In Africa, very young girls wore anigabe, a small apron with white beaded dressed skin or cotton fringes attached to a front waistband, densely covered with beadwork. After puberty and the accompanying initiation ritual, a young woman wore an isiphephetu, a stiff front apron decorated with beadwork, and she could then wear the isithimba, a long soft skin back apron, which was worn by women of all ages from puberty to old age. For her marriage, a bride wore anitshogolo, a goatskin front apron, with the lower edge cut into five approximately hand-length flaps. This was worn undecorated for her wedding, but as a married woman grew in status at her husband's home, she enriched her itshogolo with beadwork. She wore it at important ceremonial occasions, such as the initiation of her sons.

Another type of front apron, amaphotho, was more generally worn by married women. It was shaped rather like the itshogolo but had a central beaded fringe with two squared-off flaps at either side. By Lindsay Hooper, South African Museum, Capetown

  Aprons played an important part in daily life and served many functions beside basic clothing protection.  Many slave women who worked in plantation kitchens used their aprons to smuggle food to children in the cabins.  Slaves also used secret coding patterns (signs and symbols) in aprons and quilts.  The aprons were hung out to warn slaves to prepare for the long journey to freedom via the Underground Railroad. 

  Women owned little clothing during this period, so aprons were cut long to protect and cover the long skirts and dresses of the times.  They were made out of whatever material was available such as curtains, burlap or scraps of material.  A dress was normally worn for a week or more since modern conveniences like washing machines didn't exist.  Washing involved a daylong process that included filling large kettles with water and lye soap.  The kettles were then heated with firewood; dirty clothes were added and stirred with a large stick. Women later rinsed the clothes then hung them on clotheslines to dry.  Aprons served many useful purposes such as hauling wood and kindling for wash day.

  They say a picture speaks a thousand words.  Historical pictures are a great way to explore the past.  For example, a picture from the early 1900's, shows young African-American teenagers wearing crisp, pristine white aprons, sleevelets, caps they had made in a sewing class to their cooking class at a school in Louisville.  The aprons served as school uniforms and clothes protectors.  It also shows the remarkable sewing talents of these young women. 

  Another historical picture shows a group of African-American women in long white aprons working at the prestigious Tuskegee Institute's school laundry in 1903.  This picture shows how prevalant aprons were in daily living.