Like any good girl raised in the 1950s, Bobbe Schafer, 64, answers the door to her Powell Butte home in an apron.

To be historically accurate, Schafer said the apron she was wearing last week was inspired by designs from the 1940s. She designed and hand-sewed the apron, made of butter-yellow fabric dotted with little red hens and lined with red rickrack ribbons.

Of course, a woman of the ’40s and ’50s might also be wearing a dress, heels, a string of pearls, and have her hair twisted up or curled, said Schafer, who was dressed casually in pants and a shirt. Fashion is much more casual now, she says, although the classic apron is gaining popularity again.

Taking a seat at her kitchen table, Schafer, a former Sunriver librarian, pulled out a binder thick with sewing patterns from the 1940s through the 1970s. She uses them as visual aids during her apron lectures, which for five years have taken her throughout the Northwest. Flipping through, Schafer explained how these symbols of domesticity tell the story of women’s historical roles, fashion trends and 20th-century American culture.

“It’s amazing how much history is in something as simple as an apron,” Schafer said, looking at some of the early, “Leave it to Beaver”-era apron designs.

Schafer’s favorite apron comes before that time. Made in the early 1900s, the delicate mauve apron is tiny, which Schafer says is because it fit a woman wearing a corset. The soft silk is hand-embroidered and smocked at the top, with lace lining the bottom and single front pocket. Schafer says she found it at an antique shop in Olympia, Wash.

“This was not used to cook and clean,” Schafer said. “The woman of the house would wear one over her dress … Queen Victoria had one she would wear for royal portraits.”

The Victorian apron is one of more than 300 antique aprons Schafer has collected from various antique stores, estate sales, friends and eBay. Her hobby doesn’t cost her much — most aprons cost between $3 and $8 — but the story they tell is priceless.

Over the eras

Working next to a large plastic box, Schafer pulls out one soft apron after another.

A black tulle cocktail apron looks like modern lingerie, a plastic apron from the 1950s resembles old kitchen curtains, and another apron is cut to look like a man’s bloomers. She has aprons made in home-economics classes, aprons made as travel souvenirs and aprons mimicking popular patterns of the time.

She has aprons with oversized pockets made for holding clothing pins, aprons that pin to the front of one’s blouse, aprons that anchor in the back to keep weight off the neck, and one stylish, strapless apron made with boning to keep the bodice up and a blue flower pattern that could have been popular in the 1970s.

Much of what Schafer knows about aprons came from books and reading old designs she’s found. As a former librarian at Sunriver Preparatory School, she’s no novice to research.

When the school closed roughly five years ago, Schafer decided to spend her extra hours sewing.

The first apron was a gift for her daughter, and from that small start came her own design company, which includes ’40s- and ’50s-inspired aprons. That led to collecting old patterns.

“There is so much history there that I decided I needed to share it,” she said. “So I started giving talks on the history of aprons.”

Schafer speaks primarily to assisted-living and retirement communities.

In the past month, she’s had five speaking engagements, and in July, she has nine scheduled in Washington.

Many senior citizens remember how their mothers or grandmothers wore aprons: with big pockets to hold safety pins, false teeth or chewing tobacco.

“I do it for the memories,” Schafer said. “As we get older, it’s important to keep our brains remembering things.”

Across ages

Working through her book of apron designs and her box of vintage aprons, Schafer gives her audience a tour of American history.

In the 1930s and 1940s, aprons were worn all day to protect a woman’s dress underneath.

Dress was more formal, and automatic washing and drying machines had yet to revolutionize domesticity.

Many women created aprons out of old hankies or bed sheets, Schafer said. And they almost exclusively were made for women.

“There weren’t a lot of men’s patterns because men just weren’t in the kitchen,” she said. And if they were, they were considered “in the dog house,” as one apron design says.

During the war years, patriotic aprons rode a wave of popularity. Schafer points out a “Victory Apron” pattern from 1943. The neckline forms a V for victory and the cloth is printed with stars and stripes in red, white and blue colors.

By the end of the 1940s, American families began hosting more parties, Schafer said, so the apron patterns depicted more fun, flirty patterns.

These smaller and more glitzy aprons were called cocktail aprons, hostess aprons or tea aprons, she said.

They tied at the waste with no loop around the neck and in front of the blouse.

Some of Schafer’s designs show models wearing their hostess aprons over silk cocktail dresses.

These more fancy aprons weren’t used to do heavy work like cooking and cleaning, Schafer said, which is good for collectors like her.

“The tea and party aprons are easier to find because they were not used,” she said. “So they are always in pretty good condition.”

Shifts in design

By the 1950s, dress lengths fell to the calf, but aprons became shorter.

That was also the decade when “hobby aprons” became popular. Technology and the introduction of frozen and processed meals made domesticity easier, Schafer said.

As a result, women had more free time to pursue their own delights.

They also had the luxury of washing machines, so keeping clothes clean when cooking wasn’t as necessary.

Additionally, popular culture influenced apron designs.

“About every decade, some designer would try to take an apron on the street,” Schafer said, noting that some designs were modeled off Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white dress from “The Seven Year Itch.”

In the 1960s, apron designs finally began depicting women wearing pants, even though women had been wearing them for decades.

This was the same decade in which the women’s movement took off, Schafer said. And as a result, women took off their aprons.

“They thought aprons represented servitude,” she said.

Still, some patterns persisted and were incorporated into fashions throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Schafer said.

But the aprons’ waning popularity shows in Schafer’s collection, which greatly tapers off after those made in 1960.

Back in fashion

As crafts like sewing and knitting have grown in popularity, so has the practice of wearing aprons, Schafer said.

“I was selling my aprons during Mom’s Weekend at OSU (Oregon State University) one time, and it was fun watching the moms and daughters trying them on. Many walked away wearing their aprons.”

The comeback spans across ages for men and women, she said. “I think a lot of it is that baby boomers are going back to their homes,” Schafer said of those entering retirement.

Additionally, designers are making modern interpretations of aprons that are more accessible to younger generations, and vintage looks are in.

Popular culture adds to the trend, Schafer says, adding that the television show “Desperate Housewives” depicts beautiful, modern women wearing aprons.

“You’ll see girls wearing them on college campuses, over jeans and tees. Two years ago, I was at the Sunriver Quilt Show selling my aprons and two girls from Lake Tahoe came up and tried on nearly every one of my aprons before buying a few for school.”

Whether she’s selling her handcrafted designs at a fair or lecturing on those made decades ago, Schafer says she gets as much fulfillment as she gives out.

“When I’m talking or when people see the aprons I have made, it brings back memories for people,” she said. “The joy on their faces is just remarkable. They light up because they remember something from their past, someone who wore an apron.”