRY
Available in Women's MEDIUM only.
They run a tad small, however they are of such quality, that they can stretch safely without permanent deformation.

Look Out World

Women's version hot off the production line!

Dani Reeves Miss Iowa 2007 was sporting it recently at her Halloween party!

This will soon be invading Chicago, Ulsan (Korea), as well as Lincoln, NE.

Babe, check your mailbox!

Men’s: 2001 Asphalt
SUX T 1: American Apparel: 2001 ASPHALT

Only (2) SMALL left!

I am humbled by your tremendous response and similar love/hate relationships with Sioux City! Thank you for your feedback and kind words. Everyone has been extremely supportive and I appreciate you.

1. “Sioux City” by John Henry, 1978.

Backstory:

NEA + Iowa Beef Processors = sculpture to commemorate Currier J. Holman. This guy partnered with A. D. Anderson to create the modern-day meatpacking plant in Denison, IA. They perfected their techniques for efficiency and unskilled labor and opened IBP in Dakota City, NE. Their new "boxed beef" products were pre-butchered so you didn't need a skilled meat-cutter anymore, only a loading dock. The interstate highway system served them well and Sioux City was set up as a trucking and cold-storage distribution center. In dealing with these industries, you dealt with their respective workforces, which at the time, meant you also dealt with the mob:

"IBP planned to ship hundreds of millions of pounds of beef to New York City every year. Currier J. Holman agreed to pay the mob its five-cent commission, and the leaders of New York's butcher union promptly withdrew their objections to IBP's boxed beef. Shipments of IBP meat were soon being unloaded in Manhattan. After a lengthy investigation of mob involvement in the New York City meat business, Currier J. Holman and IBP were tried and convicted in 1974 for bribing union leaders and meat wholesalers. Judge Burton Roberts fined IBP $7,000, but did not punish Holman with any prison term or fine, noting that bribes were sometimes part of the cost of doing business in New York City."
—Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, page 156

Since then, overt mob activity has all but ceased. Make no mistake, Sioux City is organized, but it's along different party lines now… And certain real-estate developers built large offices downtown to hide this piece. Yet it remains like a dandelion growing through the cracks.






Photo: Panoramic view from Calgary Cemetary.