Sara Paretsky's Critical Mass and Women's Uniforms of the 1930s

Read Critical Mass, the novel by Sara Paretsky newly published.  According to the blurb, "V.I. Warshawski's closest friend in Chicago is the Viennese-born doctor Lotty Herschel, who lost most of her family in the holocaust."  While I waited for my turn to read Critical Mass, I returned to an earlier Sara Paretsky novel about this topic, Total Recall.  Topics from the earlier book included implanted false memories, psychiatry, and children brought to England in the 1930s.  Although the story is not a continued story, Total Recall was an appropriate book to reread ahead of Critical Mass. 

Of course I do not want to tell the story of Critical Mass.  In one paragraph a scene illustrates 1930s Vienna:  "Martina was wearing the uniform of the school, sewn by her mother with meticulous care..."  She, as a jewish girl "would be an easy target for rage" from those suffering during the German 1930 depression.  The character of the mother is a working class servant who does detailed sewing.

Curious about the appearance of the uniform, on the internet I find an interesting story about 1930s working women at Woolworth's in England and the United States.  The article shows the uniforms" "Assistants were given maroon uniforms or stockman's coats, backed by a free laundry service."  I think we might imagine that Martina's school uniform was a blazer.  I think it might be more likely that she had worn a pinafore as an early grader and had advanced to a tailored dress with a specific uniform collar. 

In any case, the uniform might have signaled a future for the schoolgirl that many street people in the 1930s had a hard time imagining.