Mildred McMillen, born Chicago, IL - Untitled - 1915 - T-Shirt

This 1915 woodcut shows two workmen repairing a roof beside a scaffold frame, a ladder, and a chimney stack, rendered in stark black and off-white.

Visual Elements & Composition

Off-white fills about two-thirds of the plate, and black carves out the structure, so the workmen and their tools read as dark shapes against the light. The composition runs vertically, with diagonal scaffold bracing cutting up through the frame and pulling the eye toward the roofline. A picket fence anchors the lower edge, and the chimney stack rises as a solid vertical that balances the angled timber. The work has no text or numerals, and its strength comes from the contrast between carved black lines and open light.

Meaning & Symbolism

The subject is labour and construction, a theme that ran through urban American art in the early twentieth century as Chicago grew quickly. McMillen, born in Chicago in 1884, approached this scene with the analytical eye of a printmaker. The workmen are shown as part of the structure they build, and the scaffolding, ladder, and roof become a study in how human effort and architecture meet. The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds the original, which documents the modernist experimentation of the period.

On the Unisex Tee

A vertical image with a strong central axis suits the torso, where the scaffold bracing and chimney line can run from shoulder to hem as the wearer moves. The high contrast of black and off-white reads clearly at a glance, so the workmen and their ladder stay legible across the chest. Wearing the piece puts a century-old study of construction on the body in an everyday way.