This week on Dressed for the Grave, we are buttoning ourselves into the absurd and occasionally fatal world of men's neckwear. The "father killer" collar, or Vatermörder, was a high, stiff, starched detachable collar worn by respectable nineteenth- and early twentieth-century men who apparently looked at breathing and thought, "How necessary is this, really?"

We trace the collar from laundry-saving invention in Troy, New York, to class symbol, masculine posture prison, newspaper joke, and possible cause of death in cases like C. O. Slater and Harry D. Wingert. We also wander into Francis Dukinfield Astley's suspicious 1825 death, celluloid collars, racist laundry advertising, and military neck stocks, because men's fashion was not safer than women's fashion. It was just louder about being practical while quietly trying to throttle someone in a parlor.

✨ LISTEN, FOLLOW, AND REVIEW ✨
If you love fashion history with a body count, please follow Dressed for the Grave, leave us a five-star review, and share this episode with someone who enjoys their history crisp, morbid, and slightly over-starched.

✨Every review helps us haunt the algorithm with better posture✨

And Remember: Dress to impress yourself, not the coroner.

• Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Robert Friedel, "A White Collar With a Message."
  https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/white-collar-message
• Textile Research Centre Leiden, Joshua Verkerk, "How the Detachable Collar Came and Went."
  https://www.trc-leiden.nl/trc/index.php/en/blog/1444-how-the-detachable-collar-came-and-went
• Georgia Historic Newspapers, The Atlanta Georgian, "Choked to Death By High Collar," 21 July 1913.
  https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn89053729/1913-07-21/ed-6/seq-1/ocr/
• Georgia Historic Newspapers, The News and Farmer, "A Fatal High Collar," 24 September 1903.
  https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn86053065/1903-09-24/ed-1/seq-1/ocr/
• 100 Halls Around Manchester, "Francis Dukinfield Palmer Astley."
  https://100hallsaroundmanchester.wordpress.com/tag/francis-dukinfield-palmer-astley/
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Catherine McLean and Charlotte Eng, "How the Hatter Went Mad."
  https://unframed.lacma.org/2011/03/07/how-the-hatter-went-mad