Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture 9781350147669, 9781350147676, 9781350147690, 9781350147652
During the prosperous, forward-thinking era after the Second World War, a growing number of men, women, and children acr
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Table of contents :
Cover
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Defining the Western
Chapter Summary
1 Westernwear: Histories and Contexts
The Origins of Westernwear
Cowboys
The Cowgirl
Experiencing the West: Rodeo and Dude Ranching
California: Shaping Western identity through Blue Jeans and Ready to Wear
2 Four Westernwear Companies
The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company
Pendleton: The Original Mill and Blanket Trade
Garment Manufacture at Pendleton
Pendleton during Wartime
Blue Bell before Wrangler
Miller Stockman
Postwar Design, Fabrication, and Style
3 Dressing the Atomic West: Locating “the Western” in Mid-century America
Postwar Economy and Culture
Vital Forms, Atomic Bombs, and Uranium Rocks
Finding the Western in Popular Culture
The Invention of Wrangler
Rodeo Culture and Western Heritage
Bringing the West to the East
Cattle Branding to Corporate Branding
4 Westernwear as Ready-to-Wear
Western Style in Postwar Womenswear
Jeans for Women
Pendleton Enters a “New World”
Western Details in “Smart” Womenswear
A Western Take on the New Look
The Postwar Menswear Scene
New Products and Promotions at Pendleton: Selling to the “Everyman”
Bold Looks and Bold Colors
Approaches to Selling Menswear, Old and New
5 Westernwear in Youth Culture and Subculture
Blue Jeans: A Troubled 1950s Icon
Rebels in Denim, On Screen and Off
Studded Leather: Connecting Bikers to Cowboys
Rock’n’Roll, Delinquency, and Casual Dress
Advertising to Teenagers at Lee
Pendleton and the Youth Market
Youth Culture and Style in the 1960s: From Colored Denims to the Wrangler Stretch
Subcultures Incorporate Westernwear: Surfers, Cholos, and Hot Rodders
6 The Native American Presence in Westernwear: Design and Representation
Appropriation, Authentication, and Hybridization
The Squaw/Patio Dress: Domesticating Otherness
Buckskins
Straight Arrow
Chetopa Twill
Robes and Blanket Jackets
Frontierland: Historic Exhibition, Retail, Carnival
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Citation preview
Westernwear
i
ii
Westernwear Postwar American Fashion and Culture Sonya Abrego
iii
BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Copyright © Sonya Abrego, 2022 Sonya Abrego has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Adriana Brioso Cover image © Bettmann/Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN:
HB: PB: ePDF: eBook:
978-1-3501-4766-9 978-1-3501-4767-6 978-1-3501-4765-2 978-1-3501-4768-3
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Contents
List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgments x
Introduction
1
1
Westernwear: Histories and Contexts
2
Four Westernwear Companies
3
Dressing the Atomic West: Locating the Western in Mid-century America
4
Westernwear as Ready-to-Wear
5
Westernwear in Youth Culture and Subculture
6
The Native American Presence in Westernwear: Design and Representation
Conclusion
15
45 71
113 161 207
247
Notes 251 Bibliography 289 Index 303
v
Illustrations
0.1 Phillip Wildbill, c. mid-1950s.
xii
0.2 Lurex Shirt, c. mid-1950s.
2
0.3 Group portrait of American cowboys, c. 1905.
3
0.4 Charles A. Harris Jr. and Scott Harris, sons of Charles A. “Teenie” Harris, wearing cowboy outfits, c. 1959–61.
8
1.1 Late nineteenth-century vaquero, Mexican carte de visite.
17
1.2 Rodeo Ben catalog, c. 1950.
19
1.3 Mid-century Western shirts, 1940s–50s.
21
1.4 Scene at a San Louis Valley Cattle Ranch, 1894, O. T. Davis.
27
1.5 Sharpshooter Annie Oakley firing over her shoulder, 1885.
28
1.6 Two cowgirls, Quarter Circle U Ranch, Montana, 1939.
30
1.7 Marge Riley apparel, featured in “Cowgirl: Dude girls of the West,” Life, April 22, 1940.
31
1.8 Autographed rodeo hat, early 1940s.
33
1.9 Vera McGinnis, 1914.
34
1.10 Western shirt and tie. Maker unknown, c. 1938.
35
1.11 Selection of woven garment labels marked with “California.”
43
2.1 Union-Alls advertisement, 1917.
49
2.2 Buddy Lee, c. 1950.
51
2.3 Lee 101 cowboy pants donut button detail.
51
2.4 Die-cut advertisement for Lee Riders denim jeans, 1940s.
54
2.5 Chief Joseph Blanket (khaki colorway).
57
2.6 Jackson Sundown and Roy Bishop at the Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo, 1916.
59
2.7 Pendleton shirts and sportswear price list, nd, and Pendleton Western Gambler shirt.
60
2.8 Blue Bell logo patch.
63
2.9 Miller label, 1930s.
65
2.10 Miller Embroidered Western shirt, 1949.
66
2.11 “Colorful Western Styles,” Miller Stockman catalog, 1949.
67
vi
Illustrations
vii
3.1 Lee Advertisement, The Department Store Journal, February 1963.
74
3.2 “Real Wranglers,” Look magazine, Sept 23, 1952.
75
3.3 “Atomic Frontier Days: A New Light on the Old Frontier,” Richland Junior Chamber of Commerce (1948).
81
3.4 Robert Loeffelbein, “Atomic Frontier Days Tenth Anniversary Float,” Hanford History Project.
82
3.5 Tom Mix, c. 1920.
83
3.6 Libby’s Tomato Juice, Sunset, November 1950.
85
3.7 Saddleman, Levi Strauss & Co., woven shirt label, c. 1955.
86
3.8 Westward-Ho, ceramic design by Til Goodan, c. 1950.
87
3.9 Select 1950s children’s apparel.
87
3.10 Hopalong Cassidy children’s apparel.
89
3.11a Hopalong Cassidy Blue Bell black denim jacket, c. 1950.
90
3.11b Hopalong Cassidy Blue Bell label.
90
3.12 Boys play at Western-style gunfighting at the Helldorado in Tombstone, Arizona, November, 1950.
91
3.13 Roy Rogers children’s apparel.
92
3.14 “TV Westerns Inspire New Sportswear,” Look, June 24, 1958.
92
3.15 Rodeo Ben catalog, c. 1950.
96
3.16 Wrangler 11MWZ.
97
3.17 Wrangler’s “Great Moments in Rodeo,” 1955, Blue Bell Inc.
98
3.18 Lee bandana with Casey Tibbs.
101
3.19 Lee Riders “Romance of the West” advertisement, 1946.
103
3.20 Bandanas with cattlebrands.
106
3.21 Western shirt, printed cotton with cattlebrand pattern, c. 1950.
107
3.22 Nardis of Dallas sportswear advertisement, Harper’s Bazaar, April 1946.
108
3.23 Alexey Brodovitch, “Cattlebrands,” Portfolio,Summer 1950.
109
3.24 Lee “Hair on Hide” waistband patch, issued between 1938 and 1944.
110
3.25 Lee “twitch” waistband patch and Lazy S pocket stitching, c. 1950.
111
3.26 Lee “Burn Your Own Brand” pamphlet, c. 1946.
112
4.1 Maidenform bra advertisement, Seventeen, October 1963.
115
4.2 Maidenform bra advertisement, Seventeen, August 1963.
115
4.3 Wrangler “Great Moments in Rodeo,” 1955.
116
4.4 Denim dress worked out for a high school girl on a low income by graduate students of the Department of Clothing and Textiles, School of Home Economics, University of Alabama, 1940.
120
viii
Illustrations
4.5 Lady Lee Riders label, c. 1950.
123
4.6 Frontier Lady jeans, and label, c. 1950.
125
4.7 Wrangler advertisement, Berva Dawn Sorensen, 1951.
126
4.8 Pendleton 49er jacket.
132
4.9 and 4.10 Wool pencil skirts, c. 1955.
133 and 134
4.11 A&R Juniors advertisement (detail), Seventeen, January 1953.
135
4.12 Woman’s wool jacket. Nathan Turk, c. 1945.
136
4.13 Unborn calfskin accessories, The Wrangler of Cheyanne catalog, Summer 1963.
137
4.14 Lady Westerners advertisement, Sunset magazine, 1963.
138
4.15 “Leading the way in ‘46”. Work clothes advertisement, 1946.
140
4.16 Pendleton Sunweights, advertisement 1951.
143
4.17 Black Bear shirts, Sunset Magazine, 1950.
144
4.18 Pendleton window display, 1946. E. M. Kohl store, Dallas, Texas.
146
4.19 Pendleton window display, 1946, Friedman’s, West Allis, Wisconsin.
147
4.20 Blue Bell price lists, swatch samples, Spring 1953.
148
4.21 “Miller Rodeo Shirts,” Miller Stockman catalog, Spring/Summer, 1930.
150
4.22 Miller Leopard Velvet Western shirt, c. 1936.
151
4.23 Miller floral Western shirt, c. 1935.
151
4.24 “Krazy-Koat” Western shirts, Miller Stockman catalog, Spring/Summer, 1941.
152
4.25 Men’s Western shirt. Maker unknown, c. 1950, satin.
153
4.26 Casey Tibbs on Okanogan Red. Devere Helfrich, 1949, safety film negative.
154
4.27 Lee Rider print advertisement, 1963.
156
5.1 “Fashion’s Do’s and Don’ts of Blue Jeans,” Seventeen, August 1954.
164
5.2 “Newest Riding and Dress Belts,” Miller Stockman catalog, Spring/Summer, 1949.
168
5.3 “This Chinese Vaquero Rides in the San Jose Round-up, July 1-2-3-4.” Postcard, 1916.
169
5.4 Kidney belts, c. 1940s.
170
5.5 “Life goes motorcycling,” Life, August 11, 1947.
170
5.6 Lee Riders advertisement, 1951.
173
5.7 Lee advertisement, Life, April 11, 1955.
174
5.8 Lee advertisement, Ebony, May 1955.
174
5.9 Lee advertisement, This Week, September 1958.
175
5.10 Lee and E-Z-Du wallpaper advertisement, Seventeen, September 1958.
177
5.11 “Young Pendleton” advertisement, Seventeen, August 1964.
179
5.12 Lee Westerners advertisement, Seventeen, May 1963.
181
5.13 Miller Stockman catalog, Spring 1962.
183
5.14 Lee Frontier Lady advertisement, Seventeen, April 1965.
184
Illustrations
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5.15 Wrangler advertisement, 1957, published in Seventeen, Life, and The New York Times Magazine.
187
5.16 Two women walk through the Tipi Village at the Pendleton Round-Up, September 1958.
188
5.17 Wrangler advertisement, Seventeen, September 1963.
189
5.18 Princess Fair “Gay Desperadoes,” Seventeen, September 1954.
190
5.19 New Era “Bucks County Shirts,” Seventeen, August 1962.
190
5.20 “East is East but West is Best,” Seventeen, July 1962.
191
5.21 “The Wrangler Stretch” promotional material, 1964.
193
5.22 Young men and women sporting surfer styles, LeRoy Grannis Hawaii, 1962.
195
5.23 The Beach Boys with a surf board and truck August 1962, Los Angeles, California.
197
5.24 “Cholo” poster, John Valadez, c. 1978.
201
5.25 Men with Roadster (’29 Ford), El Mirage dry lake, mid-1940s.
202
5.26 Lee Leesures advertisement, Car Craft, May 1965.
204
6.1 Man’s hunting shirt with Apache details.
209
6.2 “Navajo Blouse,” Miller Stockman catalog, Fall/Winter 1951.
211
6.3 A group of Native Americans watching the Crow Fair. Montana, August 1941.
214
6.4 “All American,” Seventeen, May 1953.
216
6.5 Patio/Squaw dress, c. 1955.
217
6.6 “Glamorous Patio Dresses,” Miller Stockman catalog, 1962.
218
6.7 A Navajo family tends to their goats and sheep on sand dunes in Arizona, 1952.
220
6.8 “Arizona: Southwest’s Color, History Contribute to Style,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 1953.
221
6.9 “Sun Ray of Arizona” advertisement, 1953.
222
6.10 Simplicity pattern advertisement, 1954.
223
6.11 Women’s fringed suede jackets, Miller Stockman catalog, Winter 1952–3.
228
6.12 Straight Arrow cereal cards, 1950 (book 2 card 8 & 9).
230
6.13 Lee Chetopa Twill advertisement, 1952.
232
6.14 Pendleton toboggan coat, c. 1930.
235
6.15 Anita Page in Harding pattern toboggan coat, 1923.
236
6.16 Nudie/Pendleton blanket coat.
237
6.17 The Exiles, 1961.
239
6.18 Pendleton Woolen Mills store, Frontierland, Disneyland, c. 1955.
241
6.19 Pendleton Frontierland store interiors c. 1955.
244
Acknowledgments
T
his book is the result of a patchwork of material sourced through archival research, the holdings of private collectors, interviews, and objects pulled from the back shelves at antique malls and
flea markets. My time as a student at Bard Graduate Center guided my intellectual growth and curiosity, allowing me the opportunity to focus serious attention on seemingly un-serious things. I can’t imagine better mentors than my advisors Pat Kirkham, Michele Majer, and David Jaffee whose knowledge, generosity, and patience continue to inspire. Generous support from the Bard Graduate Center and Bonnie Cashin Foundation allowed me to travel to all points West for company archives and collection visits. Without those research excursions in the early stages of this project, this book would never have come together. I’m also grateful for support from the Design History Society’s research publication grant. Westernwear is underrepresented in most costume collections, so I am particularly grateful to the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City for the work that they do. Many thanks to Marva Felchlin, Marilyn Van Winckle, and the rest of the staff for their assistance through the Autry’s research fellowship, and to Don Reeves and Samantha Schafer in Oklahoma. This book would look very different without the librarians, archivists, and designers who gave time for interviews, shared thoughts, and pointed me in new directions. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the keepers of my case-study companies’ archives. Few working businesses allow outside researchers this type of access, and a willingness to let me in shows integrity and an interest in history that goes beyond heritage branding and advertising. Greg Day and Kathy Monaghan at Pendleton, Susan Downer at Wrangler, and Chuck Winter at Miller International, all offered time and expertise that enriched my work immensely. Jean Svadlenak at Lee truly went above and beyond, generously sharing her own excellent research, and it’s an honor to share some of it with my readers. The denim development experts at the White Oak mill in Greensboro—Bud Strickland and Stahle Vincent—offered me the chance to investigate the details of denim production in more depth than I had thought possible. And a huge thank you to the international community of vintage clothing dealers and collectors. Those who have freely let me handle and try on clothes, as well as talk x
Acknowledgments
xi
at length about zippers, labels, and chain stitching, are grassroots material culture scholars whose breadth of knowledge and enthusiasm remains unmatched. Thanks for caring about and preserving the kind of artifacts that cultural institutions largely have overlooked. My colleagues and friends, Elizabeth St.George, Alexis Romano, Christine Griffiths, Elena KaganyLoux, Serah-Marie McMahon, Ted Kulczycky, and Ellen Sampson, brought thoughtful critiques, edits, and encouragement that have shaped this project: Thanks for your good humor and insight. My community of friends in New York has heard far too much about old pants and academia than they would probably care to. You have all taught me so much and most importantly, kept me sane. Frances Arnold, my editor at Bloomsbury: Thank you for your guidance and patience. And finally, I would like to thank my family and my partner, Michael Miranda, for their love and support.
Figure 0.1 Phillip Wildbill, c. mid-1950s. Pendleton Rodeo Hall of Fame Inductee, Pendleton Woolen Mills, Pendleton, Oregon. xii
Introduction
A man faces the camera with one hand outstretched and waving, inviting the viewer into his space. The man’s name is Phillip Wildbill, an honored inductee to the Pendleton Round-Up rodeo Hall of Fame (Figure 0.1.).1 He stands in a rodeo ring; spectators in the distance await the events, but the main attraction here is the man’s attire. His regalia includes a headband and feathered headdress, leather gauntlets embossed with a swallow, rose, and beadwork, and a snap-front black Western shirt with the characteristic metallic shimmer of Lurex thread. It is a hybrid look, and the shiny shirt adds visual interest and texture to what is already a flamboyant and eye-catching ensemble. Lurex was the first synthetic metallic yarn, composed of a thin filament of aluminum laminated in a plasticized coating. Invented by Charles Prindle and launched by the Dobeckmun company in 1946, Lurex effectively democratized sparkle.2 Prior to Prindle’s invention, metallic threads could be costly (gold or silver filaments twisted around a thread) or likely to tarnish, discolor, and scratch. Lurex offered a light, flexible alternative, and the plastic prevents discoloration. It is an easy to maintain, technologically advanced postwar fiber, one of many innovations in the field of synthetic textiles following World War II (see Figure 0.2).3 A bold juxtaposition of modernity and tradition—combining a Western shirt fashioned from a modern synthetic textile with Native American accessories made of leather, feathers, and beads— might seem incongruous at first glance, but it embodies the key visual signifiers seen throughout westernwear; the blending of cultural influences, marrying old and new, work clothes and leisure clothes, to create a distinctive form of dressing. By the middle of the twentieth century, the semiotic binary of “traditional” and “modern” was particularly heightened in American culture where new materials, like Lurex, and comparable technological advances in the domestic and industrial spheres cast contrasts between the “old” and the “new” into sharper relief. The look may be a composite of multiple materials and influences but it is singularly Western. The aesthetic communicates the complexity of the subject himself; an Indigenous man participating in the sport of rodeo, which originated with the equestrian traditions of the continent’s first imperialist power, in a Pacific Northwest town during the 1950s. Wildbill and his attire are in a way both familiar and strange, a 1
2
Westernwear
Figure 0.2 Lurex shirt, c. mid-1950s. Author’s photo. Private collection.
description that can be extended to the ubiquity of westernwear and Western-inspired fashions in the sartorial landscape of the postwar United States. Westernwear is commonly defined as a casual style identified with the Western and Southwestern United States, closely associated with cowboy clothing and the cowboy lifestyle. With over two centuries worth of representations in the form of literature, art, print culture, photography, film, and television that communicated the aesthetic from regional origins to global audiences, it is not difficult to call to mind. Iconic garments and accessories such as jeans, bandanas, cowboy hats, chaps, embroidered cowboy shirts, and cowboy boots are read as Western despite multiple regional variations and convergences with fashionable trends. Utility and durability have always been essential features. Western garments originated as tough no-nonsense clothes, tools to help a cowboy do his work. They covered and protected the body, and design details often served a functional purpose. Hats, for instance, could shield the wearer’s head from the sun, but also double as food or water receptacles for horses.4 Bandanas made from calico cotton or silk were multifunctional, serving as towel, handkerchief, face mask to protect from dust, tourniquet, or a blindfold for calves.5 Westernwear was born out of the requirements of specific jobs in specific climates in specific areas of the country in the nineteenth century, and though it is casually referred to as an “American” style, it has always been a hybrid aesthetic drawing from the
Introduction
3
Figure 0.3 Group portrait of American cowboys, c. 1905. Bettman Archive, Getty Images.
craft and dress of Native American cultures, Mexico, Spanish cattle culture, and European settlers. Westernwear is effectively a material index of the diversity of the American West. (See Figure 0.3.) This book examines westernwear’s interconnections with postwar fashions and popular culture. Each generation has its own interpretations and representations of the Western genre that speak directly to concerns of the time, and westernwear likewise adjusts to the nature of fashionable dress. The two decades after World War II saw the United States assume global dominance on the international stage. Wartime technologies advanced nuclear power and space exploration while contributing innovations in the domestic sphere that modernized everything from textiles to kitchen appliances. Yet during this prosperous, forward-thinking era, a growing number of men, women, and children across the nation were wearing fashions that evoked the Old West. This book considers the continuities and changes in westernwear in the United States to explicate its shifting contexts and interrelationships with postwar lifestyles and clothing. I consider the various influences on Western styles and discuss how they manifested in the goods produced.6 Material culture and cultural history methodologies are employed to evaluate the degree and ways in which westernwear remained part of the material and visual culture of the postwar United States. This book is, primarily, a work of fashion history that examines the designs and materials of Western-styled garments. However, close readings of photographs, advertisements, magazine editorials, music, and film that presented westernwear to
4
Westernwear
viewers and potential consumers provide valuable evidence and context for understanding how and why westernwear was fashionable at this time. Whether it is worn as workwear, leisurewear, or given a fashionable re-interpretation by designers, westernwear is an enduring style that exemplifies fashionable survival rather than revival. Given its long history and multiple manifestations, this book is best understood as A history of westernwear, not THE history of westernwear. For a manner of dress with a significant history and high visibility, there has been relatively little attention paid to it. An exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West curated by Holly George Warren and Michelle Friedman, and its accompanying catalog, How The West Was Worn (2001), offers a survey of Western dress through the 1990s using garments from the Autry’s extensive collection.7 Laurel Wilson’s work on the clothing of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cowboys has provided a solid scaffolding upon which to build an understanding of the sartorial demands of cowboy life.8 While some of the material concerns of the past inform the designs of the mid-century garments considered here, almost all of the imagery employed to sell the goods harkens back to an earlier time. In terms of mid-century-specific design, celebrated westernwear designers, such as Nudie Cohn, have been the subject of colorful biographical treatments.9 Bespoke “rhinestone cowboy” designs produced mainly for entertainers brought an exuberant version of westernwear to the public eye. While this aesthetic offers some of the era’s liveliest examples, my interest lies in how westernwear was subtly and successfully incorporated into fashionable day-to-day wardrobes. Instead of focusing on the flamboyant looks that set westernwear apart, I explore how and why it continued to fit in. In doing so, I treat “everyday” fashion in accordance with how Cheryl Buckley and Hazel Clark construe it in Fashion and Everyday Life; namely, a cultural phenomenon that facilitates embodied identity.10 In contrast to the global and commodity-driven fashion system that includes couture, high fashion, and its adjacent media networks, the westernwear that populates the following chapters exemplifies the way Buckley and Clark envision everyday dress as potentially disruptive to fashion’s structures, systems, and norms of consumption through its emphasis on continuity, tradition, and responsiveness to local, regional, and national subtleties.11 The majority of my evidence including garments, advertisements, and business records have been drawn from the archives of four companies that produced different styles of westernwear. Namely, Lee (established 1889, Salina, Kansas), Wrangler (established 1904, Greensboro, North Carolina), Pendleton (established 1909, Portland, Oregon), and Miller Stockman (established 1920, Denver, Colorado). Analysis of the material derived from the sources above follows two main paths. The first relates to issues of production (new materials, types of decoration, and marketing) and the second to how the products looked, and to issues of reception—of how they were promoted, purchased, worn, or “received” via film, television, and other media on screen, in fashion periodicals, and westernwear catalogs. Lee and Wrangler are both known predominantly for their jeans, and both companies used Western imagery and cowboy references in their marketing. Pendleton, a manufacturer
Introduction
5
of woolen blankets and garments also drew upon Western conventions in both its design and the branding of products. Miller Stockman, by contrast, began as a catalog company outfitting westerners with apparel and equipment. It offered Pendleton, Lee, and Wrangler goods, but also manufactured a small line of garments marketed under the Miller Stockman brand name. These companies were selected because their goods circulated widely at the time, and because they represent a section of the westernwear market for manufactured garments that sold at a price point comparable to mainstream ready-to-wear casual clothing. In addition, each company is a recognizable brand with national scope, deep roots in its community, and a history that has yet to be recorded elsewhere. Three of them, Pendleton, Lee, and Wrangler’s parent company Blue Bell, originate from the turn of the twentieth century. The postwar period provided a unique set of challenges and opportunities, as garments that previously existed almost exclusively as work clothing, such as jeans, became a part of casual ready-to-wear dress, and each company adjusted their output and marketing towards new consumers. While archival material provides the bulk of my evidence and the foundation for my arguments, magazines, print ephemera, decorative objects, movies, music, and television shows are drawn upon to contextualize the output of the companies in relation to design and popular culture at the time. Fashion does not exist in a cultural vacuum, and understanding how it signifies necessitates a multidisciplinary practice. As with most popular cultural forms, there is no single historical narrative to follow. While the various visual and material examples considered here engage with and often repeat hegemonic ideologies—particularly in regards to nationalism, race, and masculinity—popular culture cannot be simply reduced to an agent of control. While mythologies of the American West are evident, popular forms can also provide fodder for other, sometimes alternative or subversive, kinds of myth-making. Indeed, as cultural theorist Stuart Hall explains, it is within the landscape of popular culture where “we discover and play with the identifications of ourselves.”12 By tracing the output of each company in light of the wider multi-media phenomenon that was the Western genre at mid-century, I identify similarities and differences in design and messaging that resonate with broader social and sartorial trends, and some that are more niche.
Defining the Western Images of the American West are easily envisioned, whether one has been there or not. The West covers a range of topographies as well. Fictional and historical representations include desert, mountain, and prairie landscapes, farm houses, ranch estates, and small towns populated by “cowboys and Indians” in countless incarnations that have filtered into the popular imagination.13 Yet, there still is no single satisfying definition or geographic demarcation for the American West. Attempts to agree
6
Westernwear
upon tangible parameters have resulted in approximations and terms such as the “trans-Mississippi West,” which originated in the nineteenth century and is still used in reference to regions west of that river. However, the identities of those places as states, as Indian territory, or as parts of Mexico, are dependent on the time in question. Given that there are no agreed upon boundaries for delimiting the West, it is not surprising that clothing manufacturers based in disparate locales such as Kansas, Oregon, North Carolina, and Colorado can each hold claim to a Western identity. Indeed, the ability to do so rests on history and lifestyle, a continued presence of cowboy culture lived through farming and rodeo, but also in the less tangible cultural constructs of Western identity. Understanding the West as a place and a cultural force emerged in parallel with nineteenth century westward expansion. Generations of historians sought to define it in terms of the “American Frontier” while remaining reticent to locate boundaries for the West or specify what, exactly, the frontier was.14 Historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” persists as the most influential work contextualizing Western expansion in terms of what it meant for the nation.15 Tellingly, Turner’s narrative champions expansion from East to West, ignoring the border between North and South. He famously proclaimed the frontier officially closed as of 1890, an assertion grounded in census data from that year that indicated that there was no longer a region in the United States where population density was less than two people per square mile. Yet, despite his adherence to a quantitative measure, Turner himself was hesitant to apply rigid limitations to the frontier, claiming that the term is “an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition.”16 Its physical location may have remained “elastic,” but the frontier’s ideological potency as a social border between “savagery” and civilization was treated as the single most important ingredient in the transformation of the European settler into an American.17 Turner offered an origin story for American exceptionalism. His thesis also shows how violence against Indigenous people, whose existence was framed as something to be conquered, defined Western and by extension American identity from the start. Paradoxically, the frontier with its intrinsic promise of rebirth was, by 1890, closed. Turner’s declaration, that a unique and generative American experience was both essential and no longer attainable, was coincident with the occasion of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and the nation’s growth as an imperial power and international force.18 To frame American identity as Turner and his successors have, as a counterpoint to the “Old World” of Europe and the product of expansionist conquest, is to effectively construct it as a white identity. The drama of renewal or, to borrow Richard Slotkin’s phrase, regeneration through violence, was in the majority of Western histories carried out by white men in the service of dominant power structures.19 The legacy of these assumptions cast a long shadow in justifying oppressive systems and ordinances, particularly where Indigenous people are concerned. Its legacy also did much to erase the histories of the multi-ethnic population that constituted the West. In addition to the over 500 Indigenous Nations in what is now the United States, there were African Americans, the Mexican
Introduction
7
population, who had always inhabited the Southwest, and the Chinese population, who largely participated in mining and railroad construction. Western genre fictions and popular histories almost completely ignored this diversity. People of color remained underrepresented, and when present were almost always villains or used for comic relief. It is estimated that at least one in four American cowboys was Black.20 These men were drawn to the work for the same reasons as their white counterparts, and some took positions as lawmen, or participated in rodeo, or as Wild West show performers. Discrimination factored into their lives in manifold ways; into the twentieth century as rodeo and the film industries became more professionalized, they also became more segregated, leading Black cowboys to start their own associations and production companies.21 Representations of the West in popular culture that successfully whitewashed the heterogeneous reality have not only done a disservice to Western history, but also helped construct a media landscape primed to exclude those who do not reflect the image of the white cowboy hero. These constructs are especially pernicious in considering media and commodities consumed by children. Yet, there are countless examples of children of all races and ethnicities dressing up in imitation of their cowboy heroes. The young African American boys captured by their photographer father at Christmas time seem happily at ease in their cowboy costumes in the late 1950s (see Figure 0.4). The imaginative potential of play paired with the seductive draw of radio stories, comics, television shows, films, and toys appears to have been strong across demographics. Yet, perhaps some of these young people came to understand this engagement with pop culture and its view of America differently in time. As James Baldwin eloquently stated in recalling the Western movies of his youth: “It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians and, although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”22 Indigenous author Thomas King similarly recalled a moment from his youth: “for a nine-year-old I cut a fine figure in my Western garb. I’m carrying a rifle, with two six-guns strapped to my waist, so there’s no mistaking who I’m supposed to be. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember anyone who wanted to be an Indian.”23 Such dissonance suffuses the genre, and in the postwar era it was surely heightened by the accretion of Western novelties, toys, and amusements for children. In the pages that follow there are few people of color, the notable exception being Pendleton’s connection to the Indigenous community. The products, particularly jeans and work clothes made by companies with national distribution, were surely worn by people of all cultural backgrounds, yet the imagery used to promote them is almost exclusively white. At mid-century, Black cowboys, or any visible minoritized people, are conspicuous in their absence from the advertisements, fashion, and general interest magazines, television programs, and films that provide evidence throughout this book. While the documentation that follows sheds light on how and why westernwear styles entered into general mainstream fashion, it also demands that we consider who was imagined to be the “average” or “mainstream” consumer at the time, and who was left out. As such, it offers further evidence of the continued exclusion and erasure of people of color from popular fashion narratives and the Western genre at this time.
8
Westernwear
Figure 0.4 Charles A. Harris Jr. and Scott Harris, sons of Charles A. “Teenie” Harris, wearing cowboy outfits. Butler, Pennsylvania, c. 1959–1961. Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive, Carnegie Museum of Art, Getty Images.
Turner’s frontier thesis has been critiqued for its jingoism and racism, and rightly has been subject to multiple revisionist interpretations.24 Central among these are those of scholars Patricia NelsonLimerick, Richard White, and William Cronon, whose names have become synonymous with the “New Western history” movement that emerged in the 1980s. New Western historians brought race, gender, class, and environmental dynamics into the historical discourse of the trans-Mississippi West.25 Indeed, the persistence of Turner’s frontier thesis motivated several late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century historians to advocate for banning the “F-word” (Frontier) entirely, thereby dispensing with the ideological baggage carried by such a loaded term in favor of a fresh and ideally more nuanced and inclusive understanding of the West.26 The violence implicit in the conquest of the frontier was perhaps more immediately understood in its day, and justified in light of colonialist rhetoric. The deeply disturbing foundation that Turner and generations of thinkers like him articulated, that the emergence of the nation and the national character necessitated the destruction of pre-existing human civilizations is perhaps why, in spite of multiple revisions and historical re-assessments, the concept haunts us still. The legacy of the frontier remains contested while it is still cast by advertisers, filmmakers, and presidents in a celebratory light.
Introduction
9
Although a complete re-imagining of the frontier has yet to take hold, historian Kerwin Klein succinctly summarized the historiographical shift from a Western history rooted in Turnerian perspectives to those of today: The frontier of group identities reaches directly into current debates over the roles of race, class, gender, and sexuality in historical consciousness. Turner made his frontier a synthesis of his own white, male, Midwestern, heterosexual and middle-class image. We are prone to see in it the marching black boot of Anglo patriarchy and forget that it was a subaltern discourse gathering marginal regions and actors into a scholarly circle previously dominated by Puritans and Presidents. A century later, we understand that the margins are many.27 With multiple margins and room for debate, the West and the notion of the frontier continue to inspire scholarship, dialogue, and at present the inclusion of a great multiplicity of voices. This book is not a Western history, but it is concerned with the appeal of Western fashions in the postwar period that recall or engage with Western histories, specifically Western material culture. It is a history of the persistence of westernwear and its extension on the part of its makers, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, to new populations of consumers. As such, I am indebted to the ideas of the more pluralistic New Western historians who have broadened our understanding of the West in American culture. Banishing of the F-word (frontier) from the discourse never fully took hold, and perhaps it is because we are not through reckoning with its legacy. Some recent scholars have employed the term “postwestern” to describe current iterations of the genre, while others, like Lee Clark Mitchell, insist that genres are never fixed or static and “postwestern” is misleading and unnecessary.28 Western films and televisions series, and critical analysis of Western films and series, are ever-present and continue to play with these conventions. The genre and its accompanying aesthetic not only retain currency in popular culture, but in fashion and music queer artists Lil Nas X and Orville Peck have taken westernwear in exceptionally expressive directions that resonate with young audiences. Writing about the “True West,” William Handley and Nathanial Lewis asserted that, “given that the West has undergone such immense and constant change in its history and seen the clash of so many conflicting values, the cultural fascination with notions of Western authenticity represents, if not a reactionary response to history, then an almost willed form of historical amnesia or denial.”29 The cowboy, like the frontier, was also characterized as definitively American but either gone, or soon to be gone. In fact, as early as 1915, the Montana cowboy painter Charles Russell lamented the disappearance of the “iconic” cowboy. 30 It was a sentiment shared by many Americans as the century progressed. The chapters that follow make it clear that there is no single way of being (or looking like) a cowboy or cowgirl, and there are, of course, still cowboys and cowgirls today. Yet the rhetoric of authenticity is inseparable from images and histories of the West. Historian Henry Louis Gates has contested that authenticity is “among the founding lies of the modern age,” and while lie seems
10
Westernwear
particularly forceful, the existence of an authentic original depends upon the inauthentic, and also necessitates that both be judged accordingly.31 When it comes to the cowboy or Westerner, it is unclear who possesses the authority to do this judging. Gates’s statement is also pertinent to understanding the cowboy because it situates authenticity as a modern concern, which ties it to how the West is effectively a modern construction that has consistently been defined in opposition to modernity. Attempts to define the West that appeal to more poetic or abstract notions are perhaps more salient for understanding how clothing communicates in social life, and how brands incorporate Western imagery in their advertising and corporate identities. Language extolling the “romance” of the West, the “authentic” West, or the “real” cowboy, and rhetoric steeped in nostalgia are ubiquitous. Slippage between the real and imaginary, I argue, is necessary for understanding the Western genre and success of westernwear at mid-century. The common denominator is an emotional or ideological understanding of the West as a place of freedom, adventure, and transformation. Vague as they may be, the imaginative potential of these notions has inspired creative minds for generations. One gets the sense that whatever the West might be, it is distinct from the East, which is entrenched with limitations in the form of technology, restrictive social mores, corporate organization, or bureaucratic governments. In short, modernity. Modern life—specifically urban life—was the foil to the West, and the Western character. This was particularly the case in the late nineteenth century when urban development, industry, and the market revolution threw labor, domestic life, transportation, and communication into flux. Economic, social, and cultural transformations ostensibly carried out in the name of progress led to a segment of the population feeling unmoored.32 The result was a desire for authentic experiences, often with recourse to earlier “simpler” times. Authenticity was aspired to through valorizing pre-industrial societies, which led to a romantic primitivist view of other cultures, specifically Indigenous cultures, but also early settlers and cowboys. The Old West as a space of adventure and authentic living was a modern creation, valuable insofar as it was a place for renewal and self-fulfillment, a potential escape from an insecure and rapidly changing existence. The discourse surrounding this characterization of the West, specifically how some Americans identify parts of their own country, has been described as a kind of American Occidentalism.33 Popular culture, archeology, art, academia, and government all played a role in constructing the West as an exotic locale. It was positioned as a foreign wilderness ripe for “discovery,” yet still part of the United States, which effectively justified imperialist conquest over the environment and people who inhabited it. This same discourse emerges particularly strongly again in the mid-twentieth century in light of the Cold War, consumer culture, and the ensuing social and technological shifts in American society under the guise of progress at that time. The West as an alternative to contemporary life presents an additional, temporal component to further complicate its definition. Embracing its “wildness” either as a site of adventure or bucolic escape
Introduction
11
demands framing it in terms of the past. Scholars Marian Wardle and Sarah Boehme stipulate that, “the West is often considered the Old West, a geographic region that is not really defined by place so much as by time, by the past.”34 Like its geographic parameters, the West’s chronology is also stubbornly unspecific. The “Old West” seems to refer to a moment somewhere in the nineteenth century, typically after the Indian Wars and either just before or during the expansion of the railroad and before the advent of the automobile. The persistent influence of the Old West or the “Wild West” as symbol and myth, was an essential factor in shaping American nationalism. Nationalism, particularly its resonance in Cold War ideologies, is a recurring theme throughout this book. The Old West does not need to relate to a particular historical moment when it serves its function as a construct of imagination and ideology. The West carries such a heavy a burden of nostalgia that reconciling the lived experience of ranchers, farmers, or rodeo riders with ideations of a past embellished with fantasy is a tension that may be impossible to resolve. Perhaps it does not need resolving, as these experiences are ongoing and transforming. In sum, attempts to define the West tend to categorize it along three tracks: a numinous or imaginative space, its physical location, and its deep-rooted connection to the nation’s understanding of its own past. Taken individually, each conception of the West feels incomplete, but these tracks often intersect. My understanding has come to resonate with that expressed by Tom Mix, an actor in early Westerns films, who claimed: “The Old West is not a certain place in a certain time, it’s a state of mind. It’s whatever you want it to be.”35 Perhaps it is through Western artifacts, the material culture of which clothing is a part, that the West and its dynamic and often contradictory nature can best be experienced and understood. While the West remains ill defined, objects are tangible. Representations of the Old West have existed longer than the relatively brief nineteenth century moment that inspired them. Designed objects, and clothing in particular, offer a means of understanding the embeddedness of Western mythologies in the twentieth century. The cultural continuum between “modernity” and “tradition,” specifically that between “old” and “new” westernwear is evaluated in an effort to shed light on how a manner of dress initially created to meet the demands of strenuous physical labor and agrarian traditions that were rapidly disappearing shifted to be acceptable as leisurewear for a largely middle-class market.36 Furthermore, the nationalistic implications and the gendered archetypes of the Western aesthetic and the cowboy are brought to light and challenged though examining how women and minoritized people adopted and adapted Western looks.
Chapter Summary Chapter 1 establishes the histories and contexts for westernwear. It is mostly concerned with significant examples from the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth. I begin with an overview of westernwear’s origins and identifying garments, followed by addressing the figure of the cowboy and
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Westernwear
cowgirl in terms of history, image construction, and cultural significance. Western entertainment in the form of Wild West shows, dude ranches, and rodeo are also considered for their contributions in circulating Western styles and defining Western looks to the general public. California, as the site of origin for jeans, the Hollywood film industry, and the growing sportswear industry, is given special consideration. Chapter 2 introduces the histories of my four case-study companies from founding through to 1945. Each brand is considered in terms of size and volume of trade, garment types, production, materials, and marketing. I also detail how each reacted to changes and limitations imposed by World War II. The manner in which each brand identifies with Western history is introduced, and serves as a point of reference for the subsequent postwar years. Chapter 3 brings the aforementioned themes and imagery into the postwar era. It begins by examining consumer culture and the myriad ways that the Western genre and Western dress were a part of it. Situating the design output of the four case study companies among other westernwear manufacturers, I examine how the Western aesthetic grew in national appeal alongside social and lifestyle changes. The presence of the Western genre and frontier mythology in Cold War discourse, the significance of the West in film, print, and television, and the growth of country music in disseminating expressive Western fashions are all discussed. I examine how postwar designs and advertising differed from pre-war precedents, and how each brand attempted to expand and diversify its consumer base. Chapter 4 details the specifics of how westernwear informed popular sportswear styles for women and men and was, in turn, influenced by them. In evaluating elements of Western styling, like jeans for women, that were appropriate to modern lifestyles and postwar ideas of fashionability, I complicate histories of American sportwear and its relationship to modernity. In terms of menswear, the presence of loud, vibrant colors and prints has roots in westernwear, while the ways that the companies in question adapted their output towards less utilitarian designs is also addressed. Chapter 5 examines the ways in which Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton were marketing goods to young people from the 1950s to the mid-1960s, and concludes with a discussion of how some Western garments were adopted and adapted by youth subcultures in the 1960s. Jeans are again considered for close evaluation, here as symbols of teenage rebellion connected to rock’n’roll music and delinquency, while showing how Lee, Pendleton, and Wrangler made tentative headway into the teenage market. Youth culture in the early 1960s is given special consideration, in terms of how the creative revolution in advertising helped encourage youthful styles and imagery and how Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton participated in this phenomenon. The second half of the chapter deals with subcultures, namely Surfers, Cholos, and Hot Rodders, specific sets of young people who use clothing in a targeted way to identify themselves. Here, staple garments like Pendleton shirts are re-contextualized, and incorporated into ensembles that bear little to no connection to their Western origins.
Introduction
13
The multivalent and contradictory presence of Native American design, together with representations of Indigenous people in mid-century westernwear are addressed in the sixth and final chapter, “The Native American Presence in Westernwear: Designs and Representation.” I discuss how Native American design inspiration inflected Western style, and how manufacturers employed Native American imagery and appropriated design sources to promote their wares, often perpetuating misconceptions and stereotypes. Items include Buckskins, the patio/squaw dress, and representations of Indigenous people used as mascots or decoration. Finally, Pendleton’s unique relationship with Native American consumers is considered in light of its presence as a retailer at Disney’s Frontierland.
14
1 Westernwear: Histories and Contexts
Westernwear originated as a regional style, a composite of multiple cultural influences and proceeded, over time, to be recognized as an American look synonymous with the United States.1 As with so much of Western history, understanding the cowboy and cowgirl image requires a blending of fact and myth, where historical actors have oftentimes contributed to their own mythologizing. It is also, I argue, a blending of function and fashion and does not follow a clear trajectory from utilitarian to expressive styles. In order to recognize Western design elements in mid-century fashions, westernwear’s origins, defining qualities, and representations prior to the twentieth century need to be considered. This chapter aims to locate westernwear’s visibility in American culture by tracing it from its historical precedents through popular entertainment, rodeo, and tourism. Taken together, this evidence establishes a visual vocabulary for garment types and challenges the false binary between function and fashion that arises in discussions of westernwear. Evidence for active engagement and fascination with all things Western is drawn from popular visual and material culture that sets the precedent for the mid-century film, television, and country music industries. I conclude with an examination of California as a source of both garment making and image making, with a focus on the introduction of jeans into the Western design idiom.
The Origins of Westernwear Apart from the very earliest stages of frontier exploration, which was undertaken by small groups or individual men, Western communities were not completely isolated from fashions and other material goods. In fact, during the longer, community-building stage of Western settlement following the Civil War (1861–5), many Westerners did not look significantly different from their working-class Eastern counterparts, complicating notions of Western independence and subsistence living conditions.2 Not 15
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Westernwear
every Westerner adopted cowboy dress, because not all were cowboys or worked in related occupations. However, westernwear—more precisely that of the cowboy—was a constituent component of many Western communities. The first cowboys maintained the conventions of Mexican vaqueros, whose apparel was suited for riding, and included tight-fitting pants, short jackets or boleros (jackets that can be sleeveless or with sleeves, where the front seams curve away above waist level, and can be worn open or closed), boots with pointed toes and an angled high heel, wide-brimmed hats, and chapajeros, protective leather leggings (later known as “chaps” in English) covering the legs.3 (See Figure 1.1.) The vaquero in the accompanying nineteenth-century carte-de-visite wears trousers embellished with buttons down the leg, in the style of a charro suit, paired with a cropped jacket and wide-brimmed hat. While this individual may not have identified as a charro, a member of the elite equestrian culture from Mexico, the distinctive traje de charro, their traditional ensemble merits closer examination, as many of its characteristic elements are incorporated into westernwear and Western-inspired fashions. While the name is used widely to refer to a cowboy from the north of Mexico, specific materials and techniques, including ornate and embellished matching tailored apparel, trimmed with passementerie and silver concho medallions, costly tooled leather accessories and saddles, were reflections of the wealth of land-owning hacendados.4 Dress, like rodeo performances, parades, and other pageants, was part of a lavish embodiment of elite ranch ranching culture, the maintenance of which was wholly dependent on the labor of women, Indigenous, and mestizo workers. Historian Laura Barraclough summarizes the figure as follows: “the charro promises power: power over land, over the conditions and fruits of one’s labor, over the ability to bind family and community, over the meaning of ethnic and cultural identity.”5 Charro culture maintains a strong presence in Mexico and the United States, but in US communities bordering Mexico, the politics of identity, race, and nationalisms in which it is embedded are simultaneously unifying and divisive. As cattle culture moved North over the plains following the Civil War, and people from states such as Missouri, Ohio, and New York traveled West, an eclectic mix of more typical pieces of workmen’s clothing were incorporated into cowboy garb.6 Coarse wool trousers and hickory stripe shirts were combined with bandanas, leather gauntlets, and concho belts.7 Many of the men moving West in the 1880s and 1890s were Americans of European descent; others were foreign-born immigrants. In the Midwest and Northern prairies, cowboy culture came to be dominated by this demographic, and while there was significantly less Spanish/Mexican cultural influence, the itinerant cowboy lifestyle accommodated an ethnically diverse population.8 The attire of trappers from the Northeast that included buckskins and furs which originated with Native American dress of that region, also influenced what some new arrivals wore on the plains.9 Access to commercial outlets for obtaining clothing varied among Western settlements in the nineteenth century. Dry-goods shipments arrived by boat, rail, wagon, or stagecoach, and clothing was typically acquired from local dry-goods merchants or by mail order.10 During spring and fall cattle round-ups, band-wagons (supply wagons from larger urban centers) would bring goods for sale, including fabric yardage and ready-made clothes for men, women, and children.11 Many saddle makers
Histories and Contexts
17
Figure 1.1 Portrait of a late nineteenth-century vaquero, Mexican carte de visite. Smithsonian National Museum of American history, 2018.0103.0002.
also offered belts and leather accessories, and some saddleries—such as Hamley’s in Pendleton, Oregon, or Shipley’s of Kansas City, Missouri—later expanded into the mail-order business. As early as the 1890s specialized catalogs began to emerge that offered Western clothing, gear, and equestrian equipment.12 The Chicago-based Montgomery Ward company’s catalog business, which was by no means exclusively Western, offered a full line of cowboy clothing and accessories in the 1890s. Westernwear’s presence in retail outlets or catalogs alongside horse-tack, sundry housewares, dry goods, and tools is significant not only because these were some of the first venues to offer it, but also because it speaks directly to the garments’ role in the Western lifestyle. Indeed, the inclusion of westernwear as one of the tools a cowboy
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Westernwear
needs for the job is repeated continuously. In exploring the practicality of shoes, researcher Ellen Sampson has noted that they allow the body to perform tasks it otherwise would not be capable of, in effect becoming a tool to facilitate endurance and navigate environments.13 While this is certainly apparent in the design of a sturdy cowboy boot, the tool-like qualities extend to other Western garments and accessories and have been deliberately emphasized in twentieth-century advertising and promotion. While it is not a uniform, westernwear can be categorized as occupational dress in that its constituent elements are suited to a specific occupation. Boots with narrow toes and high heels helped secure and protect the foot in a stirrup while riding, chaps shielded legs from thorns and brush, hats shaded the head, and the reinforced sections of cowboy shirts withstood heavy wear. It is, essentially, workwear but the potential to decorate, embellish, and customize these items is limitless and has been evident in westernwear since its inception. By the start of the twentieth century, Western shirts (sometimes referred to as cowboy shirts) were already a distinctive style for men. Although a great deal of variation exists among Western shirts, they differ from other men’s shirting primarily through being tighter fitting with long tails, distinctive pocket, yoke, and cuff treatments, pointed collars, piping, and embroidered decoration (see Figure 1.2). The defining characteristics of the Western shirt’s construction and design initially answered practical concerns. For example, a tighter shirt was less likely to catch on brush or fence posts when the wearer was engaged in physical work, and longer tails meant it would stay tucked into pants more easily.14 Fabrics such as heavy worsted wool and gabardine offered warmth and durability; in the early twentieth century, the shirts were obtained through mail order or made by tailors who also made suiting and would have had such fabrics on hand.15 The yokes and cuffs functioned to protect the wearer from the elements and to reinforce those areas—shoulders and wrists—that are subject to more wear. In addition, the edges of the yoke, cuff, pockets, and placket are typically trimmed in contrasting piping. Piping could also form a trim around curved “Smile” pockets on the front of the shirt that terminated with two-pointed arrow-head triangles of reinforced stitching. Closures, another definitive characteristic, were most often decorative shank buttons in natural shell or bakelite, as opposed to sew-through buttons. Rodeo Ben (1893–1985), the Philadelphia-based tailor who specialized in high-end bespoke Western fashions for celebrities and rodeo stars, is credited with being the first to employ snap closures (previously used for gloves) to fasten Western shirts. Subsequently, Jack E. Weil of Rockmount Ranchwear in Denver, Colorado, introduced snaps to commercially produced Western shirts in 1946.16 In Weil’s opinion they served as a safety asset, because snaps popped open more easily than other types of fastening if the shirt caught on a saddle horn or piece of equipment. Multiple distinctive motifs can contribute to the look of a Western shirt, including embroidery, appliqué, rhinestones, fringes or other decorative treatments that help make it stand out. These colorful embellishments were particularly visible in ensembles worn by rodeo riders and entertainers. Bold needlework decoration made by hand or machine was, and still is, the most eye-catching and noticeable
Histories and Contexts
Figure 1.2 Rodeo Ben catalog, c. 1950. Autry Museum, Los Angeles, 95.39.5. Author’s photo.
19
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Westernwear
component of many Western shirts, and a way for designers and tailors to showcase their innovations. The wealth of creativity evident at all levels, from meticulously hand-crafted to industrially fabricated shirts alike, is astonishing. Floral embroidery referencing Native American, Eastern European, or Mexican traditional styles were ubiquitous, but abstracted linear designs as well as depictions of cowboys, horses, wagons, firearms, and cattle were also recurring motifs.17 Interestingly, the colors, imagery, and degree of embellishment were not limited or determined by gender. Western shirting produced for both men and women could be equally colorful and ornate (see Figure 1.3). While simpler clothes were certainly adopted for everyday wear, cowboys availed themselves of opportunities to present themselves in a more highly styled, or stylishly Western manner.18 Indeed, even working cowboys whose pay was meager would save money for a fine hat or studded chaps. While it is not my aim to diminish the physical hardship of early Western lifestyles or the cowboy’s work, I do seek to break down artificial divisions between work clothes and fashionable attire.19 Particularly when those divisions carry the assumption that working-class people were not interested in or cared about the expressive potential of clothing. Histories of working people tend to be told in declensionist tones, while elements of workwear tend to enter into fashion histories only when they are championed or reinterpreted by a designer.20 Histories of working-class women’s culture by Kathy Peiss and Nan Enstad, along with that of Shane and Graham White, who have written extensively on African American style, and Louis Alvarez and Catherine Ramirez, have provided examples of how individuals and groups existing outside of mainstream or elite fashion culture, developed their own aesthetic preferences and standards of dress either in opposition to or completely removed from fashionable norms.21 Westernwear is, in many respects, exemplary of this “bottom-up” trajectory, but with a salient difference being that Western looks simultaneously flourished as both utilitarian work clothing and stylized, embellished expressive styles for entertainers and rodeo riders. The same individual might wear a plain Western shirt during the week, and a more ornate one on Sundays. Just as it is impossible to completely separate the “real” West from the Old West of the imagination, it is impossible to categorize westernwear as either purely functional or fashionable or trace a clear timeline progressing from one to the next. To understand how westernwear can effectively be—and has always been—both, necessitates understanding the image of the cowboy and how it is also a blending of fact and myth.
Cowboys According to borderlands scholar Americo Paredes, the term “cowboy” was first given to the AngloAmerican cattle thieves who raided the Nueces-Rio Grande area in the 1830s, and were part of the dispossession of the Mexican border on the north bank of the Rio Grande. 22 Some of the first to be
Histories and Contexts
21
Figure 1.3 Mid-century Western shirts, 1940s–50s. Author’s photo.
recognized as “real cowboys” in the 1870s and 1880s were Texans (of indeterminate and likely mixed ethnicity) who learned their trade from the Mexican vaqueros, and consequently imitated their manner of dress.23 An alternative etymology, also with origins in Texas, posits that “cowhand” was the first generalized term to describe men in the United States who worked with cattle. “Cowboy” was originally a racial epithet, used to distinguish Black cowhands, and an extension of the pejorative use of “boy” from the time of slavery.24 Given its roots as a term identifying a rural laborer with an etymology tied to either
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criminality or racism, it is surprising that the cowboy became an accepted, and even admired type. It was, in fact, through entertainment—specifically travelling Buntline Melodramas of the 1870s—that the cowboy was first cast in a positive light, and cowboy skills drew admiration and appeal.25 The inconsistent origin stories and interpretations of this common term, however, mean it is unsurprising that the “real” or “authentic” cowboy continues to elude definition. For our purposes, American cowboy culture stems from a set of materials and techniques used for raising cattle and horses drawn from Mexican ranchero culture and blended with technological developments—notably, revolvers, barbed wire, and ready-made clothes which, like lawyers conversant with the intricacies of land titles, were brought by Anglo-Americans and ubiquitous by the late nineteenth century.26 Lee Clark Mitchell has proposed that the working cowboy’s unglamorous past made him an unlikely choice for a romantic hero, but the associated code of rugged individualism was a quality that endured.27 Cowboys became the definitive heroes of the Western genre across media. They captured the attention and imaginations of American and European writers and artists, who dramatized what they considered to be a new, intrepid masculine type. In fact, the first cowboys in the United States were poorly paid hired hands who worked in harsh and unpleasant conditions driving cattle from Texas to the Kansas stockyards from whence they were sold.28 The work was grueling, and the pay meager. The profits of the cowboys’ labor were enjoyed by a small elite group of land-owning ranchers who dominated the cattle industry, which was highly profitable for a short period of time between the end of the Civil War (1865) and the turn of the twentieth century.29 The cowboy’s life was arduous, and although he did enjoy a degree of independence, travelling cross-country alone or in small groups, unbound to domestic or civic structures, it was not the romantic free-wheeling individualism that would be associated with the occupation. The advent of barbed wire in the 1870s precipitated the large-scale fencing of cattle land, thus reducing the number of working cowboys needed for herding, branding, and round-ups. By the late 1880s and 1890s, cowboys faced chronic unemployment.30 Skills such as riding and roping were no longer exclusively requirements of the trade, and continued to be practiced and perfected as leisure pursuits and as entertainment in new venues such as Wild West shows and rodeo rings into the twentieth century.31 No histories of the working cowboy offer specific insight into why the cowboy rose to iconic status as an American male archetype. Mid-century critics Lon Tinkle and Allen Maxwell noted in 1959 that the cowboy is admired, but not necessarily as an individual: “he remains the cowboy rather than a cowboy.”32 His appearance was certainly more distinctive than other laborers. Yet, his identity was not specific or personal, it merged with his vocation. As such, perhaps it could take hold on the imagination more readily. Those reading cowboy stories or watching performances could imagine themselves in the role. The cowboy was and is defined by the land that he worked and the type of labor he performed. He was, in Tinkle’s words, a man of action “precisely defined not by what he thought or believed but by what he did.”33 The notion that the cowboy is defined by the work that he does, has been echoed
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over decades by scholars and popular critics.34 Yet many of those same voices are quick to note that in many Western genre fictions, particularly in mid-century films, the cowboy hero was rarely a working cattle hand. He was more likely to be a sheriff, rancher, farmer, rodeo rider, gunslinger, cavalryman, or a lone drifter.35 For the sake of entertainment, the cowboy was rarely a typical worker. The Western look became increasingly standardized and more visible by the late nineteenth century. This was largely thanks to popular culture, particularly the influence of entertainers such as Buffalo Bill Cody (1846–1917), whose “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” traveled across the United States and internationally between 1882 and 1916. Buffalo Bill’s image and business model was a blending of fact and myth. He deliberately avoided calling his production a “show” the title was simply: “The Wild West” or, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West,” which identifies it as a place, and the presentations were described as object lessons.36 Prior to being an entertainer, Buffalo Bill worked for the Pony Express (the mail delivery service that served the entire Western region from Missouri to California), and during the Civil War he served first as an Army scout and guide, before in 1863 enlisting with the Seventh Kansas Regiment of the Union Army.37 His career as a performer started seven years after the war’s end. As Jane Tompkins succinctly noted, Cody spent the second half of his life re-enacting the events from the first half.38 His show, which was the primary Western-themed entertainment for thirty years, spawned several imitators, and was the first site of exposure to Western material culture—and to cowboy culture in particular—for many Americans and it also travelled overseas. Buffalo Bill’s wardrobe included garments made from rough woolens and buckskins as well as the embroidered shirts that became staples of Western dress.39 Indeed, the fringed buckskin jackets, combined with his long flowing blonde hair and wide-brimmed hat, set a standard for the Western outdoorsman. Cody’s claims to realism and authenticity were based on his lived experiences, and were supported by having Native Americans perform dances and participate in recreated historical battles. As an “object lesson,” Buffalo Bill’s production made a claim to historical validity, and Cody’s involvement in the Plains Wars, the ethnicity of the performers, and the use of objects, animals, and dress supported this claim. Meaning and identity were communicated through apparel in both implicit and explicit ways. Wearing buckskins in urban centers, for example, affirmed a frontier connection, and Buffalo Bill made the connection between his sartorial choices and his actions as a Western adventurer explicit in the performance. Cody was already an entertainer of some repute when the Plains Indian Wars of 1875–6 were underway, and he was called into service as Chief of Scouts for the 5th Cavalry unit in Wyoming. As part of the fight against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, Cody took part in an ambush on a group of Cheyenne. He killed at least one opponent, an act that he later described as taking “the first scalp for Custer,” an act of revenge for the death of George Armstrong Custer, at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.40 Although Cody typically dressed in buckskins, on the morning of the ambush he selected “a brilliant Mexican vaquero outfit of black velvet slashed with scarlet and trimmed with silver buttons and
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lace.”41 Later, Cody wore the same suit when addressing a Wild West show audience, thus producing a material and sartorial link to the historical event. Cultural historian Richard Slotkin explains his deliberate use of clothing to underscore his significance: “In that one gesture he would make ‘history’ and fictive convention serve as mutually authenticating devices: the truth of his deeds ‘historicizes’ the costume, while the costume’s conventionality allows the audience– which knows the West only through such images—to recognize it as genuine.”42 The black suit with Spanish accessories would have been recognized as Western and, in short, by wearing the evidence of his previous combat action Cody re-inserted himself into the ambush, into history, and legitimized the acts he offered as entertainment. Some of the earliest rancher and cowboy memoirs indicate that although not all cowboys dressed with the same panache as a performer like Buffalo Bill, many evidently paid close attention to their looks. Portrait studio photographers were aware of this, and also kept accessories on hand to serve as props to strengthen the Western connection. In his account of ranching in Montana during the 1860s through the 1880s, pioneer rancher Granville Stuart described how the cowboys in his area “wore the best clothes that they could buy and took great pride in their personal appearance and trappings.”43 Several examples of memoirs and correspondence, including letters home by working cowboys, make note of how the purchase of an item of clothing made them feel, and there is often a palpable emotional connection to the garments, particularly when buying a new hat, which could cost up to one third or one half monthly earnings. 44 Not once was the hat’s protective or functional purpose mentioned. Instead, the cowboy recalled the pride felt, because buying a new quality hat was a marker of status, the sign of a “top hand.”45 The cowboys in question were able to afford a relatively costly item and it helped them fit in; the hat meant that they belonged in the West. When recalling his early career as a cowboy in Nebraska, Teddy Blue Abbot described how, after receiving his first paycheck for working in North Platte in 1879, he purchased a new set of clothes and immediately proceeded to have his picture taken. “I had a new white Stetson hat that I paid ten dollars for, and new pants that cost twelve dollars, and a good shirt and Lord, I was proud of those clothes!” he revealed, “they were the kind of clothes that top hands wore, and I thought that I was dressed just right for the first time in my life.”46 Clearly, there was more at stake in the selection of garments than protection from the elements. While there was already evidence of brand recognition—for Stetson hats in particular—much of a cowboy’s apparel was compiled piecemeal and, depending on their earnings, blended custom and ready-made items. By 1890, national mail-order distributors like Montgomery Ward issued a selection of cowboy clothes. One might assume that increased access and popularity of cowboy apparel would have been welcome in rural communities, yet it appears that Montgomery Ward’s mainstream audience, Chicago origins, or possibly both tarnished its reputation among cowboys.47 Indeed, “Montgomery Ward Cowboy” was sometimes used as a term of derision among working cowboys, a sign of inauthenticity.48 They may also have been skeptical of how catalogs enabled an entire outfit to be purchased at once, in contrast to the hard-earned manner in which many cowboys often assembled
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their wardrobes. Also, Montgomery Ward’s prices were lower than competitors like Main & Winchester, or other bespoke leather goods makers, suggesting that the catalog’s goods may have been of lower quality.49 Regardless of the particulars it is significant to note that clothing, and where it was sourced, was a marker of cowboy identity by the turn of the century. An emphasis on action and physicality helped the cowboy became the prototype of an idealized male identity, a concept voiced most forcefully in the late nineteenth century by Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an Easterner of extreme privilege who sought, and by personal admission found, physical rejuvenation and a sense of spiritual fortitude by living out West. His multi-volume The Winning of the West (1885–94) foreshadowed Turnerian ideals, and he was personally invested in the lifestyle of rancher and hunter, practices he credits with significant regenerative potential.50 Roosevelt’s advocacy of rugged independence, stoicism, courage, and endurance—all qualities the cowboy possessed—was positioned as an antidote to what he and his contemporaries considered to be a crisis of American masculinity. In brief, this crisis amounted to the fear that an increasingly sophisticated and urbane society was making American men effeminate and decadent, and that physical challenge in harsh environments and violent conflict were essential to maintain a man’s assertion of selfmastery.51 In essence, it was a gendered take on the appeal of the antimodern. As one of the country’s most influential political thinkers, Roosevelt extended these notions to justify imperialist military campaigns beyond the nation’s borders, and they colored ideals about masculinity throughout the following century. Indeed, many of Roosevelt’s ideas resurface in the doctrines of organizations like the Boy Scouts in their moralistic tone, and in mid-century anxieties over masculinity.52 In her analysis of Western novels and films, West of Everything, Jane Tompkins asserts that: “. . .the West is a place where technology was primitive, physical conditions harsh . . . and the power and presence of women proportionately reduced. . .It isn’t about the encounter between civilization and the frontier. It is about men’s fear of losing their mastery, and hence their identity, both of which the Western tirelessly reinvents.”53 Again, there was a fear that something was lost in the onslaught of modernization. Mitchell posits that “making the man,” constructing a masculine identity and code of behavior is in fact the central project of the Western genre.54 Into the postwar period men could similarly identify with intrepid cowboys who lived without urban conveniences or outside of the dictates of polite society. However, the focus on masculinity fails to explain why young girls would also want to dress up as cowgirls, and neglects those women also identified with the West and Western lifestyles.
The Cowgirl The cowgirl has a different but parallel history to that of the cowboy. Women were not employed regularly by ranchers as working cattlehands in the late nineteenth century, although as Peter Boag’s
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work on cross-dressing and gender fluidity on the frontier has revealed, it is likely that some women worked in the cattle industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.55 Women were certainly active in Western communities, on ranches, and as participants in rodeo. The most frequentlycited origin story for the term “cowgirl” is that it was first coined by Western entertainer Will Rogers to describe the young rodeo performer Lucille Mulhall in 1899.56 However, others have noted, the words “cow” and “girl” were joined earlier than that in the press.57 Regardless of its specific etymology, the fact that the cowboy had a female equivalent with comparable independent and daring characteristics suggests that women were involved in the outdoor aspects of Western life. There were women writing Western genre fiction as well, yet the most popular Western novels of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century written by male authors such as Owen Wister, Zane Grey, and James Fenimore Cooper marginalized women, and the qualities they were thought to represent; domesticity, piety, and sentimentality.58 By contrast, in popular culture, although women were less frequently represented, notable cowgirls such as Calamity Jane, a character based on frontierswoman and scout Martha Jane Cannary (1852–1903), who adopted masculine attire, first appeared in 1878, and the female performer Annie Oakley (1860–1926) rose to fame as a star sharpshooter in “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.” The women above share the qualities most often associated with the image of the cowgirl, namely pluck and an independent spirit and clothing that closely referenced that of cowboys. The following statement from a turn-of-the-century edition of the Advance Courier, published by the 101 Ranch, the largest working ranch based in Oklahoma, stated: The cowgirl is a development of the stockraising West with the bachelor girl and the independent woman of the East. She is not of the new woman class- not of the sort that discards her feminine attributes and tries to ape the man, simply a lively, athletic woman with a superfluity of nerve and animal spirits with a realization that in affairs where skill is the chief qualification she has an equal chance with her brothers.59 Emphasis on what she was, as well as what she was not, resonates in many popular accounts of the cowgirl. Such descriptions were at once celebratory—noting her liveliness, nerve, and skill level—and defensive, in part because of unspoken fears about the disruption of gender-normative power relations or assumed homosexuality. The author’s distinguishing her from the “new woman” at the turn of the century attempted to separate independent-minded cowgirls from women elsewhere who were a part of the movement for Women’s Emancipation and equal opportunities in education, training, and work. Here the cowgirl did not “discard her feminine attributes,” or “ape the man,” thus conforming to her conventional place in a heteronormative culture. In short, any anxieties that her physical vitality, body, clothing, and independence might have generated were assuaged by emphasizing her “feminine attributes.” This balancing between independence and convention is encountered in multiple descriptions and representations of the cowgirl well into the twentieth century.
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Figure 1.4 Scene at a San Louis Valley Cattle Ranch, 1894, O. T. Davis. History Colorado, PH.PROP.1408.
Those women who wholeheartedly embraced the outdoor equestrian aspects of the Western lifestyle, and dressed accordingly, came to be known as cowgirls and were a distinct group among Western women. A selection of images of Western women dating from 1860s to the 1910s demonstrate that by the early twentieth century, many working cowgirls were wearing pants and other items of men’s work clothing, such as boots, bandanas, hats, and jackets.60 However, other examples—such as this image of women roping a calf to be branded—show women engaged in ranch work wearing long cotton dresses that would not have been out of place as daywear in urban centers at the time (see Figure 1.4).61 Simple calicoes in modest silhouettes, which would presently be referred to as a “prairie dresses,” were indeed common, but in construction and materials they were not significantly different from the informal dresses of working women worn in cities.62 Most of the documentation about cowgirls’ dress is related to those who performed in Wild West shows and rodeos. Annie Oakley’s image continues to inform popular images of the cowgirl (see Figure 1.5). A photograph from 1885 depicts the type of clothing she typically wore, a skirt or dress, thus keeping a major signifier of “woman” to her wardrobe. It was shorter than those worn for
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Figure 1.5 Sharpshooter Annie Oakley firing over her shoulder, 1885. Bettmann archives, Getty Images.
everyday fashionable wear but often included a fringe that fell to below the knee, making it somewhat more modest. Her tall boots and high-collared jacket gave a military effect to the ensemble, while the trimmings and hat alluded to cowboy clothing. Her hourglass silhouette was most likely produced by wearing a corset. The tightly fitted waist allowed the jacket to fit close to her torso, reinforcing her femininity, and her long flowing hair is visible under the hat. Oakley was adept and showcasing her shooting skills and Western identity but also took care to present herself as a proper Victorian lady.63 The juxtaposition between “feminine” and “masculine” garments and accessories in a single outfit is characteristic not only of Oakley, but of successive generations of cowgirls.64 The attire of performers was almost certainly more elaborate and fancy than the everyday dress of working cowgirls, yet it offers insights into how women negotiated their regional and gender identities. The history of Western women continues to be an act of recovery. Women who faced numerous challenges in a new environment were often neglected or subjected to the same dismissive stereotypes as their urban counterparts, particularly where fashion and appearance was concerned. Gentle Tamers, an account of women in the West published in 1958 by the popular author Dee Brown, declared “Women’s vanity can conquer all, any place any time,” and recounted the impracticality of wearing nineteenth-century fashions, particularly hoop skirts, in the Old West, without considering the reality
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of occasional dress, or how women might have adapted their clothing to new situations.65 For Brown, women’s insistence on wearing “outlandish feminine costumes,” was evidence only of their personal vanity and foolishness. He failed to acknowledge the inventiveness or the skill necessary for women to make their own clothing, nor did he consider fashion’s connection to urbanity, and its supposed “civilizing” capacity, a notion that would have supported his idea of “taming” the West. Enterprising businessmen who served as town boosters tapped into this notion, and in extolling the virtues of the West to encourage emigration, often remarked upon local women’s fashionability as a way to dispel concerns that a town was crude or uncivilized.66 It is clear that many Western women engaged to some degree with current trends, and that isolation from the fashion system varied by location. Recent scholarship suggests that many Western women kept abreast of fashion insofar as they could.67 The development of “frontier” areas involved sporadic transportations of goods and people and varied in so many ways that no statement about fashion’s accessibility can uniformly apply to all locales. Several small, local newspapers re-printed fashion features from the popular press for women in their communities and, depending on a region’s specific transportation systems, textiles and ready-made garments from urban centers were imported fairly regularly.68 Informal networks were maintained among women who discussed styles and exchanged images, patterns, and knowledge about making their own clothes.69 If women recognized that their clothing was out of date, and we know that some did, such opinions could be formed only in relation to knowledge about current trends, i.e., what was in fashion.70 Yet the social and working conditions in the rural West were unique and challenged normative nineteenth-century notions of femininity. Many women worked alongside men when their labor was needed and their clothing had to enable that.71 Furthermore, less rigid social organization and isolation allowed women to dress unconventionally, just as lack of money sometimes dictated that women retain older outdated styles of dress for longer without reproach in their communities.72 Into the twentieth century, the cowgirl look had crystalized in a similar manner as that of the cowboy. A 1939 photograph captured by Arthur Rothstein of two women on a Montana ranch show the subjects in jeans, hats, and shirts that are indistinguishable from menswear (see Figure 1.6). However, cowgirl attire could also be finely tailored and detailed. A 1940 Life magazine editorial featured the fashions of Marge Riley, a California-based designer who specialized in women’s westernwear (see Figure 1.7). It cited Riley’s personal credentials (having grown up riding on a Wyoming ranch, she knew Western life), and claimed that she sought to create “pretty, feminine riding clothes,” that were also practical. These included, for example, divided skirts that were long enough to cover the knees, and thus protect them from rubbing against the saddle.73 Riley’s designs were available not only through her own Los Angeles and Palm Springs boutiques, but also at department stores local to Los Angeles such as Bullock’s Wilshire, I. Magnin, and Desmond’s. The ensembles seen in Life include fringed leather and contrasting cutwork. A divided skirt and bolero suit, for example, trimmed
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Figure 1.6 Two cowgirls, Quarter Circle U Ranch, Montana, USA, Arthur Rothstein for Farm Security Administration, June 1939. Getty Images.
with ample white suede fringe and adorned with contrasting scrolled appliqué. Although it has precedents in Mexican-inspired Western attire, the bolero jacket was extremely fashionable in mainstream womenswear at the time and thus this ensemble had a degree of high fashion appeal. The ensemble was paired with boots, hat, blouse, and a studded belt. Another featured ensemble that was arguably more risqué, consisted of very tight blue suede pants with white lacing running down each leg, and long fringes below the knee, giving the pants a flared look. Again, it has a matching short bolero, and was worn with a blouse, hat, and neckerchief. These pants are much more fitted than typical women’s pants available at the time, and the stitching down the legs lends them rough-hewn and revealing qualities. Taken together, it is a body-conscious look that still incorporates masculine elements. Options for cowgirls, or those who simply wanted to look like one, would follow a similar aesthetic template into the postwar years.
Experiencing the West: Rodeo and Dude Ranching Merging athletics and theatricality, rodeo is defined as a folk-based popular entertainment that developed in the 1880s, when many working cowboys translated their roping and riding skills into a competitive arena.74 Rodeo as a sport and as performance sheds light on the flamboyant and ostentations
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Figure 1.7 Marge Riley apparel featured in “Cowgirl: Dude girls of the West,” Life, April 22, 1940.
incarnations of westernwear and the gendered aspects of cowboy and cowgirl attire. Rodeo culture is performative but this does not preclude the tremendous strength, athletic prowess, and technique required. Judges award points for both skill and style, and while “style” is not defined exclusively by what a rider wears, clothing contributes to the overall appearance and spectacle.75 Batwing chaps that flap dramatically on the leg and a large hat help make a rider stand out in the ring. Bright colors and glittering metallic studs also help a contestant make an impression. Apparel adds to the presentation and part of a winner’s prize—a large and ornate belt buckle—is wearable. Rodeo clothing and accessories could be quite expensive; for example, high-end custom studded chaps embellished with the wearer’s name, or a custom chain-stitched shirt. A cowboy wearing an especially flamboyant ensemble, often paid for with prize money, can send a boastful message to potential competitors. For style inspiration rodeo riders looked to each other, to Wild West show performers, and to Hollywood. Rodeo took place in an open arena and riders dressed with their audience in mind. However, the physical risk was considerable and the income of participants was not guaranteed. Theirs was a migratory lifestyle. Following the circuit of rodeos across country and often camping along the road,
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did not allow for many personal comforts or many material possessions. Garments therefore served as a marker of individuality, a prize, or a souvenir. An autographed rodeo hat from the 1940s includes a variety of names, dates, addresses, and inside jokes that have been lost to history (see Figure 1.8). The hat’s identifying brand and maker are no longer visible, but it originally commemorated a Fourth of July event in Lompoc, California, and the legible hand-written dates range from 1943–48. As an artifact it shows the communal bonds between participants, the desire to document them over time on a single accessory, and the practical advantages of writing contact information in an easily retrievable place. Clothing was one of the few things that traveled with rodeo riders and it was customizable, allowing for the potential for personal expression. In today’s parlance, it was a personal brand. Rodeo cowboys put a lot of consideration into their appearance, and rodeo cowgirls—who took part in the sport from its earliest days—also described significant personal attachment to their clothing. Most of the young women grew up on cattle ranches and were expert riders, but the itinerant rodeo lifestyle was not easy for anyone. 76 The earliest documentary photographs of cowgirls from the turn of the century show many wearing divided skirts, sometimes with fringes, and conservative shirtwaist blouses.77 “Bloomers” replaced divided skirts in the later nineteenth century and were the norm up to the early 1920s.78 From that point on, through to 1945, jodhpurs, jeans, and other trousers were evident. The sport offered some measure of gender equity, at least in the decades before it became commercially successful at mid-century. Men and women took part in many of the same events, although they did not compete against each other, and men’s and women’s events enjoyed equal coverage in the press and related rodeo publications.79 A significant distinction however, was the presence of a “Rodeo Queen,” a woman who was deemed by whatever local selection committee to be a fitting representative of Western femininity.80 She did not have to be a rider and certainly was not a competitor; in fact, her presence was more in keeping with beauty pageant conventions accompanying the fairground atmosphere. While the inclusion of attractive young women as a diversion or spectacle was not new, or unique to rodeo, the fact that there was no equivalent role for men suggests that women’s contributions as athletes still existed in the context of sexist and appearance-based conventions. Many women cared about looking feminine in rodeo gear in and outside the ring, and took great pride in the costumes they sewed for themselves.81 Specialized ready-made Western styled clothing for women that allowed them to ride and rope cattle was not available until the 1920s, and economic necessity often dictated that women made their own clothing.82 Designing and making costumes was a way of employing traditionally feminine sewing skills in an untraditional setting. Cowgirls often traveled alongside (and sometimes married) fellow rodeo performers. Some made costumes for their husbands as well as themselves, while some single women earned extra income by designing and sewing fancy shirts for bachelor cowboys.83 Vera McGinnis (1892–1990) was a champion rodeo rider whose autobiography offers insight into how women rodeo performers styled themselves. She performed in multiple events, including relay
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Figure 1.8 Autographed rodeo hat, early 1940s photo by Jeanette D. Moses, private colection.
races with a team of other riders, trick riding (where acrobatic feats were executed on horseback), bronc riding (a timed event on a bucking horse), bull riding (the same event except with a bull), and Roman racing (where the feet were planted on the backs of two running horses).84 In Rodeo Road: My Life as a Pioneer Cowgirl (1974) McGinnis recounted her career, including her many intrepid feats, and often commented upon how finely both cowboys and cowgirls dressed.85 She negotiated carefully the gendered aspect of her appearance, particularly at the start of her career in the 1910s. McGinnis describes how she nervously dressed in the morning before her first relay race in Salt Lake City in 1913: . . . with trembling hands I dug out my riding clothes—a khaki divided skirt, hand-me-down English boots, and a plain white shirtwaist. But first I laced myself into a long Bon Ton corset. My race riding experience had been done bareback down a country road long before I had graduated to stays, and since I had no idea how strenuous relay riding was, it didn’t occur to me that a corset might interfere with my agility, to say nothing of my comfort. Ladies just didn’t go without corsets, whether they needed them or not.86
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Figure 1.9 Vera McGinnis, in card suit blouse, cowboy hat and ringlet curls 1914. In Rodeo Road: My Life as a Pioneer Cowgirl.
Although she claims to have “junked the corset for life” the following day, McGinnis’s acceptance of the fact that it was what “ladies” wore indicates that she acknowledged the wider social mores of the day despite her unconventional profession.87 A photographic portrait from the 1910s shows her wearing a Western blouse decorated with hearts and spades that reference the card-playing cowboy or gambler, an ample bandana fastened with a concho medallion, the same kind of silver fastener used on Western saddles and decorative belts, and a cowboy hat (Figure 1.9). Yet, her hair is set in the manner of popular film star Mary Pickford—known as America’s sweetheart—in ringlets and adorned with a large soft bow, lest anyone doubt her femininity. The soft hair and gentle expression on her face suggests that McGinnis understood the conventions of women’s beauty standards and portraiture at the time, including those performed on the silver screen. But she was also invested in presenting another kind of femininity, one that allowed for the hat and bandana traditionally associated with the cowboy. The Madison Square Garden rodeo, which debuted in New York in 1922, marked a key moment in bringing rodeo to audiences outside cattle country.88 That year also saw the first appearance of cowgirls in jodhpurs, which is considered by some to be a watershed moment in terms of modernizing cowgirl dress.89 Jodhpurs, short trousers that flare out over the thighs and taper at mid-calf, had been part of military uniforms in the United States and Britain since World War I. They were typically made of
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Figure 1.10 Western shirt worn by Fay Kirkwood. Maker unknown, c. 1938, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Gift of Fay Kirkwood. 1989.23.1 A-B.
chino, and also favored by English riders.90 Jodhpurs and trousers became more acceptable as resort and sportswear, and jeans were designed especially for women from the mid-1930s, when gendered divisions between certain garment types were becoming considerably more fluid. While ready-made rodeo clothing continued to be embellished with custom decorative flourishes, during the 1930s cowgirls on the high-time rodeo circuit still made fifteen to twenty costumes a year.91 According to LeCompte, “several innovative designs appeared including sailor suits; blouses with huge, flowing sleeves; trousers with matching capes and elaborate Western suits of leather and buckskin.”92 Many of these designs—sailor blouses in particular—were garments with strong masculine references yet long established as appropriate wear for women.93 Some rodeo cowgirls clearly enjoyed blending cowgirl and showgirl elements. A fantastic yellow blouse covered in massive, bright orange hibiscus flowers was worn by Fay Kirkwood, a rider and rodeo promoter from Texas (see Figure 1.10). The blouse
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includes the voluminous balloon style sleeves that were fashionable in the 1930s and early 1940s. The cowgirl style, which in the time of Annie Oakley or Vera McGinnis was either bespoke or a creative bricolage of garments associated with both men and women, would become more standardized as ready-made Western garments for women became increasingly available. Dude ranching offered holidays to visitors who wanted to experience what was purported to be a Western lifestyle. Dude ranches provided many non-Westerners with their first brush with westernwear, as specialized apparel was suggested for visiting a ranch. The idea was that vacationers rode horses and participated in some of the day-to-day activities and chores. The word “dude” emerged in the 1880s as a slang term to denote an easterner or “city-bred person,” but the origins of the term or the activity of dude ranching are hard to pin down.94 It’s generally agreed upon that the Eaton brothers moved to North Dakota to pursue ranching in the late 1860s but discovered that catering to the flow of visitors from the East seeking to experience the rural lifestyle was more profitable than the cattle business itself. By 1902, they were leading trips for visitors in Wyoming.95 Larry Larom, a wealthy easterner who first ventured West in 1910, partnered with a former schoolmate, Winthrop Brooks, of the Brooks Brothers menswear family, in opening a Wyoming dude ranch in 1915. The ranch’s success was largely ensured through the consistent patronage of Larom and Brooks’s well-heeled friends, and Larom even kept an office in Brooks Brothers New York City headquarters to manage his business, and attract new guests.96 By 1924 dude ranching had become so popular that the Dude Ranchers Association was established, with its headquarters in Billings, Montana, and the term was absorbed into vernacular parlance. During the depression of the 1930s, many cattle ranchers suffered great financial hardships and several converted to dude ranches in the hope of generating more income. From the Rocky Mountains down to the Southwest, dude ranches catered to different groups of seasonal tourists. The ranches’ offerings were quite varied, from what were essentially working ranches with fairly basic accommodations and few amenities to more comfortable resort-style holdings with more luxurious accommodation. Some entertained paying guests with staged cattle round-ups, others allowed for visitors to participate in ranch work, and many included access to local hunting and fishing grounds, all in the spirit of relaxing and having fun in beautiful Western scenery. Dude ranches were advertised to guests in Western publications like Sunset, and also in very upscale periodicals like the fashion magazines Vogue and Country Life, which were aimed at members of “high society,” as well as specialized publications like The Dude Rancher magazine.97 Pendleton, Wrangler, Lee, and Levi Strauss & Co. advertised in The Dude Rancher, and some ranches allowed for dudes to purchase clothes on site. The earliest mention in Vogue of Lady Levi’s, the first women’s jean, placed them in a dude ranch setting in 1935, and national retailers like Macy’s offered Levi’s jeans along with chaps, spurs, and sombreros in specialized dude ranch shops.98 By 1940, this type of vacation was so popular that 25,000 families visited dude ranches each year.99 Despite the Depression, dude ranches were frequented by guests who sought adventurous, exotic, but still American vacation destinations.100
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Dude ranching embodies the interdependence of “real” cowboys with those pretending to be. The idea of a place unencumbered by the pressures of contemporary living was promoted by ranch owners and dude wranglers, the experienced cowboys who maintained the ranch. There is little doubt that the dude visitors knew that the operations of the ranch that they experienced were contrived for their enjoyment, yet appreciated the care and planning that went into running the ranch. Indeed, the wranglers and dudes seem to have a tacit understanding that this enjoyment of Western culture was beneficial to both parties. It is not unlikely that tourists liked the dude ranch for the same reasons that they liked Western movies, rodeos, cowboy fiction, and Wild West shows, namely that they offered an escape into a unique cultural phenomenon tied to the adventure and drama of the Old West.101 Maxwell Struthers Burt, a dude rancher who wrote about his business in the 1940s and 1950s, was adamant that dude ranching was simply a continuation of the cattle ranching tradition, and no less significant in its way than any other cowboy experience. He instructed the ranch hands on his dude ranch as follows: Look here, you’re still a cowpuncher. To all intents and purposes you lead exactly the same life that your father and grandfather led before you and your son is going to lead after you. Your father’s and grandfather’s customs and clothes were the result of long experience and selection. They are practical and picturesque. . .And what a beautiful and romantic dress the cowboy costume is at that. Spanish in derivation, American in adaptation. . .the one national costume we have. Burt, it seems, was trying to alleviate any doubts on the part of his ranch hands about the validity of dude ranch work. He appealed to both family traditions as well as the nature of the occupational dress. The practical and the picturesque experience, what dudes sought on the ranch vacations, and the Western apparel, for Burt, offered not only continuity with past generations but also a source of national pride. Conventions around “real” or appropriate dude ranch attire were so well understood they were presented in fiction. In George Cuckor’s The Women (1939), a film celebrated as much for its costume design as its all-star cast, the protagonist Mary Haines (played by Norma Shearer) travels to Reno, Nevada, with friends. The women stay on a dude ranch where they meet the rambunctious and dramatic Countess de Lave (played by Mary Boland). In her matching ornate Western ensembles, the countess is an exaggerated version of a cross between an Eastern dude and a rodeo performer. Black pants, boots, and blouse, accessorized with studded gauntlets, and a wide-buckled glistening silver belt, all fell loosely within the conventions of cowboy or cowgirl garb, whereas the ropes of pearls worn around her neck and her heavy make-up signaled both her urban sophistication and her lack of cultural capital. As a wealthy older woman with money to spare, the exaggerated and contrived Western look seen on the countess served as a foil to Mary Haines’s outfits. She is seen in practical jodhpurs and a crisp flannel button-down blouse, the same ensemble she wore horseback riding in the East. Audiences in 1939 were expected to laugh at the artifice of the countess’s Western gear, while Haines’s garb offered a model for smart young women setting out to vacation at a dude ranch.
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California: Shaping Western identity through Blue Jeans and Ready to Wear California occupies a unique position in the history of the American West, particularly in shaping the image of Western visual and material culture in the popular imagination. As the site of origin of blue jeans, the home of the film industry, and as New York’s primary competitor in the postwar ready-towear fashion market, California was interconnected in multiple ways to the Western image and to westernwear. More than any other Western state, however, California was a bulwark of modernity and expansion, starting from the Gold Rush of 1849 through the rapid development of the railroads, to Hollywood.102 Rebecca Solnit’s work on what she has labeled “The Technological Wild West” centers California’s history as the foundation for understanding modernism in the United States.103 The coincidence of industry, entertainment, and later information technologies have indeed done much to re-shape American and by extension global culture. The rapid pace of growth engendered a culture of innovation and a unique relationship to the natural environment. California’s temperate climate and landscape was and remains a defining feature that permits distinctive lifestyles closely related to the outdoors, even if nature had been manipulated in myriad ways to allow this to happen.104 As historian Kevin Starr explains, “California was an artificial—indeed industrial—creation based on technology in which the majority of the population lived in densely settled enclaves supported by aquatic and hydroelectrical lifelines. . . virtually the entire history of American California revolved around this nature-technology dialectic: this tension of opposites so tenuously reconciled.”105 The balance between the demands of the natural world and technology was what eventually led to developing new ways of dressing. Jeans demand closer investigation because of their links to Western history, ready-to-wear, and subsequent place in real and fictional representations of the West. It is also a garment celebrated for its “iconic” status that, very much like the Western genre itself, is rife with contradictions blending modernity and tradition, work and leisure. It has become something of a cliché to refer to blue jeans as an iconic American garment, and one might say, a Californian one.106 Nevertheless, unpacking these contradictions and understanding the specifics of the origin and the design of the original Levi’s is essential to contextualize the later output of denim companies like Lee and Wrangler. Histories of denim jeans necessarily begin with the story of Levi Strauss and Co. Levi Strauss (1829– 1902) was a German Jewish merchant who opened a dry-goods store in San Francisco in 1853 following the Gold Rush boom, and his name identifies the brand that is still based in San Francisco today. The first five-pocket blue jean was invented in 1873 when Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno, Nevada, approached Strauss about manufacturing a new kind of work pant. At the time, California and Nevada were home to large populations of single men working in the mining industry.107 These men, largely untethered from domestic life, community networks, and women who would have typically made
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garments in the home, needed ready-made clothing. However, they found the standard fare lacking the necessary strength to withstand the heavy physical strain of their working conditions. Points of stress on the fabric, such as pockets, led the material to rip and wear out. Davis’ solution to this problem was a work pant made from sturdy canvas cloth with riveted pockets. Small copper rivets, similar to those used in leatherworking and horse blankets, secured the corners of the trouser pockets. Davis, who had a small shop in Reno, apparently sold about 200 pairs of riveted cotton duck pants before reaching out to Strauss to help manufacture and market them.108 Although Davis had invented the concept, he needed a partner to provide the capital to secure a patent, and in 1873 the patent for using copper rivets to strengthen waist overalls was granted jointly to Davis and Levi Strauss & Co.109 The men established a partnership and the first pair of “waist-overalls” (the term used for jeans until the early twentieth century)—the first Levi’s—were created. Strauss and Davis’s product proved popular with miners, and soon cowboys, farmers, and other laborers followed suit in adopting the hard-wearing trousers for work. Indeed, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century advertisements promoted Levi’s jeans and bib-overalls to miners, farmers, and industrial or railway workers.110 While the growing ready-to-wear apparel industry, based on the East Coast at the time, often sought to elevate its image and its wares by linking it to more elite craft-based hand skills and tailoring, work clothes did not benefit from or require the type of marketing that took fashionability into account. All of ready-to-wear fashion with its standardized measurements, automation, and assemblyline manufacture is effectively industrial design, but with jeans the connection is apparent in every aspect of the garment. The pants were made by and for industrial laborers. Making a pair of them required large-scale cotton-weaving and rope-dying, mechanized cutting and sewing to work through the heavy denim twill, and industrially fabricated metal rivets. The cowboys and laborers who originally wore jeans for work were the beneficiaries of these innovations; the seeds of modern readyto-wear had been planted in the Old West. Popular histories of jeans tend to adhere to a narrative that aligns Levi Strauss with American inventors and captains of industry like Henry Ford. The company has actively and consistently promoted its name and product as a time-honored American invention, with an origin story that shares more in common with the history of industrial design than fashion. While much of this rhetoric has been in the service of advertising—connecting Levi’s to Americana and emphasizing the “timeless” appeal of denim—there have been currents in American design criticism that effectively voiced the same ideas. Designers, architects, and critics in the mid-twentieth century, notably Siegfried Giedion and Harper’s editor John Kouwenhoven, sought to locate the roots of the modern movement with American vernacular design and technological innovation. Giedion effectively framed innovations in hand tools, machinery, and construction as essentially modern before their time. He went so far as to assert that techniques like balloon-frame construction, which marked the transition of building from the work of a skilled craftsman to the product of industry, helped nineteenth-century
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Americans “conquer” the West.111 Similarly, in his 1948 chapter “What is Vernacular?,” Kourwenhoven extended the nation’s claim to the origin of modern design further still. The nineteenth-century examples he described, that range from rifles and woodworking machines to steam engines and sailing vessels, were all marked by constraint and simplicity. Hand tools with colonial origins that were improved by nineteenth-century materials and mass-production; ‘light, simple, and tough tools’ that broke with European conventions to personify an American democratic-technological vernacular.112 While he never addressed apparel, ready-to-wear, and jeans specifically epitomize the notion of “democratic-technological vernacular” in both fabrication and design. The pants were produced in San Francisco, initially in small sewing rooms and outsourced piecework labor, but by the early twentieth century the company had fully functional up-to-date factories. Jacob Davis was the foreman of Levi Strauss & Co.’s production line. Initially available in both 10oz cotton duck as well as 9oz indigo denim, the textiles were first sourced from Amoskeag Mills of New Hampshire and starting in 1915, from Cone Mills in North Carolina.113 In examining the social conditions that contributed to the success of jeans, historian Sandra Curtis Comstock has found that gender and production indeed played a role. She posits that part of Levis’ popularity and reputation was on account of the conditions of manufacture, the fact that they were factory made, not homemade.114 Fordist industrial production marked them as modern, a technologically advanced product that separated them from the domestic and feminine. Levi’s cost slightly more than other work clothes, but the expense was justified with assertions that the garments were tools for workers, and thus enhanced the body’s labor power.115 Many men in the market for work clothes in the West were single, but even if they had wives or family members to make clothes for them, coarse denim was difficult to work on small domestic sewing machines and therefore challenging for home sewers, even without metal rivets. Comstock concludes that: “Denim became a symbol of the male wage-workers autonomous right to spend his wage on his individual needs. Denim jeans became a costume distinguishing male laborers from both women and men not engaged in remunerative work.”116 Design details that distinguished the pants besides the characteristic rivets included a single back pocket, a small watch pocket above the right hip pocket, and a waist-cinching buckle at the center back. The waist-band included suspender buttons and a label, originally at the center back, with text reading “Levi Strauss & Co. Sole proprietors and manufacturers of the riveted duck and denim pants.”117 Labels on the outside of garments were not typical in the nineteenth century, the Levi Strauss & Co. label was a way to identify the brand, and around 1886 the trademarked image of two horses pulling apart a pair of pants was added.118 In either 1885 or 1886, the arcuate stitching on the back pockets, the “gull wing” curved design, was also added and sometime in the 1890s the company adopted the lot number 501XX. The label illustration, the arcuate, and the number 501 remain identifying markers of Levi’s today.119 The development of identifying details and trademarks was no doubt also a response to the fact that the rivet patent would expire in 1890, after which time Levi’s
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would no longer be distinguishable by that single characteristic. Changes made to the design and manufacture of the jeans into the start of the twentieth century were minor. Around 1901 a second back pocket was added, and belt loops were added in 1922, and it has been assumed that both modifications were made in order to keep up with changes in men’s fashion at the time.120 Levi Strauss & Co. used images of the cowboy in advertising from the 1930s, something that Lee and Wrangler would emulate. Levi Strauss & Co.’s reasons for doing so, however, were initially bound to the company’s political and geographic circumstances. The company’s fortuitous location, being in the same state as Hollywood, further cemented the bond between Levi’s jeans and the cowboy image. Many of the extras hired as background actors on Western films worked as cowboys in the area for part of the season and wore Levi’s. Their manner of dress inspired designers in the growing studio costume departments. At a time when many working cowboys outside of California were likely wearing Lee, or any number of nationally accessible department store brands, Levi’s jeans were effectively overrepresented in Hollywood films, one of the most effective architects of the cowboy image.121 Levi Strauss & Co. benefitted from this fortuitous circumstance and began actively branching into Eastern markets in the latter half of the 1930s. Efforts to distinguish its product from those of its competitors’ and reach a broader consumer base included a patent for the back pocket red tab bearing the “LEVIS” name in block letters to further help to reinforce the brand identity in 1936.122 At this moment the middle-class Eastern denim consumer was limited to the weekend outdoorsman or dude ranch vacationer. The Levi Strauss & Co. product held unique Western cachet for dude ranch visitors who could find comfort in being dressed similarly to the ranchers themselves. Outreach beyond laborers in Western states was clearly an effort to increase sales, but in 1934 there was an added political motivation. A workers’ boycott of the company took place in that year when Levi Strauss & Co. refused to allow its workers the right to unionize.123 Consumers outside of California were likely less familiar with the controversy surrounding this conflict. By the mid-twentieth century the modern California lifestyle, characterized by recreation and a symbiotic relationship with the natural environment, had already been defined thanks to generations of boosterism.124 Since California’s absorption into the United States conceptions of utopianism, characterized by a technologically advanced clean and efficient future, and arcadianism, in the sense of being able to reclaim a lost pastoral ideal unencumbered with modern failings, have underscored its role in the national imagination. Several features of American postwar lifestyles, especially in regards to suburban living and indoor/outdoor leisure, were strongly influenced by design trends in Southern California and subsequently spread to the nation as a whole.125 These ideals were communicated aesthetically in different ways. While California style does not conform to a single definition or aesthetic, shared attributes and patterns are evident in architecture, interiors, and product design. In a short editorial “What is Western Design?” from a 1944 issue of Sunset magazine, the author Jack Moss delivered an assertive answer:
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It is uninhibited colors that might raise an eyebrow of hidebound Elsewhereians accustomed to somber gray and neutral tones. It is California hand prints in bold tropical designs and rough textured fabrics instead of silks and satins. It has no particular period but breathes the spirit of wider horizons. It is simple, direct, without the inhibitions of eastern America: without the ostentation of Eighteenth Century England or France. They are too artificial and stilted for California. Our Western traditions are different. Our lives are different.126 The statement makes it clear that Western design is defined by what it is not. It is not inhibited, somber, ostentations, artificial, or traditional; on the contrary, it is colorful, bold, direct, and rugged. “No particular period” implies again a kind of timelessness, an a-historical quality as though Western designs have somehow risen above traditions and broken away from the East and Europe. Relational definitions like Moss’s were present in other media, and are expressed in fashion advertising, particularly by Lee, in the 1960s. Many of the same concepts continue to resonate in contemporary understandings of California design. In her introduction to the exhibition California Design 1935–1965, “Living in a Modern Way,” curator Wendy Kaplan lists indoor/outdoor living, a modern aesthetic that is less austere than the established International Style, an embrace of technology through new materials, and an openness to Asian and Latin American influences as key attributes of the “California look.”127 Many of these same attributes can be seen in the design and promotion of apparel from California. Fashion was a growing industry in the state and several companies and designers were influential in developing casual sportswear styles. The “California look” in fashion incorporated ease, comfort, and lack of pretention.Although it included clothing for active sports, sportswear was an industry term that encapsulated ready-to-wear fashions that would today include all forms of casual dress, effectively the foundation of the modern wardrobe. The American sportswear industry had been accelerating since the 1930s, and although the majority of fashion design and production was centered in New York City, California was a significant competitor. Los Angeles led the way in developing a regional fashion industry based around sportswear, and by 1958 it was the world’s second largest apparel manufacturing and distribution center. California manufacturers succeeded in making sportswear their own. With the exception of celebrated designers like Adrian, who built his career as a Hollywood costumer, and Rudi Gernreich, few “big” names were attached to California fashion. A more inclusive aesthetic issued by large sportswear and swimwear manufacturers like Catalina and Cole of California best embodied the “California Casual” style.128 Vibrant color and lively prints in easy to maintain fabrics were mid-century staples, and more casual styles for men followed the lead of more expressive womenswear.129 So great was its influence that echoes of these same sensibilities can be found in the designs and advertising of Pendleton, Lee, and Wrangler, even though none of them are based in California. Many companies profited from this geographic and stylistic distinction and emphasized it in their clothing and branding. Labels marked with “California,” “of California,” “Hollywood,” or “Made in
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Figure 1.11 Selection of mid-century woven garment labels marked with “California.” Author’s photo.
California” lent a regional cachet to the playsuits, swimwear, and casual separates that defined California Sportswear (see Figure 1.11).130 The strength of the California image was such that in 1946 the California Apparel Creators, an organization representing the collective interests of garment manufacturers in the state, filed suit against several New York manufacturers who included “California” in their labeling in the hopes of profiting from the Western state’s growing fashionability.131 The fact that legal action was taken supports the notion that “California” had become a brand itself, or an aesthetic category that companies outside the state sought to take advantage of. In July of 1947, the California Apparel Creators issued a full-page advertisement in Life magazine headlined “Something Wonderful Happens When You Wear Clothes from California.” It goes on to assert that, “the California way of life is a vivid wish, a magic dream, in the heart of everyone,” implying that clothing made in California made its wearer a part of this fanciful dream, wherever they might be.132
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2 Four Westernwear Companies
Unlike Levi Strauss & Co., the histories of the companies that provide the bulk of my evidence have not been thoroughly documented. Each brand—Lee (established in Salina, Kansas) and Wrangler (from Greensboro, North Carolina)—whose primary output was also jeans and denim workwear, along with Pendleton (from Portland, Oregon) and Miller Stockman (from Denver, Colorado) has a distinctive story and approach to Western apparel. The companies originated in different parts of the United States, but each identifies with the West and a Western consumer in specific ways. In addition, each company’s growth intersects with and responds to coincident developments in other industries (railroad and automotive), government (outfitting troops during wartime), and parallel to advancements in advertising and national distribution. Each initially offered workwear for men, and subsequently developed their product lines to include women and children in keeping with the aforementioned conventions and trends in California sportswear. The following culturally informed business histories focus on how each company began and how each defined westernwear. The history of the companies prior to 1945 is presented in terms of the volume of trade, garment types, materials, production and marketing techniques. How each secured a presence in its respective community though contributions to state fairs, rodeos, or hiring public figures is also considered. I begin with the two oldest companies, Lee and Pendleton, both of which originated in the nineteenth century, with a focus on their output prior to World War II, followed by Wrangler’s parent company Blue Bell, and finally, Miller Stockman, the Western catalog distributor and shirt-maker. Miller’s archival holdings are small, but its catalogs, which were produced from the 1920s through to the 1990s, feature Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton products, in addition to items bearing Miller’s own label. The stories of company founders and significant players are included insofar as they offer insight into the brand’s origin story, narratives that are later drawn from to highlight a company’s longevity, heritage, or Western pedigree in subsequent generations. While significant design details drawn from archival examples are noted, the following is by no means a catalog of all the merchandise produced by each company during the years in question. Denim design tends to change incrementally and can be explored in more detail than, for instance, shirting so extra attention will be paid to jeans, as they 45
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offer a traceable narrative of change in relation to the nineteenth century originals. Many of the designs for apparel offered after 1945 were striking similar to those first produced, and each brand had cemented ties to Western communities and lifestyles. I conclude with a brief evaluation of design, fabrication, and style concerns that effected the companies in the postwar era. Workwear, of which westernwear was originally a part, rarely benefitted from creative merchandising or commercial display. Indeed, the wide variety of print advertising in the postwar era is worthy of focus in the following chapters because of its relative novelty. Jeans and other Western attire had traditionally been distributed by dry-goods retailers, catalogs, and some department stores in the Western States. None of the manufacturer-merchandisers examined here sold to customers directly from their own independent retail outlets during the years in question. Company salesmen dealt with retailers large and small, who would select what products to carry and how to promote them. Writing histories of workwear is an act of recovery that amounts to a patchwork of sources and materials. Extant archival evidence, including garments themselves and business records varies by year and by company. While the longevity of each brand is a testament to its success and adaptability, working businesses were not always in the habit of collecting or maintaining archives. As is the case with most manufacturers of utilitarian clothing, records of the names and backgrounds of individual designers, volume of sales, and distribution numbers are scant. I am indebted to the current archivists and company representatives who have granted me access, as well as the vintage clothing collectors and dealers whose breadth of knowledge, remains unrivaled.
The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company Henry David Lee, founder of The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company, was born in Randolph, Vermont, in 1849. After completing grade school, Lee traveled to Ohio in search of greater opportunities. Working as a hotel clerk in Galion, Ohio put Lee into contact with a number of traveling salesmen who inspired his interest in sales and business.1 Census data and newspaper documentation confirm that Lee was married and selling knitting machines from 1871–4.2 In the same decade Lee and a partner Otho Hayes purchased the Central Oil Company of Ohio, a wholesale kerosene distributor, out of receivership.3 In spite of his progress in the business world, Lee’s health was poor; he was diagnosed with pulmonary disease—it is not known if it was tuberculosis, emphysema, or something similar— which necessitated two years of confinement. In the interim, he and his partner sold half of his company to Standard Oil and yet he stayed on as a manager for another two years before selling the remainder to Rockefeller. 4 Despite arranging for his employees to continue on with the company, several them aspired to launch a new business. They appealed to Lee to lend his leadership and financial support to establish
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a wholesale business in Salina, Kansas. There, Lee and four co-founders from Ohio established The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company. Land was secured, a building constructed, a team hired, and six salesmen canvassed the region. In December 1889, the State of Kansas granted a five-year charter for The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company to open in Salina, 175 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri.5 The dry Kansas climate and newly discovered mineral waters at nearby Excelsior Springs, Missouri were believed to be beneficial for Lee’s health, and although he was advised against travel by his physicians and lawyer, Lee moved to Salina in 1889. He elected to start a business in central Kansas after careful consideration. Salina was a hub of several major railroads serving the Midwest and Great Plains regions, and with the cattle, railroad, and oil industries rapidly expanding in all of the Western states, merchants and their wares were in high demand. Kansas City was already busy thoroughfare, a point where the Oregon and Santa Fe trails crossed, where other wholesale businesses were already established. Lee’s business could serve populations that were newly emerging beyond the city in response to the Homestead Act in rural central Kansas. The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company was established as a wholesale merchant supplier and distributor of food and dry goods to smaller retailers in the area, and to towns further West.6 As a wholesale jobber and distributor of groceries, Lee sourced and packaged items from around the world, including coffee, tea, spices, and a variety of canned goods and condiments. By 1899 the company developed a cold storage division to deal in perishable goods, and had its own flour mill for processing locally grown grain. It also expanded its “notions” catalog beyond foodstuffs, to offer everything from stationery, toilet paper, air rifles, and ready-made work clothes for men. The clothing included bib-overalls, overalls (jeans), shirts, and jumpers (loose button-front jackets). It was sourced from unknown Eastern suppliers; Lee added its own label.7 Clearly there was a demand for work clothes, but no local manufacture. As the H. D. Lee Mercantile Company continued to grow, Lee departed to New York in 1900 to serve as the chairman of the board of the National Grocers Association for one year. In 1902 the company expanded yet again into wholesale hardware distribution, and in 1911 added the Harvesters Building Company, and the Farmer’s National Bank of Salina as well.8 At the start of the twentieth century Lee had had a hand in virtually all the industries that helped develop the State of Kansas, and was well connected in national markets, but it was not until 1912 that the company began manufacturing garments.9 According to company lore, H. D. Lee was disappointed with the inconsistent quality and unreliability of deliveries and therefore moved into production in order to improve them.10 The first Lee workwear manufacturing factory in Salina produced overalls, jackets, and work pants (the term “jeans” was not used by Lee until the 1940s). No extant garments from this earliest period remain, but it is safe to assume that they more or less followed the standards of simple patterns for work clothing that existed at the turn of the century.11 What set the company apart from its workwear competitors was a novel innovation launched in 1913 named the Union-All, a one-piece garment that connected jacket and pants into a roomy and durable
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coverall. It was a sturdy suit that could protect the wearer in any rugged workplace but its invention and promotion was linked to the growing interest in automobiles. Because few people knew how to drive them, and even fewer how to maintain them, chauffeurs were expected to be both driver and mechanic. A mechanic visiting from Detroit convinced the company to produce a one-piece work garment that would be more practical for this type of labor, particularly needing to go beneath the cars.12 The name Union-All was derived from the Union Suit, a ubiquitous knitted one-piece undergarment, that combined a sleeved top and leg coverings.13 The Union-All was a loose fitting, long sleeved suit with buttons down the front offered in khaki or denim, that would completely cover anything worn beneath it. The Union-All, though functional, was not immediately successful but it brought H. D. Lee into contact with a man who would become one of Lee’s best salesman and later the chairman of the company’s board. According to a company history and trade magazines, sales of Union-Alls were initially slow and many unsold items were returned to Lee.14 Yet the practicality of the novel item soon won over workers, particularly motorists, and by 1915 all Lee’s Salina-based apparel manufacturing was devoted to the fabrication of Union-Alls. This year also brought a young man named Chester Reynolds to the company.15 Reynolds had encountered the Union-Alls through his own grocery store in McCracken, Kansas, and had heard rumors that Lee planned to discontinue the product. Lee agreed to let Reynolds try to sell the remainder of his stock on a commission basis. Reynolds set out to sell Union-Alls by employing a simple, direct advertising technique. Upon entering a town, he would stroll through busy streets wearing the Union-All. The unusual garment attracted attention and questions from passersby and gave Reynolds the chance to launch into his sales pitch. He extolled the virtues of the Union-All not only for auto- mechanics but also for railroad workers, ranchers, and farmers. This was the first instance of Lee’s products being promoted directly to consumers, and the marketing tactic was successful because within eighteen months they were outselling Lee’s original bib-overalls.16 To meet demand, the company focused its entire production capacity on making Union-Alls and added new factories across the country—all plants were devoted exclusively to the production of Union-Alls until 1920.17 The popularity of Union-Alls made Lee a household name among working families and spurred the opening of five additional garment plants in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, New Jersey, and Minnesota, as well as a distribution center in California.18 Cooperation with the Garment Workers of America went hand in hand with this expansion; Union-Alls and other Lee garments were produced entirely by union labor, and in accordance with their standards from 1916 onwards.19 The rise in Union-All production cannot be entirely attributed to Reynolds’ salesmanship, however, because in September 1917 Lee signed the first of what would be several lucrative contracts with the United States government to produce Union-Alls to outfit troops serving in World War I.20 One of the nation’s largest training camps was Camp Funston—established at Fort Riley, near Junction City, Kansas, it trained soldiers drafted from Midwestern states to fight overseas. More than 45,000 soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 89th Division were stationed at the facility, which was initially unprepared to outfit
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the troops with equipment. The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company came through. In September 1917 the company provided 6,500 dozen pairs, for men in the aviation corps, a contract of nearly a million dollars.21 Three weeks later, the company the local paper reported another 60,000 item order.22 The H. D. Lee Mercantile company was not the only apparel company fabricating for the military but they were a significant contributor, and Union-Alls were also useful for factory and agricultural workers on the home front. The company recognized the contribution of women during wartime, too, as a specially designed women’s Union-All emerged in 1917 in response to more of them taking on manual labor.23 While it continued to fulfill orders for Washington, the company actively promoted its wares to civilians as well. Lee’s direct appeal to consumers was extended through its first national advertisements. A full-page illustrated color advertisement that first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1917 depicts a man and boy wearing Union-Alls working on a car’s engine, while two other workmen in the background, also wearing Union-Alls, unload boxes from a truck (Figure 2.1) The man is well groomed and his Union-All is paired with black leather shoes. His appearance suggests a leisured automotive hobbyist, or a middle-class family man rather than a workman, who typically would have been presented as more rugged, like the men wearing caps in the background. The copy text explains the comfort and practicality of Union-Alls for “Men who own pleasure cars” as well as for truck drivers. The first national print advertisement for workwear, placed in what was the highest priced publication
Figure 2.1 Union-Alls advertisement, 1917. Lee archives.
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in the country it cost the company $5,000.24 Experienced salesmen at Lee, including Chester Reynolds, were skeptical about advertising the product in such a way, and viewed the costly campaign as a “wild gamble.”25 But Lee already had set his sights on reaching middle-class consumers and saw such advertisements as a way of raising brand awareness outside of the working class, and to a national audience. Since about 1890 utilitarian workwear was advertised through specialized trade catalogs, and the advertisements themselves were product focused with durability stressed and practical design features listed in a didactic manner.26 Although this option continued to be the norm for most Lee’s workwear, the Saturday Evening Post advertisement suggests that the company, or the advertisers they employed, understood the advantages of engaging with consumers’ lifestyle choices, albeit in a limited way. In addition, advertisements for men’s Union-Alls of the 1910s show corresponding garments in boys’ sizes, described as being “Just Like Dad’s,” an early example of developing an inter-generational consumer base. By March 1917, when the combined grocery and garment divisions of the H. D. Lee Mercantile Company amounted to a net capital of roughly two million dollars, the growing company moved operations, positioning themselves within ten blocks from Kansas City’s developing garment center,27 which—as a roughly ten-block area of the downtown district—was one of the nation’s largest.28 It would grow steadily after World War I, and manufacturers of stylish womenswear were among Kansas City’s largest employers of skilled garment workers.29 The 1920s saw the expansion of Lee’s apparel line, the opening of a distribution center in San Francisco, and more innovative approaches to the marketing of garments. Reynolds continued to play a key role, instigating a new promotional gimmick that would become Lee’s mascot for decades, namely the Buddy Lee doll. Initially, the company gave away miniature novelty denim overalls, measuring eight inches, at the Minnesota State Fair, and Reynolds, who was then serving as the company’s sales manager, found a small doll to model the overalls in window displays. The first one was a girl doll, but Reynolds’ staff soaked the wig off its head to reveal short painted hair underneath.30 Dressed in the miniature Lee bib-overalls, the now bald, chubby, wide-eyed twelve-inch composition doll proved to be such an attraction in the windows of the Dayton Company Department Store in Minneapolis that Lee contracted the Gem Doll Company of New York to produce a similar doll exclusively for them. Named Buddy Lee, the dolls were available for purchase beginning in July 1921, and occasionally given away as part of store promotions (see Figure 2.2).31 The first Buddy Lee dolls wore only bib-overalls but a shirt and matching shop cap with Lee labels were added later.32 The dolls were produced continuously until 1960 and were dressed to represent workers in occupations best suited for Lee apparel, namely an engineer, a cowboy, and an industrial worker.33 The engineer doll, sometimes called the farmer doll (presumably because bib-overalls were worn for both jobs), sported blue denim bib-overalls over either a plaid checked shirt or blue chambray
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Figure 2.2 Buddy Lee, c. 1950. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses.
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Figure 2.3 Lee 101 cowboy pants donut button detail. Lee archives.
work shirt, sometimes with a shop cap. The industrial worker doll differed little from the engineer except that his overall was sometimes khaki colored. Never to be confused with the others, the cowboy wore blue jeans along with a plaid shirt, a bandana, and a felt cowboy hat. Although it is frequently absent from extant examples, he also came accessorized with a lariat. Despite variations and different renditions over Buddy Lee’s forty-year history, the most popular Buddy Lee dolls remained the cowboy and the engineer, two easily identifiable male archetypes. Both are connected to Western history in obvious ways, the cowboy as rancher, cattle hand, and rodeo performer, and the engineer as the man who worked on the railroads that helped settle the West. In 1925 Lee designed their first jeans, originally called the “101 Cowboy Waist Overalls,” the first denim pant created and marketed for the specific needs of working cowboys and rodeo riders (Figure 2.3).34 Lee’s first foray into jeans is significant in that they were the first product of what would be
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considered the Western line, supervised by Chester Reynolds, which was developed to specifically address the cowboy market. Made of 9 oz. denim with a cinch-buckle back, suspender buttons, and button fly, the design debuted with a leather patch on the right side featuring a cowboy on horseback and Lee’s “blue ribbon” logo. Although these were denim pants, Lee adhered to the industry standard term “overalls” for this new product (the company did not adopt the term “jeans” until the 1940s). By 1935, Lee offered the 101-J Lee Cowboy Jacket in denim to pair with the overalls. Several similarities between these designs and Levi’s overalls and jackets from the same period are evident. The leather patch, copper rivets, and lot number were copied along with the orange stitching for the back pocket detail in a peaked formation (almost identical to Levi Straus’s arcuate design). The jacket included a pleated front, single pocket, and buckle back, reminiscent of Levi’s Type I. Despite Lee’s later assertions that it strove to innovate a superior, unique jean for the working cowboy that was not based on garments designed for miners, design details of the earliest Lee cowboy pants and denim jackets from the 1920s and 1930s suggest that the company did, in fact, closely follow the models created by Levi Strauss & Co.35 In other words, a major feature of Lee product design in the interwar years was dictated by the success of Levi Strauss & Co. Distinctive features that were regarded as improvements that followed included the use of 11 ½ oz. Jelt denim, a more durable alternative to lighter denims created in partnership with Canton Mills of Georgia in 1925.36 It was composed of tightly twisted long fiber yarns, and extra picks per inch that reportedly made it much stronger.37 Lee was the first to offer the option of different denim weights, ranging from 9oz. to 14oz. Another technological advance embraced at Lee during the 1920s was the inclusion of zippers. Relatively new at the time, zippers were not commonplace on garments until the mid-1930s, but were offered as an alternative to buttons for the fly of Lee Cowboy Pants and UnionAlls. The zipper was novel, modern, and touted as being faster to fasten than buttons and button-holes in thick denim.38 Zipper advertisements from the first decade of the twentieth century promoted it as a “twentieth century device for this busy and progressive age,” in spite of the fact that many early zippers were quite cumbersome. By the time Lee began using them, though, the brass zippers were quite sturdy and easy to use.39 The “Amazing Hookless Fastener” or zipper was an option on Lee Cowboy Pants as of 1927. Although the button fly was still available for jeans, Union-Alls, and overalls, Lee publicized the zippers widely.40 That same year the company held a national competition to name the overalls, coveralls, and playsuits made with the novel fastener: the winner suggested the name “Whizit,” referring to the sliding sound made when the zipper was pulled up and down, and was awarded a cash prize of $250.41 The word zipper is a generic trademark, but in the 1920s was still registered to Goodyear for a zip-front rubber boot. Subsequent advertisements that paired the “Whizit” with celebrities, such as the hugely famous baseball star Babe Ruth, show Lee continually engaging with the public, especially with celebrity culture, to attract greater numbers of male customers.42 The 1920s also marked a significant turning point for the company when its founder, Henry David Lee, died in 1928. He was replaced as president by Leonard C. Staples, as of June 1929.43
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Another design modification made to Lee Cowboy Pants was the U-shaped saddle crotch which was standard by 1933.44 This construction was created to allow for more comfort when the wearer was seated on horseback. Straight seams terminate at a point, making a triangular shape in the center, that can pinch or cut into the body while the wearer is seated unless the jeans are worn low on the hips. The U-shaped crotch was advertised as “built-in saddle comfort,” an example of Lee’s attention to a cowboy’s need for ease of movement, while also being touted as evidence of Lee’s higher quality standards. One salesman noted that cutting a U-shaped crotch required extra yardage; proof, from his perspective, that Lee was more concerned with accurate fit than reducing the cost of materials.45 Textile technologies of the 1930s allowed for further modifications of Lee’s products. Sanforization, a textile treatment process invented by Sanford L. Cluett of Cluett Peabody & Co. in 1930, reduced shrinkage of cotton garments to one percent of their original dimensions when washed.46 Although the Sanforization process was licensed and available to anyone in the textile industry, Lee was an early adopter in the workwear arena, making Sanforized textiles standard by 1936. Sanforization made care and sizing easier for consumers and allowed for more accurate measurements for the cotton jeans, overalls, shirts, and trousers that Lee produced. Standardized sizing, including waist, inseams and leg-length measurements, were included in the labeling.47 Confident in the strength of its product line, Lee continued to pursue national advertising in print and through promotions at state fairs and rodeos. This included producing advertising banners in the form of twelve-foot tall Lee Jeans, with “Lee Cowboy Pants” chain-stitched across the rear of the jeans. These banners hung from telephone poles, barns, and storefronts nationwide.48 An internal document prepared by Lee staff member W. D. Gremp often cites competitors’ “heavy weight dungaree[s] made originally for hard rock miners.” Gremp was referring to Levi Strauss & Co., a company that he chastises for being hopelessly “stuck with tradition,” and whose products he criticizes for not keeping up with innovations in textiles and design.49 Although Gremp is writing explicitly to promote and celebrate Lee products and distinguish them from those of competitors, the repeated references to Levi Strauss & Co. imply that Lee was challenged by the competition posed by this rival company and, from 1935 onwards, modifications made to Lee’s product line were often promoted as improvements over Levi’s standard designs. In claiming to modernize the products, Lee set itself and its products apart from the competition and built a company image that stressed response to the customer’s changing needs over tradition. In 1935 Lee began using the name “Riders” for its Cowboy Pants, a simpler moniker that retained the cowboy connection, and remains in use today (Figure 2.4).50 The late 1930s saw the elimination of the back-pocket copper rivets in favor of a stitched bar-tack that would not scratch saddles or furniture. 1938 also saw the debut of a new label. The “Hair on Hide” patch on the right side of the back waistband replaced the larger leather patches.51 It was a square of pony hide leather with the hair fibers still attached and the “Lee” name branded with a hot iron into the surface.
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Figure 2.4 Die-cut advertisement for Lee Riders denim jeans, 1940s. Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images.
Outreach to the rodeo community included advertising with celebrity rodeo champions such as James Thurkel “Turk” Greenough. In December 1941 Lee assembled a group of cowboys, company salesmen and publicists in Kansas City, Missouri, that included Greenough and his girlfriend, wellknown burlesque fan dancer Sally Rand, who is shown pinning his pants tighter down the leg. A unique photo opportunity showcased the new closer fit that was sold as functional, but also attractive and desirable, and which became standard for Lee jeans the following year.52 The combination of design improvements and targeted advertising seems to have worked in Lee’s favor: the jeans became the company’s best-selling product and in 1940 Lee’s were considered the most popular overalls (i.e. jeans) supplier according to a reader survey organized by Dell Detective Group’s magazines.53
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The H. D. Lee Mercantile Company (which changed its name to The H. D. Lee Company, Inc. in 1943) was already producing one-piece Union-Alls and durable canvas and denim work clothes before World War II, and thus, when the United States entered the war Lee factories were again poised to shift towards wartime production, geared towards flight suits, fatigue suits, and field jackets for the Unites States Army while the manufacture of other goods was restricted.54 National advertising continued throughout the war, but Lee’s full-page Life magazine advertisements carried the following message: “War conditions make it impossible to meet the growing demand for Lee Work Clothes. Your Lee dealer is receiving his fair share of all we are able to make after the needs of our men in the armed forces have been supplied. If your dealer is out of the Lee you want, please ask him to reserve one for you out of his next shipment.”55 The copy indicates that Lee, aware of shortages, sought to keep its non-military products at the forefront of consumer’s minds. Despite changes in production for wartime, Lee continued to emphasize its brand identity vis-à-vis the civilian world. In terms of denim design, wartime adjustments were minimal, the most notable being the removal of the waist cinching buckle-back fastener that had been positioned between and slightly higher than the two back pockets. Initially, this was done to conserve metal during wartime, under the L-85 regulation, but for Lee and other denim manufacturers, improvements in textiles and fit meant there was little need for a buckle at the back of the waist to gather excess fabric and it was not re-introduced after the war.56
Pendleton: The Original Mill and Blanket Trade The establishment of the wool industry in Oregon occurred in Pendleton, a town that grew out of the Oregon Trail in 1851 in a region ideally situated for raising sheep. The Pendleton Wool Scouring and Packing Company was founded in 1893 and its first manager was Theron Fell (1858–1923). The company expanded into the production of finished woolen goods in 1895 when it was incorporated as Pendleton Woolen Mills.57 Early advertising for the mill included placards that read “from the sheep’s back to your back,” implying that the business of the new mill would center on the production of material for clothing.58 From the beginning, however, Fell understood that that the best market for woolen goods was the Umatilla Indian reservation, that bordered Pendleton’s city limits, and other reservations around the country because of a long-standing interest in trade blankets.59 By 1896, Pendleton Woolen Mills was making blankets that were purchased by some local European American vendors but mainly by Native Americans. So closely was the latter group associated with the products that Pendleton sometimes used them to model for the company’s advertisements.60 Colorful wool blankets, like glass beads, were brought by European settlers and merchants and traded for pelts with Indigenous communities across North America, which is why the term “trade blanket” is still sometimes used. The blankets served both practical and ceremonial functions. They
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were worn as robes and exchanged as gifts—often as part of ceremonies or to mark significant life events, such as birth or marriage—and were passed down through generations.61 The draping of the robe over the body differed for men and women, but there were, and are, innumerable ways of wearing it as a garment, and the same robe could simultaneously serve as clothing and bedding.62 Prior to the European presence, many nations created robes which, depending on the region, were laboriously woven on hand looms using animal and/or plant fibers or fashioned from animal hides.63 The soft, brightly colored, jacquard-woven wool blankets brought from Europe replaced many of these creations but were often employed in the same manner and attributed with the same, or similar, values. In spite of their foreign antecedents, they are unquestionably part of an Indigenous tradition. Native art scholar Charles Lohrmann considers wool trade blankets to be “Native” because their value was defined in terms of Indigenous cultures and they constitute a definitive statement of Native identity.64 The terms “blanket” and “robe” are used interchangeably in much of the literature documenting the history of use. There is no single physical distinction between blankets and robes, but because blankets were used as garments in Indigenous communities, the term “robe” is more common in that context. Pendleton was one of five manufacturers of woolen trade blankets in the United States at the start of the twentieth century. The output of these mills, in addition to blankets produced overseas, such as those made in England and brought to North America by the Hudson’s Bay Company, meant that there was a great deal of competition and a wide market for trade blankets. The fact that Pendleton is the only one of the original five mills that continues to manufacture blankets and to issue novel designs annually speaks to the popularity and continued significance of the products particularly among Indigenous people across the country.65 Since its inception Pendleton has produced hundreds of blanket designs. The variety of colors and patterns is dizzying. Prior to World War II, Pendleton offered blankets in more than 200 different patterns.66 There are no consistently identifiable set of traits or characteristics distinguishing them. The boldly defined repeating geometric motifs were produced in different scales, colorways, and exhibited different levels of complexity. Most designs were named and/or numbered but others were not. Typically, different designs are identified through the number of bands and repeat elements, and several designs have been reissued or reconfigured in scale or colorway over the decades.67 From their introduction in the late 1890s, the blankets were inspired by Native American motifs, palettes, and designs, though not copied directly from them or in keeping with the aesthetic of any one nation. In 1901, Pendleton hired Joseph Rawnsley to operate its first jacquard loom to create blanket designs. The jacquard loom, invented in 1801, offered a technological advantage over traditional weaving techniques, because its sophisticated carding system allowed for complex weave structures to be created more quickly.68 Pendleton wanted to sell its blankets to the Indigenous community, in so doing framed and sometimes embellished the real demand for blankets with fanciful ideas in its promotional materials. Some of the early material went as far as to imply that Indigenous people could
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Figure 2.5 Chief Joseph Blanket (khaki colorway). Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
commission their own designs, something that never happened.69 It did name designs after notable Indigenous figures, such as Chief Joseph, a style that remains one of the most distinctive blankets (Figure 2.5). Although the company maintained strong ties to the community, it began referring to its wares as “Indian Pattern Blankets” rather than “Indian Blankets” in 1910, and before 1920 stopped suggesting that Native Americans were directly involved in the blanket design.70 It seems that the company was content to produce blankets that appealed to both European and Indigenous tastes and was not overly concerned about the extent to which they were read as “Native American” by European Americans. Indeed, in many cases this exoticism likely improved sales. In its national advertising Pendleton worked to expand its consumer base, marketing the same blankets worn as robes by
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Indigenous people to a white audience, primarily along the Atlantic seaboard, who used them as blankets, couch throws, or steamer rugs.71 Despite its early success at the end of the nineteenth century, Pendleton Woolen Mills experienced managerial conflicts, and production suffered.72 In 1909, however, C. P. Bishop—a man well connected in the wool industry who had already established two mill operations in Oregon in the 1880s, and whose sons, Clarence and Roy, graduated from the Philadelphia Textile School—invested in Pendleton Woolen Mills. With the family’s own contribution supplemented by local investors, Bishop and his sons began modernizing production. The Bishop family continues to own and operate Pendleton Woolen Mills in the twenty-first century. The company remains not only family owned, but also vertically integrated with a strong regional identity. Pendleton garments and blankets were sold nationally to European Americans through select retailers, mainly menswear shops, sportsman’s outlets and department stores. In addition to the casual, Western-inflected styles examined below, the company also offered a selection of blanket jackets and lounging robes (modeled after bath robes or smoking jackets, not to be confused with the Native American context for “robe”). Pendleton also produced and circulated catalogs to retailers and to Native reservations. There were no exclusive Pendleton retail outlets, but some products were also available through larger, national mail-order catalogs. For instance, Miller Stockman offered Pendleton woolen shirts and a selection of blankets each year in its catalogs, and the Hamley Company, a Pendleton-based saddlery, also issued a catalog offering blankets alongside its saddles and equestrian accessories. The connection to cowboy culture was established early at Pendleton (Figure 2.6 here). The Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo, a major sporting event that emerged in 1910 and was sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys’ Association, drew competitors and massive crowds to the small Oregon town each year, and members of the Bishop family were active participants from its earliest days.73 From 1916 the Pendleton Woolen Mills sponsored the Roundup, donating prize money and the same specially designed red and black prize blanket with the “Let’er Buck” image of cowboy astride a bucking bronco that became the event’s logo. Large illustrated advertisements for both blankets and shirts were included in each annual rodeo program.
Garment Manufacture at Pendleton In 1912, Pendleton expanded into making clothing. This took place primarily in a separate mill in Washougal, Washington, that specialized in lightweight woolens for men’s shirting. At the start of the twentieth century wool shirts tended to be utilitarian garments, and Pendleton set about refining and re-defining the wool shirt.74 Although the company still intended it to be a functional outdoor workwear garment, Pendleton offered shirts in a variety of vibrant colors and plaids. The shirts were
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Figure 2.6 Jackson Sundown and Roy Bishop at the Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo, 1916. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
rugged and durable, and although they were not necessarily fashion forward, options for different tartans changed annually, thus introducing variety to a man’s wardrobe. Most of the plaids were Scottish tartans, with accompanying clan names.75 Others were simple variations on the originals with changes in colorways. There were also shadow plaids, in which the different colored warps and wefts blend gradually, resulting in a gradated less geometric appearance. Close attention to detail is evident in pattern matching, that is where the pocket flaps line up with the body of the shirt, and in the highquality mother-of-pearl buttons. The woolen Pendleton shirt was designed to withstand daily, heavy use and was worn mainly—but not exclusively—by men working in the fishing, logging, and mining industries of the Pacific Northwest. In The Cowboy at Work: All About his Job and How He Does It (1958), former Alberta cowboy Fay E. Ward’s lists wool plaid Pendleton shirts among the elements of a cowboy’s material culture, related to work on the plains. He also cited the plaid Pendleton shirts (among other garments) as better in quality and longer lasting than most.76The shirts were also marketed to those men whose outdoor activities were more leisured pursuits. From about 1920 “weekend” hunters, fishermen, and sportsmen were depicted in Pendleton’s advertisements for its “handsomely tailored 100% virgin wool
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Figure 2.7 Pendleton shirts and sportswear price list, nd, and Pendleton Western Gambler shirt. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
shirts,” suggesting that the company had an interest in selling to urban dwellers who might escape to the country on vacation, as well as to the working man.77 Some blanket jackets, produced from the same material used for the jacquard blankets were available for men and women in the 1920s and 1930s, but they were fewer in number than shirts or blankets.78 In addition to solid colored or plaid woolen shirting, Pendleton began making distinctively Western style shirts as well. The first shirt designed in the Western tradition at Pendleton was named “The Western Gambler” shirt and debuted in 1937 (Figure 2.7). The Gambler is a wool gabardine shirt with three-button cuffs, pleated sleeves, front pockets with diagonally cut flaps and a six-button front placket with mother-of-pearl buttons. It has a full-cut body with an inverted back pleat and longer tails than a standard shirt, in keeping with the silhouette of most cowboy shirts. It is an understated Western look, without embroidery or decorative yoke treatments. By 1940 The Gambler was part of a complete Pendleton Western ensemble and matched with coordinating gabardine pants, called Buckaroo pants, that were trim-fitting with wide belt loops and the same mother-of-pearl buttons on the front hip pockets. The complete Buckaroo line included the Stockman and Tucson jackets, and Buckaroo blazers that were also designed with the cowboy or rancher in mind, and named accordingly.79
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Over the following decades, and continuing into the present, the company made its more conventional shirting alongside Western-inspired garments. It also found that in selling plaid shirts, Western consumers preferred the subtle gradation of colors in the shadow plaids over the bolder, more sharply delineated, plaid checks of the Scottish tartans.80
Pendleton during Wartime In an advertisement for Pendleton shirts c. 1943–4, a photograph of a shining river with the Rocky Mountains in the background, framed by evergreens, is paired with the phrase “One of the Freedoms we’re fighting for,” spelled out in block letters on a wooden plank resembling an Old West signpost of the type familiar from Hollywood Westerns.81 At the bottom left corner, a disembodied plaid shirt is superimposed over the river. The message is addressed directly to men in the armed forces serving overseas who may not have been able to “see that lake or stream that’s been a part of your vacation for a long time.” It also references a future return to the comforts of home at the end of the war when familiar companies like Pendleton would once again provide reliable items. The text informs the reader that Pendleton Woolen Mills is assisting in the war effort as well as producing garments, and that restrictions related to the latter would not affect product quality. Here, a natural landscape—and the Western landscape in particular—is presented as both a uniquely American property and a uniquely American value (freedom) worth fighting for. It is clear that, ideologically, Pendleton sought to maintain solidarity with the war effort by appealing to a long tradition in the United States of connecting national identity to its landscapes, as if American identity itself were natural.82 Pendleton’s production was adjusted to wartime conditions. In 1942 the Federal Office of Production Management curtailed the use of new wool nationwide by twenty percent in order to ensure that there would be enough for military supplies (including clothing and blankets for the Red Cross). 83 Pendleton, like other woolen mills, gave precedence to government orders that, as company president C. M. Bishop noted at the time, were subject to changes in volume.84 One of the products affected by war restrictions was the Western “Gambler” shirt because wool gabardine was limited to military use.85 Beginning in 1942, the Washougal Mill shifted the majority of its production to blankets and fabric yardage. An article from June 1943 cites a letter from W. B. Young, rear admiral in the Unites States Navy, chief of the bureau of supplies, to the “Men and Women of the Washougal Woolen Mill,” thanking them for the blankets supplied to the US Navy.86 It also indicates that Young recognized that both men and women were working on blanket manufacture, and his letter’s special mention in the local paper confirms the pride in the community’s involvement in the war effort. Although increased production at Pendleton was required in some areas, an article in The Oregonian from January 1942 claims that
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fifty workers at the Pendleton Washougal Mills were to be laid off because most of the wool was to be used for used for blankets, as opposed to clothing.87 If there were concerns over restricted production or employment during the war, the company did not communicate them to the public at large or to its retailers. A May 1945 trade journal advertisement that followed Victory in Europe is comparable in sentiment to those discussed above: “Look West. . . for America’s finest Woolen shirts.” The “Look West” theme was a large part of Pendleton’s 1945 advertising campaign that assured readers, presumably Pendleton retailers, that the company was “pre-conditioning and pre-selling your trade for the peacetime days of the future.”88
Blue Bell before Wrangler The story of Blue Bell, the parent company of the Wrangler brand, has parallels to Lee in that both companies were formed by young men travelling westward. When the twenty-year-old Charles Crump (C. C.) Hudson (1877–1937) left his home in the farming community of Williamson County, Tennessee, in 1897 he settled in the growing textile center of Greensboro, North Carolina. The town was already benefiting from a revolution in textile production that had begun in the late nineteenth century, and boasted an abundant labor supply and railroads stretching in six directions.89 In 1891 Brothers Moses and Caesar Cone built the first textile mills in Greensboro, and proceeded to update and diversify the types of fabrics produced. Gradually they assumed control of multiple mills, creating a sprawling network of factories known collectively as the Cone Mills. One of these mills was White Oak, acquired by Cone in 1902, which exclusively produced denim.90 Hudson’s introduction to the garment industry in Greensboro was through sewing buttons in an overalls factory. When the factory shuttered, he and his brother Homer pooled their savings and purchased sewing machines from the defunct company. In 1904 they formed and incorporated the Hudson Overall Company, which was located in central Greensboro.91 The business started small; initially shopping out piecework to local women who sewed the overalls in their homes. But demand grew and the company opened its own manufacturing plant in 1919. Railroad workers were an important part of the consumer base and, according to company lore, railroad men donated a locomotive bell to the company as an expression of their satisfaction with their overalls. The bell rested in the factory gathering blue dust and fibers from the indigo-dyed denim, and eventually inspired a new company name—Blue Bell (Figure 2.8).92 The Blue Bell Overall Company faced competition from a comparable business based in Middlesboro, Kentucky, namely the Big Ben Manufacturing Company. The latter also made overalls and workwear. Robert W. Baker, president and general manager of Big Ben was acquainted with Hudson and in 1926 the companies merged with Baker as president.93 The Blue Bell name was
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Figure 2.8 Blue Bell logo patch. Author’s photo.
maintained and the combined headquarters were established in Greensboro. By 1936, Blue Bell was one of the largest workwear manufacturers in the world; indeed, the Greensboro Daily Herald described it as “the United States Steel Company of the work-clothes industry.”94 1936 saw another merger, this time with the Globe Superior Corporation of Abington, Illinois; J. C. Fox (a significant shareholder at Blue Bell who assisted the merger) became president and head of operations, while Baker became chairman of the board. The company had factories in Greensboro, Middlesboro, Kentucky, Abdington, Columbia City, Indiana, and Commerce, Georgia, and during Fox’s presidency technological innovations—such as Sanforization (adopted in 1936), and improved sizing through “proportioned fit”—ensured that the company kept up with, or ahead of, the competition.95 Over the next several years Blue Bell continued to absorb competitors, one of the most significant being a company called Casey Jones, which was acquired in 1943. Casey Jones was a workwear company that made, among other things, a small line of jeans called Wrangler, and which owned six plants in Virginia and Maryland.96 The Casey Jones brand was named after the famous Tennesseeborn Illinois Central Railroad engineer immortalized in folk songs. The pairing of the railroad engineer references, with the Western term “wrangler” is comparable in spirit to Lee’s Buddy Lee doll in the guise of both a cowboy and an engineer. Both were working-class archetypes that resonated with consumers. Like Lee and Pendleton, Blue Bell shifted from civilian to military production a year before the United States entered the war, producing over twenty-one million garments before the war
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ended—the equivalent of two garments for every serviceman in the United States military.97 Blue Bell would develop and expand its Wrangler line in earnest after the war.
Miller Stockman The Miller Stockman Company (established in 1920, and presently known as Miller International) originated in mail-order catalog distribution and expanded into apparel manufacture and retail. The company was initially founded as The Stockman Farmer Supply Company by Philip Miller, whose family operated a hat business in New York City in the early twentieth century. He was initially employed as a “drummer,” a salesman responsible for traveling to the Rocky Mountain States selling hat orders to retail stores. Western residents’ requests for shirts, trousers, belts, and other accessories convinced Miller that consumers would purchase more than hats and in 1919 Miller felt that the best way to supply this growing demand was through a mail-order catalog company.98 Mail-order distributors, such as Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck, had been operating nationwide since the late nineteenth century, and although these companies offered a wealth of useful goods ranging from furnishings to apparel, Miller’s focus on horse tack, saddles, blankets, farming equipment, and workwear was geared to rural Western markets specifically, and the company’s long-standing success suggests that it met customer demands.99 In 1920 the Stockman Farmer Supply Company opened an office and warehouse in Denver, Colorado.100 Its first catalogs featured pants, shirts, hats, boots, belts, and leather goods made by a variety of different manufacturers in addition to light farm equipment, saddles and accessories. In keeping with the concept of an all-purpose farm and rural family supplier, it offered men’s, women’s, and children’s Western apparel; brands included Lee, Levi Strauss & Co., and Pendleton. From the latter, it offered men’s shirting along with the Buckaroo pants and jackets for both men and women; from the former, predominantly jeans for men, women, and children, along with matching jean jackets and Western shirting. The catalogs adhered to the conventions of contemporaneous mail-order catalogs in layout and product presentation, with glossy colorful illustrated covers. Inside, formulaic illustrations of garments, with accompanying model numbers and sizing charts, were printed on newsprint. These depictions had more in common with the straightforward product-focused style of trade journals and company price lists than the kind of higher budget, media-savvy advertising companies placed in mainstream national publications. The illustration styles and layouts in Miller Stockman catalogs were didactic, noting fit, fabric weight, and durability, with as much information packed into each page as possible. There were few photographs, although some appeared starting in the 1950s. The photographs were likely supplied by the featured brand, as the models and poses are often identical to those found on individual company price lists.101 The Stockman Farmer Supply Company filled small private orders for customers directly and also supplied corporate clients who
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Figure 2.9 Miller label, 1930s. Miller International archives.
placed large orders, such as JCPenney. The first stores to order from the growing company were located in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, and the business became incorporated under the name Miller & Company in 1930.102 In 1933, Jack Weil (1901–2008) partnered with Philip Miller and together the two men developed the manufacturing side of the business. They began designing and producing Western shirts with the “Miller” label alongside other brands (Figure 2.9). The earliest label designs feature a rodeo cowboy on a bucking horse and read “Miller, Denver Colo. Fine Shirts.”103 Until the early 1930s Western shirting was typically a custom product, made by bespoke tailors for individual clients. Miller is credited as being the first to produce Western shirts commercially as ready-to-wear garments.104 The first Miller shirts were manufactured by prison inmates in Indiana, and the volume of production is unknown.105 Business grew steadily, even during the depression years.106 By 1950 the company owned the Miller Western Wear manufacturing plant in Baxley, Georgia. At this point, Miller & Company was a vertically integrated company with manufacturing, retail, and wholesale divisions. The name was adjusted yet again that year, with Miller Stockman being the official company name from 1950 to 1970. By 1954 Miller Western shirts were being made in Japan, which again kept prices low, while further complicating the notion of what was “Western.” Miller shirts followed the conventions of Western shirting in terms of style, but featured a wide variety in yoke and pocket designs along with colorful fabrics. A selection of men’s Western shirting from 1949 shows that Miller produced these garments in range of contrasting
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Figure 2.10 Miller embroidered Western shirt, 1949. Miller International archives.
color combinations with chain stitched embroidery to more understated neutral color combinations, plaids, and solids (Figure 2.10). There was no characteristic Miller “look,” or coherent design sensibility in shirt styles; the company kept abreast of larger, broad changes and designed their offerings accordingly. For instance, in the late 1940s and 1950s wool gabardine men’s shirting with embroidered motifs was widely represented along with plaids and woolens, while synthetic fibers and synthetic blends were available into the 1960s (Figure 2.11). The company’s presence in Denver helped establish the city as a center of the westernwear trade. The WESA (Western & English Sales Association) trade fair, which began as the Men’s Apparel Club of Colorado originated in Denver in 1921, a year after Miller established its headquarters there. The annual trade show grew out of the need to unite consumers and retailers in the equestrian community and was (and continues to be) an important event for Denver-based clothing companies, and indeed for others from out of town and out of state who attend the annual fair. Since it began, the variety of products at WESA, from horse tack to clothing, was comparable to the wares found in Miller Stockman catalogs. The company’s influence was extended when several Miller affiliates went on to start
Four Westernwear Companies
Figure 2.11 “Colorful Western Styles,” Miller Stockman catalog, 1949. Miller International archives.
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businesses of their own, based in Denver. Jack Weil, Phillip Miller’s former partner, for example, founded Rockmount Ranchwear in 1946, producing American-made Western shirts.107 Weil’s split from Miller must have been amicable enough, since Rockmount shirts were later sold through Miller Stockman catalogs. Two years after Weil founded Rockmount Ranchwear, Karman, another Western apparel company, was launched by a former Miller Stockman employee, Sam Mandelbaum.108 Following the World War II Benjamin Miller, Philip Miller’s son, joined the company, eventually assuming the role of president until 1972.109 Miller Stockman’s approach to westernwear is distinct from that of Lee, Pendleton, or Wrangler, not only because of its catalog presentation and distribution, but also because Miller Stockman catalogs position clothing directly alongside the equestrian equipment, tools, and accessories necessary for rural Western lifestyles and ranch work. The notion that clothing can be considered a tool or another piece of functional equipment was, again, not uncommon in relation to westernwear. For instance, working cowboy Fay E. Ward offered a frank description of his choice in attire, which “. . .is naturally, designed for riding purposes and is built for service and comfort. No attempt is made here to keep abreast of modern fashion trends displayed by the man on the street.”110 Although the disinterest in fashionability expressed above was not entirely shared by all makers or wearers, the functional advantages of trim-fitting shirts, easy snap closures, or jeans with u-shaped crotch construction, were emphasized, suggesting that utilitarian qualities were of paramount importance in Western apparel.
Postwar Design, Fabrication, and Style A common thread uniting the four companies was that while each diversified its style of advertising and target audience, the products themselves changed only slightly in terms of design, materials, and manufacture from the 1940s through the early 1960s. Companies as large as Lee or Blue Bell could generate rapid output and avail themselves of healthy distribution networks. However, these brands, and even smaller vertically integrated companies like Pendleton, faced challenges in adapting established fabrication models to suit new preferences. Lee, for instance, remained predominantly a workwear manufacturer, and as such was not bound to seasonal fashion cycles. Postwar, the company gradually expanded its lines to adapt designs in terms of color and fit, while keeping abreast of changing demographics. Leonard Larson was initially hired to oversee product quality control at Lee in 1970 and remained with the business in multiple different departments for thirty-nine years.111 When Larson started at Lee, the company’s infrastructure, in terms of manufacturing and design, closely resembled what was in operation during the two decades following World War II. He had no formal training in apparel, but oversaw wear-testing. The company continually tested consumer responses and product durability by issuing samples of new
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designs to people in the local community, primarily workmen, to wear for three months and report on their satisfaction with the garment.112 Product testing in-the-field had been part of Lee’s quality control for decades; and reportedly informed the final design of the original Riders.113 Larson acquired such skills on the job and would extend his role over time, trained by pattern makers with tailoring backgrounds, to eventually become a designer. Professional tailors such as George Church, who was hired on a ten-year contract in the early 1960s, had trained Larson and others at Lee in the tailoring and pattern drafting skills he mastered in London. All manufacture, design, and merchandising was done within the company.114 New styles and creative design ideas were initiated through the merchandising and marketing departments who conducted market research and stayed abreast of current trends. When Larson began working at Lee the design department was responsible for the technical aspects of design and pattern making. The merchandising group worked closely with designers but because Lee did not employ outside contractors, the production of a new design depended on whether the company itself was capable of manufacturing it. If a design could not be produced in a Lee factory, employees would be made redundant. As Larson noted: . . . if you had some merchandiser develop some screwy thing, it didn’t matter how great it was, if you couldn’t make it, there was nothing you could do about it. So there was a lot of focus on trying, initially, trying to take those products that we were making, the jean, the bib overall, or the work coat and try [to] interpret those into a more universally accepted product. You market it differently, you put in different fabrics, stuff like that. . . . There used to be some very heated meetings with manufacturing and merchandising with Merch [merchandising] saying: “we gotta have this” and manufacturing saying: “I can’t make it, you know, I’m sorry, great product but I can’t make it, and if I did we’d have to change this or that. . .”115 The tensions between design novelty and the limits of an established fabricating infrastructure restricted the variety of garments Lee could produce. Lee’s output between 1945 and 1965 reflects that of a nearly century-old company straddling the casual fashion and workwear markets. While the demand for sportswear and casual styles grew, the population of blue-collar workers decreased. The number of white-collar jobs surpassed blue-collar workers in 1956, and companies accustomed to selling garments to the manual laborer increased their efforts to accommodate the changing demographic and attract new strata of customers.116 The market for goods sold to cowboys, rodeo performers, and ranchers remained consistent but it was small in terms of Lee’s overall sales. Yet the appeal of design elements and products worn by cowboys was evident in mainstream casual dress. Lee’s manufacture and distribution may not have been in lock step with seasonal fashion cycles but as the company expanded its base, it would often draw from Western imagery and tropes, adjusting them to new contexts accordingly.
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Similarly, Pendleton sought to stay current while maintaining a high standard for sturdy woolen goods. Designers, including longtime menswear director David Bissett, kept up to date with changing fashions and color trends.117 Bisset worked for Pendleton from 1966 and remained with the company for thirty-two years. Again, though his experience is slightly later than the era in question, the company was structured very much along the same lines, particularly at the start of his tenure. Originally from the Northwest community of Linden, Washington, Bissett was contacted by Pendleton upon completing his design training at the Los Angeles Trade and Technical College because the company was looking for a designer who was from the Northwest. Bisset speculates that this was likely because they preferred someone who would be comfortable with the lifestyle in Portland, which was, at the time, still quite a small town.118 Once again, the company maintained its commitment to securing a regional identity, hiring employees with Western roots who would have been accepting of the lifestyle. Bissett was involved in both textile development and garment design and recalled that remaining informed about fashionable color stories was one way that the company strove to keep its small line of conservative garments relevant. Brand loyalty, particularly for Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton, whose offerings remained remarkably consistent over the decades in question, does indicate that durability and reliability of these garments for working ranchers, rodeo cowboys, and outdoorsmen played a part in the company’s success. However, the evidence compiled particularly in the following two chapters serves to complicate the false assertion that functional clothing does not follow fashion, and examples from Miller Stockman catalogs indicate that westernwear did, in fact, conform to fashionable changes in fit, textiles, prints, and colorways. Although the soaring popularity of Western entertainment and cowboy imagery between 1945 and 1965 was, in many respects, a phenomenon each company was positioned to capitalize on, each also sought to keep product offerings up to date by associating its clothing with stylish trends and changes in the marketplace. The following chapters reveal that between 1945 and 1965, westernwear simultaneously provided continuity with the past while also operating as an indicator of progress and individualism.
3 Dressing the Atomic West: Locating “the Western” in Mid-century America
Westernwear’s presence in the postwar United States is a story of survival, not revival. Fashion’s cyclical nature tends to treat past styles as dormant (or otherwise irrelevant) until a new generation or a specific designer breathes fresh life into them. With westernwear, cowboys and cowgirls wore updated versions of the styles they always had, but the clothes and representations of them circulated in new venues and new media. This chapter examines postwar consumer culture and lifestyle, and the myriad ways that Western imagery and frontier mythology factored into it. Scholars Marian Wardle and Sarah Boehme have used the analogy of the brand, as identifying trademark, to characterize the multivalent definitions of the West.1 The Western brand is recognizable in a constellation of images and objects that signify in a manner specific to each historical moment. The Western brand of the Cold War era romanticized the cowboy in the spirit of nationalism, an ideal heroic white male archetype, representing American individualism, ingenuity, and force in the face of Soviet enemies.2 Frontier ideologies inflected domestic architecture and aspirational lifestyles while film, television shows, rodeo, and country music helped bring the aesthetics of cowboys and cowgirls, ranging from rough hewn and understated to colorful, rhinestone speckled and flamboyant, to mainstream audiences and consumers. The advertising, housewares, entertainment, and novelties considered here represent only a fraction of the Western visual and material culture available to men, women, and children at the time. By casting a wide net and considering these varied popular forms together, with a particular focus on how Lee and Wrangler adjusted their designs and brand image accordingly, I explain the conditions for the appeal of the Western aesthetic at this time.
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Postwar Economy and Culture The history and culture of the United States between 1945 and 1965 is framed by two distinct but largely interdependent phenomena: the Cold War; and rampant consumerism. Indeed, they occupy two extremes of a spectrum—abundance of commercial goods and the optimistic enthusiasm with which they were promoted on one end, and the fear and uncertainty evoked by nuclear power at the other. In the global theater and on the home front, Cold War tensions, foremost being the threat of nuclear attack by the USSR, and competition with that nation, did much to shape government policy as well as popular consciousness.3 Lifestyles of the American middle class in what historian Lizabeth Cohen labeled the “Consumer’s Republic,” reflected the regeneration of the nation’s economy and the reaffirmation of so-called democratic values. Consumer choice was celebrated as an outlet for free speech and self-expression in corporate and state promotion, while it simultaneously raised anxieties over complacency and homogenization of the national character.4 Businesses, namely industrial giants like DuPont, General Electric, Firestone, and Reynolds Aluminum, maintained high output levels by adapting the same materials they had contributed to wartime machinery and technology into domestic appliances.5 DuPont is particularly interesting in light of apparel, as it successfully developed and promoted several synthetic textiles for casual and elite fashions. That company’s bold evocation of the technologically enhanced convenience of the “world of tomorrow,” first heralded at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, was coming to fruition. Defense contracts and investment in wartime research paved the way for an abundance of goods and a higher standard of living than ever before.6 Blue Bell, Lee, and Pendleton had all contributed to the war effort by manufacturing uniforms and wool blankets; and while their postwar products were not technologically advanced in the spirit of “better living through chemistry” like those offered by the companies listed above, each adjusted and adapted postwar designs, materials, and promotional imagery in manifold ways.7 Thomas Hine labeled the years between 1954 and 1964 the Populuxe era, to describe a period of popular luxury and its associated aesthetic.8 Luxury here is defined through ease of use and in terms of design; novel, shiny, and playful often supplanted durable or functional. In considering the aesthetics and availability of domestic goods Hine noted that, “things were not only more common and more available than before, they were also invested with greater meaning,” and he finds that meaning in the accretion of wares for the home that contributed to comfortable lifestyles, security, and planned obsolescence in design.9 When obsolescence is taken for granted, product designers enjoyed more freedom to take chances in terms of colorways, novel motifs, or amusing details. The availability of new materials, such as plastics, allowed for experimentation with color and form as well. In effect, industrial design was operating in the manner that the fashion system always had, with an eye toward trends and seasonal change. Often the objects themselves, be they radios, televisions, textiles,
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furnishing, or kitchen implements featured chrome trim, vibrant colors, or whimsical motifs. As if designed to reflect the owners’ buoyancy back at them, and make it known to visitors. As the home played a key role in Cold War discourse, this platform extended beyond the domestic. In an ideological battle, articulated best in the Kitchen Debate between Nixon and Khrushchev in 1959, consumer habits enabled by privatized capitalism rivaled communism. The home became a site for showcasing soft power, the kind of intangible cultural influence manifested, in this case, through the seductive draw of invigorating designs and automated ease. According to architectural historian Greg Castillo, the ideal middle-class American home was testament to the superiority of the American system, and modern design was allied with democratic values in international exhibitions and trade shows.10 In the United States during the Cold War, patriotism, freedom, and consumption were effectively interchangeable.11 It also bears noting that the prosperity and material abundance alluded to here was by no means distributed equitably. As omnipresent as the imagery and rhetoric of abundance was, many Americans continued to struggle with poverty and systemic injustice, particularly those from marginalized groups whose access to education and secure housing limited upward mobility. In popular media, representations that diverge from the white middle class are rare. Deviation from hegemonic nationalist ideology is equally unusual, or addressed only obliquely. This is particularly evident in regards to imagery used in advertising. Between 1945 and 1960, advertising increased by 400 percent.12 The aim, no matter what the product, was to get Americans to buy more goods, more frequently, and without any guilt over wasteful spending or moral frailty. Any concerns over hedonistic materialism were effectively sublimated by values of family togetherness that were championed by businesses, advertisers, and likeminded policymakers.13 The notion that more goods were available to more people across social strata resonates throughout postwar media. For example, a print advertisement for Lee in 1963 highlights two recurring tropes of the time: the increased earning power of the average American, and gendered shopping habits (Figure 3.1).14 Featured in the trade publication Department Store Journal, the woman in the advertisement wears a luxuriant fur stole with the price tag still attached over a suit with bold button cuffs reminiscent of Chanel’s ensembles in the late 1950s. She has a neatly sculpted haircut and a satisfied, if somewhat guilty, smile on her face. The caption “I really came in to buy a new pair of Lee dungarees for Harry. . .” explains the expression: slightly sheepish but pleased with her new elegant wrap. Clearly, she failed to resist the lure of the fur salon and that, according to Lee’s unsubtle copy, was why quality department stores should stock Lee workwear for men. The text below the caption explains: If you’ve paid a plumber’s bill or hired a carpenter to build a bookcase, you know the size of Harry’s buying power. Healthy! It’s the men in dungarees and overalls and working twills who are giving real consumer vitality to our economy today. That’s why Lee workwear in your store is good for your fur salon, good for your whole store . . .
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Figure 3.1 Lee advertisement, “I really came in to buy a new pair of Lee Dungarees for Harry. The Department Store Journal, February 1963. Lee archives.
[It] Costs a little more. But that just proves something about the shopping habits of a Lee Workwear family. Succinctly: Lee catches the best fish. Lee cuts right across the skilled workers and craftsmen in all industries. The idea that working-class tradesmen had greater spending power could not be expressed more enthusiastically: working men were earning sufficient incomes—high enough for their wives, who presumably did the shopping for them, to indulge in purchases that might formerly have been categorized as luxuries out of their price range. Lee promoted itself as a higher price point, better quality, trusted product and pushed a connection between the sale of dungarees and the sale of furs because, according to the company, both were enjoyed by the same consumers and should be offered at the same department stores. Lee apparel was no longer relegated to general dry-goods stores and Western catalogs. The fact that women, mothers specifically, shopped for other members of the family was assumed. The notion of women as the primary purchasing agent for the household wasn’t new—it was already understood and had been catered to by advertisers going back to the 1920s—but the acceleration of consumption and promotions in the postwar era reinforced this connection, while lending additional strength to the image of the nuclear family.15
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Figure 3.2 “Real Wranglers,” Look magazine, September 23, 1952.
This convention was also present in Wrangler’s advertising at the time, although the references were more Western and rodeo specific. A full-page illustrated color print advertisement featured in Look magazine in September 1952 shows how the jeans were marketed in the context of dressing the whole family in Wrangler Western styles, and stresses the wife and mother’s role as financial decision-maker (Figure 3.2). The top left shows a boy and a girl gazing up at Bill Linderman, 1950’s World Champion Cowboy, who stands between them “Wearing Blue Bell Wranglers just like us!” In the final image the mother is present, dressed to match her children. The last line of copy reads: “Mother is trim and slim in her Wrangler’s too. She’s happy because she knows she looks wonderful—and because she’s outfitted her family in Blue Bells for a song. A Western song of course!” The advertisement starts with the rodeo hero standing between the children and ends with their mother in the same place; her practicality and thriftiness are highlighted to appeal to female readers who were likely responsible for purchasing clothes for their families. Suburban living was the ideal setting for Populuxe lifestyles. Suburban homes were presented as a particularly attractive option for young families as an alternative to congested city living. Leaving, or “escaping” urban centers as an aspirational goal or personal achievement was by no means exclusive
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to the postwar era. Early twentieth-century advocates included the devoted modernist Frank Lloyd Wright, who in the 1930s asserted that: “the white man must pioneer again on the New Frontier.”16 This type of rhetoric, varying in its degree of bombast and racialized overtones, was adopted by advertisers and property developers throughout the century for promoting suburban living. The allure of space was presented as a convenience but also a virtue; healthy, restorative, and supporting an ideological framework that cherished private property ownership. The ranch house design, close to the ground and with an open layout and a name explicitly connected to Western living, was one of two models available in Long Island’s Levittown, the first planned suburb by Levitt and Sons that debuted in 1947. The ranch house was a particularly successful incarnation of what House Beautiful editor Elizabeth Gordon termed the “American Style.” The aspirational magazine simply described this as “Modern, but not too modern,” architecture that took advantage of modernist rationalization and simplicity of construction, while avoiding the minimalism or austerity of the International Style that was seen by the editors and the public they surveyed as too radical, impractical, and foreign.17 Architectural historian Monica Penick sees the style as a powerful material expression of American national identity, an embodiment of patriotism and capitalism supported by a discourse that sought to distinguish American modernism from its European counterpart.18 The simple virtues of performance, comfort, and informality were again recast as evidence of the United States’ ascendancy. It is also useful to note that out of the nine points Gordon uses to define the American Style, most are prescriptive (i.e., It should appeal to common sense, The design should. . . The materials should. . . etc.) while the more open ended—“it may be reminiscent of our past”—is used when considering historical precedents. The architectural styles of the past she deems appropriate for inspiration are pulled from folk or vernacular traditions, in her words: “. . . older native American design idioms like Cape Cod, Shaker, Pennsylvania Dutch, Spanish, etc. . .” While not Western per se, although “Spanish” styles are visible throughout the West, the regionalism expressed here locates Americanness outside of modern urban centers. Shared traits of American Style suburban homes include open floor plans and picture windows that were an effective means of making even compact homes appear more spacious, and invite the outdoors in. The combination of big windows, Western landscapes, and modern design had been championed by well-known architects like Wright, van der Rohe, and Neutra decades prior.19 The emphasis on large windows that privilege the view outside had, according to Sandy Isenstadt, recast modernism in terms of an individual’s optical gratification in contrast to the rationales of technological, social, and aesthetic progress that had dominated the discourse before the 1930s.20 The large picture window’s ability to showcase an unpopulated view, however modest, offered a sense of bucolic escape and an assurance that the natural world was effectively domesticated. Like movie screens, and landscape paintings picture windows were a means of seeing Western landscapes mediated and framed by an artist or designer’s vision.
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The purchase of a new suburban home was explicitly and implicitly bound to frontier mythology. An intrepid spirit, frugality, adventurousness, and good sense—all qualities ascribed to pioneers of the nineteenth century—were used to describe new suburban dwellers.21 Indeed, a love of wide-open spaces, privately owned, was lauded as a distinctly American trait. The inherent contradiction in championing an independent spirit while accepting the constraints of a pre-planned community do not appear to have registered with developers or their advocates. The name “ranch house” only solidifies the connection; suggesting every home owner can be like an independent wealthy rancher, albeit a modern one, without the burden of livestock to manage. This fantasy, however, was not intended for or accessible to all Americans. Scholars including Dianne Harris and Rosalyn Baxandall have detailed at length how discriminatory housing laws kept African Americans and other minorities out of new suburban developments.22 It was an image of affluence and autonomy that was resoundingly white. In this respect, the pioneer analogy is apt. It was because of colonial violence, the destruction or displacement of Indigenous communities that nineteenth century pioneers could settle the West. These same systems secured the Homestead Act of 1862 and allowed for railroads to be built with the assistance of the federal government through land grants. The new “pioneers” of the postwar suburbs were likewise benefiting from inequitable systems. The G.I. Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment act of 1944) offered veterans unprecedented access to education and housing but people of color, including Black servicemen who ought to have been ensured equal treatment, were often met with rejection from neighbors and community developers supported by local legislation, regardless of their means.23
Vital Forms, Atomic Bombs, and Uranium Rocks The profusion of commodities meant that a variety of style options for a range of products were available at different price points. However, a style that comes closest to personifying mid-century modern aesthetics is characterized as organic or biomorphic. “Vital forms,” to borrow curator Kevin Stayton’s term, encompasses the softly curving shapes that can evoke a body in the abstract, the amoeba, foliage transmuted to camouflage, kidney-shaped pools, starbursts, molded plywood, and boomerang formica.24 The vitality—the life force suggested by the name—is at once energizing, playful, and evocative, while also being amorphic, transitory, or inclined to mutate. Design historian Kristina Wilson describes the molded fiberglass and plywood furnishings designed for the Herman Miller company “in their curved state, as if ready to return to a flat, rounded blob shape at the slightest poke of a finger.”25 These qualities are visible across media in fine art, design, and studio craft, and all manner of vernacular design. The protean nature of biomorphic forms is well suited to this particular moment, and their unabashed novelty stands in stark contrast to the hard-edged machine age
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modernism seen before the war. Yet this vibrancy is tempered with unease thanks to another addition to the cultural landscape: the atomic bomb. The frightful reality of nuclear destruction permeated the visual and material culture of postwar America in innumerable ways. Science fiction and horror movies offered a range of threatening mutants and monsters created by radioactive material gone awry. The bomb appeared in music across genres as well. Jump Blues dynamo H-Bomb Ferguson (Robert Percell Ferguson) adopted his atomic moniker in the 1950s and recorded the driving “Rock H-Bomb Rock” in 1952. Fay Simmons exclaimed “You hit me like an atom bomb” (1954) and Josephine Premice warned to “Leave De Atom Alone” in the 1958 musical Jamaica. For these, and many more artists, the bomb could stand for love, rockin’, heartbreak, or be taken literally. Real and fictitious imagery of the ominous mushroom cloud and the eradication brought by fallout was juxtaposed with contradictory depictions of what Paul Boyer describes as the peaceful “friendly atom,” that could be harnessed for peacetime ingenuity, making life brighter, safer, and cleaner.26 Line drawings of concentric ovals suggesting electrons orbiting a nucleus were recognizable but, more significantly, they simplified the atom, rendered it transparent and less threatening. This cheerful vision was supported by government, corporate, and commercial interests. “Atomic” was used as a shorthand for anything exciting and impactful, and described all manner of objects, such as cookware or textiles, or objectified people, like bathing beauties or a selection of Las Vegas showgirls dubbed “Miss Atomic Bomb.”27 Despite the noted ambivalence, the futuristic glamour of the atomic era was heightened in fashion media. In textile design, the term “atomic prints” is more pervasive in today’s parlance to describe postwar designs with the type of abstract biomorphic motifs that designers like Ruth Adler Schnee were known for. At the time the term was present in marketing, though it appears to be applied indiscriminately. For instance, Bemberg rayon collaborated with the California designer Adrian on a black and gold “Atom Smashed” metallic dress fabric.28 “Atomic” was also seen in advertisements for fairly conservative designs, stripes and florals made from nylon or synthetic blends. In short, “atomic” appears to have been applied loosely to describe a modern style or a fiber, particularly if it was synthetic, adding a sense of currency to the goods for sale. The science, mystery, and power of atomic energy were glamorized and given an auspicious treatment in the fashion press. In February of 1961 both Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar ran features shot on location at the Union Carbide building’s “Atomic Energy in Action” exhibition.29 Vogue’s feature “Blues that Move With the Times,” is particularly evocative and showcases suiting by American designers in settings informed by science fiction. The prose echoes themes that have resonated in relation to American designers in fashion media since the 1930s; the clothes were described as practical, meant for active lifestyles, and effortlessly chic. Atomic imagery in the form of molecular models, swirling lights, chrome, and geometric forms is “of the times” with an eye to the future. The nationalistic bent merges with technology and forward thinking quite explicitly when the clothes are
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aligned with the self-curated image of the chemical company. The assumed inherent good sense of American design is at one with the industrial dominance of Union Carbide. The looming presence of the bomb was of global concern but had a particular significance to the Western states that were sites for nuclear testing and development. Although the cowboy image and Western visual culture remained grounded in nineteenth-century precedents, the idea of frontier expansion and pioneering as intrepid exploration persisted in twentieth-century conceptions of the West. Popular entertainment juxtaposed representations of the Old West and cowboy culture alongside those of the new atomic age, often with unsettling results. In 1952, for example, listeners to country music radio could tune in to their local broadcast to hear an old-time-style song, sung by the familiar voices of the Louvin Brothers, with lyrics that were somewhat untraditional: Do you fear this man’s invention that they call atomic power? Are we all in great confusion do we know the time or hour When a terrible explosion may rain down upon our land Leaving horrible destruction blotting out the works of man . . .30 Their clear and harmonious voices rise into a refrain accompanied by strumming guitars and piano: “Are you ready for that great atomic power/ will you rise and meet your savior in the air?/ will you shout or will you cry when that fire rains from on high/ are you ready for that great atomic power?”31 Traditional in format, three verses and a repeated refrain, telling the familiar Bible message of faith in Jesus bringing salvation, this song breaks from gospel and hillbilly conventions by adding a more timely, presence: nuclear destruction. Because several states—including Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington—had relatively small populations and less developed “empty” spaces, that were largely unceded Indigenous land, they were considered advantageous sites for mining uranium and testing atomic bombs.32 Uranium mining, the more industrial aspect of nuclear energy, had less of the sci-fi-inflected intrigue that lent an appealing futuristic sheen to nuclear science. Mining, conversely, was in line with the crude and laborious extraction of precious metals or fossil fuels. Uranium mining narratives were often cast as though it were a second gold rush in the West, a chance to strike it rich in your own back yard with an emphasis on luck as opposed to education or expertise. This attitude was celebrated in the popular press and by entertainers such as Sun Records’ rockabilly singer Warren Smith, whose 1958 song “Uranium Rock,” epitomizes the boisterous spirit: Well I’m getting’ tired of workin’ hard every day Workin’ everyday and not getting much pay I got a big Geiger counter, it’s a pretty good rig When the needle starts clickin’ that’s where I’m gonna dig
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Money, money, honey, the kind you fold Money money honey, Rock’n’roll Rake it in, bale it up like hay Have a rockin’ good time and throw it all away Smith’s song combines the carefree spirit of working-class rock’n’roll and get-rich-quick dreams with atomic energy and extraction capitalism, ideas that were not atypical at the time.33 According to authors Karen Jones and John Wills, the gold rush-like excitement that surrounded uranium mining combined images of the mythic Old West with utopian visions of a future West to produce a new atomic frontier: “part science, part technology, and part pioneer mentality.”34 Such representations were pivotal in organized state-recruitment efforts as well. Richland, Washington, is an example of a small community that was essentially a company town centered around uranium. As of 1943 the United States government had solicited labor from across the country to operate the Hanford Works, a massive uranium mining enterprise run by the government and its corporate subsidiaries.35 In spite of the fact that Richland was populated by residents whose presence was almost exclusively at the behest of the federal government and its contractors, pioneering zeal and a palpable independent spirit permeated its civic identity.36 A study of Richland’s Cold War history by John Findlay and Bruce Hevly describes how residents “embraced an identity as frontier Americans, portraying themselves as modern pioneers who had moved West to fulfill a national mission and who made sacrifices for their country in doing so.”37 Once again the pioneer and the Old West are bound to nativism, and any potential conflict between an independent pioneer spirit and a call to service for the collective good is left unresolved. Richland embraced this identity: it was labeled the “Atomic city of the West” and hosted an annual celebration called “Atomic Frontier Days” in the 1940s and 1950s.38 Posters, pamphlets, and paper ephemera promoting the event in 1948 depicted a lone covered wagon set between two cityscapes on an aggressively bright horizon (Figure 3.3). The city to the left features polluting smokestacks that are absent from the right side, where the wagon is headed. The pioneer’s wagon, plucked out of another time, is illuminated in bright white with the familiar interlocking ovals of the illustrated atom hovering at its center, part sunshine, explosion, and savior figure. Atomic Frontier days included a parade, rodeo, and other attractions comparable to many state fairs, all steeped in rhetoric linking current residents to their imagined forebears, and cementing the connection between the Cold War and the Old West.39 A parade float from 1954, ten years after the initiation of the first Hanford reactor, was emblazoned with the slogan “Where the Old West Meets the New.” The Old West is represented by a couple wearing Western attire standing amongst tumbleweed at a wooden fence (Figure 3.4). The “New” is an astronaut in full space suit standing on a black-andwhite checked floor. The float can be read as either a contrast between past and present, or present and future. Despite their evident personification of the Old West, the man wearing jeans and a simple shirt,
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Figure 3.3 “Atomic Frontier Days: A New Light on the Old Frontier,” Richland Junior Chamber of Commerce (1948, Richland, Washington—brochure cover).
and the woman in a circle-skirted dress with peasant-blouse sleeves, would not have looked out of place in those clothes on the streets or in the suburbs of many American cities in 1954. The float was sponsored by General Electric.
Finding the Western in Popular Culture Amid the inherent tensions of an era that was simultaneously optimistic and deeply pessimistic, cowboys and cowgirls were a familiar and perhaps comforting image. In evaluating popular representations of the West, I adhere to Mukerji and Schudson’s definition of popular culture that includes the beliefs, practices, and objects that are widely shared among a population. This includes folk beliefs, practices, and objects rooted in local traditions as well as mass beliefs, practices, and objects generated in political and commercial centers.”40 Thus, artifacts, garments, and representations are taken together as part of a broader popular conception of “The Western.”
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Figure 3.4 Robert Loeffelbein, “Atomic Frontier Days Tenth Anniversary Float,” Hanford History Project, http://hanfordhistory.com/items/show/414 (accessed June 9, 2021).
Film and television Westerns played an essential role in sustaining the presence of cowboy heroes and Western narratives. Western films have generated the most focused scholarly attention compared to other postwar visual and material culture. One of the first American critics and essayists to seriously consider the cultural significance of popular film was Robert Warshow, whose 1954 essay “The Westerner” described the character and image of the cinematic Western hero as the embodiment of stylized violence.41 Western movies had been produced in the United States since the industry’s inception and Western costuming, one of the most salient identifiers of the genre, developed in parallel.42 The first costume house to provide rental garments to studios was Western Costume, which opened in 1912, and first specialized in cowboy and Indian garb.43 There are virtually no denim-clad cowboys in the early silent Westerns: their aesthetics still owed a lot to the more stylized look of the Mexican vaquero, and the charro suits of the elite horseman specifically, given their short jackets with braided ornaments and fitted trousers trimmed with silver buttons or conchos. Flamboyant leather chaps, and heavily embroidered shirts in high-contrast colors with matching boots, hats, and bandanas also helped actors cut a striking figure. Tom Mix, one of the first Western stars (he appeared in 291 films between 1909 and 1935), sported fantastically stylized coordinated ensembles, along the lines of a charro suit, with tight-fitting trousers
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Figure 3.5 Tom Mix, c. 1920. Hulton Archive/ Getty Images.
with braid and buttons up the side of the leg and a matching jacket or bolero (Figure 3.5). Mix’s outfits nearly always include his signature Montana hat, a light-colored cowboy hat with a smooth, high crown. The early Westerns of the Silent Era privileged action, adventure, and spectacle. Costumes, be they elegant and theatrical like Tom Mix’s, or more rugged like William Hart’s, were no small part of the enjoyment. Indeed, much of the appeal of the first Westerns can be understood in light of Tom Gunning’s concept of the “cinema of attractions.”44 He positions early cinema in continuity with vaudeville and travelling side-shows’ direct appeal to the audience, where the object is to show something novel and entertaining for its own sake. “Cinema of attractions” pertains to the visual pleasures of non-narrative film. Although the subjects of Gunning’s study pre-date most Hollywood Westerns, the appeal of filmmaking that is rich in visual excitement but short on plot and character construction casts a long shadow. In the early Westerns, the cowboy’s outfit—including accessories and how he uses them—adds to viewers’ enjoyment of the film. Veracity was not a primary concern. Western costumes followed broader trends in filmmaking as movies moved from the silent era to the “talkies” in the late 1920s. During the 1930s, Westerns aimed at larger family audiences were less action focused and allowed for romance, music, and greater emphasis on dialogue.45 Gene Autry and John Wayne, two very different but very popular screen stars nearly always wore Levi’s, paired with a
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simple Western shirt. Costume departments in the Hollywood studios were growing and becoming more professionalized. Lines between “real” and fictional cowboys often blurred. Background actors or “extras” in many Westerns were often working cowboys, or were for at least part of the year. Some rodeo riders also found work as stunt doubles and horse trainers on film sets. Costumers took inspiration from their attire and styled the principal actors accordingly. Indeed, it is San Francisco’s proximity to Hollywood that cemented the preference for Levi’s in Western films. Californians were more likely to be wearing Levi’s than cowboys in other states and as they inspired costumers, the convention that all cowboys wore Levi’s was in place since the 1930s, but this was far from the truth in the rest of the country. 46 The 1940s and 1950s are considered to be the greatest years of the Western genre in film, in terms of both quality and quantity, and production grew steadily, peaking in 1955.47 A slight decrease in output between 1955 and 1962 was largely a result of competition from television, but the Western’s appeal in cinema helped to reinforce its appeal in television.48 As mentioned above, costumes in Western films had shifted from more elegant eye-catching and coordinated ensembles, to the simple and rough-hewn styles typified in John Ford films. The move away from a more stylized look to a plainer aesthetic is often framed as one towards greater realism, yet as with any cinematic representation, factual realism is not only impossible but not always desirable. Film scholars Jane Gaines and Charlotte Herzog agree that the mythic West and the historical West are essentially interdependent, as the cowboy’s clothes are indicative of who he is, and the surfeit of Western movies has engendered the notion that the Westerners’ costume exists as an extension of his body.49 Indeed, the costume seems to enable his physicality. Nowhere in other American genres, they argue, does nature flow into culture with greater ease, making the mythic and the authentic virtually indistinguishable.50 Nature here pertains to the landscape, but also to the “natural” or expected conventions of Western apparel, recreated again and again in the figure of the Western star. Film helped define and disseminate the image of the westerner for generations, an image that was duplicated in other nations and other media. In advertising, cowboys—or images of them—were used to sell everything from vacation experiences to everyday goods. Indeed, the taken-for-grantedness of westernwear at this time is one of its most endearing qualities. Even Libby’s Tomato Juice, a beverage with no apparent connection to cowboys or Western life, was advertised in Sunset magazine in 1950 with a mother and daughter in matching Western shirts, hats, and bandanas sipping glasses of tomato juice (Figure 3.6).51 Presumably, the style of dress worn by the woman and girl was familiar enough not require further contextualization. The Marlboro man was perhaps the most visible cowboy character in advertising. Conceived in 1954 by advertising executive Leo Burnett to sell Marlboro filtered cigarettes, the phenomenally successful campaign lasted through 1999.52 Initially, the cowboy was intended to be just one of multiple
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Figure 3.6 Libby’s Tomato Juice, Sunset, November 1950.
male archetypes used, including a construction worker and sea captain, but the cowboy’s instantaneous appeal led the company to abandon all others. Although the first Marlboro man was a model, the advertisers soon sought out experienced rodeo riders for the campaign, once more fueling ambiguity and blurring the boundaries between the “real” cowboy and the pop culture representation; in this case he could be both. What was decidedly unambiguous was his role as an icon of American masculinity potent enough to abruptly shift the perception of the filtered cigarette, initially created for women smokers, to a decidedly manly product. In a similar vein, Levi Strauss and Co. incorporated a figure that resembles the Marlboro man in their branding. The Saddleman, who first appeared in the late 1940s, could be found on much of the company’s promotional materials and labels (Figure 3.7).53 Always shown from the back, the Saddleman was a slim cowboy clad in Levi’s jeans with a bright red Western shirt, blue bandana, boots, and cowboy hat. He carried a saddle slung over his right shoulder and a branding iron bearing the letters LS in his hand. The Saddleman was used in print advertising,
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Figure 3.7 Saddleman, Levi Strauss & Co. Woven shirt label, c. 1955. Photo by Bernie McMahon of Cowpunkabilly Vintage.
on the “Levi’s Authentic Westernwear” woven labels of the 1950s, and recreated as a free-standing three-dimensional retail counter display item. Beyond film and print culture, or perhaps because Western themes continued to resonate, innumerable commodities for the home—including lamps, blankets, rugs, ceramics, kitchen utensils, and furnishings—were either Western inspired in form, or decorated with Western motifs, such as horses, saddles, cattle brands, or wagon wheels.54 From 1943 through 1964, the Wallace China Company of Los Angeles produced four lines of cowboy inspired dinnerware “Westward-Ho” designed by the illustrator Till Goodan (Tillman Parker Goodan 1896–1958).55 Known for painting lively rodeo scenes, Western landscapes, and illustrating a series of Gene Autry comic books, Goodan’s ceramic collections depict a series of cowboy vignettes and rural landscapes, and each includes a cattle brand border (Figure 3.8). Such items could be part of completely Western-themed interiors, or simply add a rustic accent to a room. Western design tended to be present in rumpus rooms, dens, and mixed-use indoor-outdoor spaces that leaned towards informality. Western design and material culture was aimed at adults and children, but cowboy themes were particularly strong in the children’s market. The rightness of Western heroes as models of patriotism and exemplars of American values was so culturally embedded that frontier stories were taught to children who immigrated after the war as a means of socializing them in accordance to hegemonic ideals.56 It is no surprise then, that they were ubiquitous in the thriving market for children’s goods. Children’s apparel with cowboy imagery, along with other products such as games, toys, lunch pails, posters, and portable radios, was a growing part of the marketplace (Figure 3.9). Indeed, in 1950 clothing manufacturers estimated that the following year the industry supplying children with
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Figure 3.8 Westward-Ho, ceramic design by Til Goodan, c. 1950. Author’s photograph.
Figure 3.9 Select 1950s children’s apparel. Photograph by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
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“youth-sized armament, chaps, bandannas, spurs, denim Levi’s, Stetsons, lariats, fence-mending tools and other necessities of the Western range” would reach $200,000,000.57 Western motifs and designs were included in clothing for everyday wear such as sweatshirts, T-shirts, and jeans as well as more embellished theatrical ensembles for children to imitate the flash and swagger of their favorite cowboy stars. Hopalong Cassidy, a character who debuted in 1949 in his striking all-black ensemble, was the first of many Western television shows popular with boys and girls. Young fans of the program could outfit themselves in black Hopalong Cassidy-styled costumes, or wear something bearing his likeness. The young person could either be taking on the role of their hero or wearing his image, effectively advertising for him either way. The presence of multiple Hopalong designs produced and distributed by different outlets speaks to the success of these licensed tie-ins. For instance, a girl’s Hopalong Cassidy ensemble in black gabardine with white fringe, held in the collection of the Autry Museum of the American West, was made by a Los Angeles Westernwear brand J Bar T. Another, comparable set for boys was manufactured by Blue Bell in 1954, and consists of matching black Western trousers and jacket with white trim that are similar to, but not identical to those worn by the character. In the same decade, Blue Bell made another black denim jacket along the same lines but without the fringe trim, which is visible in action on a young boy visiting a cowboy town tourist attraction in 1950 (Figures 3.10–3.12). There was also a plethora of Hoppy sweatshirts, T-shirts, and leather jackets on the market. Other Western heroes—such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Davy Crockett, and the Lone Ranger—captivated young television audiences and had their own extensive lines of products and novelties. Rogers’ wife, the film and television cowgirl Dale Evans, offered a model for girls’ cowgirl outfits (Figure 3.13).58 Western television shows appealed to enough of the marketplace that the percentage of prime-time television hours devoted to Western series expanded from 4.7 percent in 1955 to 24 percent by 1959, and it was not all directed at children.59 In June 1958, the cover of Look magazine asked: “How long will the Western craze last?” And inside was a photographic essay entitled “TV Westerns Inspire New Sportswear” (Figure 3.14).60 The four-page article paired seven TV Western stars—John Payne from The Restless Gun, Dale Robertson from Tales of West Fargo, Clint Walker from Cheyenne, Will Hutchins from Sugarfoot, Hugh O’Brian from The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, and Jack Kelly and James Garner from Maverick—with young women modeling Western-inspired sportswear. The text claimed that: “It’s no longer kids stuff to dress up in Western style, TV horse operas have made it chic.” The male actors are attired in the costumes of their characters, while the young women’s fashions, created as a collaboration between Look magazine and California sportswear designer Phil Rose, bear a closer resemblance to resort wear than cowgirl fashions. Details such as hats, embroidered blouses and weskits (vests), mimic those worn by the actors, thus adding some Western flourish, but overall, the cowboy inspiration is subtle at best. The text also links the popularity of Western styles to the influence of television shows:
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Figure 3.10 Hopalong Cassidy children’s apparel. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
The real Wyatt Earp would have trembled in his boots at the thought of instigating a fashion trend. But the rugged Western Heroes now monopolizing TV have done just that. Look and California designer Phil Rose have collaborated on the clothes: the adult Western fashions shown here with the he-man stars and costumes that inspired them. Unlike the dude-ranch duds, they are sophisticated enough for the country club set, feminine enough to please men. Colorful details include leather-hued embroidery, Indian motifs, gambler’s shirts and weskits and a cotton knit that looks like denim. Altogether, they make city gals “go West.” As ever, the contrast between “real” Western figures and something as fanciful as contemporary fashion is foregrounded. This short passage also touches upon several recurring themes that arise when women’s sportswear blends Western styling. For instance, the way in which “sophisticated” Western attire for “the country club set” or “city gals” is differentiated from “dude-ranch duds” implies a familiarity with dude ranching as well as the understanding that Western garments and motifs can be updated into fashionable casual dress. There’s a class dynamic at play as well, the country club
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Figure 3.11a Hopalong Cassidy Blue Bell black denim jacket, c. 1950. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
Figure 3.11b Hopalong Cassidy Blue Bell label. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
reference setting the garments apart from anything too rugged, assuring the consumer that these looks could not be mistaken for those of a rural laborer. The gendered origin of the garments, based on the costumes of “he-man stars,” is also made explicit, while the assertion that the clothes are “feminine enough to please men,” echo concerns over femininity noted before in relation to the first rodeo cowgirls. The obvious heteronormativity and attempt to quell anxieties surrounding these menswear-inflected styles persists in countless representations of cowgirls in mid-century advertising. Taken as a whole, it is clear that the Western genre as entertainment for adults and children was a significant presence that was not only influencing novelty styles and children’s wear. Westerns could
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Figure 3.12 Boys play at Western-style gunfighting at the Helldorado in Tombstone, Arizona. November, 1950. Photo by Doreen Spooner/Keystone Features/Getty Images.
be consumed on-screen, but other media featuring cowboys and cowgirls, their accessories, animals, and elements of material culture were visible in advertisements, clothing novelties, housewares, and other ephemera. Two musicians mentioned previously, the Louvin Brothers and Warren Smith, exemplify the capacity for established genres like country music to address contemporary themes. It should go without saying that artists respond to current events in the world around them, but country is often
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Figure 3.13 Roy Rogers children’s apparel. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
Figure 3.14 “TV Westerns Inspire New Sportswear,” Look, June 24, 1958.
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held to standards that elevate traditionalism and ill-defined notions of authenticity, not unlike popular conceptions of cowboys and the West.61 More than any other type of American music, country has been identified with the look of the cowboy and cowgirl. Closely linked to blue-collar culture, the music had reached wide audiences by the postwar era, and thus further helped popularize westernwear. Country musicians came from long-standing folk traditions and synthesized diverse ethnic, traditional, and modern traits into a distinctive form with variations that characterize regional differences and tastes.62 According to music historian Diane Pecknold, the 1920s are considered to be the first decade of commercial country music, marking “the miraculous appearance of hillbilly primitives among the ranks of popular music professionals.”63 Indeed, the notion of “hillbilly primitives,” while used to heighten contrast here, suggests the manner in which country artists and their music was for a time seen as rusticated, unserious, and as primitive as the rural communities that created it. “Hillbilly” was a pejorative term for people from Appalachia, but tended to be used broadly to label rural residents of the South and even Southwest over time. Country music’s popularity developed largely because of rural to urban migration that characterized the Depression era and war years, and although the music may not have been new, its presence and ultimate success in the commercial arena was.64 In the thirty years between 1920 and 1950, the genre developed from a post-vaudeville radio broadcasting novelty into a profitable segment of the popular music industry based in Nashville, Tennessee.65 Many hillbilly (the genre that would later be labeled country or country & western) performers that rose to celebrity status in the first years of radio broadcasting dressed in respectable middle-class attire, as one might expect of any stage performer, rather than the extremes of flamboyance or “rural” costumes that would later characterize the field.66 In the 1930s a glamorized Western look was defined when Nathan Turk, a tailor who had established a westernwear shop in California in 1923, began creating the type of designs that set the standard for the ornate costumes sported by country recording stars.67 Turk’s elaborate custom designs, with lively multi-color chain stitch embroidery, metallics, and fringes, were crafted from quality textiles with hand-finished accents. In spite of the ostentation they were still decidedly Western, maintaining features like yokes, snap fronts and cuffs, smile pockets, and frontier pants. By the early 1950s, several country performers wore particularly lavish Western ensembles. Nudie Cohn—or Nudie the Rodeo Tailor, as he was known—is credited with introducing elaborately decorated “rhinestone cowboy” styles.68 The garments Cohn created, typically labeled “Nudie suits,” often did not differ in form or even in style from more conventional Western apparel, but every feature was heightened. Embroidery that might have conventionally been used as a detail on cuffs, collar, and pockets spilled all over the shirts, jackets, and pants. The colors were loud and contrasting, the motifs were big, and metallic thread and shimmering rhinestones and sequins were used in abundance. Nudie’s work was bespoke and no two suits looked alike, thus emphasizing the individuality of the performer. In fact, performers often heightened their image or personal brand by incorporating visual
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tropes connected to their names or hit songs, like Porter Wagoner’s suit emblazed with wagon wheels or Webb Pierce’s with spider webs. Beyond adding considerable visual flair to a performance, historian Peter Lachapelle sees a deeper meaning expressed through the suits.69 The base of country musicians and their fans were working-class Southerners whose occupations typically involved manual labor, and whose bodies, by extension, were often ignored or disparaged. The clothing they wore to work was practical, durable, and not especially distinctive. A Nudie suit, however, conveyed opulence, individuality, and wealth—the very antithesis of every stereotype of the American worker or poor hillbilly. Many entertainers came from similar backgrounds as their fans and thus understood and enjoyed the contrast of flamboyant attire; the outfit was part of the show, and also a sign of respect for the audience. In amplifying Western motifs and styles, the Nudie suit celebrated rural, as well as regional, lifestyles and traditions.70 Tailors like Turk and Nudie would be followed by Manuel Cuevas, who continues to work in this style into the present. While the rhinestone cowboy looks favored by performers are in many ways antithetical to the casual Western styles that merged with ready-to-wear, one bespoke Western tailor was uniquely influential in the creation of one of the most enduring Western garments.
The Invention of Wrangler Blue Bell’s postwar success brought the acquisition of multiple smaller workwear manufacturers, including a brand called Casey Jones. Although Casey Jones had a denim line known as Wrangler before its merger with Blue Bell in 1943, when Blue Bell claimed the name it initiated a redesign in 1947 in order to develop what would be its first Western jeans. The idea originated with the vice president of sales Rodger LeMarty and Edward A. Morris, who would be president of the company from 1949 to 1973. It was under the latter’s guidance that Blue Bell transitioned from being a producer of work clothes exclusively to “the world’s largest producer of work and play clothes.”71 Morris actively promoted the shift towards causal dress, which, considering the garment business and fashion trends at the time, was a prudent decision. In its desire to create what is now considered the original Wrangler jean, the 11-MWZ (Men’s Western Zipper), Blue Bell looked beyond its in house design team to an established name in westernwear: Rodeo Ben. Rodeo Ben (1893–1985), who has been called the first “first celebrity Western designer,” was born as Bernard Lichtenstein in Lodz, Poland.72 A third-generation tailor, his family settled in Philadelphia where he would continue the family business.73 As a young man, Lichtenstein was working as a distributor selling textiles when he first encountered rodeo culture. Traveling rodeos regularly passed through fairgrounds along the Eastern seaboard, including Philadelphia. After meeting some of the performers and learning their specific sartorial tastes, Lichtenstein completed a few custom orders
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that were well received, and seeing potential in pursuing this niche of the market, he became Rodeo Ben, “the Polish Cowboy.” His reputation for eye-catching Western attire soon spread across the rodeo circuit, and in 1930 the first Rodeo Ben shop opened in Philadelphia, offering bespoke westernwear for clients ranging from rodeo cowboys who valued the quality fabrics and custom fit, to entertainers who appreciated Ben’s willingness to experiment with color and ornament. Rodeo Ben was a family business, his son Ben Jr. assisted in everything from fitting and making clothing to running the store, and catalogs from the 1950s show Ben modeling Western attire, along with his children and grandchildren in later years. Family members share the pages with rodeo celebrities like Turk Greenough and performers like Gene Autry and The Sleepy Hollow Gang. The unpretentious catalogs communicate a sense of community and connectedness between Ben and his clients. Prosaic photographs of Ben and his son working at the shop’s cutting table, stressing their role as hands-on technicians, are interspersed with line drawings depicting the variety of design details that can be selected to customize a suit. The catalogs indicate that Ben was proud of his craftsmanship and committed to presenting himself as a skilled tailor: the first page of each catalog claimed “only a tailor, with long years of tailoring experience, can fashion really fine-looking clothing.” A factual statement, to be sure, yet one wonders if his emphasis on tailoring was an attempt to justify a higher price point to those who may not have familiarity with custom apparel, or to stress the fact that customers were paying for more than applied ornament in his designs. Other images show Ben, and sometimes Ben Jr., wearing Western suits in different poses and landscapes; gazing at a herd of cattle across an open prairie, or standing in a desert with tumbleweed and cacti Ben seems to float in the foreground and fails to cast a shadow (Figure 3.15). These are without question composite photographs, in which his likeness has been superimposed over the scene. Although based in the urban Northeast, he literally inserts himself into the Western landscape. In 1947, when Blue Bell was looking to create its Wrangler jean with the cowboy customer in mind, it enlisted Rodeo Ben’s assistance. The company wanted to create a long-wearing, durable jean that would be comfortable for riding a horse in a rodeo as well as for everyday working conditions on a ranch. Rodeo Ben’s collaboration with Wrangler was the only time he worked with a large-scale manufacturer, but his concern with fit and comfort played an important role in perfecting the cut of the new jeans. It was also the only time that Blue Bell had worked with a designer outside the company. Reportedly, multiple prototypes were tried by rodeo champion Jim Shoulders, who offered feedback on the feel of the pants when riding horses in rodeo events.74 The final design was called the 11-MWZ and has changed little since.75 Both Rodeo Ben and Jim Shoulders profited from royalties on Wrangler sales for ten years after the 1947 launch, and their likenesses were featured in print advertising and product flash tags.76 Wrangler was ideally positioned to learn from denim lines that preceded it, while taking advantage of the access to up-to-date textile and fabrication technologies that one of the nation’s largest workwear
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Figure 3.15 Rodeo Ben catalog, c. 1950. Autry Museum, Los Angeles; 2002.102.17. Author’s photo.
manufacturers could provide. Similar to Lee’s original cowboy pants, many of the design features were initiated with the cowboy on horseback in mind. The original 1947 model was a five-pocket straightlegged, fitted blue jean in 11oz. Sanforized denim (Figure 3.16). The weave was a broken twill with no left/right bias that looks similar to a basket weave on close examination and, according to Wrangler, added strength.77 Also, because a broken twill line does not skew in one direction, torsion is reduced, and the pant leg is less likely to twist around the wearers’ leg in the direction of the twill line. Other features include flat copper rivets made smooth so they do not scratch a saddle, deep front pockets (for gloves), and double reinforced back pockets for carrying tools. The watch pocket was located high
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Figure 3.16 Wrangler 11MWZ. Author’s photo. Private collection.
up on the waistband, making it easier to attach a watch chain to a belt loop, and the rise in the back is higher so the wearer doesn’t sit on his billfold if it were in one of the back pockets. The belt loops are higher, slightly thicker, and spaced more widely in the front than competitors’ models to accommodate a wide belt with a heavy trophy buckle. The double-stitched felled seam that, on Levi’s for instance, comprised the inseam, was moved to the outer seam, to eliminate chafing against the thighs when the wearer was seated in a saddle, and like Lee jeans, Wranglers featured a U-shaped crotch construction. Finally, the leg is cut slightly longer than a typical pant so the boot is covered when the wearer is seated which means that the pant leg stacks below the knee when standing. All of these details were created with the working cowboy in mind, and the longevity of the style and consistent sales indicate that they were well received among cowboys, many of whom identified strongly with the brand for generations thereafter.78 The other less functional attributes of 11-MWZ design, including the back pocket stitching in the shape of a “W” for Wrangler and the small brown leather pocket patch with “Wrangler” written in a looping script that simulates the look and texture of a rope, distinguished the brand and associated the garment with the rodeo rider and ranch worker. Initially a photograph of Rodeo Ben was included on the jeans’ flash tags and hang tags alongside the likenesses of different rodeo champions depending on the year, such as Jim Shoulders, Freckles Brown, Casey Tibbs, and Bill Maguire.79 Promotional material and print advertising from 1947 through 1950 included copy reading “Styled by Rodeo Ben—Tailor of Top Rodeo Stars” or “The jeans top rodeo stars wear,” while color illustrations showing men in a rodeo ring engaged in riding or roping accompanied by portrait photographs of Rodeo Ben and rodeo champions.
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Figure 3.17 Wrangler’s “Great Moments in Rodeo,” 1955, Blue Bell Inc. Author’s photo. Private collection.
In addition to the paper flash tags featuring rodeo stars that were attached to the back pocket of Wrangler jeans, for a time small novelty comic books were included with purchase. From 1955 to 1966, fifty booklets forming the Great Moments in Rodeo series combined advertising and reading entertainment, and no doubt appealed to young people. The twelve- to eighteen-page publications offer a brief biography of a different rodeo star and recount a “Great moment,” typically a deathdefying feat in the ring. The full color comics carefully detail how cowboys dress, with the Wrangler signature patch and W stitching often visible on the back of the jeans (Figure 3.17). The layout included a black-and-white full-page front inside cover advertisement for Blue Bell and the last three to four
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pages are devoted to promoting the Wrangler line. The section entitled “Real Facts on Wrangler,” presents a dialogue between a fictional reporter and celebrity rodeo announcer Cy Taillon: Reporter How come rodeo performers are about the best-dressed competitors in the world? CT
That’s easy, Mister! The reason is that they insist on Blue Bell ‘Wrangler’ clothes. They’d
never wear any other! You see, Wrangler have that authentic Western cut, as styled by Rodeo Ben, America’s most famous Cowboy custom tailor! The “dialogue” goes on to describe details of the hard-wearing jeans, denim jackets, and shirts. Wrangler jeans were accompanied with a selection of Western basics—including cowboy shirts and denim jackets that also bear the Wrangler name. The shirts featured front and back yokes, snap closures down the front placket and cuffs, pointed or sawtooth pockets, a narrow cut, and long tails, and variety of patterns ranging from more conservative plaids to vibrant stripes and polka dots.80 Blue Bell already owned and operated factories capable of producing the cottons and flannels suitable for Western shirting. As price lists and the promotional comic books “Real Facts on Wrangler” noted, the shirts were originally produced in men’s and boy’s sizes.
Rodeo Culture and Western Heritage Wrangler advertisements reinforced the connection between the jeans, Rodeo Ben, and rodeo stars. They represent a canny use of the rodeo celebrity at a time when rodeos were becoming large-scale productions and billed as mainstream entertainment. Historian Michael Allen sees rodeo’s rise in popularity in the 1950s its—“Golden Age”—as having: Something to do with the triumph of a modern economy and centralized state as evidenced by American mobilization and victory in WWII. This pinnacle of modernization proved exhilarating and unnerving at the same time. It created a pronounced nostalgia for cowboys and the cattleranching frontier among a North American populace who had precious little personal acquaintance with those historical phenomena.81 However romanticized or nostalgic cowboys may have been, mid-century rodeo riders possessed athletic skills that were the result of years of training, perfecting techniques that had developed in conjunction with a particular type of labor. Rodeo laid bare the contrast between depictions of past traditions and the active, living culture of which the riders were a part. The rodeo rider’s celebrity, coupled with Rodeo Ben’s fame as a man who created fine Western clothing, framed Wrangler jeans as definitively Western in a more explicit way than competitors’ products. Lee’s Cowboy Pants and Riders,
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for example, were connected to a generalized notion of the cowboy. Lee and Levi Strauss & Co.’s branding implies that the consumer understood the Western imagery and cowboy connections being presented. While Lee and Levi Strauss & Co. aligned themselves with a more generalized idea of the cowboy, with archetypes in the form of Buddy Lee and the Saddleman, Wrangler opted instead for specificity—soliciting the support and using the likenesses of identifiable rodeo champions to sell its jeans. This celebrity endorsement connected the company directly to those in the know within the rodeo community. It was an expedient way for the new brand to develop a fan base, establish, and maintain credibility. Wrangler also advertised at rodeos nationwide, contributing financial sponsorship and endorsements that put money back into the community.82 Although singling out individual rodeo performers worked to solidify a loyal niche fan base of cowboys for the Wrangler brand, the directed nature of their marketing set Wrangler apart from other lines of jeans and Western-styled sportswear. Prior to 1946, Lee marketed its Cowboy Pant primarily to the cowboy and rodeo market. After the war, even with an expanded product line and more Americans wearing jeans, Lee maintained connections to the rodeo community through celebrity endorsements and clever advertising. Lee’s emphasis in its advertising on ranching and rodeo culture continued in the form of a series of print advertisements starting in 1952 featuring the champion rodeo rider Casey Tibbs. Between 1952 and 1960, Tibbs was the World Champion Saddle Bronco Rider nine times, and also had the reputation of being a sharp dresser. Tibbs appeared in several print ads in the 1950s in publications for specifically Western audiences, and for more general readership. Tibbs was even incorporated into a wearable accessory; Lee produced red and blue bandanas featuring his image to promote Lee Riders (Figure 3.18). Lee furthered its connection to the rodeo cowboy through sponsorship of the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo and the Texas State Fair.83 Premiering in 1951, and promoted in publications such as The Cattleman, The Ranchman, California Farmer, Western Horseman, and The Dude Rancher, as well as general readership magazines such as Life, the Cheyenne Frontier Days parade, which preceded the rodeo events, featured a float with a gigantic pair of jeans, with “Lee Riders” chain stitched in bold letters across the seat.84 Towering over the crowd and dwarfing the single story buildings that lined the Wyoming city streets, these oversized dungarees belonged to a type of bold advertising reminiscent of circuses and carnivals with sideshow attractions promising exceptional sights and curious specimens.85 As publicity and novelty, the jeans functioned rather like a combination of a three-dimensional billboard and a giant product sample. “The world’s largest Cowboy Pants” were unique and worthy feature of the parade. Large-scale reproductions seem to have been successful enough as a promotional tool for Lee to commission another massive pair of jeans, this time for Big Tex, the fifty-two-foot giant mascot of the Texas State Fair. In 1952, a shirt and pants that required 364 hours of labor and 100 yards of denim, were made for the enormous cowboy.86 The massive jeans became a kind of mascot in their own right and poster versions were incorporated into the material culture of this and subsequent fairs. Oversized pants were also worn in the ring by rodeo clowns. The clowns, and their colorful festive garb
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Figure 3.18 Lee bandana with Casey Tibbs. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
was intended to be humorous but also a necessary distraction, keeping cowboys safe from charging animals. By at least the 1940s, Lee offered rodeo clowns extra-large jeans with the company name embroidered across the seat. There are no records of when this practice officially started or ended.87 Chester Reynolds, Lee’s long-standing salesman and later company president, was largely responsible for establishing and maintaining Lee’s strong identification with cowboy culture. Actively involved in rodeo sponsorships, he ensured that Lee advertising was present at major rodeo events. He had a strong personal affinity with Western culture and the preservation of Western history, and in 1953 Reynolds helped bring governors of seventeen states together with prominent cattlemen and leaders in rodeo to establish a board of trustees to support the creation of a National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum. Reynolds was essential in promoting the new endeavor and acquiring financial and political support.88 And although he died in 1958, seven years before the museum would open in Oklahoma City, Reynolds’s efforts as one of the original founders is acknowledged and commemorated through annual awards.89
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Bringing the West to the East The five years following the end of the war saw Lee making significant gains in terms of reaching a national audience, and moving toward a future in fashionable apparel. The company decided to change the name of the “101 Lee Cowboy Pant” to “101 Lee Riders.”90 Riders, a shorter name that still retained the cowboy connection, was officially adopted for jeans in April 1946 and changes to the design and promotions accompanied the new name. The new design details are located mostly at the back of the pant. There was the adoption of the shield or spade-shaped back pocket that became standard in all Lee’s denim design. The concept of rounded corners was supposed to be more durable as dirt and debris were less likely to catch in the corner and wear down the textile. Less subtle differences include the change to the design of the back patch, which are detailed in the following sections. A narrower “slim fit” jacket, the “Genuine Western Lee Rider jacket,” designed to accompany the jeans, was patented in 1948. Largely due to brisk sales of Lee Riders immediately after peacetime production resumed, the company expanded clothing production by purchasing the Eloesser-Heynemann Company in 1946, a workwear and denim producer in San Francisco. Known for the Can’t Bust’Em, Boss-of-the-Road, Campus Cords, Cactus Casuals, and Copper King brands, it also produced Frisko Jeens in black denim, a style and name that Lee would continue using through the 1950s and 1960s.91 The most significant sign of Lee’s commitment to producing clothing came in 1950, when the H. D. Lee Company, Inc. sold what remained of its grocery and general merchandise division. The food division was sold for three million dollars to the Consolidated Food Group of Chicago and thereafter the Lee Company focused exclusively on apparel.92 While Lee continued to promote its work clothing and Riders by emphasizing quality, durability, and fit, an advertising campaign launched in 1946 sought to extend the appeal of such products through references to the romance of the Old West. “Bringing the West to the East” was the slogan of the 1946 Lee campaign directed at a general audience through magazines such as Life, and Lee Riders was the product that embodied the company’s vision of the West to national readers. A magazine advertisement from 1946 enthusiastically claims that “Lee Riders are the cowboy pants that won’t stay home on the range!” and “Lee is the first to spread the romance of the West from Coast to Coast!” (Figure 3.19). The imagery in such advertisements depicts familiar Western scenes. At the top left there are three men, who appear to be father and son, while an older man brands a young steer with the Lee brand, connecting the idea of cattle branding to the design of the Lee twitch label. Below the branding scene, a family of three—husband, wife, and son—is illustrated in vibrant color. All are dressed in Lee jeans, virtually identical from the waist down, and positioned around a campfire. A blend of rusticity, familial togetherness, and domesticity, this outdoors excursion has all the comforts of a family meal at home. The man offers a platter of massive raw steaks to his smiling wife who spears
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Figure 3.19 Lee Riders, “Romance of the West” advertisement, 1946. Lee archives.
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one with a fork in anticipation of putting it on the grill. A cowboy hat hangs behind her head, loosely tied around her neck, and she too wears jeans, tucked into her boots. The open fire is tended by a boy whose jeans prominently display the Lee patch. Domestic conventions are present as well, the man smokes a pipe while the woman prepares the food, making it clear that this is family leisure time, not strenuous or demanding labor. Work and leisure are juxtaposed in one advertisement and their relationship is effectively made fluid in a cultural climate where what had previously been cowboy’s work could be experienced through tourism, and clothing that had been the purview of laborers was now an option for middle-class Americans. Lee advertising explicitly associated the romance of the West with its products aimed at non-Westerners and Westerners alike. Lee Riders were seen as a part of a bucolic landscape. The copy text reads: “Broad plains, dotted with cattle, rugged hills, mesquite and sagebrush are no more a part of the West than Lee Riders.” Lee jeans are equated with nature, specifically Western flora and fauna; they are a part of this landscape but could be purchased nationwide. It is an example of vicarious participation through consumption; a slice of cowboy life that seemingly became available to anyone buying a pair of Lees. Although appeals to Western “romance” were not entirely novel, dividing the West and the East so explicitly and positioning the company as the uniting element is specific to this campaign.
Cattle Branding to Corporate Branding The connections between branding—the act of leaving a permanent scar on an animal hide through burning—and branding in its more common contemporary usage, a trademark with text, letter, or image used to identify a consumer product, deserve closer inspection for understanding Lee’s design choices in the context of larger trends in visual culture.93 Cattle brand graphics were well embedded in Western popular art and decoration, and Lee labels both contributed to, and were influenced by, this cultural phenomenon.94 When the American cattle ranching industry developed in the postbellum decades, brands were indispensable to ranchers as the primary means used for differentiating one’s livestock from a competitor’s herd on the open range. Following the advent of barbed wire in 1874, large-scale fencing of cattle land meant that ranchers could separate livestock more efficiently.95 As the animals were no longer intermixing on the open plains, brands were no longer the sole means of identification. Western scholar Blake Allmendinger has referred to cattle brands as “invented hieroglyphic economic inscriptions,” a language of form unique to Western culture.96 Brand symbols were typically a combination of letters, or a two-dimensional image derived from a proprietor’s name, initials, or ranch name.97 Landowners determined their brand and thus authored the language while working cowboys inscribed it by pressing red hot irons into the flesh of a calf. This process singed through the hair and left a permanent scar on the animal’s hide. Cattle brands could incorporate Roman characters,
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but the letters were not always read left-to-right, the orientation could be modified, or they could be combined with a symbol or an element such as “—,” read as “bar.” Though branding is still practiced, it is not as pervasive and essential as it once was. The symbols underwent a considerable semiotic shift by the mid-twentieth century, further distanced from agrarian labor and economics. By the 1950s, the cattle brand, once a marker of specific property ownership, came to signify “the West” in general. These brands remained part of Western visual and material culture, yet they were no longer exclusively bound to the act of branding and the identification of cattle. The iconography was repurposed and recombined in innumerable ways, adding decorative flourish to a variety of products. Publications like Sunset, which highlighted Western-style interiors, often incorporated antique iron brands mounted on the wall as decorative accents.98 Items like Till Goodan’s “Westward-Ho” dinnerware with the cattle brand trim could accompany lampshades, blankets, and stationery. Wearable accessories such as belt buckles, boots, ties, and bandanas could incorporate cattle brands, too (Figure 3.20). Goldwater’s department store in Arizona sold women’s cotton blouses printed liberally with motifs of various brands, as did Levi Strauss & Co.99 The Levi Strauss & Co. mid-1950s Authentic Westernwear “shorthorn” label included a snap-front women’s Western shirt in a vibrant red cotton covered with cattle brands (Figure 3.21). Brands were not only the purview of informal Western apparel and novel accessories. The motifs were given a more elegant treatment by the Texas department store Nardis of Dallas (Figure 3.22). In 1946 the store advertised an elegant rayon dress with a soft tie-front neckline entirely covered in cattle brands. The model is represented in high-contrast black and white that showcases the brand symbols to best effect, while the shadow of a cactus fills the right corner. The text claims: “It’s round up time in Texas, and the brands are on display.” Cosmopolitan creative professionals also celebrated the artistic and communicative potential of cattle brands (Figure 3.23).100 Alexey Brodovitch, the artist and graphic designer, was best known for his dynamic imagery and art direction for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. In a 1950 feature dedicated to cattle brands in his short-lived but highly refined design magazine Portfolio, Brodovitch called them “a fascinating form of graphic Americana that had rarely, if ever, been considered from the standpoint of design.” It is not hard to see how cattle brands, with their linear elegance and legibility, would appeal to the modernist idiom. Reductive in form and bound to the history of the Old West, the appeal is akin to that of folk art for the modern designer. Brodovitch’s enthusiasm was a response to the cattle brands’ blending of prosaic and imaginative, playful and didactic qualities. His accompanying imagery includes an illustration of a bull whose hide is completely covered with branding symbols that explode outwards, scattershot into the atmosphere, a fitting analogy for cattle brands’ presence in the postwar cultural landscape. The Lee patch, particularly its pre-1945 Hair on Hide version on the original Cowboy Pants, provides the most visceral connection to cattle ranching seen in westernwear and denim design
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Figure 3.20 Bandanas with cattlebrands. Author’s photo. Private collection.
(Figure 3.24). The patch’s tactile quality, and connection with cowboy labor that inspired the jeans is distinct, the design represents an immediate, tangible connection to the cowboy lifestyle and ranch work. Indeed, the processes of branding the leather patch was the same as that done to a living calf. Small hot irons were used on the fur patches in Lee factories. To wear the jeans meant carrying a legible piece of branded hide at the top of the waistband, roughly the back of the hip, approximating the placement of a brand on an animal’s flank. It connects the garment brand to the cowboy’s work through text without the need for an additional illustration that was more commonly used for work clothes at the time.101 The mark identifies a corporation, not a specific ranch, and although the wearer is not the company’s property, his product choice is made public. The Hair on Hide patch was the most direct link between a company’s branding and cattle branding. The greatest difference, of course, is that jeans lack permanence and can be removed at the end of a day. Yet, the visceral connection made
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Figure 3.21 Western shirt, printed cotton with cattlebrand pattern. “Shorthorn” label, Levi Strauss & Co., c. 1950. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
between hide and skin, the recognizable mark, and the play on words between to two concepts of ‘brand’ establish a convention in product design and marketing the company maintained for decades. Lee maintained and extended the branding theme with the introduction of the twitch patch accompanying the re-design of Riders. The twitch patch, was visible in advertising since 1945, and trademarked by June of 1947.102 The idea behind “twitch” was a reference to an animal’s twitching from the searing heat of the branding iron that caused the imprint of the brand to be slightly irregular (it
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Figure 3.22 Nardis of Dallas sportswear advertisement. Harper’s Bazaar, April 1946.
has since been noted that in practice a steer does not in fact twitch to cause wavy lines when branded).103 The hair was no longer attached to the leather as it had been with the hair on hide label. Originally called the ‘hot-iron branded cowhide label’ the twitch patch was a smooth thin leather patch, that the company claimed was more durable (Figure 3.25). The hair-free patch lost some of its rough haptic qualities, but it stayed intact more easily in washing machines that were increasingly common in postwar homes. The typography was also different. The letters L-e-e themselves were connected, with the L crossing the lowercase e’s, as though molded from a single iron element as was the convention in creating branding irons. Another change, the addition of the Lazy-S back pocket stitching was also derived from cattle brands. A compound curve like the letter ‘S’ on its side, the Lazy-S is a known branding symbol used alone or in combination with others.104 The shape of the stitching across both
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Figure 3.23 Alexey Brodovitch, “Cattlebrands,” Portfolio: A Magazine for the Graphic Arts, vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer 1950).
pockets was also thought to mimic the curving form of the horns of a longhorn bull when the jeans were worn seated on a saddle. It is a subtle detail that again connects the design of the jeans to a Western lexicon that would have been recognizable to rural consumers familiar with cattle brands, while also serving as a distinguishing trait of Lee Riders. Around the same time, Lee offered a special interactive promotion for children. “Burn your own Brand” jeans were essentially a smaller version of Lee Riders made with an additional smaller blank leather patch stitched onto the left pocket. The idea was that a hot branding tool, accessible on site at select Lee retailers, could be used to brand one’s name, a nickname, or an original brand symbol, into the leather patch. In the accompanying pamphlet (Figure 3.26), the branding symbols are free-floating graphics positioned below the same illustration of men branding. No reference is made to any particular ranch identification. Another variation of a “burn your own brand” promotional pamphlet is more didactic and offers additional context explaining that “A brand is used on cattle for owner identification,” and the cattle brand symbols listed correspond to particular ranches (Bar W Ranch, New Mexico, Wine Glass Ranch, Texas etc...). Although the Lee twitch patch is ever present, there is the additional option to customize, a chance for the child to add their own identifying mark, and therefore brand themselves. The vicarious participation in ranch work and Western history is
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Figure 3.24 Lee “Hair on Hide” waistband patch, issued between 1938 and 1944. Author’s photo. Lee archives.
heightened for young consumers in the form of a novelty craft. Lee expanded upon the trend for children wearing jeans in imitation of Western stars to imitating an aspect of the cowboy’s work. As noted, by mid-century the cattle brand had been transformed from a marker of ownership, a pictorial language legible to those in the cattle industry, to decorative motif. Brands were visible outside their original regional contexts but specificity was lost in the cattle brand’s semiotic shift from indexical trace of property ownership to corporate brand logo. To frame it in terms of Roland Barthes’ post-structuralist analysis; if the cattle brand is the sign and the signifier is the mark or image, the signified would have originally been a specific ranch, but by the 1950s it is simply “Western” or belonging to the Old West.105 The claims to authenticity Lee made were borne out of the company’s long-standing connection to the West and consumers who worked in farming, ranching, and rodeo. Indeed, the implication of permanence suggested by the cattle brand is evoked through the imagery and advertising copy. The visibility of brand names depicted across age groups and genders assumes the extension of loyalty across successive generations of consumers, a goal to which many companies no doubt aspired, but which seems particularly poignant for a business that deliberately weaves history and nostalgia into promotional narratives. Cattle brand imagery was a means of sustaining such connections while reaching out to new demographics. As graphic design elements, cattle brands could be simultaneously familiar and novel. Lee’s ties to cowboy culture were intended to keep cowboys and rural consumers loyal to the brand, while simultaneously extending romantic ideas of the West across the nation and beyond. Brands once differentiated nearly identical animals; by the mid-twentieth century, however, they differentiated nearly identical blue jeans.
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Figure 3.25 Lee “twitch” waistband patch and Lazy S pocket stitching, c. 1950. Author’s photo. Lee archives.
Clothing is part of social discourse. An essential part of how individuals and groups communicate, its meanings and associations accrue over time and shift, sometimes dramatically, in light of changing cultural conditions. The complex intersections of postwar nationalist sentiments, nuclear anxieties, and consumer abundance are articulated in manifold popular forms. The Western genre and the Westerner’s image were constructs of the past, yet postwar visual and material culture—be they the Marlboro man, a shirt covered in cattle brands, or a prime time television show set in Old Tucson— were perfectly suited to mid-century America, welcomed by audiences and consumers. Scholars Michael Allen and Lee Clark Mitchell have examined the presence of rodeo and Western films and television from the end of World War II through the 1950s and have arrived at similar conclusions in explaining their popularity. For Allen, the hero-worship directed at rodeo cowboys at the time derived from larger social anxieties following the war, namely that: “. . . modernization proved exhilarating and unnerving at the same time.”106 Economic stability and increasingly automated lifestyles had their technological dark side in the now ever-present threat of nuclear war. The nostalgia he described functions as a connection to, if not the historical past, a fondly recalled, romanticized idea of the past
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Figure 3.26 Lee “Burn Your Own Brand” pamphlet, c. 1946. Lee archives.
that was enacted through the spectacle of rodeo, Western movies, and television series. The nostalgic element is present, even if it is for an imagined and whitewashed version of the past, yet nostalgia cannot offer a satisfying or complete account of a multimedia phenomenon in visual and material culture that transcends age, class, and gender. Not to mention the fact that there were still very real cowboys and cowgirls living and working at the time whose appearance remained consistent, and still does, thanks to the success of brands such as Wrangler. In light of the optimistic vision of postwar culture, where faith in the progress of science and technology was paramount, the cowboy image evoked the brave and enterprising aspect of American identity. The clothes themselves are sturdy, unfussy, and comfortable; right for action. And perhaps, in considering the anxieties of the Cold War and the dark shadow of potential nuclear destruction, Western apparel appealed to a need for consistency in the face of large-scale change. Be it one or the other, or a combination of both, it resonated with consumers and westernwear makers were fortuitously positioned to bring garments with techniques and design details from the past into a modern and ever-changing industry; ready-to-wear fashion.
4 Westernwear as Ready-to-Wear
“If being fashionable conveyed the mark of civilization; ‘frontier’ dress could imply lower social stature, backwardness, crudeness, romanticism, or even eccentricity.”1 James H. Nottage, founding curator of the Autry Museum of the American West, succinctly summarized nineteenth century contrasts between the urban and rural. Yet over a century later, Western styles with discernible frontier origins were prevalent in the most modern of industries: ready-to-wear fashion. Between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century, westernwear never disappeared from the sartorial landscape; cowboys and cowgirls were still recognized by how they dressed, but elements of their style began to enter into more mainstream sportswear. With easy to maintain textiles, novelty prints, and fabrics, and stylish yet simple cuts with limited embellishment, westernwear and Western-inflected sportswear styles conformed to the requirements of modern casual living for women and men. Focusing primarily on the output of Pendleton, Lee, and Wrangler, but including other examples of garments and accessories that lend support to the phenomenon, I examine how Western fashions informed fashionable sportswear styles and were, in turn, influenced by them. The gendered aspects of westernwear and its representation will be considered as well, with the aim of understanding how garments that followed the same design principles for both men’s and womenswear made divergent appeals to consumers in a changing marketplace. Jeans, and the nuanced gendering of the postwar denim market, are naturally at the forefront in this analysis, alongside a variety of design elements that had traditionally been the purview of westernwear, such as piping and arrow pocket stitching, bandana prints, and lively colors and prints in men’s shirting. Finally, I address why such styles were not only enduring, but also appropriate to postwar ideas of fashionability and vernacular modernism.
Western Style in Postwar Womenswear Thus far it is clear that Western themes and imagery were an integral part of popular entertainment, film, music, television, and advertising, and fashion marketing was no exception. Western settings and 113
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Western design elements factored into its output, sometimes more discreetly than others. For instance, cowgirls were included in a series of memorable Maidenform lingerie campaigns. Described by American cultural historian Karal Ann Marling as “a long and famous series of theater-of-the-absurd lingerie ads,” multiple iterations of Maidenform’s “I dreamed I was . . . (fulfilling either a quotidian task or fantasy role) . . . in my Maidenform bra” appeared in numerous women’s and general interest magazines between 1949 and 1969.2 An example from 1963 shows a young woman wearing a cowboy hat, fringed leather gloves, a wide belt with pistol holster, and nothing on top except for the white Maidenform bra, pointing a pistol at the viewer (Figure 4.1).3 The typeface and framing clearly alludes to “wanted” posters of the Old West, and makes use of the double entendre in the term “wanted.” Another Maidenform advertisement with a bra-clad cowgirl issued three years later was captioned, “I dreamed I was wild in the west in my Maidenform bra.”4 Here, surrounded by bales of hay and wagon wheels, the young woman wears a hat, gloves, cow-spotted skirt, and boots, and points her pistol out of the frame (Figure 4.2). The cowgirls follow Maidenform’s convention of depicting various social types and activities, and offer another example of how Western imagery was integrated into mainstream advertising. A close reading of these advertisements, however, reveals how they employ two recurring conventions associated with Western women and cowgirls in popular media, including advertising for westernwear and Western-influenced sportswear—the subjects are active, both physically and in how they address the viewer. And they are playful; there is a tongue-in-cheek quality to their expressions and poses. The woman in the “wanted” image best exemplifies both definitions of active: her gun and her gaze are directed straight out at the viewer, and she assumes an assertive stance that commands attention. The other model, though less direct and assertive, is still active with one foot raised on a bale and two pistols drawn. However, she is clearly playing at shooting, and her expression is far from serious. These images are not intended to be realistic and the series is intended to have a surreal, dreamlike quality yet worth considering in light of contemporaneous depictions of the cowgirl. A performative quality pervades both, as though the young women were part of a satirical performance or a child’s game. The convention of the capable, saucy, independent cowgirl described in Chapter 1 is apparent, although it is performative and mediated considerably by the absence of a shirt. The undercurrent of humor evident in the Maidenform advertising carries through representations of cowgirls in popular media, resurfacing in several postwar examples. It is as though the independence of the Western woman needs to be contained, sublimated or re-contextualized in unthreatening ways. The principal conventions of frontier dress originated with men’s apparel, and although by mid-century women could count jeans, Western shirts, boots, hats, or bandanas as part of an up-to-date casual wardrobe, advertisers were careful to balance such conventionally “masculine” westernwear items with what was considered an acceptable image of femininity. For instance, anxieties over appropriately gendered garments were expressed in a 1955 issue of Wrangler’s “Great Moments in Rodeo” comic (Figure 4.3). The page lists options for Western shirting (plaids, stripes, checks, solids, denim or
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Figure 4.1 Maidenform bra advertisement, Seventeen, October 1963.
Figure 4.2 Maidenform bra advertisement, Seventeen, August, 1963.
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Figure 4.3 Wrangler, “Great Moments in Rodeo,” 1955. Author’s photo.
chambray), and the last line reads: “they come in men’s and boys’ sizes, but just try to stop the gals from wearing ’em.” The blonde-haired woman encircled in the bottom-right corner looks up at the man, chin out, brows arched, hands on hips, as if she’s offering a challenge. Although Wrangler may not have been fabricating shirting specifically for women yet, women were customers, and their wearing the same styles as men was inevitable. Insecurities over masculinity and the role of men in American society took on a particular quality after the war. Dissatisfaction with suburban living and the social pressure to conform in the workplace were positioned as a troubling counterpart to the growing corporate and managerial sector engendered by the booming postwar economy. Fear that the routines and conformity of white-collar work was a detriment to the individualist spirit was a particularly poignant concern during the Cold War. Journalists, novelists, and social scientists expounded on these concerns and the popularity of their work attests to the fact that fears over emasculating conformity plagued the public consciousness. In sociology, books such as The Lonely Crowd (1950), and White Collar: the American Middle Classes (1951) described a significant shift away from autonomy and rugged individualism in postwar
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America. The Organization Man (1956) found managerial culture to be risk-averse and uncreative, while works of fiction such as The Man in The Gray Flannel Suit (1955) showed affluence and security achieved at the expense of individuality and authenticity. Indeed, the gray flannel suit in Sloane Wilson’s title, which would become a feature film starring Gregory Peck the following year, became a sartorial marker of homogeneous middle-class culture. While the daily grind of this lifestyle was surely stifling for some, the issues addressed in this discourse fail to consider the struggles of those whose liberties were truly restricted by systemic injustice, namely African American men and other minorotized people, who did not factor into these mainstream critiques. Anxieties and ambivalence surrounding men’s place in American society can be largely attributed to the perceived threat of women’s growing autonomy.5 What contemporary cultural critics defined as the “crisis” of postwar American masculinity is thought to have multiple contributing factors that predominantly centered around work and the changing role of women. The war brought the greatest shift in women’s work; with a 50 percent increase between 1940 and 1945.6 Despite many women losing manufacturing and defense jobs following the war, female employment began to climb again by the end of 1947. As the 1950s drew to a close, 40 percent of American women over the age of sixteen held a job.7 Since its 1963 publication, the ideas articulated in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique— namely, that postwar popular culture valued domestic women’s roles above all others and therefore suppressed their potential—held considerable sway. While its lasting resonance speaks to how many women identified with Friedan’s thinking, other, more recent, work suggests that although her interpretation is valuable, it existed in parallel with media that often expressed contradictory and ambivalent positions about women’s success and achievement outside the home.8 A broader perspective shows that women were not uniformly committed to domestic activities, many were also engaged in the workforce, reform politics, peace movements, and organized labor. As more and more women claimed greater autonomy and a place in public life in so far as they could, the conventions surrounding propriety and self-fashioning, specifically what was acceptable or appropriate to one’s gender or social position, shifted accordingly. The fabrication of mass quantities of clothing and the industrial technologies that supported it, began with functional apparel that was crudely constructed, such as men’s uniforms and work clothes, and grew steadily from the late nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, industrialization in textile and garment industries alongside modernized tailoring techniques led to better quality mass-produced garments with greater variety, that were affordable for most of the population. The success of ready-to-wear fashion in the postwar United States confirmed that the “democratization of clothing in America,” was essentially complete.9 More consumers having access to more clothing at affordable prices can indeed be considered democratic, yet the conditions of manufacturing in addition to access and representation, were far from equitable. The development of the garment business is often recounted as a uniquely American progress narrative, when seen in
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contrast to older European modes of production, but also in its capacity to diminish or dilute ethnic origins and blur social distinctions between workers and management.10 Following World War II, more fashions were available to more consumers, and economic growth and stability allowed many middle-class people the opportunity to spend more on themselves and on leisure activities. This relative economic freedom went hand in hand with acquiring clothes for specialized recreation or places, and play-clothes (or sportswear or leisurewear depending on the advertisement’s preferred language) for the beach, the home, the dude ranch, or resort could share common attributes but were often marketed as occasion-specific. Indeed, casual dress grew alongside suburban living, complete with back-yard barbeques and family vacations.11 Garments can be considered “casual” in terms of aesthetics, materials, or construction. Casual, however, is a relative term and historic specificity needs to be kept in mind. In “Casual, but not that casual: Some fashions of the 1950s,” Arlene Cooper articulates a definition of what constituted casual dress appropriate for this historical moment.12 Cooper notes that although sportswear styles were more acceptable than ever before, appropriate attire was still clearly defined according to occasion and the degree in which one dressed casually remained complex and took into account overlapping factors such as age, gender, social class, and lifestyle.13 For example, young college co-eds were allowed more flexibility in where and when they could wear separates, capri pants, shorts, or bobby socks. Older women were encouraged to experiment with casual separates for day wear in the country or at a resort, but these styles did not translate to as many contexts, including appropriate evening attire. Furthermore, despite the relaxed fits and softer wash-and-wear textiles, most women continued to wear supportive undergarments in the form of tight panty girdles and structured bras—regardless of age or body type.14 Sportswear, by definition, is easy to maintain, minimally embellished, stylish and simple ready-towear. It was already familiar as an American style promoted by elite Eastern fashion editors since the 1930s, appropriate for active lifestyles that were still indisputably sophisticated, modern, and urbane. Fashion historian Rebecca Arnold succinctly defines twentieth-century sportswear as comprising three main subcategories: active sportswear, to be worn for athletic activity; resort wear, clothing for vacation and leisure; and finally, town and country wear, “smart” pieces for general use.15 The concept of an “American Look” was first espoused in the 1930s and 1940s and was central to the promotion of affordable clothing for modern life that was still largely based on the tastes of editors and photographers located in New York City.16 The nationalist position was a deliberate act of boosterism to promote American design and manufacture, particularly during wartime when fashion imports from Europe, and Paris in particular, were scarce. American designers were celebrated for being at least as good as those from Europe, and what may have in fact made them better was an understanding of modern women’s lifestyles and interest in physical fitness.17 The advertising and editorial discourse surrounding sportwear is steeped in the language of newness and modernity. While Arnold focused on the birth of a national style and changing perceptions of the
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body, another scholar, Richard Martin, located sportswear’s appeal on a more personal, experiential level. With its unstructured and supple physical attributes, sportswear has an intimate relationship to the body of the wearer. Martin speculated that active sports and recreational ease affirm one’s connection to the body. Therefore, garments that allow for movement and flexibility were effectively more “right” or natural and less pretentious than tailored apparel, which was in his eyes a more “elaborated or contrived manner of dress.”18 Given this social and economic climate, companies such as Lee and Blue Bell/ Wrangler, whose vast networks of factories already produced easy to maintain, durable garments were in a favorable position in a marketplace; items that had once been the purview of laborers were becoming acceptable everyday wear. Simple cottons, canvas, and twills with hardware that had formerly only been used on workwear became part of stylish ensembles. Several textiles that had first been developed for combat, like chino for instance, could be incorporated into stylish casual wardrobes. Denim, which had been gaining visibility in fashion since the 1930s, worked along the same lines. American designers whose names were now more familiar, like Claire McCardell, Clare Potter, Tina Lesser, Vera Maxwell, and Jeanne Campbell, advocated using prosaic denims, jerseys, and ginghams in causal but still “smart” ensembles. McCardell, for instance, used denim in keeping with her practical, modern aesthetic that was representative of the “American Look.”19 Denim was, of course, a workman’s fabric and even by the 1940s regarded as a quintessentially American one.20 McCardell borrowed the top-stitched finishing typical of jeans and other workwear for floor-length dresses and tweed suits, and used denim and chambray for her famous Popover dress. The Popover dress is often held as a standard of functional and stylish design and a clever response to women’s lifestyle concerns at the time. It debuted in 1942 following the request of fashion editors Diana Vreeland and Carmel Snow, who challenged designers to create a versatile but still stylish garment for women. It is a simple A-line front wrap garment with roomy sleeves, deep pockets, and attached oven mitt. McCardell’s designs were manufactured through Townley Frocks at the time, and the company was able to classify the Popover as a “utility garment.” Elements of aprons and coveralls, which many working women had already been accustomed to wearing, were given a stylish treatment. The popover was promoted along the lines of a modern work garment, but for a very different demographic. A Harper’s Bazaar feature from 1942 presents the dress with the caption: “I’m doing my own work,” suggesting the Popover was the right choice for the kind of woman who may have previously employed domestic help.21 The dress was made cheaply, and consequently sold for the relatively low price of $6.95.22 Affordable, practical, and popular, it sold into the hundreds of thousands. While the Popover persists as an example of modern American design ingenuity and presently holds a place in multiple museum collections, denim still carried signifiers of its Western origins and working-class roots. Two years before the public debut of McCardell’s denim dress, students from the School of Home Economics at the University of Alabama designed a denim dress “for a high school girl on a low income” (Figure 4.4). The image, captured by the Farm Security Administration, shows a
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Figure 4.4 John Collier, 1940 Washington, DC. Denim dress worked out for a high-school girl on a low income by graduate students of the Department of Clothing and Textiles, School of Home Economics, University of Alabama. U. S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division LC-USF34-014597-C.
dress composed of a button-down short-sleeve jacket and an A-line skirt that falls just above the knee. The trim jacket terminates below the hips and has two large patch pockets, while decorative top-stitching adds visual interest to the collar, pockets, and skirt. Though it was never mass produced and did not benefit from the same exposure, the Alabama students’ dress addressed the same requirements as McCardell’s; undeniably utilitarian, it nonetheless incorporates fashionable details, notably in the collar and silhouette. The students’ project makes it clear that although denim was given a fashion-forward treatment by designers with the support of urban fashion editors, for many it
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remained associated with low-income, working-class apparel. Perceptions of denim therefore differed along regional and class lines. The gradual and mediated assimilation of jeans into everyday casual dress was one of the last vestiges of the long-held connection between ready-made clothing and low social standing.23 Denim companies were successfully expanding into middle-class national markets after the war, due in no small part to their careful and consistent promotion of the textile as being school and leisure appropriate. Yet responses to denim jeans remained largely dependent on the consumers’ class position and experiences which determined whether they connected blue jeans with manual labor and lower social status or not. For women, there was a greater aspect of novelty in wearing jeans but concerns over class and propriety remained.
Jeans for Women Jeans first appeared in the women’s fashion magazine Vogue in 1935.24 The inclusion of jeans was novel, as the pages of Vogue generally remained focused on high-end designer fashions. Lady Levi’s, launched in 1934, were the first jeans designed especially for women. The Vogue article on dude ranching assumed the prescriptive tone of most fashion editorial and advised readers to stick closely to the tenets of the “true cowboy,” when selecting their vacation attire.25 The Lady Levi (lot 701) was a fivepocket jean similar to those created for men but tailored so as to allow for extra room in the seat and hips while the leg remained straight.26 Lady Levi’s most distinctive characteristic was that the selvedge line stitching, traditionally red, was issued in pink. Western distributors that carried men’s Levi’s had the option of offering women’s models and some department stores, such as Best & Co., Fleischmans, and Macy’s had in-store “Ranch shops,” catering to outfitting clientele with Western jeans. Although Vogue endorsed Western jeans for limited dude ranch resort settings, the debut of Lady Levi’s did not occur in a vacuum. The gradual acceptance of women in jeans is part of the larger history of women wearing trousers and their changing roles in society during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries.27 In terms of mainstream fashion conventions, the sight of women in pants of any kind went from being provocative or avant-garde statements to commonplace by the century’s end. Divided skirts had been associated with athletics or active lifestyles since women donned them to ride bicycles in the 1800s, and we have already seen examples for women horseback riders. Hollywood celebrities such as Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich took advantage of both the practicality and the eyebrow-raising hint of gender-bending that trousers could still impart on women in the 1930s and 1940s. In Europe, two women fashion designers whose work expressed opposing perspectives on style, the restrained Coco Chanel on one hand and the artistic and fanciful Elsa Schiaparelli on the other, included trousers and cropped culottes in their own wardrobes, encouraging fashionable women to do the same.
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Most American women were slower to embrace pants; indeed, those who might have been bold enough would have still faced judgment in public or banishment from many workplace and social settings. Trousers, particularly soft wide-legged ones, worn as at-home lounge or resort wear were not uncommon. Wide-legged and fluid, “beach pajamas” or “lounging pajamas” constructed as a one-piece jumpsuit or a two-piece ensemble were visible on boardwalks, poolside, and on balconies. Western jeans with their characteristic narrow cut existed in parallel with the wide-legged nautical look. In fact, the majority of jeans offered by department stores in the early 1930s were not particularly Western in style. Wide-legged flared sailor pants made from lighter weight denim that conformed to a nautical style, and differed only slightly from the beach pajama silhouette, imported the worldly cachet of yachting and travel into casual dress.28 While Western jeans, like Lady Levi’s, still read as “cowboy,” sailor style jeans were easier to market to a fashion-conscious upwardly mobile clientele. Wealthy society women were in fact more likely to adopt jeans as resort wear, since they did not have immediate connections to male laborers in the same way that their working-class counterparts did. Sandra Curtis Comstock, who has examined American department stores’ promotion of women’s jeans in the 1930s, notes that as of 1934 high-end department stores like Bullocks in Los Angeles and Best & Co. in New York offered jeans in advertisements that foregrounded California and Hollywood as the new American fashion frontier.29 Department stores’ motivations for creating and promoting jeans were largely self-serving—the Cotton Code, established under the National Recovery Act in 1933, standardized wage rates for clothing manufactures. The code effectively preserved wage hierarchies already in place, whereby the makers of work clothing made from cotton were the lowest paid of all garment workers.30 The denim jeans made by workwear manufacturers, for example, were considerably cheaper to acquire than those made by other ladies’ garment manufacturers, and department stores exploited this wage differential, promoting the jeans to their consumers steadily until 1936, when Cotton Code standards were abolished. World War II made the sight of women in pants, including jeans for work, more acceptable than ever. The ideas of gender and class equality that women’s jeans and workers’ jeans evoked would synchronize into a symbol of practicality and industriousness. Six million American women joined the workforce in positions formerly occupied by men in the defense industries, factories, shipyards, and mills.31 Many of these women wore jeans or denim overalls to work. Women wearing jeans during the war have been viewed as either symbolic of women’s growing independence or an anti-fashion statement, a rejection of superfluous things during difficult times. However, scholars such as Pat Kirkham have convincingly argued that this is perhaps an oversimplification. Looking beautiful and stylish was very much a part of the war effort, especially in terms of raising and maintaining morale, that was officially sanctioned and often personally felt. 32 Many women enjoyed the practicality of jeans, while also keeping up with fashion. This more nuanced perspective allows for the idea that jeans and other work clothes could be adapted into stylish
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ensembles, and makes it easier to understand why jeans remained part of many women’s wardrobes in peacetime. Although Levi Strauss & Co. was the first to offer a specially designed women’s jean, it discontinued Lady Levi’s when the United States entered the war citing fabric shortages.33 By the 1950s the company was again offering jeans for women, including side-zip ranch pant styles through the westernwear “shorthorn” label and the “denim family” lines. Lee and Wrangler both enthusiastically embraced the female consumer after the war. Lady Lee Riders (style #331 produced from 1947–76), listed as “True Western Styled Cowboy Pants,” were Lee’s first entry into the women’s jean market.34 The idea of offering a women’s jean was clearly a goal earlier, as print ads showing Riders for the whole family circulated in 1946. According to the Lady Lee Rides trademark application, the name had been used in commerce since February of 1947. However, price lists and advertisements suggest they were available to the consumer slightly later, by December 1947. The original Lady Lee Riders were made of Sanforized dark blue “coarse weave” denim in a lighter 8oz. weight than men’s Riders. Initially, like the men’s they were offered with button or zip-fly construction, but after 1950 zippers were the only option for Lady Riders. The back included the characteristic “twitch” label and the lazy-S pocket stitching. Though initially the inside woven labels were the same as the men’s simply text reading: “Lee, Union made, Sanforized” in red and gold stitching, into the 1950s the more specific identification “Lady Riders” appears as a more colorful woven label inside the waistband. Here, “Lady” is written in large looping black script above “Lee Riders” in red, and includes a tiny rendering of a slim woman in jeans, cowboy hat, and red cowboy shirt leaning against a fence post (Figure 4.5). In terms of cut they were similar to men’s Riders in their five-pocket design but were constructed with more room in the seat and hip, and darts in the yoke to
Figure 4.5 Lady Lee Riders label, c. 1950. Author’s photograph. Lee archives.
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ensure a more fitted waist. Lady Lee Riders were promoted in both westernwear catalogs and towards a more mainstream consumer of casual fashions. Subsequent styles of women’s jeans at Lee included a model described as “Ladies and Misses all-purpose blue jeans” (1949–64). These pants first appeared in Lee’s price lists in the summer of 1950. They were made of an 8oz. denim with a softer hand than Lee Riders, but the most significant differences were in terms of construction. These jeans (and it was the first time the word “jeans” was used by the company in print to describe a women’s product) did away with the five-pocket design.35 Instead, they were a flat-front trouser with two deep front pockets and a side-zip fastening. The side zip was the most explicitly gendered aspect of the design, as it followed the convention of many women’s dresses that closed with a zipper on the left side of the body, and the flat front lacked the extra fabric and hardware used to make the fly, which was considered a more flattering option for a woman’s body. In spite of these concessions to being more form fitting, the overall cut was fuller and looser with wide straight legs, a style that is presently referred to as a carpenter jean. There is also nothing distinctively Western or cowboy influenced in this model’s design or promotion. Another style that was again solidly situated in Western territory was the “Frontier Lady” that debuted in March 1952 (style #320, 1952–72). This pant combined elements of both aforementioned styles. Frontier Ladys were also made of 8oz. denim, and featured a flat front and side-zip closure, but were in keeping with what would typically be recognized as a Ranch pant or Frontier pant (Figure 4.6). They had a more tapered leg, and words like “tailored,” “tapered,” and “trim” recur in price list, catalog, and advertising descriptions. The pocket and belt loops construction are perhaps the most conspicuously Western, with the front featuring two small flap pockets terminating in points at the hips and fastening with synthetic pearl snap closures like those used on Western shirts. The belt loops were decorative, named “Fancy Dart Belt Loops” in one 1952 price list; they are slightly wider than the men’s version and end in a point for the overall look of an arrow shape.36 There are no back pockets or twitch patch. The interior Frontier Lady woven label features a stagecoach being led by four horses, once again emphasizing westward journeys of the nineteenth century, while suggesting action and adventure, and naturally John Ford’s 1939 film. The name “Frontier Lady” is written in looping script above the stagecoach image, and seeing as this typeface was used twice in branding women’s products it is safe to assume that it was to be read as feminine, a kind of elegant contrast with the block serif letters of the Lee name. During a sales meeting in May 1954, Lee salesmen optimistically noted that “Frontier lady, no. 320 . . . is rapidly growing in popularity nation-wide. It is the authentic Western styled frontier pants tailored for good looks, and to fit into the ever-increasing popularity of Western attire.”37 The different types of women’s jeans show that Lee’s women’s line was successful enough to expand into new styles for a broader consumer base, with designs that were still explicitly Western. Embracing the women’s market showed that Lee was keeping up to date with changes in women’s clothing trends and that it was producing and selling with mainstream sportswear consumers in mind.
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Figure 4.6 Frontier Lady jeans and label, c. 1950. Author’s photograph. Private collection.
This practice would extend to other subsequent lines such as Lee Westerners, launched in 1958, and the women’s version Lady Westerner that debuted in 1960, as well as Leesures, launched in 1959. The latter all featured pants and jackets for women, men, girls, and boys that were available in twills and textiles other than blue denim.38 When Wrangler jeans launched in 1947, they were accompanied with a selection of Western basics—including cowboy shirts and denim jackets that also bear the Wrangler name. Blue Bell owned and operated mills and factories capable of producing the cottons and flannels suitable for Western shirting with details such as front and back yokes, snap closures, placket and cuffs, pointed or sawtooth pockets, a narrow cut, long tails, and variety of patterns ranging from more conservative plaids to vibrant stripes and polka dots.39 As the 1955 “Real Facts on Wrangler” noted, the shirts were originally produced in men’s and boy’s sizes, and the majority of the photographs and illustrations in print advertising and trade brochures feature men and boys. A price list for retailers detailing the specifics of Wrangler jeans and denim jackets in terms of sizing, cut, and construction details includes a prominent photograph of 1952’s World Champion All-Around Cowboy Harry Tompkins, as well as two young boys in Western jeans and shirts. Three of the four pages were devoted to “men, youths and
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boys” while the fourth, the back page of the pamphlet was reserved for women’s clothes for “misses and girls.” The women’s styles were available with either front or side-zip closures and, like the boys’ jeans, were issued in a lighter weight 8 oz. denim (unlike the men’s which came in a heavier 11 or 13 oz. denim).40 Even though Blue Bell Wrangler jeans for women were promoted along the same lines as the men’s jeans—that they were long-wearing and ideal for active outdoor lifestyles—the company assumed that women preferred to wear softer, lighter-weight textiles. Although women were somewhat marginalized in rodeo during its “golden age,” Wrangler included female rodeo stars in its advertising.41 In 1951, Berva Dawn Sorensen appeared in Wrangler Western gear, paired with the caption “How to buy better Western clothes” (Figure 4.7). Another advertisement featuring Sorensen from the same year notes that she wore tailored riding clothes for her rodeo
Figure 4.7 Wrangler advertisement, Berva Dawn Sorensen, 1951. Author’s photograph. Private collection.
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appearances, “but for active work on the Sorensen’s Flying-U ranch near Camas, Idaho, she always wears Blue Bell Wranglers.”42 Berva Dawn Sorensen was immersed in ranching and rodeo culture all her life, and by the time this advertisement appeared she was a well-known rodeo performer.43 Another woman who represented Wrangler was Shirley Lucas, who, as the advertising copy indicates, was a “famous trick rider and movie stunt star.” With her sister Susan, Lucas had a successful career as rodeo trick rider, and also worked as an un-credited stunt double in four Hollywood films between 1950 and 1955. As an indication of her growing popularity, a year after her Wrangler advertisement, Lucas appeared—with credits in these instances—in two episodes of the television series The Cisco Kid.44 Although these women were celebrities in the rodeo community, they were not featured as prominently by Blue Bell as the men. The advertisements with Sorensen and Lucas tended to be smaller in scale than those with male rodeo stars and more often printed in black and white, suggesting that they were also lower budget. The two advertisements discussed above circulated predominantly in periodicals targeted at the Western ranching and rodeo community.45 Thus, although Blue Bell was actively selling Wranglers to women, the emphasis in the advertising suggests that the company was more interested in marketing its jeans to women with “active” lifestyles, and less comfortable with connecting female rodeo riders, whose athleticism and careers were far from typical, to Wrangler jeans. In spite of brands like Wrangler’s desire to appeal to the cowboy or cowgirl niche, jeans were increasingly visible nationwide. A 1948 feature in Harper’s Bazaar titled “Blue Denim: Long let it Fade” offers a series of chic resort wear looks that are not recognizable as denim at first glance, and are decidedly not faded.46 A 1953 Mademoiselle magazine article, “Blue Jeans: a family plan,” noted that: “there are probably more blue jeans worn in suburban Connecticut than on the plains of Texas.”47 Notwithstanding whether or not this was statistically true, it attests to their popularity. Although women like the attractive young mother with two children in the featured photograph may have spent a lot of time in jeans, the article notes that they “slip out of them long enough to go down to New York and back,” suggesting that social decorum and the difference between the suburbs and the city were still demarcated through dress, and that jeans were not acceptable cosmopolitan wear. The same sentiment entered into the comic dialogue of a 1957 episode of the popular television sitcom I Love Lucy. Lucy Arnaz (Lucille Ball) needs her neighbor Ethel’s help when she has to travel into New York for an emergency, in response to suggesting they immediately venture into the city an unprepared Ethel exclaims: “in my blue jeans?!” Clearly, she felt that she would not be appropriately dressed.48 Another convention that the Mademoiselle feature makes clear is that jeans were not only appropriate for women, but also for the entire family. Mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons could be dressed virtually identically from the waist down. Denim-clad families, in which every member enjoyed the benefits of casual, easy to maintain clothes, were a popular sight in postwar advertising.
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Lee’s aforementioned national campaign ran into the 1950s, and Levi Strauss & Co.’s “Denim Family” advertisements also showed different family members wearing jeans for active or suburban pursuits. Jeans were connected to family togetherness, and the mother’s role as consumer. Although family togetherness and prudent middle-class consumer choices were foregrounded by denim manufacturers, jeans had been visible in other, more exclusive contexts. American women artists in the Southwest, such as Dorothea Tanning and Georgia O’Keefe, lent a bohemian edge to denim. Tanning was a surrealist painter who lived and worked with her artist partner Max Ernst in Sedona, Arizona, during the 1940s. Her self-fashioning ranges from elegant and feminine to practical and almost girlish. Jeans and gingham shirts were part of her day-to-day studio aesthetic, and she was famously photographed in 1946 by another creative woman, Lee Miller, wearing frayed capri jeans and a scalloped-edge cropped blouse. For an artist like Tanning, jeans are expressive of a hard-working character who is attuned to the regional conventions surrounding her. Georgia O’Keefe’s aesthetic is considerably more sophisticated and deliberate. Wanda Corn’s illuminating work on O’Keefe’s wardrobe shows an artist whose image was highly refined through a combination of clothing and accessories that blended handmade, designer, and workwear elements. The more time she spent in the Southwest, the more Western-inflected her style became, and photographs from the late 1940s onward show her wearing men’s and women’s jeans, often combined with simple work shirts, gingham blouses, and her black flat-crowned hat. Indeed, O’Keefe stated simply that blue jeans were; “the costume of this country—I rather think they are our only national costumes.” 49 Corn aptly applies the term “Regional modernism” to frame O’Keefe’s distinctive aesthetic and its connection to her life and work in New Mexico, yet it is also telling that the artist herself named a Western garment—blue jeans—as a national costume. This was another instance of the Western standing in for all of America.50 While these creative women established a foundation for denim’s cachet, Hollywood showed a range of actresses in jeans and westernwear. Even Joan Crawford, who was known for high-impact glamor throughout her career, donned jeans for her role in the 1954 Western Johnny Guitar. Celebrities who whose off-screen, out of costume, image included jeans and casual apparel seemed to be most impactful in solidifying the style with consumers. High-profile celebrities such as Slim Keith (Mrs. Howard Hawks) Lauren Bacall, Kim Novak, and Marilyn Monroe, were frequently pictured in jeans and in turn, images of such attractive women added an additional hint of glamour and sophistication to denim. Slim Keith, born Mary Raye Gross, from Salinas, California, would become one of the most well-known socialites of the 1940s and 1950s. Dubbed the “original California girl,” Keith opted for a look of “no nonsense femininity” that complemented her tall, slim frame, and her skill lay in wearing elegant styles that were not too trendy or fussy with considerable ease. While she was photographed tending to her garden in jeans and a man’s-style shirt, Keith’s demeanor and appearance were carefully styled and no less elite than the Hollywood A-list and “high-society” company she kept.51
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Marilyn Monroe was photographed in jeans much more frequently. Monroe’s public image was complex but she exuded a curvaceous femininity. Glamorous on screen and off, her appeal owed a great deal to her ability to look equally at ease and sensual in revealing evening attire and casual clothes.52 This contrast was emphasized in a series of photographs from Life magazine in 1952—when Monroe was an emerging star at Twentieth Century Fox—and Philippe Halsman photographed her in a white off-the-shoulder evening gown, as well as in a pair of Levi’s 701 blue jeans. In cuffed jeans and a bra top, she posed lifting weights and standing on her head. Monroe’s very public persona lent jeans a bit of Hollywood style. She also wore jeans in character in films such as Otto Preminger’s River of No Return (1954), as well as Bus Stop (1956, dir. Joshua Logan), and Clash By Night (1952, dir. Fritz Lang) all of which were set in the West. Perhaps most memorable was her Lee Storm Rider jacket in John Houston’s The Misfits (1961), a film that offered darker, revisionist Western themes. Although both Keith and Monroe are similar in that they are both white women who conform to mid-century standards of beauty, the kind of femininity expressed differs in terms of vulnerability and assertiveness, age, and sophistication.
Pendleton Enters a “New World” Pendleton had a limited selection of women’s Western apparel before the brand fully ventured into fashionable women’s clothing in 1949. The emergence of the Gambler and other garments with subtle Western design details in the 1930s show that Western lifestyles and aesthetics were an important part of Pendleton’s garment production, and they extended into women’s clothing. Early 1940s print advertisements in rodeo catalogs targeted both cowboys and cowgirls. A “Buckaroo and Dude Ranch Clothing” brochure from 1940, for example, devoted three of its four sections to menswear but women’s Western apparel was offered as well, albeit described as; “Western outfits that men admire. The same good cloths [sic]—the same good style and the same good tailoring as found in men’s Pendletons.”53 The brochure lists a limited selection of women’s styles: Ladies Tucson jackets, Frontier pants, and woolen shirts. The names and descriptions, which emphasized snug fit and comfort, vary little from their male counterparts. The women’s Western shirt made in the 1930s and early 1940s was not much different from the men’s in construction; it was cut full with long tails but included gussets under the arm to accommodate the bust.54 Tellingly, the brief description assures readers that “men admire” these ensembles while no mention is made of women, or anyone else, admiring the physical attributes of the men’s selections. Again, the presumption that men’s Western apparel is accepted, or somehow neutral, while women’s needs to be sold on the premise of attractiveness is reinforced. It is interesting to note that the company considered Western apparel, Dude Ranch outfits, or Frontier styles as distinct from the other women’s fashions that it started offering in 1949, as though Western
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attire was geared to a specific lifestyle or regional subset of consumers who lived outside of trends. Indeed, the company had mixed feelings towards ready-to-wear fashion and handled womenswear with some trepidation. Following the war, Pendleton chose to expand its women’s line to include more stylish, fashionforward looks. Although the company wanted to break into the womenswear market, records suggest that this decision was fraught with considerable hesitation. Company president C. M. Bishop summarized his concern over the production of fashionable women’s apparel in the summer of 1947, warning that doing so would mean that “our business would depend on style.”55 Pendleton garments, for both genders, had not differed tremendously by season. Designers strove to be up to date with colors and fits but garments generally remained conservative, and Bishop’s comment implied that Pendleton operated outside of the world of “style.” It is likely that the kind of style he was nervous about was the ever-growing and ever-changing women’s ready-to-wear market in which fashionability and keeping current superseded concerns over textile quality and product longevity.56 For Pendleton, the postwar womenswear market was an “introduction into a new world.”57 In order to help navigate this new territory, the company contacted Dorothy Liebes. Liebes was one of the West Coast’s most well-known designers, and one of the most influential textile designers in the United States.58 Born in Santa Rosa, California, in 1897, and educated at the University of California, Berkeley, Liebes was known predominantly for her hand-weaving, unconventional use of materials, and surprisingly bold color combinations that reflected and contributed to the modernist design idiom. She identified her work as belonging to a “California look,” and like many modernist designers at the time, was committed to making quality design available to a wide audience at accessible price points.59 Hand-woven textiles always played a part in her practice but Liebes was not opposed to collaborating with larger textile manufacturers and using synthetics. Indeed, she was brought in as an expert consultant for womenswear, and her work with Pendleton commenced in July 1947.60 The specifics about what she recommended and how she advised are not on record, but it was clear that Pendleton found the collaboration and her advice fruitful. The company considered the possibility of hiring her as a textile designer on retainer, and six years after the consultancy began, she was considered as a possible outside designer for the women’s apparel line.61 Although that never came to fruition, it suggests that Pendleton consistently valued her work and expertise. Pendleton executives who were hesitant about pursuing women’s fashion wanted to ensure the new products reflected the company’s unique regional identity. They recognized that Liebes as “a Westerner,” who claimed to be very interested in developing Western merchandise, was the best person to help them achieve this.62 Her Western roots were important because they correlated to the company’s location, the strong regional ties it fostered, and executives also felt that as a West Coast native Liebes’ sensibility towards clothing would correspond to theirs. Furthermore, Pendleton had a policy of seeking local collaborators or other Western designers.63 As a Californian, Liebes did understand sportswear, and although the
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Pacific Northwest is a cooler and different climate, Portland was the third leading garment manufacturing center in the United States. The company already offered Western merchandise for women, and the concerns didn’t relate to cowboy-inspired westernwear per se; but the company’s use of the term “Westerner” in office conferences is another example of how clothing produced in the West was being conceived as a distinct type best understood by designers and manufacturers in the region.64 Pendleton’s womenswear line, launched in 1949, was very successful largely because of the popularity of a single style; the 49er jacket designed by Berthé Wiechmann. Wiechmann hailed from Oregon City, Oregon, and had worked in sweater design for Jantzen, another popular Portland sportswear company, before joining Pendleton in 1949.65 Designed to showcase the woolens for which Pendleton was famous, the 49er jacket was named for the year it was launched and referenced the 1849 Gold Rush that brought thousands of new residents to the Western states.66 It was a boxy, unlined shirt-like jacket with a notched collar, patch pockets at the hips, and four large gray mother-of-pearl buttons down the front (Figure 4.8). It premiered in twenty-eight colors (plaids and solids) and was coordinated with a line of matching wool skirts. It could be worn belted and stood firmly in the tradition of up-scale versatile sportswear of the type popular with college women.67 Indeed the active, collegiate lifestyle was celebrated in Pendleton’s earliest advertising for the ’49er jacket. Colorful print advertisements, illustrated by Ted Rand, featured vibrant modern women and showcased the versatility of the jacket’s simple design. The pleated plaid woolen “Turnabout” skirt, which debuted in 1953, was the next successful womenswear staple Pendleton issued. The novelty of its construction and textile design was that it was reversible. Unlined, both faces could be worn, each revealing opposing colors on the surface. The practicality of both the 49er and the “Turnabout” indicates that Pendleton was creating a line of easyto-wear women’s separates in accordance with the goals expressed at a 1949 office conference, namely that: “Pendleton garments must be kept a staple . . . they must not be ‘loud’ or ‘vulgar,’ ” and are made from “conservative but ‘rich’ cloth.”68 In effect, the neat yet sturdy woolens were used for Pendleton’s womenswear collections after 1949 conformed to Rebecca Arnold’s third category of sportswear: town and country wear, namely “smart” pieces for general use.69 At the same time as the fashionable women’s line, Pendleton’s Western staples remained in production accompanied by promotional imagery featuring Western settings, and in both its men’s and womenswear offerings Pendleton maintained their “conservative” high-end standards. The story of the 49er jacket is significant because it shows the company successfully extending its reach, with the assistance of two women designers. However, it also reveals a great deal about Pendleton’s characterization of its apparel and its consumers. The “new” women’s garments were treated as distinct from westernwear (the Buckaroo shirts, Frontier pants, and Tucson jackets that had been available in women’s fits since the 1930s) and the advertising was free of cowgirl or rodeo references. Contextualizing womenswear, i.e. fashion, as a separate
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Figure 4.8 Pendleton 49er jacket. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
category, implies that the company was dividing its consumers along two tracks, even if many of the garments themselves were quite similar. What’s stranger still is that by the late 1940s a blending of menswear, sportwear, and workwear was already present in women’s fashion. With its branding of the 49er and the women’s styles that followed, Pendleton was enforcing distinctions that were ceasing to exist.
Western Details in “Smart” Womenswear While Pendleton was careful to separate its more cowboy-inflected offerings from the fashionforward ready-to-wear items, broader trends suggest that Western elements were blending
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Figure 4.9 Sage green wool pencil skirt with arrow stitch detail, c. 1955. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
into fashionable attire in multiple ways. Not only were garments like jeans bearing more visible Western details such as piping, arrow pockets, whip stitching, but bandana prints were emerging in stylish, tailored women’s clothes—again, the kind of sportswear that functions as “smart” pieces for everyday. The Western details can be obvious, as is the case with the Nardis of Dallas cattle brand dress in the previous chapter, or subtle. For example, two wool pencil skirts from the mid1950s feature inventive applications of piping and arrow pocket stitching. A green wool skirt bearing the “ ‘Lofties’ by Laurence” label has stitched ribs running down the left thigh that terminate in arrow heads, like the front pockets of a Western shirt (Figure 4.9). Another similar beige skirt has curved “smile” arrow pocket stitching used as a decorative accent on the front of the hip pocket (Figure 4.10).
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Figure 4.10 Beige wool pencil skirt with arrow stitching on pocket, c. 1955. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses. Private collection.
It does not form a functional pocket opening, but is identical in shape. Whether or not the details on these particular skirts were understood as Western inspired by their wearers is uncertain. Slim skirts were fashionable at the time and, paired with blouses or sweaters, they were work appropriate for young professional women.70 Piping and arrow stitching were particularly enduring motifs. Consider the shoulder detail of this A & R Junior’s dress from 1953 in comparison to the pocket options from Western tailor Rodeo Ben’s catalog (as shown Figure 1.2, Chapter 1; see also Figure 4.11 below).71 They add a subtle decorative detail to the dress, while Ben’s Western shirting offers a range of applications. The examples above indicate that Western features were subtlety applied to more mainstream garments. In addition, some Westerners—particularly those connected to entertainment and rodeo cultures—elected to wear tailored ensembles that conformed to the trends of the time but which also included Western motifs. The spirited, exuberant, rhinestone cowboy designs of Nudie Cohn or Rodeo Ben were favored by many Western entertainers, but subtler Western design influence was also an option. Jolly Brown, wife of designer Bob Brown, who worked in leatherwork, boot, and graphic design and famously created the Nudie Rodeo Tailors’ cowgirl label, owned an elegantly tailored gray wool gabardine suit designed by Nathan Turk in the mid-1940s which featured the characteristic
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Figure 4.11 A&R Juniors advertisement (detail) dress includes piping and arrow pocket detailing at shoulders, Seventeen, January 1953.
fitted waist and slightly padded shoulders one would expect to see in fashionable suits of the time (Figure 4.12 here).72 The suit jacket was embellished with bright green contrasting piping, and four smile pockets finished with arrows at the bust and hips, as well as piping curving upward from the half belted back that accentuates the smallness of the waist. Nathan Turk, famous for ornate Western looks, could easily work within the fashionable conventions of the day while incorporating Western detail in a sophisticated manner. The Western catalogs also courted fashionability while offering staple garments. A summer 1963 Wrangler of Cheyenne catalog (a publication owned by Miller Stockman), featured unborn calfskin fashioned into stylish footwear and handbags for women (Figure 4.13). The hides, offered in black or spotted black and white, were used for elegant pointed-toe stiletto-heeled shoes. Although Miller Stockman catalogs had consistently offered a variety of women’s boots along with a few leather sandals, these tapered stiletto heels with matching purses mark a departure towards more sophisticated, fashion-conscious styling. The natural unborn calfskin material bound the products to Western aesthetics and materials and the shoes and handbags could either be worn with conventional clothing
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Figure 4.12 Woman’s jacket, Nathan Turk, c. 1945, wool. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Gift of Bob Brown. 2001.26.14.
or incorporated into head-to-toe Western outfits. The availability of such accessories suggests that at the same time as popular fashionable sportswear borrowed Western design details, traditionally Western distributors were adapting their wares to take account of contemporary trends.
A Western Take on the New Look Despite the growing popularity of women’s pants and especially of more casual sportswear styles in the United States, the predominant fashion aesthetic in the decade following the war was the overtly feminine New Look. Christian Dior’s New Look, or Corolle line, debuted in Paris in 1947. It was
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Figure 4.13 Unborn calfskin accessories in The Wrangler of Cheyenne catalog, Summer 1963. Miller International archives.
characterized by an hourglass silhouette and is almost always presented as a sartorial manifestation of women’s return to domestic life in peacetime (which, as mentioned, is far from the whole truth). The newness of this shape with soft shoulders, round bustline, narrow nipped-in waist, full hips, and a long skirt, was embodied entirely through dresses and suits; no trousers were shown in the collection.73 The contradiction in describing what was effectively a retrograde feminine ideal as something “new,” was not missed by critics at the time, particularly those in European nations that still suffered under wartime austerity measures. Nevertheless, everyday styles including sportswear influenced by the New Look were popular for women of different ages and shopping at different price points in the United States. Cultural historian Karal Ann Marling refers to such accessible versions of the New Look’s fitted bodices, sweetheart necklines, and full skirts as an “ultra-feminine version of Dior filtered through Hollywood.”74 Indeed, New Look silhouettes, in formal and informal incarnations, were often treated as being uniquely appropriate for American women. For example, a May 1953 editorial from Seventeen magazine included a two-page feature with full-skirted New Look-inspired cotton
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sundresses under the heading “All-American.”75 Circle skirts that skimmed the calves were worn belted at the waist with sweaters or dolman-sleeved blouses. Shirtwaist dresses that worked for day and evening could be rendered in dark taffeta or brightly colored cotton and appeared at all levels of the marketplace. While Dior’s original couture versions restricted movement and accentuated the features of a mature female body, in its more populist incarnations the New Look silhouette lent itself to practical cotton dresses and sweater and circle skirt separates for young women and teenage girls. Christian Dior’s influence in the United States extended beyond the elite world of couture. In March 1957 Dior’s face graced the cover of Time magazine, and in 1963 his name was included in an advertisement for Lee Westerners jeans. Six years after the designer’s death and sixteen years after the New Look debuted, a young woman in matching white Lee Westerners jacket and pants holds a striped serape blanket over one arm and leans to pull a saddle out of the trunk of her station wagon with the other (Figure 4.14).76 The caption reads: “She wears Dior at Night . . . and Lee in the sparkling Western
Figure 4.14 Lady Westerners advertisement, Sunset magazine, 1963. Lee archives clippings.
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sunlight.” The message implies that the reader would be familiar with the Dior name, and that the same woman who could wear an exclusive couture label would also choose Lee brand apparel for active daytime pursuits. It is a statement that connects Lee to elite culture and class, and women who wear Lee’s westernwear, with both pragmatism and elegance. The copy below continues: Great fashion is fun because it’s personal. It says me. Here, a woman with flawless fashion sense. She’s a Westerner. Proud of it. And there is honest chauvinism in her day after day affection for Lady Lee Westerners. There are no tricks in Lady Westerners, no slick eastern notions. Lady Westerners pants and jacket are authentically Western all the way . . . Despite the somewhat inconsistent sentiments expressed (the woman has flawless fashion sense, a personal style, yet is a fashion follower, and while Dior’s Parisian pedigree is acceptable, “slick eastern notions” are understood to be pretentious); it is clear that Lee was seeking a female audience conversant in high-end designer labels who also had a connection to the West and casual living. It is also worth noting that in a little under twenty years Lee had gone from courting consumers “from coast to coast” to exaggerating the opposition between East and West, with the West being positioned as the more earnest or forthright identity. A move towards functionality and practicality is evident in postwar women’s casual dress, whether the target audience is a magazine reader following a Hollywood star or a young mother with the family budget in mind, advertisers and westernwear manufacturers were tentatively embracing a more independent role for women. Cowgirl imagery could offer a playful, imaginative means of connecting new causal styles to the past but for the most part, these shifts in womenswear were represented as fresh and progressive, in short: modern. Yet, when it came to menswear the opposite was true— Western design and imagery was bound to tradition and presented a safe option in a rapidly changing fashionable and cultural landscape.
The Postwar Menswear Scene American men’s fashion experienced significant transitions in the postwar years. Oscar E. Schoeffler, fashion director of Esquire magazine, remarked in 1957 that, “men’s fashions, which once changed so slowly, now follow an accelerated cycle in keeping up with the speed of modern communications and transportation.”77 Even the appearance of basic workwear was subject to closer scrutiny. A 1946 advertisement for Lee work clothes, for example, exclaimed that the company was: “Leading the parade to better jobs in 1946” (Figure 4.15). A cheerful majorette hovers over a row of six men in work clothes, who appear on an elevated stage above a crowd of suited, and, judging by their gray hair, presumably older gentlemen. The caption: “Which men would you pick for promotion?” implies that
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Figure 4.15 Better jobs in '46. Work clothes advertisement, 1946. Lee archives.
these workmen are being judged by employers based on their appearance. Three of them are slouching in ill-fitting, unkempt, faded garb while the others stand straight and square-shouldered in trim, coordinated, Lee ensembles. The advertisement is direct in its message: Lee garments will help you advance in the workplace. The implication—that men are competing for jobs and that working men are dependent upon tidy and professional attire for such advancement—was new in Lee’s advertising, and it speaks to larger changes in men’s personal presentation. Outreach to new consumers continued apace at Lee through the 1950s. A significant shift in Lee’s postwar expansion was the recognition of the African American market. As early as 1954 the company
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was advertising work clothes and jeans in Ebony magazine. The first print advertisements were somewhat prosaic in their presentation of Lee’s standard matching work shirts and pants. A quarter-page black and white photographic advertisement from November 1955 in Ebony and an October 1955 advertisement featured in Life are identical in copy and layout except that the model wearing the shirt and trousers in Ebony is African American and in Life he is white. Although the Ebony advertising does not engage with Western themes, Lee’s willingness to promote its goods to this specific community demonstrates that it saw value in promoting goods to Black men. Given that a high percentage of working-class African American men probably already wore such clothes to work, Lee was doing little more than acknowledging the fact. Yet, in the segregation conscious culture of the time such advertising suggests the company was slightly progressive for at least considering the demographic and employing a Black model. For men’s sportswear the postwar years heralded greater variety, and the marketing of men’s clothing began to conform more closely to the marketing of womenswear, with its emphasis on novelty and seasonal change. William R. Scott’s analysis of men’s leisurewear in California from 1930 through 1960 shows that professional attire became markedly more casual through the end of the 1940s. This conclusion was based on industry observations that professional men were diversifying their wardrobes, and wearing fewer three-piece suits and fewer hats. The styles operated similarly to the examples of women’s sportswear addressed above, and the terms sportswear and leisurewear were effectively interchangeable for describing men’s casual attire. Scott situates men’s leisurewear in the context of vernacular modernism; it was the product of modern industry but also accommodated modern lifestyles at a time when the boundaries between work clothes and leisure clothes were blurring. It was also regionally specific at first, emerging in California, the sportswear center, before anywhere else in the country.78 The first men’s ready-to-wear runway fashion show took place in Palm Springs in 1942. The Men’s Wear Manufacturers of Los Angeles launched the Sportswear Round-Up event to attract national retailers’ attention to their wares that, according to Scott, were associated with “youth, celebrity, leisure, and heterosexuality.” Further, the event’s title, “Round-Up,” implies a connection to California’s history and Western traditions.79 Men were encouraged to buy new types of clothing in the name of dressing down and having fun. Marketing that evoked a California lifestyle sought to redefine the masculine consumer. If the Arrow Shirt Man, the elegant gentleman who promoted Arrow collars and shirts, was connected to aspirational aristocratic lifestyles and elite pastimes at the start of the century, the postwar American masculine ideal celebrated physical vigor and outdoor amusement in less rigidly tailored apparel.80 The practice of a cattle round-up couldn’t be more different from a fashion show, but the intentional juxtaposition of the two helped liken the menswear on display to “masculine” activities. In 1947, The Men’s Apparel Research Guild, based in New York City, made an effort to articulate the qualities of California Sportswear for its readers. Tellingly, they singled out the use of “motifs and details that stem from the Old West.” Westernwear was thus understood by outside observers as being part of the
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California aesthetic, and California manufacturers often foregrounded their Western identity and regional history.81 While these trends were clearly evident, and concerning to the competing New York garment industry, westernwear makers outside of California were adjusting to the same conventions.
New Products and Promotions at Pendleton: Selling to the “Everyman” Even Pendleton stepped beyond its traditional rugged outdoorsman image to include domestic outdoor leisure. The “Sunweights” and “Sir Pendleton” lines were two company initiatives that were promoted with bright and cheerful illustrations comparable to those the company issued for womenswear, in publications such as True, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Saturday Evening Post, and Time. A “Sunweights” advertisement from March 1951 placed center-stage a square-jawed, short-haired man in a flecked mauve button-down shirt with a single patch pocket and charcoal gray trousers (Figure 4.16). “Sunweights” fabrics were lightweight woolens intended for spring and summer wear. The pastel color options call to mind Palm Springs and sunshine. They certainly speak more to California lifestyles, or popular understandings of them, than the Pacific Northwest. The smaller illustrations that border the copy are suggestive of a New West; grilling at a barbeque, playing with a dog, lounging on patio furniture, and playing golf. Although these are all outdoor activities, none of them required strenuous physical effort. The only explicit reference to the Old West is the Pendleton name presented on a plank signpost at the bottom right. Here Pendleton was looking beyond hunters, loggers, and fishermen, to the market of suburban husbands and fathers. While middle-class men were already a significant part of Pendleton’s consumer base, the relaxed image and soft colors seen here suggests the company was confident in extending this market further, and changing aspects of their conventional shirting. “Sir Pendleton” offered yet another variation. The name alone suggested refinement and luxury. A “Sir Pendleton” advertisement from fall of 1955 described the “featherweight” virgin wool of the shirts and slacks, and the image featured men with golf clubs. The signpost that reads “There’s only one Pendleton, always virgin wool,” appealed to brand familiarity, and the association of Pendleton with quality was something that the company was careful to emphasize while promoting new products. Into the early 1960s, after Pendleton had abandoned illustrated advertisements in favor of photographic imagery, the “Sir Pendleton” man remained dapper and refined.82 These clothes fit into the larger trend of dressing for a leisured domestic lifestyle, and a blending of the outdoorsman, laborer, and suburban homeowner. Pendleton was not the only company selling along these lines. A 1950 print advertisement for Black Bear wool shirts from Sunset magazine features a man in a plaid shirt with snap pockets straddled over a sawhorse and brandishing a rake like a
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Figure 4.16 Pendleton Sunweights, advertisement, 1951. Pendleton archives.
sword. The copy reads “A Lochinvar of Western Living.” This “true knight of the Golden West” is surrounded by an adoring wife in a New Look-inspired jacket and little boy in full cowboy costume, complete with pistols (Figure 4.17). It is an image that positions the man not only within a Western scenario but also as a knight in his own private court with the accoutrements of backyard hobbies. The humor comes from merging fantasies of medieval knights, cowboys, and backyard maintenance. In spite of these incongruous references, the advertisement spoke directly to the kind of consumer companies targeted.
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Figure 4.17 Black Bear shirts, Sunset magazine, 1950.
Concurrently, the 1950s saw a dramatic rise in do-it-yourself (DIY) home maintenance and domestic hobbies, especially for men. Cultural historian Steven Gelber posits that the “husband as handyman” was part of a new postwar iteration of masculinity. Perhaps in response to the aforementioned “crisis” of American masculinity, which supposedly drained men of their virility and physical dominance, many sought to complete domestic building projects other physical chores at home.83 Historian Glenn Adamson observed that while previous generations tended to see working with one’s hands as a marker of low social status, this one saw it as a marker of masculine pride.84 Naturally, such tasks demanded durable clothing. The “husband as handyman” is present in the advertisement above—he even has a sawhorse—and domestic home improvements were featured in magazine editorials as well as advertising beyond specialty hobbyist publications. DIY was not an exclusively male movement. A 1953 Collier’s magazine feature showed a whole family in the process of building furniture. The article, “Something New in ‘Old Clothes,’ ” explained that; “you can dress in fancy and practical variations for every home chore to be done.” In other words, household projects no longer had to be completed wearing “old clothes,” but new specialized functional apparel, as the text makes clear:
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In the last few years, dungarees have become a uniform of the day—at least on week-ends and after work. And manufacturers today are devoting the same loving care to the making of work clothes that they have always lavished on party dresses, business suits, and leisure clothes. As a result, you can wear mighty good-looking “old clothes” these days. Slacks, dungarees, shorts, shirts—all are practical, handsome and inexpensive. You can greet company in them, or wear them while sweeping out the basement. It amounts to a revolution in work clothes.85 Although the writer clearly made some dubious claims regarding the manufacture of work clothes— party dresses and business suits did not originate from the same sources as workwear—the overall implication and tone supported the ascendance of casual dressing and the attractiveness of the current offerings. In addition, although building one’s own furniture and engaging in DIY repairs were promoted as money-saving choices for homeowners, these same thrifty consumers were encouraged to purchase new, more attractive, and appropriate work clothes. Clothing manufacturers, most notably Lee and Pendleton, extended focus from workwear for men on the jobsite to acceptable weekend fare, an idea that extended to all members of the family working in their spare time at home. Given that Pendleton produced both Western and conventional men’s shirting, promotional offers would sometimes combine styles. In what was clearly an effort to foreground and contextualize its Western apparel, Pendleton offered interested retailers the option to order displays and props to enhance store windows and countertops in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The company supplied artwork and Western-style wooden display units—mainly stands, racks, and shelving made in knotty woods, finished with a light varnish manufactured by Stansgaard Displays of Chicago.86 The planks resembled frontier signposts and fence posts and some were accessorized with small three-dimensional carved cartoon-style cowboys and lassos. Intentionally rustic, perhaps intentionally faux-rustic, the same imagery enlivens pamphlets with scenes of cowboys riding bucking broncos, wrangling steers, and bulldogging. Displays and print materials both make strong connections between Pendleton and the rough-and-tumble action of rodeo.87 Both are derived from original artwork by E. B. Quigley (1895–1984), a known Portland artist who worked in the Western genre—painting, drawing, and carving horses, riders, and cattle in picturesque Western ranch scenes with snow-tipped mountains behind.88 The lively cowboy scenes were inspired by time Quigley spent on ranches and at rodeos in Oregon, Washington, and Montana, where he studied his subjects and created naturalistic oil paintings as well as stylized, animated illustrations like those in Pendleton advertisements.89 Images of store windows show how retailers incorporated these materials with their own Western accoutrements into displays for Pendleton products. A 1946 window from the E. M. Kohl store in Dallas, Texas, used Pendleton’s Quigley-esque illustrated panels to create a rectangular frame around a large standing cowboy cutout (Figure 4.18).90 Pendleton shirts are positioned alongside leather belts, cowboy boots, and a small toy or model of a wagon and team of horses. A similar display window
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Figure 4.18 Pendleton window display, 1946. E. M. Kohl store, Dallas, Texas. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
featuring Pendleton products, also from 1946, was created at Friedman’s in West Allis, Wisconsin. Four shirts are folded flat and strewn across a wagon wheel, while two others, displayed on dress-form torsos complete with tie and belts, are suspended in mid-air by ropes. Four lounging robes, worn over a shirt and tie, are dressed on headless mannequins, while the ground is sprinkled with dried leaves. At the center of this busy composition is a Pendleton sign bearing the brand name and a wooden cowboy holding the lasso ropes that tug on the shirts below (Figure 4.19). The obvious artifice of these displays was no doubt understood by both retailer and consumer. The Western motifs amount to an amusing diversion, adding an element of novelty. Both windows offer playful and dynamic displays but the garments themselves, if shown outside of this context and merchandising might not necessarily read as “Western.” The lounging robes in the Friedman’s window are more suggestive of an executive relaxing at the end of the day than a cowboy or rancher. Taken together, these windows suggest that Pendleton’s men’s wear, though not always explicitly Western in styling, was nevertheless linked to cowboy imagery and lifestyles by the company itself, and by the retailers who displayed and sold it.
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Figure 4.19 Pendleton window display, 1946, Friedman’s, West Allis, Wisconsin. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
Bold Looks and Bold Colors The “Bold Look” for men emerged in the late 1940s as an equivalent of the New Look for women. It was characterized by suiting with a fuller silhouette, strong shoulder, wide lapels, and generally roomier, more comfortable fits.91 While the New Look’s fitted waist, rounded bust and hips exaggerated the female form, the Bold Look’s broad shoulders and rectangular torso was considered more masculine. Although the name never attained the popular currency of “New Look,” the Bold Look style was influential and became slightly more streamlined into the mid-1950s, with shoulders and lapels gradually narrowing, and single-breasted jackets eventually replacing double-breasted ones.92 Suiting of this type may have little in common with Western styles, but the idea of boldness, of standing out and presenting oneself in line with idealized masculine gender conventions, is intertwined with westernwear and men’s sportswear in several ways.
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The gray flannel suit may have been the conventional office attire, but increasing numbers of middle-class men were incorporating color and busier prints into their wardrobes, mainly via Hawaiian shirts, sports shirts, and decorative ties.93 Young men outside the constraints of corporate culture could be more adventurous, and a selection of textile swatches from 1953 Blue Bell price lists indicates the vibrant mixed color palettes and exuberant, abstract prints available for “Sport and Play shirts for men and boys” (Figure 4.20). Clashing colors, brushstroke abstract prints, and novelty motifs
Figure 4.20 Blue Bell price lists, swatch samples, Spring 1953. Author’s photo Wrangler archives.
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including sombreros, horses, and sailboats are featured.94 The sombreros, rendered in lively colors in an all-over repeat pattern, and the small galloping horses are particularly suggestive of the West.95 It is also worth noting that the same prints are available for men and boys’ shirting, suggesting that the offerings were not only intended for a youthful market, and fathers and sons could be dressed similarly. The mid-century proliferation of dress options and leisure or recreation-specific sportswear can be cynically perceived as a marketing ploy to encourage men to buy more and different types of clothing. However, it can also be taken as an indication that American men felt more comfortable expressing themselves through casual fashions.96 The exotic prints and color combinations that were appearing in aspects of postwar men’s sportswear were not unlike the prints and colors that had been present in Western styles for decades. The Western shirt, like the Western movie, presents countless variations on a familiar theme. The range of colors and treatments are limitless, which explains why the shirts looked as appropriate on Gene Autry as they did on Salvador Dali. The fundamentals of Western shirt construction have accounted for an incredible variety over the years, and not just for obviously expressive performers. The numerous permutations and combinations offered by Rodeo Ben (see Figure 1.2 in Chapter 1) demonstrate how intricate and varied the options for buttons, cuffs, yoke shapes, placket, and pocket styles could be. Like the majority of westernwear, shirts began as tailor-made garments but were commercially mass produced by the 1930s.97 By the 1950s, a variety of Western styles, and more subtly Western-inspired styles began appearing in casual men’s fashions. The greater use of color is one instance where mid-century mainstream casual menswear was catching up to what had already been typical in westernwear. References to “gaudy” and “loud” ensembles were prevalent since the earliest records of cowboy dress, particularly for rodeo performers.98 A Miller Stockman catalog from Spring/Summer of 1930 featured a full-page color layout of men’s Western shirts in vibrant colors and prints, (Figure 4.21), including a yellow two-tone satine with contrasting black cuffs, placket, and pockets as well as a leopard print on short pile velvet (Figure 4.22). Another example from the same decade featured large-scale cobalt blue poppies printed on a bright yellow ground (Figure 4.23). A Spring/Summer 1941 Miller Stockman catalog included a “Krazy Koat” Western shirt where each panel, front, back, sleeves, pocket flaps, and collar are rendered in eight different satin colors (Figure 4.24). A glossy lipstick-red satin shirt in the collection of the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City offers another example from the mid-1950s (Figure 4.25). Such daring colorways and clashing combinations would not be present to such a degree in menswear until the “Peacock Revolution,” of the later 1960s. Despite a pervasively heterosexual masculine cowboy image, color, shiny textiles, fringe, animal prints, and floral motifs were never out of place in westernwear. Attributes that would, in most contexts at mid-century, have been perceived as “feminine” were acceptable and even popular among men. Perhaps it was because their heterosexuality was assumed, or rarely challenged, that this manner of
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Figure 4.21 “Miller Rodeo Shirts,” Miller Stockman catalog, Spring/Summer 1930. Miller International archives.
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Figure 4.22 Miller Leopard Velvet Western shirt, c. 1936. Miller International archives.
Figure 4.23 Miller floral Western shirt, c. 1935. Miller International archives.
expressive dress became the norm in westernwear, or perhaps just another example of bravado and daring. Rodeo riders needed to stand out in the ring, but many seem to maintain a devotion to loud and eye-catching styles outside of it. A photograph of rodeo champion Casey Tibbs at the Pendleton Round-Up in 1949 shows him in action, hanging on as a bronco rears and bucks, while wearing a
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Figure 4.24 “Krazy-Koat” Western shirts, Miller Stockman catalog, Spring/Summer 1941. Miller International archives.
zebra-print shirt and chaps (Figure 4.26). Tibbs was known to be a sharp dresser in and out of the ring, and partnered with Lee for years of endorsements. Whether worn by performers, riders, or catalog shoppers, Western shirts have consistently been a site for lively expression, and offered a hint of rebellion. Approximating the appeal of a bespoke suit by Nudie or Manuel, colorful westernwear communicated a connection to rural roots and cowboy culture, but when it was executed in a playful eye-catching way it breaks from the monotony of workwear and suggests that the wearer can afford a variety of clothing, none of which needs to conform to conventional business attire or expected standards of propriety for fashionable men. While some of the color and creativity seen in Western shirting was present in mainstream menswear by the 1950s, Western shirt-makers were, in turn, influenced by trends in menswear. For instance, Life magazine dubbed 1955 “The Peak Year For Pink” apparel.99 Pink had not been prevalent in menswear for some time, at mid-century it was likened more to women’s clothes, and women’s underwear in particular. For young men and teenagers, pink was daring and youthful. Elvis Presley was known for wearing pink and black gabardine suits that set him apart as an outsider even before he broke onto the music scene in 1956.100 Lighter pinks were also becoming acceptable for the
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Figure 4.25 Men’s Western shirt. Maker unknown, c. 1950, satin. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Gift of Cecil Cornish. 1994.56.14.
office, and were offered by established retailers like Brooks Brothers.101 Pink Western shirts were also an option. A man’s snap-front cowboy shirt in light pink cotton with a pink and gray striped yoke made by Levi Strauss for their “Shorthorn” Levi’s Authentic Western Wear label, for example, synthesized Western cut with 1950s pale pink, suggesting that middle-market Western designs were keeping up to date with conventional men’s fashion and trendy colorways. That Rockmount Ranchwear and Miller Stockman were also making pink shirts for men at this time indicated the popularity of that colorway.
Figure 4.26 Casey Tibbs on Okanogan Red. Devere Helfrich, 1949, safety film negative. Devere Helfrich Rodeo Photographic Collection, Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. 81.023.05453.
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Approaches to Selling Menswear, Old and New The striking prints and bold color combinations emerging in men’s sportswear were indicative of more than mere novelty and a desire for more fun clothes for weekend wear. The proliferation of men’s and boys sportswear was also indicative of larger shifts in menswear, however, and the greater consumption of fashionable clothes by men. In 1962 Barnard L. Salesky, president of the Hat Corporation of America, wrote an article entitled “The Fashion Conscious American Male,” in which he outlined the most significant changes in menswear during the previous five years; suit production had remained relatively static, having remained below the twenty-two million mark every year since 1950, while sportswear had risen “astronomically.”102 Salesky, likely concerned with good reason over the decrease in hat wearing, cites several factors for this market expansion. Many of which have already been noted—upward mobility, casual lifestyles, more people moving to the suburbs—yet he adds another invaluable albeit intangible consideration; men were buying clothing based on fashion rather than function, and asserted that menswear operated increasingly along the lines of the former.103 Working off the assumption that men not only had the disposable income to buy more clothing but that they would replace old garments before they had worn out, retailers offered more variety. Foregrounding upward mobility, youth, and attractiveness, Salesky claimed that retailers ought to: “. . . sell a clerk a topcoat that will make him look like a vice president. Sell a mature man a hat that will make him look younger. Sell any man anything that will make him look more attractive to women.”104 Such views suggest that men were more concerned with their appearance, and were echoed in popular periodicals, significantly with the successful launch of Gentlemen’s Quarterly in 1957, the first men’s fashion and lifestyle magazine in the United States directed at a general readership.105 Although colorful and decorative elements had precedents in westernwear, and were highly visible at mid-century, several westernwear manufacturers expressed a notable ambivalence towards tradition and novelty. Tensions between Old and New Western styles in regards to Pendleton shirting are noted above, but with jeans there seems to have been a greater insistence on maintaining the cowboy connection. Lee Riders were offered to men as durable workwear that withstood the test of time and would be worn across generations. Even when changes were introduced in color or textile the presentation and cowboy references do not court fashionable trends, and fail to deviate from a clearly defined masculinity. For instance, an advertisement for Lee Westerners published in Life magazine in 1963, the same year the company promoted Lady Westerners with the reference to Dior, shows Casey Tibbs saddling a horse (Figure 4.27). The photograph looks like it could be a still from a Western movie, makes no reference to designers or fashion, and would have been just as familiar to readers twenty years prior. Another example from 1960 published in the Daily News Record shows rodeo champions
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Figure 4.27 Lee Rider print advertisement, 1963. Lee archives.
Guy Weeks in Riders and Tibbs wearing white Lee Westerners, and again, while the pant and color are indeed novel, the presentation is conventional. The imagery was resolutely conservative, drew directly from the Western genre, and foregrounded continuity and tradition. Continuity within families, fathers and sons particularly, was something Lee promoted since its early Union-All advertisements at the start of the century. Yet this familiar appeal to brand loyalty is complicated postwar, as family dynamics, upward mobility, and expectations for men and boys were changing. Several postwar print advertisements such “Bringing the West to the East” and “Burn your own Brand” show fathers and sons side-by-side in Western settings, often roping a calf or accepting a blue ribbon.106 Participatory fatherhood was another marker of a new type of masculinity during the 1950s, enacted by fathers and sons working on hobbies or participating in sports or chores together.107
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In Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity cultural historian Gary Cross argues that the modern father of postwar America was encouraged to be a friend to his son, not only to act as a role model but also to involve himself in the boy’s life as a means of better understanding him and gaining his son’s confidence.108 Thus the interaction between fathers and sons in Lee’s advertisements fits into such culturally accepted notions of male modeling. The fathers and sons described above are dressed nearly identically in Western shirts and jeans, the only differences being scale and color, and the idea being that the son learns from his father and follows in his footsteps in life, including his consumer choices. Lee positioned itself as a clothing company for the whole family that would continue to outfit boys into adulthood. The father/son pairing was a common trope for other companies too. Wrangler and Levi Strauss & Co.’s advertisements in Miller Stockman catalogs from the same period also featured father and son’s jeans in the same layout, again, often specifying that the boys’ jeans are “just like dad’s.” While the catalog illustrations were directed at a specialized audience, Lee’s full-page color print advertising saw national distribution in general interest magazines, which indicates that pairing of fathers and sons in imitative styles was well understood beyond the Western community. With ready-to-wear clothing trends embracing Western design elements, and the Western lifestyle suited to casual dress, westernwear brands redirected their businesses towards mainstream consumers. Indeed, Pendleton’s men’s and women’s lines offered upscale sportswear beginning with the ‘49er jacket and Turnabout skirt, and with the subsequent addition of lightweight “Sunweight” woolens designed for year-round wear. Lee and Wrangler both sought to engage more actively with the growing market for women’s jeans. Men’s sportswear was becoming more adventurous in terms of color, print and textiles that aligned it more closely with the colorful styles Western shirt makers had produced for decades. Popular print media and the emergence of the first men’s ready-to-wear fashion show indicate that the marketing of men’s fashion was beginning to follow conventions established with women’s retail and distribution. As men’s sportswear designs and promotions became more fashionable, a lot of women’s clothing, following sportswear’s “American Look” precedents of the 1930s and 1940s, was becoming more practical and incorporating westernwear’s “masculine” attributes. Not only were jeans and men’s styled Western shirts an option, piping and arrow pockets also embellished trim pencil skirts or blouses, and even established cowboy suppliers like Miller Stockman sold chic stiletto heels in calf hide. These numerous intersections between westernwear and sportswear were not the result of conscious collaboration, but it is clear that by mid-century the two enjoyed a reciprocal relationship. It happened partly for practical reasons: up-to-date styles required only subtle modifications to designs that many companies already produced, and therefore did not demand a significant additional financial investment or risk on the part of the manufacturer. Westernwear companies could continue to cater to their Western base, while diversifying their production and audience. Qualities that had been part
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of westernwear since its inception such as narrow fit, bright colors, and durable fabrics were well suited to postwar leisure activities and travel as well as suburban domestic lifestyles and do-it-yourself hobbyists. However, pragmatism on the part of manufacturers alone fails to account for the persistence of Western aesthetics in mid-century fashion. Larger social transformations and changing gender conventions were essential factors. Indeed, women’s gradual acceptance of pants, and jeans for everyday wear was a radical departure from the social mores of their mothers’ generation. In addition, for many upper and middle-class fashion consumers wearing jeans, a workman’s garment, or denim at all also meant crossing an additional class boundary. Wearing pants was not merely an instance of fashionable experimentation, it took place alongside women’s growing presence in the labor force. Although postwar women’s history tends to emphasize their relegation to the domestic sphere after the war, and many women did express feelings of frustration and oppression in such contexts, more and more women were in fact working outside the home, taking an active role in physically demanding hobbies and DIY projects. Many women in the West, whether they were cowgirls, rodeo performers, or worked in agriculture, had been privy to the advantages of dressing in menswear, or styles largely based on menswear, for generations. Garments that were the products of a modern ready-to-wear commercial fashion system sold by companies with national reach, approached modernity and tradition differently along gendered lines. The comment in the Wrangler comic—you couldn’t stop the “gals” from wearing Western shirts (fig. 4.3)—is indicative of the gendered balance westernwear companies tried to negotiate. On one hand, there is an understanding that since women enjoyed what had traditionally been men’s attire, their adoption of menswear was inevitable, and companies could profit from that. What’s more, there was an element of novelty to its presentation for women, the freedom to experiment with more creative fashionable imagery just as sportswear companies and fashion editorial incorporated hints of Western styling. Conventions of femininity are reinforced in ways that were sometimes subtle, sometimes not, but Western options were nevertheless presented as part of a modern up-to date-wardrobe. Taken together, representations of the cowgirl in advertising and branding was connected to a free-spirited independence even if, as in the Maidenform advertisements, humor and irony softened any possible threat of real power or un-checked independence. Concerns over gender norms and what were appropriately gendered garments for men and women continued to be a source of anxiety. While the cowgirl image provided opportunities for creative play, the cowboy image remained fossilized, re-enforcing heteronormative—and by extension, nationalist—ideals. If the image of an independent and free-spirited cowgirl resonated in light of women’s growing independence outside of home and family, the cowboy maintained a steadfast connection to the past. The resistance to bring men’s westernwear up to date in the manner of womenswear exemplifies how trends in menswear change more slowly, yet there are also more nuanced, and more culturally specific, motivations behind
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this adherence to convention. We have seen that despite a focus on the novel and futuristic in Populuxe design, other qualities that self-consciously referenced the past, including Western motifs and imagery, continued to appeal.109 Moreover, the garments themselves differed only subtly from nineteenth century antecedents. Perhaps in response to the so called-crisis of postwar masculinity, consciously or not, menswear that referenced the Old West in design or decoration was linked to a rugged persona, physical prowess, and a past, though largely imagined for anyone who wasn’t a working cowboy, where men supposedly enjoyed unbounded freedom. Western dress functioned in a comparable manner to the Western entertainments detailed in Chapter 2. The familiar styles were comforting, and as the advertising so frequently reminded consumers, westernwear was durable, time tested, and practical. In his study of maturity in American men, Gary Cross saw the popularity of the Western genre at mid-century as a “nostalgic return to the simplicity excitement and virtue of an age before cities, factories, and offices.”110 The clothing made by Lee, Pendleton, or Wrangler was not exaggerated enough to stand out as Western costume, but it did offer physical comfort, and the emotional security in knowing that the wearer fit in with established ideals of normative heterosexual masculinities with historical precedent. Again, the subtle Western details in sportswear can be seen as the sartorial equivalent to this nostalgic engagement with earlier pre-modern ideals of masculinity. In his 1947 modernist critique of fashion, writer and designer Bernard Rudofsky derided most clothing options as either anachronistic, irrational or both. He did, however, applaud the emergence of American sportswear for its versatility and pragmatic designs, and considered it a “progressive equalization of male and female dress.”111 In its earliest incarnations, westernwear already possessed many of the qualities that Rudofsky celebrated as “modern.” An evolutionary conception of modernity thus expressed rests on two assumptions: modern fashions are functional and pragmatic; and these qualities have been largely in the purview of menswear. His “equalization of dress” implies that women’s clothes can progress away from irrationality by borrowing from men’s styles, and that both men’s and women’s attire ought to primarily be defined by utility, which is never explicitly explained but involves freedom of movement and a lack of ornament. The examples in this chapter and Rudofsky’s contemporaneous commentary demonstrate that both popular media and the rarified opinions of a design critic celebrate women’s embrace of utilitarian sportswear as new, progressive, and a sign of autonomy. In short, whether it was original westernwear, or westernwear inspired, this casual aesthetic was couched in the language of modernity and forward thinking. Scott expanded this concept when he characterized sportswear as an example of vernacular modernism. Postwar westernwear corresponds to this construct in some significant ways but diverges in others. It was the product of a modern industry that accommodated modern lifestyles at a time when the boundaries between work clothes and play clothes were blurring. In terms of design, modernism is expressed through streamlining of the silhouette, a focus on function and versatility,
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and dynamic colors and prints in textile design.112 Although mid-century westernwear has its roots in workwear in both form and function, by this time much of the form, as well as the design details derived from cowboy clothes (such as decorative stitching and contrasting piping) were nothing short of anachronistic, self-consciously referencing the Old West. Modern design typically favors a-historical abstraction and the non-referential, while westernwear is essentially a checklist of traditional elements. Therefore, postwar westernwear can be characterized as modern but not necessarily modernist. Or perhaps simultaneously modern and antimodern, insofar as it retained signifiers of the pre-industrial past. As the numerous examples from fashion and advertising have shown, signifiers of what was considered a formative moment in the shaping of American character since Turner still had plenty of influence.113 In spite of these contradictions and conflations of past and present, or perhaps because of them, both fashionable ready-to-wear companies and workwear makers contributed to and profited from the popularity of westernwear.
5 Westernwear in Youth Culture and Subculture
This chapter examines the ways in which Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton were marketing goods to young people from the 1950s to the mid-1960s, and concludes with a discussion of how some garments were adopted and adapted by youth subcultures in the 1960s. I argue that the degree to which the garments themselves and their presentation can be read as Western was inconsistent; sometimes connections to the Old West were heightened deliberately, at other times they were obscured or simply ignored. Youth culture is defined broadly to include the everyday streetwear of young people, and the youth demographic consisting of young men and women of high school through college age. This inclusive framing of youth culture differs from subcultures, which were smaller groupings within the dominant culture.1 The study of subculture supports the notion of active consumers, usually young people, with the capacity to initiate meanings and values in resistance to or in subversion of mainstream social and style conventions.2 Although there has been a significant increase in the study of youth subcultures, a succinct and universally accepted definition of “subculture” has yet to be proposed. The most influential and frequently cited work in the study of postwar subcultures remains Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style, in which he primarily focuses on how young men in the United Kingdom defined themselves as part of alternative social groups through dress, musical tastes, and lifestyle.3 Although Hebdige’s work helped initiate subculture studies as a unique field of cultural inquiry, distinct from studies of youth within sociology or criminology, it was limited in scope and has since been subject to multiple revisions and additions by scholars such as Ken Gelder, Sarah Thornton, and Angela McRobbie.4 For our purposes, subcultures are framed using the six prevailing cultural logics defined by Ken Gelder: subcultures are defined negatively in relation to labor and work, have an ambivalent or negative relation to class, identify more closely with territory rather than property, move away from home and family structures to non-domestic forms of belonging, favor excess and exaggeration, and refuse the banalities of daily life and mass cultural forms.5 While these are not uniformly true, or applicable to every group, they offer some framework for contextualizing the 1960s subcultures that 161
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follow. I also draw from American writers including John Irvin and Tom Wolfe, whose observations are closer to the time in question. This chapter focuses on three subcultures particular to California in the 1960s, namely surfers, hot rodders, and cholos (an urban Chicano subculture). All three absorbed elements of Western-styled garments into their own unique aesthetics and recontextualized them in the process. It is important to note that at the time these groups were emerging the cultures of these youths, their hobbies, and their appearance were often examined within the discourses around “deviant” juveniles and criminality which adds an additional layer of interpretation and consideration in terms of each company’s engagement with that section of the market.6 In terms of the products offered, Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton continued to manufacture staples, many of which were designed before World War II, or based upon designs from that period. Yet as each company acquired more familiarity with and confidence in its ability to sell to youth markets, more stylish garments, and witty marketing devices became increasingly common. The clothing produced for young people by Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton, and its related imagery, often incorporated Western elements but in ways that deviated considerably from those of earlier years. A more conventional approach was still evident in Miller Stockman catalogs but even there, attempts were made to conform to a more “youthful” manner of dressing through vibrant colors and trendier fit. At the same time, young people within particular subcultures independently began appropriating staple garments like jeans and Pendleton shirts into their own aesthetics, and manufacturers gradually began marketing to some of those groups.
Blue Jeans: A Troubled 1950s Icon Jeans were particularly significant in postwar American youth culture, not least because they were specifically targeted as exemplifying the deterioration of morality along with standards of appropriate attire.7 Mid-century was a transitional moment for denim. It was still used in prison uniforms, but celebrated artists like Jackson Pollock wore it too. As we’ve seen, it was acceptable as leisurewear and informal domestic settings, but the propriety of denim was contested. Class and counterculture anxieties persisted, and the number of young people regularly wearing denim was a cause for concern from the fashion establishment as well as the general public in the 1950s. As the decade drew to a close and into the 1960s these concerns lessened; manufacturers worked actively to keep up to date with teenage trends and youth culture, albeit often in a cautious and conservative manner.8 The image of blue jeans had already changed from utilitarian workwear to a supposedly classless and supposedly genderless American look.9 Jeans had reached beyond male laborers, cowboys, and dude ranchers for nearly two decades, yet the postwar baby boomer generation are the ones known for popularizing jeans as everyday wear, and solidifying the Western blue jean’s transition from workwear to casual sportswear.10 The iconic status of jeans as representative of American style was crystalizing in the 1950s.
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Ironically, despite the increased visibility of jeans and denim in film and magazines, there was less denim being manufactured and worn in the 1950s compared to previous decades. By 1956, the same year that white-collar workers surpassed blue, the drop in denim consumption caused Proximity Cotton Mills, a division of Cone Mills, to switch from manufacturing denim to twills, poplins, and corduroy.11 Bud Strickland, a long-time denim specialist at Cone Mills, suggested that shifting labor demographics accounted for the change; manufacturing and agricultural jobs that necessitated denim workwear were in decline, and although denim consumption was growing among white middle-class youth, and was therefore more visible, the industries that previously accounted for sizeable orders of denim work clothing were shrinking.12 The transition of jeans to everyday clothing for young people was not necessarily a smooth one, in spite of their growing cachet among stylish celebrities and art world bohemians. Many considered jeans to be in poor taste and they were banned in several high schools for boys and girls in the 1940s and 1950s.13 As ever, concerns over who was wearing jeans, and in what contexts, diverged along gender and class lines.Young women and girls in jeans were frequently labeled unfeminine, slovenly, and unattractive. A Life magazine article from 1947 noted that wartime college co-eds exemplified an “inexplicable” drive to “look as unattractive as possible” in sloppy sweaters, saddle shoes, and rolled-up jeans.14 There was an element of transgressive cachet in wearing jeans among young women at elite Northeastern colleges, and many particularly enjoyed sporting hand-me-downs from men in their families. While comfortable casual styles worn with a “studied carelessness” were a break from what many young women were accustomed to, the secure social position of these students ensured that experimenting with fashion would likely not hinder future opportunities.15 According to the Life author, the return of more young men to campus in 1947 “thankfully” brought a return to neater, more conventionally feminine styles. While this was not uniformly true, a shift towards more feminine dressing was likely also aided by the popularity of the New Look, which eschewed trousers and favored more body-conscious silhouettes, and was not merely a reaction to the increased presence of men on campus. A comparable editorial describing younger students eight years later in Life magazine recounted how a group of boys at a high school in Dover, New Jersey, were “Fed up with the way girls at the MacFarlan Street school would come to class in blue jeans and other masculine attire,” and took it upon themselves to shame their female peers into wearing more feminine clothing.16 Though the policing of girls’ appearance by peers was not always so deliberate (nor was it documented), it is worthy of note that the boys’ actions were reported on and essentially condoned by a widely read general interest magazine. It was not always the jeans themselves that were the problem but the manner, or perceived manner, in which they were worn. Words like “sloppy” and “masculine” recurred in the press, a point that was reiterated boldly in an August 1954 column in Seventeen magazine that listed fashion “Do’s and Don’ts” (Figure 5.1).17 The reader was advised that it was a “don’t” to wear oversized shirts and loose-fitting jeans, but a “do” to wear the same pieces in different proportions;
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Figure 5.1 “Fashion’s Do’s and Don’ts of Blue Jeans,” style advice from a Modess sanitary protection advertisement (detail) in Seventeen, September 1954.
fitted jeans belted tightly at the waist with a crisp blouse, “a man-tailored shirt that’s cut for gals,” and tucked in. Clearly, where jeans were concerned neither the average Seventeen reader—or the high school and college girls addressed above—was spared criticism. Journalists and the general public felt that young women needed instruction on exactly how to best wear them. For boys and young men, criticism was not leveled at their personal attractiveness as much as at the connection between jeans and degeneracy. Many of the teenagers sporting jeans in the 1950s had
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likely worn denim play clothes and Western styles as children, purchased by their parents. What caused concern and uneasiness was the presence of jeans in school and other public places where such informality was not conventional or acceptable.18 Casual relaxed attire was linked to lax morals and slipping standards. For instance, Jacob S. Potofsky, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, told the New York Times in 1957 that the teenage section of the population was “underdressed and under-educated,” and that the “end of the blue jean fad wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would help.”19 Potofsky could not have anticipated that jeans were to have a longevity surpassing any “fad” for young people. Yet for those who shared his sentiments, the problem with jeans was not only that they were a laborer’s garment, antithetical to the visual markers of upward mobility, but thanks to a new genre of films marketed to teenagers, denim blue jeans became a staple of youth rebellion.
Rebels in Denim, On Screen and Off James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray), and Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953, dir. László Benedek) are the two most often cited examples of rebellious young men in blue jeans on film. Rebel Without a Cause depicts the angst and drama of suburban teenage life and the trials of the contemporary family. Dean’s character, Jim Stark, described by cultural historian Leerom Medovoi as the single most famous and lasting avatar among the bad boys of the 1950s, does not wear jeans constantly in the film but he is seen in them during the most and tense physically active scenes.20 Set in California, it is a middle-class suburban delinquency film in which troubled youth are the products of troubled families. Indeed, the central conflict and moral lesson of the film is directed more towards adult audiences than youths. The Wild One, on the other hand, deals with a recognizable deviant group: bikers. The loud, reckless, and destructive motorcycle gangs in the film sport a harder look consisting of studded black leather jackets and engineer boots worn with jeans. The aesthetic was modeled after the many motorcycle clubs that emerged across the country in the postwar period whose members wore a lot of black leather, often customized with club patches, studs, chains, and stencils. In addition, most of this generation of bikers, including those in outlaw motorcycle gangs, were military veterans, and incorporated “trophies” from enemy uniforms including items like iron crosses or SS badges. Denim, distressed from hard use, often stained with oil and torn, was ubiquitous among the biking community.21 Brando and Dean themselves were seen as rebels in their own right. Both actors are photographed wearing jeans off camera while indulging in fast cars and other risk-taking countercultural pursuits. Although both actors presented themselves at upscale Hollywood events dressed in natty suits or tuxedos, journalists had a tendency to embellish their rough-around-the-edges personae. In one 1950
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Life magazine article, Brando was described as at once brilliant, rude, and sloppy, and his unconventional habits commented upon—as was his captivating persona. The author described his “disreputable” attire, and preference for blue jeans, in a manner that most probably would have elicited contempt from older conservative readers, but probably only heightened his bad-boy mystique off screen as well.22 Following the success of Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild One, a spate of teen exploitation movies were produced in the 1950s.23 Most of these films were lower budget B-movies that adhered to similar conventions in costuming with jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets for boys, tight jeans or capris with revealing tops and sometimes leather jackets for the girls as well.24 American International Pictures was the leading production company creating juvenile delinquent teenage films (teenpics) aimed at young audiences. The studio built its reputation on films dealing with gangs, drag racing, reform schools, and motorcycles.25 Although such films entertained teenagers across the country, scandalous representations of uncontrollable, delinquent youth were detrimental to teenagers’ image with the wider public. The idea of the young (usually male) rebel, fueled by Hollywood imagery, informed a great deal of postwar discourse that often tipped into full moral panic. The narratives were at once cautionary tales, warning of the perils resulting from the dissolution of the family during wartime that working parents (especially mothers) might bring, as well as stands against conformity and cultural homogeneity.26 In her study of postwar adolescents, Regan Rhea explored the often conflicting and obsessive level of discourse about teenagers and delinquent teenage culture in print media, noting that exposés of teenagers and their behavior were among the leading domestic news stories throughout the 1950s.27 In January 1956, a Look magazine article by Gereon Zimmerman described postwar youth as the most maligned in history, claiming that even the word teenager “has become a handy indictment rather than a loosely descriptive term for a diverse age group that stretches from adolescence to adulthood.”28 This attempt to rehabilitate the image of the American teenager, complete with interviews with “good” and obedient high school students, consistently compared the latter to the stereotypical images of delinquents and threatening youth gangs that, it is tacitly assumed, Look readers were familiar with.
Studded Leather: Connecting Bikers to Cowboys The particular leather jacket that the lead biker character Johnny (played by Brando) wears in The Wild One was created by the New York leather goods company, Schott. It is an early 1950s model called the “One Star” Perfecto and identifiable by the single chrome star and red rhinestone studs on the epaulets.29 After the film’s success, the jacket went from being a niche market item to a popular piece
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within a larger teenage trend. Although durable leather goods such as boots, chaps, and gloves were favored by cowboys, there is nothing particularly Western about the design of the One Star Perfecto jacket, with the exception of the chrome star studs, which exemplify one of many instances of aesthetic crossover between biker style and Western style. Metallic studs and rivets, useful for fastening leather in saddlery, footwear, and outerwear garments had been used for decorative effect at least since 1900, if not earlier.30 Small metal studs can be punched through leather to form swirling designs or embellish a construction detail, adding texture and shine
Figure 5.2 “Newest Riding and Dress Belts,” Miller Stockman catalog, Spring/Summer 1949. Miller International archive.
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to a garment or accessory. Although ornate chaps showcased some of the most elaborate studded designs, including initials, flowers, and suits of playing cards, for many consumers keen to add a Western element to their clothing, studded belts—which were described by a variety of names, including riding belts, novelty belts, cowboy belts—were a more practical option. Stamped or tooled leather belts ornamented with nickel studs or “spots” in combination with synthetic colored “jewels” were available through westernwear catalogs like Miller Stockman, as well as larger distributors like Sears Roebuck in the 1930s and 1940s.31 By mid-century, studded belts were no longer as popular in
Figure 5.3 “This Chinese Vaquero Rides in the San Jose Round-up, July 1-2-3-4.” Note the wide leather kidney belt on the rider seen here. Postcard, 1916. Autry Museum, Los Angeles; 94.51.54.
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mainstream catalogs, but Miller Stockman continued to carry studded belts, labeled as “riding and dress belts,” featuring studded trim and star motifs.32 The belts typically measured, on average, 1½ inches wide, yet there were other, considerably wider, undulating, and often more elaborate threebuckle riding belts that added flair to an ensemble in the rodeo ring (Figure 5.2). These riding or kidney belts had been worn by rodeo riders for decades. The belts held the body in, and the extra width protected the kidneys, a functional aspect that explain why they also appear in biker attire (Figure 5.3).33 Kidney belts were needed to protect riders on hard-tailed motorcycles for the same reason that they were worn for strenuous horseback riding and rodeo: they would support the lower back and reduce the jostling and shaking of the internal organs when riding over rough terrain. It was a practical and ultimately stylish convention that bikers maintained well into the mid-twentieth century (Figure 5.4). A 1947 Life magazine feature profiling bikers across the country commented on their “studded belts sparkling in the sun,” and photographs illustrate four women riders whose wide, curved, kidney belts were customized with either their names or with stars, hearts, clubs, and conchos, decorative designs present on cowboys’ chaps and accessories since the turn of the century (Figure 5.5).34 The studded leather belt, like the coordinating saddle bags seen accompanying several of the bikers photographed in the article, owe much of their construction and design to Western precedents, and thus helped to fortify a connection between the countercultural biker rebel and the adventurous, tough cowboy. Such connections were not lost on the leather jacket designers at Schott. Although it is subtle, the detail of the studded star and red gemstone at the shoulder evoke the connection between the cowboy and the bikers’ penchant for decorated leather.
Figure 5.4 Kidney belts, c. 1940s. Author’s photo. Private collection.
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Figure 5.5 “Life goes motorcycling,” Life, August 11, 1947.
Rock’n’Roll, Delinquency, and Casual Dress Rock’n’roll music emerged in the 1950s and was often coupled with, or blamed for, the more threatening aspects of contemporary teenage culture.35 As its popularity grew, rock’n’roll musicians and young fans factored prominently in teenage exploitation movies cited above, and criticisms of the genre became an outlet for anxieties centering around race, class, and gender, all of which were inextricably intertwined.36 The type of attacks leveled against rock’n’roll music is provided in USA Confidential, an inflammatory, best-selling book about criminality and so-called lo-life. Co-authored by journalists Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer in 1952, at the height of the anticommunist “red scare,” it is one of many examples that painted a sordid picture of the music and its fans: . . . with tom toms and hot jive and ritualistic orgies or erotic dancing, weed-smoking and mass mania, with African jungle background . . . Many music shops purvey dope . . . White girls are recruited for colored lovers. . . . We know that many platter spinners are hopheads. Many others are Reds, left-wingers, or hecklers of social convention. Through disc jockeys, kids get to know colored
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and other musicians; they frequent places the radio oracles plug, which is done with design . . . to hook juves [juveniles] and guarantee a new generation subservient to the Mafia.37 While this characterization is particularly sensational, the paranoia underpinning such diatribes was palpable. With the unintelligible and exaggerated zeal that accompanies all moral panics, rock’n’roll became equated with a panoply of social ills including drugs, delinquency, sex, miscegenation, organized crime, and communism; furthermore, segregationists were incensed by performances and dancing that permitted different races to socialize.38 Dress was a crucial element of rock’n’roll culture and was also subject to the kind of attacks leveled against the music. For instance, in June 1955 The White Sentinel, a segregationist newspaper, made reference to a speech given by William Burston of the Retail Dry Goods Association. Burston had remarked on what he considered to be the positive African American influence on style, stating “the negro knows how to dress,” and commenting favorably upon African Americans’ perceived lack of inhibition and love of color. 39
In keeping with its racist fears, The White Sentinel saw Burston’s compliments as a problem, reinforcing
the notion that change in dress was prevalent enough to be upsetting to the racist elements in society, and rock’n’roll made the Black artists who invented it more prominent in the public eye. The eye-catching color and sharp suits sported by many of the early rock’n’roll performers were directly inspired by Rhythm and Blues music and culture.40 Yet the Western styles of country performers were also central to the creation of rock’n’roll’s sartorial identity as several of the white performers had roots in country music. Bill Haley is a prime example of an artist who crossed over from country to rock’n’roll. In 1949, the Philadelphia-based “Yodeling Bill Haley” had achieved some success in his solo career and subsequently with his group The Saddlemen.41 Just when it seemed that he would fulfill his lifelong dream of being a singing cowboy in the manner of Gene Autry, a new sound was making its way up from the South. Following the advice of a musical collaborator, Haley began recording covers of rock’n’roll songs recorded by African American artists such as Jackie Brenston and Jimmy Preston.42 The coincident change in sartorial style did not happen smoothly; Haley maintained his sideburns and cowboy boots until the band officially changed its name to the more space-age Bill Haley and the Comets in 1952, when he shed his country image. When Rock around the Clock was released on Decca records in 1954, it was a number one hit, topping the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom, and would later feature prominently in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, a cautionary tale in which troubled youths listen to rock’n’roll.43 Most rock’n’roll performers in the 1950s, including Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Elvis Presley, favored flamboyant fashions and sharp styles. Many of their fans may have been denimclad teens, but the performers themselves, who originated from working-class backgrounds, enjoyed high-quality garments that heightened their stage presence and public persona. Rhythm and Blues singer Jackie Wilson simply put it: “I guess any guy who has been poor once is like me. He likes good clothes.”44 Elvis Presley, who was closest in age to the teen idol film stars and admired Dean, Brando,
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and the Hollywood rebels for their attitude, found their unkempt jeans and T-shirts to be too similar to clothing that reminded him of the poverty of his youth, when workwear was not a matter of choice.45 The young “outsider” film stars wore rugged, casual clothing that served as a foil to the neat and buttoned-down look that defined conventional middle-class values. The fictional Hollywood rebels may have rejected materialistic comforts, but working-class musicians sought the abundance that had eluded them.46 However, most young fans of the music did not have the same access to the garments entertainers wore, and were less flamboyantly dressed. Concert photos from rock’n’roll shows capture teenage fans sporting more casual, but still distinctive looks.47 Some of the young men might imitate Elvis’s pompadour hairstyle but, more often than not, they wore jeans or khakis and a T-shirt. The young women wore stylish party dresses or sportswear, depending on the venue. In an attempt to assuage anxieties over rebellious denim-clad teenagers, The Denim Council was organized in 1955 by a coalition of cotton textile merchants with the goal of presenting more favorable images of their product and to promote the textile as appropriate for men, women, and children.48 In addition, companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. launched advertising initiatives promoting denim as “right for school.”49 For denim manufacturers, the growing teen market meant potential to expand the brand and sell more products but companies proceeded with caution so as not to connect their name with anything considered unsavory. In spite of the reputation of American teenagers as troubled, marketers recognized that they represented a potential consumer stronghold. The postwar era was unique in that the young population was considerable, and discrete marketing campaigns were targeted directly at teenagers.50 “Gold in Them Jeans,” a feature in Nation’s Business magazine, claimed that American teenagers in 1953 had roughly $9,000,000,000 to spend annually, and commended department stores and other small businesses for hosting teen-friendly events and promotions.51 The headline reinforced the connection between youth and blue jeans but also relied on a familiar Western prospector reference. A Life magazine article issued six years later supported the same claims, stating, “until recently businessmen have largely ignored the teenage market. But now they are spending millions on advertising and razzle-dazzle promotional stunts.”52
Advertising to Teenagers at Lee Lee addressed teenagers as a specific group through a series of small-scale advertisements in 1951. A quarter-page illustrated advertisement from c. 1951 shows a group of boisterous youths wearing Lee jeans (Figure 5.6). The girls have paired them with sweaters or cardigans and neckerchiefs, while the boys wear either tucked-in button-down plaid shirts or matching denim jackets. The teenagers are piled onto a car and raising a banner that reads: “Authentic Western Cowboy Pants and Jackets, for school wear or anywhere.”53 The scene is meant to convey the spirited liveliness of a high-school pep
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Figure 5.6 Lee Riders advertisement, 1951. Lee archives, clippings.
rally. The neat, cuffed jeans worn here are clean and worn with plain leather Oxfords or saddle shoes in a manner very similar to the “Fashion Do’s” prescribed by Seventeen. Apart from the Lee Cowboy Pants name writ large on the banner, there are no Western connections in this image. The boys’ T-shirts are trim and bright white, a far cry from those worn by young men in the movies, whose unkempt informal attire suggested low class, slovenliness, and discord with authority. These early 1950s advertisements marked a transitional moment as jeans advertising moved into the youth market. Claims to being “Genuine Western Cowboy Pants” with U-shaped saddle crotch and “That true Western fit,” are still present, and it also boasts the familiar claim that the jeans are “just like dad’s,” but they are pictured in a new high school context, free of adults. A double-page Lee print advertisement from 1955 features teenagers, a boy and a girl, in two separate photographs designed to occupy separate columns on either side of a magazine page. Both youths wear Lee jeans and wave at each other from opposite sides of the printed page (Figure 5.7).54 These advertisements addressed teenagers directly, and play off the idea of “fit,” in regards to clothing
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Figure 5.7 Lee advertisement, Life, April 11, 1955. Lee archives.
Figure 5.8 Lee advertisement, Ebony, May 1955. Lee archives.
and fitting in socially. The assurance: “you belong in Lee Riders” implies that the wearer can comfortably be one of the crowd at school and after school. This format with teenagers posed and dressed in a similar manner also circulated in Ebony magazine of the same year, except in this instance the young models are African American (Figure 5.8), indicating that Lee was promoting its clothing to minoritized people with the assumption that they dressed similarly to their white counterparts.55 In her study on mid-century teen culture, Regan Rhea reviewed high school yearbook photos of African American and multi-ethnic student populations and concluded that teenagers from different demographics did tend to follow many of the same trends.56 However, the lack of differentiation between the images also suggests that the possibility of distinct styling or fashionable standards that may have been present among Black communities was not considered.
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Figure 5.9 Lee advertisement, This Week, September 1958.
Another print advertisement featured in This Week magazine from the fall of 1958 depicts a young man in coordinated Lee jeans and jacket leaning casually against a scooter wearing clean, neat garments (Figure 5.9). It is important to note that this is for the Lee Westerners line, which was also seen in contemporaneous advertising imagery featuring rodeo riders. While most of Lee’s menswear maintained the cowboy look, when it comes to the youth market the presentation starts showing signs of flexibility. Particularly with Westerners, that were also promoted to the college set as in this case. The young man illustrated here wears pants that hint at being creased down the front with a striped button-down shirt. He has short, not greased back, hair, and a Lambretta scooter (as opposed to the more dangerous motorcycle associated with juvenile delinquents). His ensemble is very trim, and he casually balances a stack of books above his knee. The clean-cut style is reinforced in the copy, which claims that Lee is the “Choice of Crew-cut Champs everywhere . . .”57 Unlike the examples above, the copy does not claim “authenticity,” instead it notes that this particular look is, “50% Western, 50%
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Ivy—100% good looking!” Although neither “Western,” nor “Ivy” are immediately apparent, the text makes it clear that “Western” is signaled through durability and slim fit, and the “Ivy-cut shirt” adds collegiate sportiness and maturity for back-to-school wear. Although there is no single definition of Ivy style, the name was adopted from “Ivy League,” a common term used to describe elite private Northeastern post-secondary institutions. Fashion historian Patricia Mears defines Ivy Style as “collegiate sportswear styles that emerged early in the twentieth century but were codified and popularized in the United States by the late 1950s.”58 It was an aesthetic at once casual and distinguished, with men’s sportswear basics like pullover sweaters worn over Oxford shirts with smart trousers. The look was clean, refined, and by the late 1950s, readily accessible. Mears explains that although pre-war Ivy styles were based on creating an aura of prestige, in the postwar period nearly every major department store and small town had its own version of a university shop catering to young collegiate men.59 The “Joe college” or Ivy look, was, along with the cowboy, one of the principal male archetypes and sartorial styles of the twentieth century, and thus within this single advertisement Lee claimed two established American looks for young men.60 The company attempted to appeal to the more conventional, even aspirational segments of the youth market. Eager to appeal to teenagers, Lee offered new products and featured non-threatening, athletic young people in its publicity in order to help expand its consumer base. Lee, one of the first to offer jeans for women with its “Frontier Lady,” and “Lady Lee” models for women in the late 1940s, continued marketing jeans to young women through the 1950s and 1960s. Yet during these later decades, the connection to Western style existed largely in name alone. As seen above, the young women in many 1950s advertisements dressed in jeans and were typically shown at school or in other familiar domestic and suburban contexts, as opposed to rural or Western ones. The cowgirl with the outdoorsy, and independent character, whose likeness adorned the Lady Lee label, was not foregrounded in the company’s advertising, or she was given an ironic treatment. An unusual instance of co-branding between Lee and E-Z Du wallpapers in 1958 was aimed at teenagers. In an advertisement placed in Seventeen magazine in September 1958, two young women are pictured in Lee apparel (Figure 5.10). One wears tight jeans with a pale yellow blouse and a brown belt matching her brown loafers, while the other is similarly dressed but wears khakis instead of jeans. The girls are in the process of hanging wallpaper and an extra roll rests on a yellow upholstered chair. It is a “softsell” advertisement, in that the connection to Lee is not elaborated upon. The chair in the foreground is the Diamond chair, designed by Harry Bertoia in 1951 and manufactured by Knoll International. A recognizable example of modern industrial design, the Diamond chair was and remains “part of the iconographic expression of modernity” in the 1950s and 1960s.61 In the Lee E-Z-Du advertisement it coordinates with the rest of the interior color wise, but appears considerably more avant-garde than their clothing or the interior. It effectively serves to label the girls as up-to-date.
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Figure 5.10 Lee and E-Z-Du wallpaper advertisement, Seventeen, September 1958.
The Diamond chair makes another appearance in a slightly more provocative 1965 Lee advertisement.62 A young woman is perched on a man’s lap and is seated in the Bertoia chair. His back faces the viewer and she looks shyly outwards over his shoulder. In this case the models are slightly more mature than those in the 1958 image, and the product featured is Lee-Prest Leesures, a stay-pressed pant that, according to the copy “has long been the badge of their savvy, young generation.”63 The clothing is largely concealed by the chair’s back in this photograph, but the fashionable Bertoia chair is again connected to youthfulness, free spiritedness, and forward thinking. Thus, Lee’s message continued to depart from advertising copy that foregrounded construction and textile quality towards more suggestive fashion and lifestyle imagery. The advertisements in the late 1950s suggested a cautious step towards the youth demographic on the part of Lee, which became more playful and coherent as they move into the early 1960s.
Pendleton and the Youth Market Pendleton was quite prescient when it came to marketing to young women. Since the invention of its non-Western styled womenswear line, its advertising imagery included women in college campus
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contexts, sometimes accompanied by young men, and always wearing coordinated ensembles.64 Paying attention to student fashion, which is now considered to have been highly influential in shaping the casual American aesthetic, was a wise choice on the part of Pendleton’s marketing.65 The first advertisement for the 49er jacket featured a collegiate woman, and the company actively continued to address this market through the 1960s.66 From 1951 through 1965 Seattle-based illustrator Ted Rand shaped the image of the ideal Pendleton woman, showing her as smartly dressed, active, and vibrant.67 The full-page (or sometimes two-page) color advertisements placed in Seventeen on a monthly basis from 1954 through 1965, were the same as those included in women’s magazines like Glamour and Mademoiselle.68 Rand’s images for Pendleton were featured more frequently in Seventeen than anything from either Lee or Wrangler. The mid-1950s advertising for Pendleton Sportswear consistently depicts young women in their “pairables,” mixing and matching tartan and solid wool separates. Prices listed in an August 1954 advertisement for an ensemble consisting of a 49er jacket, vest, and skirt with the option of coordinating trews (tapered pants) and a cloche hat indicate that the company sold at a higher price point, for young women with considerable disposable income.69 The items were presented as versatile and durable pieces, in keeping with Pendleton’s 100 percent wool made in America standards, a lasting, worthwhile investment. The garments Pendleton promoted in Seventeen magazine from 1949 through 1964—49er jackets, trews, skirts, and vests—were identical to those marketed to more mature women in other publications. The look was considered appropriate for sophisticated, active women of any age. Seeing as Pendleton was already marketing to young upwardly mobile consumers, the push towards courting teenage shoppers was handled in accordance with its established image. It was not until 1964, with the launch of Young Pendleton, that the company attempted to cater to the youth market specifically with updated styles. The Young Pendleton line was conceived as means to attract young consumers to Pendleton’s womenswear line. The company aimed to be “a step above Bobbie Brooks” in quality and price. Bobbie Brooks was a juniors’ line that was one of the largest womenswear manufacturers in the nation in the 1960s.70 The Young Pendleton mix-and-match separates were slightly trendier in terms of proportion and silhouette, which in the early 1960s meant snugger-fitting and shorter skirts, but did not deviate much from the company’s earlier styles. In August 1964 the first advertisement for Young Pendleton in Seventeen offered A-line skirts that were shorter than the fuller “Turnabout” skirts, but which retained much of the clean-cut menswear-inspired tailoring. Also illustrated by Ted Rand, the figures in these new advertisements were slightly more ebullient than the poised young women he was known for, and a white background replaced Western outdoor settings (Figure 5.11). Young Pendleton offered matching skirts and sweaters and added some comparatively “youthful” pieces, like pinafores and the slim, A-line “doughnut” skirt. In an advertisement from 1964, the young women assume frenetic poses while the copy attempts to sound young and hip:
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Figure 5.11 “Young Pendleton” advertisement, Seventeen, August, 1964.
Habitat Where the fun is! These are go things, all swingers—from the fresh hot Doughnut (that’s the swirly skirt, pets, left) to the sweetest neatest pinafore you ever came unbuttoned about, Pictured BIG. In lively Pendleton wool, springy as a pincurl, in luscious Baronet plaids and tartans . . .71 At the time Young Pendleton launched, company executives optimistically addressed the significance of the growing “teenage market.” Office records indicate that executives predicted that within five years the “Young Pendleton” business should account for fifty percent of their total womenswear sales.72 By 1965 the company had abandoned Rand’s illustrations in favor of photographic advertisements in an effort to appear up to date and help potential consumer more readily imagine themselves wearing the garments.73 Ironically, most of the photographs used from 1965 onwards feature models in outdoor, Northwestern settings, and differed very little from Rand’s original illustrated compositions.
Youth Culture and Style in the 1960s: From Colored Denims to the Wrangler Stretch Lee, Wrangler, and Pendleton’s tentative exploration into youth markets came to fruition fully in the early 1960s, when styles for young people were changing more quickly than previously and established
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manufactures had no choice but to try keep pace. The “youthquake,” a term coined by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in 1965 to describe the explosive influence of youth culture into every aspect of popular culture, particularly fashion and music, affected westernwear as well.74 It was a phenomenon that was not specific to the United States. Britain, and Swinging London specifically, was hugely influential for bringing “Mod” designs, such as those of fashion designer Mary Quant, and the music of the Beatles, to the United States.75 American girls emulated English models like Twiggy, and young American men adopted brightly colored slim-fitting “Swinging London” aesthetics.76 Youth culture movements had happened before, but what differentiated the youthquake of the 1960s from, for instance, the flapper culture of the 1920s was the numbers: the baby boomers (the generation born after World War II) made up a significant portion of the population and were coming of age as consumers. It also took place at a moment during which media was changing and television broadcasted images rapidly worldwide. According to cultural historian Thomas Frank, the concept of youth that was marketed in the 1960s was not only directed at the young, but was an attitude and lifestyle that anyone could ostensibly access, regardless of age.77 At the same time that clothing manufacturers were looking to expand into younger demographics, new types of advertising were also developing.78 The so-called creative revolution in advertising resulted in the privileging of artistic creativity, irony, and wit over an older, more prosaic, statistical approach to selling. Madison Avenue’s creative revolution, and the type of hip consumerism it engendered, became a permanent fixture of the American media landscape.79 Many of these new creative advertisers were young, and more in tune with their media-savvy peers than would have been the case a decade before. Dissent and rebellion were channeled into a form of hip consumerism, and the fear of conformity became another reason to consume novelty.80 Such was the cultural climate to which Lee, Pendleton, and Wrangler had to adapt. Thomas Frank suggests that one of the reasons the youthful counterculture appealed to advertisers in the 1960s was that it invited indulgence in transitory whims.81 Such a cultural environment was ideal for selling trendy, fun, casual clothing to young people or those who identified with youthful free-spiritedness. Westernwear companies took this as a chance to more confidently experiment with color. In the early 1960s the design of colored jeans was broadly in line with the indigo blue originals, though they were marketed in different ways. Lee’s foray into colored denim began in 1963 with Lady Lee Westerners. They could be purchased in Kelly green, purple, red, and turquoise. The textile used was a polished cotton called “Westweave” (trademarked by Lee in 1959) that was thinner and softer than denim twill, allowing for a more comfortable fit when worn tight. An advertisement that ran in both Seventeen and Mademoiselle in the spring of 1963 featured four young women each sporting one of the four colors in which Lady Lee Westerners were produced (Figure 5.12). The girls are young, white, and with the exception of one, blonde. They wear their jeans with ankle boots and button-down blouses, and sport the “flip” bob haircut and pale pink lipstick
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Figure 5.12 Lee Westerners advertisement, Seventeen, May 1963.
favored at the time. What is atypical is that the three girls at the center are holding guns. The women look out at the viewer with a challenging glance and slight swagger, legs apart, weapons drawn. The fourth young woman to the right stands sideways, revealing the Lee patch above the hip on her jeans, and mimes a tragic fate: with eyes closed, arms crossed over her chest and an arrow pierced through her side. The arrow, missing its sharp head, is likely hooked through the belt loop on the other side. In this mildly humorous image, the models seem to be playing a grown-up version of “Cowboys and Indians,” referencing the Western genre, but the styling is more in line with fashionable trends for slim-fitting colored pants. The text expands on this contrast:
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Now the West has really gone “way out.” Once upon a time these were honest ranch pants. Genyouine [sic]. Authentic as an Oklahoma drawl. Now, wow! Colors that swing. Colors that zing. Colors loaded with enough yippee to bring the sheriff out shooting. Lee’s great western tailoring in Purple, Red, Turquoise, Kelly Green . . . quick . . . lock up the horses. Expressions like “Way out,” and colors that “swing,” seek to connect with the popular vernacular of the time, or at least the copywriter’s impression of swinging ’60s youth. The advertisement suggests excitement over the new colors at the same time as the implication that something inherently “honest” and “authentic” in the jeans remained. And what made them authentic was the connection to the West, a notion voiced repeatedly in conjunction to westernwear, as we have seen. In this instance the product broke from established “honest” conventions, yet Lee communicated that it was done knowingly, with tongue in cheek, and the playful cowboy accoutrements in the photograph were intended to surprise the viewer as much as to connect the brand to its Western roots. Other companies also offered women’s jeans in bright colors. Miller Stockman’s spring catalog from 1962 showcased a selection of women’s and girls’ coordinates: Western blouses, pants, and hats, in saturated pink, blue, green, and orange tones (Figure 5.13).82 The palette is similar to that used in Lee’s colored denims, although Miller Stockman’s pieces lean more towards mauves, bubblegum pinks, light blues, and lime greens. The silhouettes were more conventionally Western than Lee’s Lady Lee Westerners as well, with boot-cut flares, flat fronts, and wide, arrow-shaped belt loops on the trousers. Pattern, which was ever present in Miller Stockman’s shirting for men and women, is visible here as small-scale florals and gingham checks. Color was the defining characteristic situating these particular ensembles as on trend. Although the blouses match the colorways of the pants, they maintained Western construction details in the yokes and cuffs. Miller Stockman was evidently aware of the fashion for saturated hues, but as the example above illustrates, color was applied to what were rather traditionally designed Western casual ensembles. Along with bright, eye-catching colors, fit was a key part of what made Lee jeans of the early 1960s look new. Both Lady Riders and Frontier Lady denims were offered, from 1964, in “stretch” varieties. These textiles added flexible synthetics as fill, meaning the weft fibers provided a one-way stretch, with the result that the jeans could be worn tighter.83 Once again, the stretch denims were aimed primarily at young women, and the promotion of them incorporated Western themes. An advertisement for Stretch Riders from Seventeen in 1964 depicts a young woman in tight Lee Riders wearing a cowboy hat, black Keds sneakers, and wielding a lasso. Other Seventeen advertisements from 1964 and 1965 illustrate Frontier Lady jeans that featured flat-front construction not unlike those of the early 1950s, but considerably narrower, paired with cowboy hats, shirts, and belts, thus continuing the Western theme.
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Figure 5.13 Miller Stockman catalog, Spring, 1962. Miller International archives.
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Figure 5.14 Lee Frontier Lady advertisement, Seventeen, April, 1965.
Although the fit and cut were very similar to Lee Lady Westerners, the advertising for Frontier Lady’s stretch denims went further in emphasizing the link between tight fit and Western dress (Figure 5.14). The text of one advertisement includes the line “If you wanna sit tall in the saddle . . . you got to stretch,” alongside young women posing with standard cowboy accouterments of hats, Western shirts, and wide belts over a saddled sawhorse. Again, the copy harks back to the past and the difference between West and East: “Time was you could spot an Easterner from a Westerner two miles away. The pants—flop, flap, bunch, bulge. Not any more. Why, pour a cute little Massachusetts kindergarten teacher into a pair of lean rangy Lee Stretch Denims and even the Sheriff don’t know there’s a stranger
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in town.”84 Oddly, and perhaps for the first time, clothing from the East was connected to poor fit, and loose fit in particular. Although slim-fitting pants were popular in the 1960s for men and women on both coasts and internationally, slim fit had long been a selling point for Western styles, a fortuitous coincidence for manufacturers already producing tight-fitting jeans.85 Synthetic textiles, like those that enabled stretch, were among the defining innovations of the postwar textile industry.86 New or recently invented materials like Orlon, acrylic, Dacron, and polyester reached large numbers of consumers and grew to be accepted as fashionable, affordable, and time saving.87 Synthetic materials were initially promoted directly by their manufacturers, including large chemical companies like DuPont and Monsanto, that promoted the fabrics to align with progress narratives, and as part of the evolution of modern textiles.88 The historian Regina Lee Blaszczyk, who investigated DuPont’s promotions for its versatile synthetics, argues that comfort and convenience, “the twin offspring of postwar notions of progress,” helped popularize synthetics with consumers.89 In regards to westernwear and Western-styled sportswear, stretch was the most significant quality afforded by synthetics. As seen above with Lady Lee Westerners, stretch was also promoted as youthful and modern. This characterization was not unique to Lee; “Stretch and the American Concept of Comfort in Fashion,” a 1964 article in the trade publication American Fabrics, extended the definition of stretch to include progressive, natural, and nationalist qualities. The author linked stretch fabric technology to modern design: In the past fashion meant discomfort. . . . As our society becomes more industrialized, more affluent, and more sophisticated, it seeks to avoid the additive qualities, the fripperies and extravagant display of earlier periods. Our architecture and our product design have become simpler in form and decoration. And so has the fashion silhouette, a silhouette geared to a modern fast-paced way of life where human relationships are more casual, more informal, more democratic and less imbedded in protocol than those of any previous society.90 Thus, stretch was not only related to technological advancement and modern form, it was also democratic, and therefore ideally suited to American fashions. The above claim, though somewhat overstated, is not far from what companies like Lee suggested. Yet, the American Fabrics article went further still, suggesting that stretch fabrics were more “natural” since they allowed for greater ease of movement and followed the contours of the body. It cited Dr. Carroll A. Hochwalt (from Monsanto Chemical Co.), who asserted that the body’s skin is the prototype: “There is nothing you could possibly wear which would be as comfortable on you as the coat you were born with—your skin. And the reason your skin is so comfortable is that it is an ideal stretch fabric.”91 Apart from the visceral and disquieting imagery this statement evokes, the contradiction for the reader lies in the knowledge that synthetic fibers are created in the laboratory, are now generally understood to be harmful to the environment, and therefore antithetical to our understanding of what is natural. However, to follow the reasoning
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above is to connect stretch fabrics to the body and to nature, which is not unlike the connections made between Western apparel and the working cowboy for decades. In this context, therefore Lee’s claims to authenticity through linking the West and a tighter comfortable fit make sense. Despite the company’s continued connection to working ranchers and the rodeo community, Wrangler and other Blue Bell lines also branched into more youthful sportswear in the mid-Fifties and the 1960s. Promoted in general interest magazines such as Life, and young women’s periodicals like Seventeen, “Jeanies” was a line of active wear for “misses,” i.e., young women. The women’s jeans were cut more along the lines of fashionable sportswear. They came in multiple colors, available with front or side zips, with top stitching that was both decorative and durable, darts at the hips and sometimes, adjustable waistbands. The textiles tended to be lighter-weight twills or canvas. Pedal pushers—high-waisted pants usually cuffed below the knee—were ubiquitous in sportswear in the 1950s.92 Pedal pushers (also known as capris), were a youthful look popular with teenagers, and worn by more mature women as casual leisure or resort wear. Bright colors and novelty prints could add to the playful style, and were immortalized in Carl Perkins’ 1958 song, “Pink Pedal Pushers.”93 Jeanies’ pedal pushers were available in a range of vibrant colors, including turquoise, and black and orange stripe, in cotton or corduroy. The imagery on the paper hangtags conforms to the conventions of advertising graphics at the time, as does the multiple typefaces in bright colors, with script and block letters on a single page. Although the imagery and graphics were intended to appeal to a youthful audience, detailed product descriptions remained consistent, with sizing charts, washing instructions, and garment details. They noted that these pants offered “sewing details you won’t find on garments at three times the price—no unfinished fabric edges, lockstitched hems to prevent [un]raveling, special thread for best wear on each sewing operation and many others.” In other words, the company guaranteed the jeans’ durability. The detail provided on the tags suggests that Blue Bell assumed that the consumer paid attention to textiles and fabrication details. It is also reminiscent of the prosaic lists of features and textile qualities that were typical of workwear and utilitarian garments. Jeanies were certainly designed to appeal to a fashionable young consumer but they existed at a halfway point between sportswear and workwear. Wrangler first advertised slim-fitting colored jeans for women in 1957. Advertisements that ran simultaneously in spring issues of Seventeen, Life, and the New York Times Magazine show four young women striking ballerina poses in tight jeans and black slippers (Figure 5.15). The “Wonderfully flattering Blue Bell Wranglers” with “that tapered Western fit” available in red, wheat, turquoise, light blue, light gray or charcoal, are shown as playful and carefree at the same time as the hard-wearing quality of the denim was emphasized. The idea of stretch and flexibility is underscored through the dancing. The only difference in terms of garment type between the new offerings and typical women’s Wranglers were the colors. While these more mainstream images bear no hint of Western styling, cowgirls incorporated the jeans into up-to-date styles for riding (Figure 5.16).
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Figure 5.15 Wrangler advertisement, 1957. Published in Seventeen, Life, and The New York Times Magazine. Wrangler archives, clippings.
As a division of the larger Blue Bell company, Wrangler had access to a more diversified manufacturing system than many of its rivals. It was therefore possible to offer a wide range of garments using different textiles under the Wrangler name. Although the brand typically adhered quite closely to its cowboy origins, some Wrangler garments, particularly those offered to young women in the 1960s, deviated from westernwear designs. A full-page color advertisement featured in Seventeen in September of 1963 exemplified this shift (Figure 5.17). The heading reads “From out of the West comes Wrangler,” with the photograph of two young women standing in front of, and one leaning against, a stagecoach. Two men, one driving the stagecoach and another seated inside, are
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Figure 5.16 Two women wearing Wranglers walk through the Tipi Village at the Pendleton Round-Up, September, 1958. Photo by Hy Peskin/Getty Images.
dressed as typical Western cowboys, with plaid shirts, cowboy hats, and bandanas, greatly adding to the Western associations. The women all sport Wrangler fashions but only one of the three wears jeans, and they are paired with a Peter Pan-collar blouse. The other two wear Jamaica shorts and “knee pants” with coordinating knee socks and blouses, all key elements in the American ready-to-wear tradition. The copy above the photograph reads: “What matter if they never see a horse?” It goes on to emphasize that “these clothes are made for city-slickers, Eastern dudes and other non-ranch types who secretly love the look of Western duds.” Clearly, Wrangler understood the differences between
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Figure 5.17 Wrangler advertisement, Seventeen, September, 1963.
Eastern and Western dress, highlighting Western appeal while showcasing styles that have scarcely any Western design details for suburban consumers. Yet again, we see the women’s apparel as up-to-date, while the cowboy’s look is static. Here Wrangler maintains the connection to the West in terms of presentation, but not in terms of the garments themselves. It is also noteworthy that the men in Western clothes occupy and drive the stagecoach, assuming more active roles, while the young women posed in front accessorize, but do not really engage with, the stagecoach or horses. Lee and Wrangler’s experimentation with tongue-in-cheek Western imagery owed much to the wider visual culture. Although it was not an all-encompassing trend, Western-styled clothing was part of casual sportswear for young people, another instance of the reciprocal influence of westernwear and ready-to-wear fashion. Reviewing Seventeen magazine from the late 1950s and 1960s shows that Western fashions and accessories appear regularly, although the cowboy influences are more explicit in some advertisements and editorials than others. Inexpensive accessories such as leather moccasins and “Pow Wow boots,” silver “Indian” jewelry, and Mexican folk costume, and cowboy-boot earrings were consistently offered through mail-order classified advertisements in the back pages through the 1950s.94 In addition to these accessories, several companies including Princess Fair advertised a line of pearl snap Western blouses with names like “Gay Desperadoes” in 1954, while Ship’n Shore advertised
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Figure 5.18 Princess Fair “Gay Desperadoes,” Seventeen, September 1954.
Figure 5.19 New Era “Bucks County Shirts,” Seventeen, August 1962.
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ruffled Western blouses for women in 1962 with copy proclaiming “We call ourselves the Dandy Dudes,” thus making a connection with both people who liked to dress well and people who were novices in terms of wearing westernwear (Figure 5.18). In the same year the “New Era” label featured a line of vaguely Western-inspired blouses called “Bucks County Shirts,” worn by models photographed alongside hay bales and wagon wheels (Figure 5.19). Other established labels such as Bobbie Brooks promoted their 1962 line of trim corduroy trouser sets for women through images of a young pistoltoting woman complete with cowboy hat, boots, and lasso. Magazines’ Western-styled editorials were vivacious and colorful. As noted above, Western looks were especially strong in 1962, a year of pride and patriotism for many Americans, with President Kennedy forcing the Soviets to back down over the Cuban missiles and national celebration when John Glenn became the first American to cross a new frontier (space), and orbit the earth. There were multiple page full-color features in both July and August issues of Seventeen that featured Western styles. A July feature, “East is East but West is Best,” presented three women in sporty and colorful westernwear—slim ranch pants tucked into Acme cowboy boots paired with Western blouses and, of course, cowboy hats and scarves (Figure 5.20). The accompanying text reads: “Ready for you to lasso, the big look now and
Figure 5.20 “East is East but West is Best,” Seventeen, July 1962.
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for fall.” Although these garments bear a resemblance to Lee and Wrangler’s offerings they were made by companies that did not boast a Western heritage. The pink blouse, for instance, was produced by Ship’n Shore but it was paired with boots and hats from more traditional, or to use their language, “authentic,” Western suppliers—Miller Stockman. In spite of their attempts, Seventeen’s fashion editors were met with letters from readers in Western states who were quick to criticize the looks. A statement attributed to “Texas Readers” points out that “only an Easterner would put pant legs inside her boots!”95 Even as Western design elements and accessories were increasingly visible, distinctions between “real” cowgirls and East/West styling held fast for many. An August feature of the same year included a two-page photospread, “Lean and jeansy is the look,” showing young women at a ranch, wearing jeans, chambray, denim tops and vests, and bandana-print calico cottons. All were produced by fashionable sportswear lines, rather than established traditional denim or westernwear brands. In 1964, Wrangler reached out to the youth market in a new way that set aside Western styles almost completely in order to capitalize on new trends in dance and music.96 Social dancing in the United States experienced a revival with rock’n’roll. Television played a huge part in popularizing rock and pop artists and made the different dance moves more visible. Bandstand, an afterschool television program on which teenagers danced live in a studio to musical performances, originated as a local Philadelphia broadcast in 1952; it surged in popularity when it went national in 1957, however, becoming American Bandstand (hosted by Dick Clark). American Bandstand presented a sanitized, friendly, almost exclusively white, image of American adolescence, and the teenagers’ dancing showed little of the sexual suggestiveness leveled against rock’n’roll in its early years. Many of the dance moves, typically those that were easiest to replicate, such as the Bop, the Bunny Hop and The Stroll, became fads themselves. An array of “dance craze” dances emerged during the first few years of the 1960s that were fun, and relatively easy to learn just as the Twist had been in the late 1950s.97 The Wrangler Stretch was born out of this dance craze. In 1964, Wrangler hired a professional dance instructor, the celebrated Frank “Killer Joe” Piro of New York, who had already enjoyed over twenty years in the spotlight as an award-winning dancer and dance instructor, to choreograph steps to go along with a song called “The Wrangler Stretch,” recorded by the Pirouettes.98 Although Piro was forty-three years old in 1964, he kept abreast of the latest trends in dancing and nightclub culture. He created a simple dance to accompany a song by an unnamed soulful vocalist. The lyrics that are little more than dance instructions, and also an advertisement for a new type of fabric and a new type of jeans:99 Stretch! Your arms way up high Stretch! Like you could touch the sky Stretch! You’ll like it once you try . . . . And now you’re doing the Wrangler Stretch.
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Figure 5.21 “The Wrangler Stretch” promotional material, 1964 Wrangler archives, clippings
The Wrangler name is repeated while promotional instructions for the dance show Wrangler clad teens, the boy in tight Wrangler jeans and the girl in Wrangler shorts, following each of the moves (Figure 5.21 here).100 The text below reads: “Now that you’ve learned the dance, meet the jeans that inspired it.” Hoping that the dance would help start a fad, Wrangler offered one-sided 45rpm singles for garment distributors to give away with the purchase of a pair of stretch jeans. While the dance craze was part of youth culture, it was a popular, nationwide televised fad and not a subculture, unlike the following groups who were not targeted directly by clothing companies.
Subcultures Incorporate Westernwear: Surfers, Cholos, and Hot Rodders Of the many youth subcultures that existed in the mid-twentieth century, few were as geographically specific as surfing. Surfing, and the youth culture surrounding it, had strong connections to the
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Western United States where it became hugely popular, especially in California. Western sportswear made in California and Oregon contributed to the surfer style that, like the sport itself, became a national fad. According to John Irwin, whose Scenes (1977) marked a watershed moment in subculture studies, surfing was distinctive from many other subcultures because it combined lifestyle preferences with tangible physical skills.101 Surfing also exemplified how a subculture with very specific regional and generational origins was marketed to mainstream consumers outside of island and coastal areas. That happened largely through fashion. Surfing was an early twentieth-century import to California’s beaches from Hawaii. George Freeth, a Hawaiian surfer, introduced the sport to Southern California in 1907. His visit, which included surfing demonstrations and instructional classes, was part of a sponsored promotion by the Redondo– Los Angeles Railroad Company, which was interested in promotion beach visits and ocean recreation.102 This public demonstration in California coincided with the publication of Jack London’s article “A Royal Sport,” which described the excitement, speed, and exotic Hawaiian origins of surfing, thus lending a sense of adventure and romance to the sport.103 London’s bombastic prose describes surfing as “a royal sport for the natural kings of the earth” and imbued the daredevil surfers themselves with the power to conquer nature.104 In the postwar era, technological advancements allowed for lighter more manageable surfboards made of balsa wood and foam-filled fiberglass that led to more people attempting surfing. The August 1945 cover of Westways, a magazine published by the Southern California Automobile Club, features an illustration of a crowded beach: women, children, young, and old men enthusiastically charge into the waves surfboards in tow.105 Surfing developed in California parallel to, but largely independently of, Hawaii. More boards were produced in California than anywhere else in the country, and the United States Surfing Association (USSA) began in Southern California in 1961.106 The “surf style” of the late 1950s and 1960s did not begin as a deliberately codified look but, as with many subcultures in both contemporary and later iterations, uniformity in dress was emphasized as a key feature.107 Certain types of casual apparel worn in a nonchalant, distinctive way made surfers recognizable to one another, and set them apart from those who wore conventional sportswear or resort styles. Like most amateur athletes, surfers wore practical, accessible garments that would not hinder performance. The photographs captured by surfer/photographer Leroy Grannis from the 1960s show young men in loose-fitting nylon swim trunks or board shorts, boxer short-style, that fall just above the knee, or occasionally cut-off jean shorts.108 When out of the water, surfers added a T-shirt, nylon windbreaker, wool shirt, or parka to their shorts or cut-off jeans to create their own type of casual wear. Trousers worn by surfers were either blue jeans, typically faded from sun and salt water, or khaki chinos, an economical alternative available through army surplus stores (Figure 5.22).
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Figure 5.22 Young men and women sporting surfer styles. LeRoy Grannis Makaha, Hawaii, 1962. © LeRoy Garannis Collection, LLC; courtesy of M+B Gallery, Los Angeles (www.mbphoto.com).
Author and contemporary cultural critic Tom Wolfe saw surf culture as a unique postwar American subculture, an underground society with tribal overtones. In The Pump House Gang, published in 1968 based on earlier observations, Wolfe describes a group of young surfer friends who coalesced around the same interests and came from the same white upper-middle class backgrounds.109 Surfing was a common bond, but their social group was also about claiming public space, sites of recreation like the beach or the Sunset Strip, as their own, as exclusive to those under twenty-five. Wolfe does not use the term “subculture” or engage in theorizing it, but it is clear that he is in fact exploring a youth subculture. According to Wolfe: “. . . they don’t merely hang around together. They establish whole little societies for themselves.”110 And this society had, if not its own rigid dress code, then certainly a common aesthetic. The girls that Wolfe describes sported low-rise colored pants, boots, and furry vests while the young men wore jeans or board shorts, and cut-off sweatshirts. All had long, sun-bleached blonde hair. Despite the fact that surfing had been promoted in California for decades as family-friendly recreation, 1960s surfers did not always enjoy a good reputation. Not unlike the lifestyle of the beat generation and rock’n’roll fans of the 1950s, the surfing lifestyle of the 1960s represented a break from
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conventional corporate culture and middle-class values. Fulfillment for surfers was found in challenging the ocean rather than in the comforts of home, job or family, and many enjoyed the bohemian lifestyle suggested by their casual, often disheveled, appearance. The notion that surfers were nothing more than “beach bums” who were no doubt involved in drug or alcohol abuse and petty crime was not uncommon.111 The youths Tom Wolfe described were not necessarily delinquent, despite their wild parties that he evocatively described as “Dionysian,” and the occasional acts of vandalism, the Pump House Gang seem quite inoffensive. Surfers were many things, including laidback bohemians pursuing their chosen leisure activity. The thrill and danger of confronting nature on a surfboard was also tied into Western myths. Surf style merged with the West materially through jeans, and symbolically and perhaps more importantly, with the myth of the frontier. Popular articles at the time often situated surfers on “the last frontier,” leaving civilization behind.112 Besides faded blue jeans—and perhaps as the inevitable outcome of indigo being bleached out by the sun and salt water—white jeans became popular in the early 1960s. Unlike the candy-colored jeans addressed above, white denim was common for men and women. When Levi Strauss & Co. first introduced White Levis in 1960, they were closer to sand-colored or off-white.113 Advertisements for White Levi’s were directed at young people; one example features an illustration of a young man casually lounging and chatting on the phone in bright white Levi’s paired with sloppy sneakers and red T-shirt. The only text, apart from the Levi’s name, exclaims: “The Most!”114 Again, such advertising suggests that Levi Strauss & Co. sought to embrace the youth market by using what company publicists considered the language of youth. Only a decade before, the company and its rivals had worked to convince parents that jeans were appropriate attire for school. By 1960 that battle had largely been won and new markets were the order of the day. Narrow in fit and light in color, white Levi’s were a drastic departure from the dark indigo work pants that concealed dirt and hung loosely from the hip. There is no hint of cowboy culture or Western aesthetics in these advertisements, but the connection to teenage culture in the West, and in California in particular, was a point of emphasis. White Levi’s were given boost in publicity in 1963 with a song aptly called White Levi’s recorded by a California girl group, The Majorettes.115 Comparable to the Wrangler Stretch, White Levi’s was the promotional A-side of a single produced by Troy records. The album sleeve featured a small black and white photograph of the girls in the band over a vibrant color blocked orange, white, and lime green background.116 A young man illustrated on the right sports white jeans, snug fitting and hemmed just above the ankle, with sneakers, baggy plaid shirt and a cap. The song’s lyrics essentially describe the outfit: My boyfriend always wears White Levi’s/ And his tennis shoes and his surfin’ hat and a big plaid Pendleton shirt117 Through these efforts, Levi Strauss & Co. was invested in connecting to a mix of people and to a new look. Pendleton was mentioned in the song because Pendleton plaid shirts were also worn by surfers. A wool Pendleton shirt was affordable and convenient for keeping warm and dry when coming out of
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Figure 5.23 The Beach Boys (left to right: Mike Love, David Marks, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and Carl Wilson) pose with a surf board and truck on the beach in Los Angeles, California, August 1962. Outtake from the session for their debut album, Surfin’ Safari. Photo by Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images.
the ocean. Images of surfers from the 1950s and 1960s also show Pendletons worn as jackets or tied around the waists of surfers on the shore.118 The shirt was typically worn oversized like a light jacket, usually open over a T-shirt paired with board shorts, khakis or jeans, and sneakers or Huarache sandals. This combination was key to creating a more relaxed and disheveled appearance than the sturdy masculine hunter/fisherman image or the collegiate young man in Pendleton advertisements. The Pendleton brand was so closely tied to surfer culture that one of the musical groups eventually most famous for popularizing surfing appropriated it. When they first formed, The Beach Boys were called The Pendletones.119 It is a name that would have been easily recognizable to anyone from their social milieu in Hawthorne, California. Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, Mike Love, and Alan Jardine— the five young men who would be The Beach Boys—wore matching blue and black Pendleton plaid shirts paired with khakis for their earliest performances, and on their first two album covers Surfin’ Safari (1962) and Surfer Girl (1963). Figure 5.23 captures them in an out-take from the photoshoot for the first album cover. In their coordinated board shirts, The Beach Boys epitomize an easy, casual uniformity that was already a recognizable surfer look in their region. As the band’s popularity grew, they helped communicate the style nationwide. The Beach Boys also played a big part in amplifying the surfing craze of the early to mid-1960s. Although only one band member, Dennis Wilson, had ever surfed, the group excelled at catchy melodies telling of the pleasures of the beach and carefree surfing lifestyle.120 They diverged from other instrumental surf bands at the time by adding smooth, harmonious vocals. It was a softer, indisputably white, version of rock’n’roll.121 Surfing’s mainstream
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exposure would grow when The Beach Boys’ first single on Capitol Records reached the Billboard Charts in June 1962, with New York City area stores ordering the greatest number of records.122 In her analysis of The Beach Boys’ influence on teen culture, author Kirse Granat May sees the popularity of the surf music craze as being carefully orchestrated by record companies and media promotions to succeed in an environment attuned to California trends and images of youth.123 The Beach Boys in particular, with their clean-cut athletic looks and surfer styles, represented a way of selling a lifestyle, even if surfing itself could not travel to landlocked states.124 The youth sportswear market had noticed the trend and its commercial possibilities beyond the coastal states. Novel, surfing-inspired fashions were yet another way to appeal to the youth market. In 1965, Montgomery Ward was advertising surfing styles for men and women in its national mail-order catalogs.125 Wolfe, an astute observer of both the youth involved in surfing and those looking to commodify it, imagined how absurd the process of bringing California design to 7th Avenue may have appeared: . . . the clothing manufacturers . . . It’s great to think of old emphysematous pan-thuhs [surfer’s slang term for square adults] in the garment district in New York City struggling in off the street against a gummy 15-mile-an-hour wind full of soot and coffee-brown snow gasping in the elevator to clear their old nicotine phlegm tubes on the way upstairs to make out the invoices on a lot of surfer stuff for 1966, the big nylon windbreakers with the wide, white horizontal competition stripes, nylon swimming trunks with competition stripes, bell-bottom slacks for girls, the big hairy sleeveless jackets, vest, the blue “tennies,” [tennis shoes]126 Wolfe saw the irony and humor in re-packaging elements of a regional youth culture and selling it back to consumers nationwide, especially those residing in large urban centers. Although Pendleton was directly connected to the emergence of a surfer look, the shirts were adopted organically, and the company did not actively promote a surfer style until years later.127 The Pendleton shirt is an example of a garment that was practical and accessible being recontextualized into a recognizable subculture style. Just as Pendleton shirts were adopted by surfers without the company’s intervention, they were, and continue to be, worn by another subcultural group: cholos, a subculture that also made Pendleton wool shadow plaids a part of their iconic style.128 Yet, while the surfers’ style merged with mainstream youthful American tastes relatively smoothly, and the brand later celebrated its links to The Beach Boys and the iconic surfer look, the connection between cholos and Pendleton was not similarly endorsed, even though it has been an enduring street style of this unique culture for decades. Cholos are essentially a Mexican American or Chicano urban subculture group with an expressive style that encompasses dress, speech, gestures, tattoos, cars, and graffiti with roots in pachuco culture.129
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It is believed that Pachuco forms, the culturally hybrid blend of Mexican and American styles of dress, speaking, and comportment, first materialized in the El Paso/Cuidad Juarez border region between 1910 and 1920.130 For many Mexican Americans, the zoot-suit-clad pachuco became a symbol of cultural affirmation during World War II.131 The term “cholo” has tangled roots that are older still, dating from sixteenth-century Spanish colonies, when it described a mestizo (mixed race) person born from a European father and Indigenous mother.132 Thereafter it was largely used in the borderlands as a term of derision, a derogatory slur against Mexican migrants until around the 1940s. But in the 1960s, when radicalized youth in California merged pachuco traditions with the discourse of Brown Power movements, they also re-cast the term as a marker of solidarity.133 Thus the term “cholo” is bound to racial and cultural status, along with social class.134 Unfortunately, most twentiethcentury scholarship on pachuco and later cholo subcultures was undertaken with the assumption that these individuals were gang members or social miscreants, it was considered a deviant phenomenon, and the expressive styles only considered in this context.135 Chicano scholar Curtis Marez posits three overarching aesthetic qualities of what he terms “brown popular style,” that are evident in pachuco looks as well as the cholo culture that succeeded them. First, there is “the makeshift,” the bricolage that results from privation and making-do, combined with the creative impulse that draws liberally from seemingly disparate cultural sources.136 Flamboyance is the second category attributed to popular Chicano/a creative expression. Marez notes that, “Chicano aesthetic objects are elaborate, extravagant, and excessive,” which clearly recalls the high-impact swagger and theatricality of the zoot suit or custom lowrider. Finally, he cites nostalgia for the Chicano/a past as a central trait of the aesthetic, something that is expressed in manifold ways, but in the context of dress, helps to explain the constancy of the look.137 Both men and women can identify with the style and sport a cholo/a look. Like many subcultural groups, external signs like dress are often the first to be embraced.138 Again, sometimes this is in the context of belonging to a specific gang, but others adopt the style because it is fashionable and adaptive: as James Diego Virgil explains, “it conjures up the image a group behind you,” a protective strategy in violent urban settings.139 The look incorporated items that were affordable, accessible, and comfortably styled in a distinctive way.140 For men, it comprised a white undershirt, with a Pendleton shadow plaid over top, buttoned to the neck with the shirttails out, worn with starched and pressed khaki pants and standard casual deck shoes, or “winos.”141 For women, the aesthetic was not wildly different, except the undershirts were considerably tighter and often cropped, and they typically wore their Pendletons open on top like a jacket, or buttoned neatly like the men’s. Gender, however, was dramatically demarcated through hair and makeup; men wore close-cropped hair, often covered with a bandana or watch cap, while chola women let their hair grow long and wear it flowing over the shoulders and teased up high in the front. Makeup completed the look; eyes were emphasized with bold black liner and mascara-covered lashes were often supplemented with artificial ones. White eye shadow created a
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contrast with the black liner, brows were plucked pencil thin, sometimes completely, and re-traced thin and high, and the look is finished with a dark lipstick.142 Thus, overall, the women’s styling mixed “masculine” elements such as khakis and shirts with more strongly conventional feminine elements such as makeup. As with many subcultural styles, the individual items themselves may be mass-manufactured, off-the-rack garments but the ways in which they are styled and worn together engendered a unique aesthetic. The khakis, first adopted after World War II, were widely available through army surplus.143 Yet, the cholo kept his loose-fitting khakis clean and pressed, often with a crease down the front, and worn low so that the hems cover the heels of the shoes. The T-shirts or sleeveless undershirts are always crisp, new, and white, and the long-sleeved Pendleton shirts were worn fully buttoned; if they were taken off on a hot day, they were carefully folded over the arm, a detail included in the film American Me (1992). The protagonist, future gang leader Santana, played by Edward James Olmos, is seen in a scene set in 1959 carrying his flannel shirt folded in a perfect rectangle over his bent arm. It is a look where “classic” pieces are worn in an unconventional but consistent and uniform manner, accompanied by distinctive speech patterns and often tattoos that make “cholo” as a style description inseparable from its wearers.144 The style clearly speaks to Marez’s “makeshift” and “nostalgia” elements of working-class Chicano aesthetics mentioned above. It was makeshift in that it combined readily available items in unexpected ways. Pendleton shirts, particularly the shadow plaids, were favored by ranchers and cowboys. They were first made with rustic outdoor settings in mind, not the urban center of cities like Los Angeles.145 In this case Pendletons, like denim, bandanas, and barbed wire, made the transition from rural to urban. It is impossible to determine when, exactly, in the late 1950s cholos began to wear Pendletons and why the brand found such universal favor with them, but they are clearly taken to be, in the words of one contemporary commenter, “part of the uniform worn by old-style pachucos, vatos locos, and a few retro Cholo/homeboys.”146 They may be “retro” and “old style” to a twenty-first century commentator, yet, from the mid-twentieth century to the present they have been a staple of this strong urban community. Indeed, Pendleton-wearing figures have been included in Chicano art for several generations (Figure 5.24). This, in turn, speaks to nostalgia, Marez’s final identifying characteristic of Chicano aesthetics. Continuity with the community’s past is particularly evident in cholo culture, and there is an equally palpable sense of the group as a family.147 Virgil suggests that a persistence of elements like the khaki pants, initially worn by an older generation of postwar veterans, are a way for younger generations to identify with their predecessors.148 Pendleton shirts no doubt operate in the same manner, as a form of continuity with the past, as well as a means of legitimating identity in the present. Hot rod car culture was another subculture started by California youth, in this case before World War II. It began when young, mechanically inclined men began modifying the engines and bodies of older cars and racing them against the clock on the dry lakes of Southern California.149 The ecological conditions of the Mojave desert created flat, hardened surfaces ideal for speeding, and the first
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Figure 5.24 “Cholo” poster, John Valadez, c. 1978. Richard Duarte Collection, University of California Santa Barbara library Special Collections.
collective, the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), organized there in 1937.150 Racing on the dry lakes stopped during the war years when military outposts were stationed in the desert, but after the war the popularity of hot rod racing exploded and moved the center of activity closer to the cities. Unused military and emergency airstrips became neighborhood drag racing strips, which replaced the need to travel to the dry lakes. Hot rodding attracted thrill-seekers and risk-takers, and since these were mostly young men and teenagers, negative stereotypes of hot rodders as a threat to society developed along with the sport.151 Criticism of hot rod culture contained accusations of degeneracy and hooliganism leveled against many American teenagers in the 1950s. The addition of dangerous, loud, fast cars and the possibility of innocent civilians colliding with daredevil teenagers behind the wheel only heightened fears. Accidents with motorists resulted when some racers took to the streets but as more organized drag
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Figure 5.25 Men with Roadster (1929 Ford), El Mirage dry lake, mid-1940s. Robert Genat Collection.
strips became accessible there were fewer incidents, and the SCTA issued safety rules and worked on public relations to convince people that hot rodders were not a threat.152 In The Birth of Hot Rodding, Robert Genat has compiled a wealth of images of California car culture from the 1930 through the 1970s. When viewed chronologically, one can identify subtle changes in their style of dress. The young men pictured in the late 1930s and 1940 wore work clothes to protect them from cold desert mornings through hot sun-scorched afternoons. Utilitarian jeans or khakis, T-shirts layered under pullover sweaters, Pendleton shirts, heavy jackets, and the occasional mechanic’s coverall are all visible. Postwar photographs indicate that army and navy surplus pieces were common, for example, many young men are seen wearing military issue jeans or khakis, paired with pea coats or bomber jackets (Figure 5.25). The typical ensemble was a pair of jeans, either a five-pocket version, or a US Navy issue jean (recognizable by their wider legs and low rectangular pocket design) paired with a T-shirt, typically striped or white, aviator sunglasses, and a jacket, that could be customized with patches and chain stitching as car clubs grew in number. Media accounts that lumped together rock’n’roll fans, bikers, and hot rodders in an undifferentiated mass of juvenile delinquency may have been sensationalized, but stylistically the three groups had much in common. All wore versions of a
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casual, rough-around-the edges composite of sportswear, work clothes, and army surplus. Over time, and as car clubs and hot rod culture developed, more stylized and customized looks emerged. Effectively what hot rodders did to cars—re-working, customizing, and modifying products of the automotive industry with a DIY ethos—they likewise did to standard apparel. Sometimes the young men pictured on the drag strips wear caps or Navy bucket hats (soft canvas hats with fold-down brim), but more often than not they have greased hair, precisely styled and combed back in a pompadour. The hair, a later derivation of the 1940s “ducktail” with higher sides and slightly less length on top, draws upon the pompadour that Elvis Presley helped popularize in the mid-1950s. By the early 1960s, the greased back hair was visual shorthand for the young male rebel that extended to car culture. Continuing his investigations into what he described as the “Los Angeles teenage netherworld,” Tom Wolfe noted that some of their peers called the hot rodders “Hair Boys.” Wolfe saw the Hair Boys or Greasers as embodying a very stylized, slightly feminized, take on high style and speculated that: “it may be because they have always been dedicated to such an ornate, glistening, high-style sculptural object, the American Automobile, in the first place.”153 Given the aesthetic similarities of sculpted, glistening hair and sculpted, glistening metal he extended his analysis further, characterizing Harvey’s Drive-In, where the hot rodders hung out, as: The world’s major salon for the new high style that is creating the most radical change in men’s fashions since the disappearance of doublets, breeches and stockings in the early nineteenth century. Harvey’s is the Dior, the Balenciaga, the Chanel of the new wave: men’s clothes created not for jobs but for life roles.154 He goes on to describe the flamboyant contrasting colors of the two-tone satin car club jackets worn with tight jeans, pointed shoes, and, of course, the hair. Together these not only created an arresting male image, but also signified a specific role and commitment to an alternative set of values and prioritized the role of hot rodder or car club member over any other identities a young man might have had, including those they possess in the working world or at home. Wolfe notes: “after World War Two, a number of sets of young men in California began to drop out of the rationalized job system and create their own statusspheres [sic]. In every case they made a point of devising new fashions, role clothes, to symbolize their new lifestyles.”155 Wolfe saw the “Hair Boys’ ” style choices as the most foppish and elaborate incarnation of these California subcultures. His characterization of hot rodders again pre-dates scholarly definitions of subculture but shares three of Gelder’s six identifying traits: an ambivalent or negative relationship to work or class; excess and exaggeration over restraint and moderation; and most significantly, a refusal of the banalities of ordinary life. Hot rodding, like surfing, also became popular with youths outside of California. But unlike surfing, building and driving a hot rod could be done almost anywhere. Glenn Adamson has contextualized car culture in terms of American craft traditions, and sees it as a blended, “self-consciously
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Figure 5.26 Lee Leesures advertisement, Car Craft, May 1965.
individualistic pursuit shaped by mass media.”156 Although hot rodders were not as strong a presence in Hollywood films, there were B-movies and plenty of rock’n’roll songs recorded about racing hot rods and custom cars. The Beach Boys included songs about flying down the road in a hot rod, the title of their fourth album, released in 1963 was Little Deuce Coupe, a slang term for a 1932 Ford Coupe, a model favored among hot rod builders. As the hobby grew in popularity, car clubs formed nationwide, and although hot rodding styles did not generate the same interest or marketability in the garment industry as surfing, references to it appeared in occasional promotions. Leesures by Lee, the sportswear line for both men and women that debuted in 1957, promoted its men’s pants in a 1965 hot rod-themed advertisement (Figure 5.26). Printed in Car Craft magazine, the black-and-white full-page advertisement reads: “The Fisher Ave. Rod Club tells us how to Soup Up Slacks. We Dig.” Despite the use of “hip” slang terms, the men pictured in Lee’s slacks could not be more different from the coiffed, bright satin jacket wearing, tattooed “Hair Boys” that impressed Tom Wolfe. Here four young white men wear trim-fitting pants with short-sleeved button-down shirts tucked in, leather loafers on their feet, and no evidence of grease in their hair, stand in front of a shiny impeccable classic car. None of the ruggedness or danger associated with the do-it-yourself nature of hot rodding are present in this image. Three different styles of pants are represented, available in twills,
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polished cottons, and shark-skin finishes. The three versions of slim-fitting slacks are on trend for what many young men were wearing in the early 1960s, but the styles are not specific to hot rodding, or to the kind of more durable pant one would likely want for fixing a car. Lee’s marketing may have misjudged the audience, failing to understand hot rodders’ anti-establishment ethos, or it is possible that this image was indicative of changes in car culture itself. As hot rodding’s popularity grew, it became more accessible, and different people—more conventional people—adopted the hobby.157 And thus Lee may simply have made a prudent business decision in aligning itself with the image of a less extreme, more approachable car club. Ever cautious and somewhat conservative in its appeal to the youth market, this is as close as Lee came to directly addressing subculture in the 1960s. Fashions for men and women changed considerably and Lee, Pendleton, and Wrangler all sought to embrace youth markets, or at least aspects of them, and devise products to appeal to a fashionconscious young customer. This often meant abandoning earlier types of advertising that stressed durability, functionality, and strong Western themes in favor of lifestyle-focused representations. The reciprocal influence between westernwear and ready-to-wear described in the previous chapter is ever present, but the embrace of the youth market marked the companies’ foray into what Thomas Frank has dubbed “hip consumerism.” The ambivalence and experimental engagement with youth markets is evident when companies like Lee employ aspects of modern design, like Bertoia chairs, in some imagery and saddles slung over saw horses in others. The garments themselves retained many essential design elements of prewar jeans, work shirts, and woolens but experiments with textiles, color, and fit allowed for more novel, lively combinations. The jeans of the late 1950s and particularly the early 1960s were less tools for rugged work than a comfortable addition to a casual wardrobe. By the early 1960s, jeans allowed the wearers to express their fashion sensibility with a range of colors and stretchy jeans that could accentuate the figure. Explicitly Western imagery was largely absent, and when it did appear, particularly in Lee and Wrangler advertisements, it was incorporated in a humorous, witty manner. Cowgirl styled models in candycolored tight jeans and matching hats play at riding, swinging lassos, and holding pistols. Western “authenticity,” and westernwear’s typically tight fit, were aligned with the implication that Western practicality was, and had always been, fashion forward. The Western aesthetic was useful to the companies above only insofar as it adhered to this paradigm. Jeans and other casual garments were, by the mid-1960s, firmly entrenched into the everyday wardrobe of most Americans, and the West, along with its ruggedly independent frontier image was no longer necessary or even useful for selling denim. A parallel current to the companies’ foray into mainstream youth culture was the independent emergence and growth of subcultures. Surfers made white jeans their own and combined them with Pendleton plaids. Hot rodders typically synthesized a wardrobe of jeans and T-shirts, and hot rodding as a hobby and stylish image was then appropriated by Lee to sell Leesures trousers. Cholos, arguably the most marginalized of the subcultures considered above, maintained a consistent look made up of
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casual basics that incorporated the Pendleton shirt. The concept of containment, repackaging and re-branding elements of counterculture into more palatable mainstream forms, has been lucidly explored by scholars like Jennifer Roberts, and the examples cited above indicate that appropriation runs in both directions—large companies absorbed the jargon, dances, and aesthetics of young people in order to sell clothing, while concurrently, youthful subcultures adopted traditional garments into unique and distinctive looks.158 None of the members of subcultural groups discussed above wore the garments as part of Westernstyled ensembles, and although the brands and the subcultures have geographic ties to Western states, the “Old West” and cowboy style was absent. This suggests that, although the companies had a history of employing Western imagery in their advertising in the years in question, the garments chosen to be part of a surfer or cholo’s wardrobe were neutral enough in terms of design that they could operate in new settings without the cowboy connection. Yet there were aspects of youth culture, including the California subcultures, that paralleled themes raised in the Western genre; namely self-determination and independence. The codified wardrobes that distinguished subcultural styles used clothing in the same way that cowboys did; the clothes were suited to the activity, and defined the role of the wearer. Westernwear had communicated in a similar manner for over a century. A line from the famous late nineteenth-century folk ballad The Cowboy’s Lament (c. 1886) has one dying man address another: “I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.”159 The cowboy’s outfit was part of his persona; it communicated the work that he did and the lifestyle he chose. This strong identification was one of the reasons the cowboy’s aesthetic was slow to change, and it only did so in small degrees. Tom Wolfe’s concept of “role clothes,” the sartorial markers of identity as part of a chosen lifestyle or subculture, the kinds of garments that make hot rodders, surfers, or cholos recognizable to one another yet distinct from the mainstream, is not unlike the ways in which cowboys use westernwear to distinguish themselves. Unlike the subculture groups however, the cowboy’s image was, and is, part of mainstream popular visual and material culture. Yet insofar as dress is used as a signifier, a cowboy’s Western attire shares common ground with the youthful subcultures of the 1960s.
6 The Native American Presence in Westernwear: Design and Representation
This book started with a photograph of Phillip Wildbill at the Pendleton Round-Up wearing his traditional regalia with a sparkling Lurex Western shirt. It is a distillation of the inherent contradictions in westernwear between past and present, tradition and modernity, work and leisure, or perhaps in the performative context of rodeo, “spectacle” might be a more appropriate term than “leisure.” Although Wildbill’s ensemble epitomizes so much of what makes westernwear compelling, representations of Indigenous people like him have been missing from the discussion and most commercial representations of Western dress up to this point. This chapter addresses this omission by examining how Native American design inspiration inflected westernwear as well as how manufacturers employed Native American imagery and design sources to promote their wares and, in some cases, to perpetuate beliefs and misconceptions about Indigenous people circulating in the wider culture. The garments discussed here showcase a range of material and visual engagement; buckskins borrow from Indigenous traditions and suggest a continued connection to frontier exploration, while “squaw” dresses treated derogative stereotypes with ambivalence and merged them with fashionable ready-to-wear. Lee used the name and image of a chief to promote work pants, and Pendleton blankets, worn, exchanged and valued by Indigenous people since the turn of the century, provide a distinct example of continuity of tradition, while the company was simultaneously engaged with marketing ventures at Disney’s Frontierland. While my examples include film, print culture, and garments, this is by no means a comprehensive catalog of the countless representations and misrepresentations of Indigenous people in popular culture at the time. Most significantly, the clothing, advertisements, and editorial fail to reveal much about the cultures they claim to represent, but they reveal a great deal about the dominant culture that produced them. 207
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Indigenous people maintained their own practices of self-fashioning, albeit under very unequal colonial power relations, in the twentieth century. Although representations of Native Americans in popular culture at large were fraught with primitivist generalizations, negative stereotypes, damaging judgments, and outright racism, Indigenous people and their material culture resisted easy categorization. Dialogues surrounding time—or more appropriately, the past—as a marker of authenticity are particularly resonant in considering the middle of the twentieth century when the semiotic dynamic binary of “tradition” and “modern” was particularly heightened as new materials and technologies emphasized the contrast between the “old” and the “new.” I owe a debt to Paul Chaat Smith’s work, particularly the Americans exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, for contextualizing the examples in this chapter. Its theme, “Indians Everywhere,” illustrates the notion that while Indigenous people make up a small portion of the population, their presence in place names, advertising, sports teams, and on products ranging from motorcycles to butter are evidence of a persistent unresolved fascination in the United States.1 Native Americans are at once present and absent, insistently present in visual and material culture but missing from everyday life and the political discourse experienced by most Americans. Adrienne Keene’s influence, particularly her long-standing blog “Native Appropriations,” which helped bring the concept of cultural appropriation into wider use, is also evident in the following pages.2 This chapter adds to this constellation of complicated signifiers with some examples from the world of mid-century fashion.
Appropriation, Authentication, and Hybridization We know that from its inception, the westernwear aesthetic has been a hybrid one. Photographs from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth feature multiple vestimentary traditions and design details combined in a single ensemble. Cowgirls in the 1910s accessorized the shirtwaist blouses common in ready-to-wear American fashion with Navajo silver jewelry, divided skirts, and Spanish riding boots.3 Mexican design elements were clearly visible in leather and needlework, while Eastern European floral embroidery inspired the ornate creations of celebrity westernwear designers like Nudie Cohn.4 The colorful array of design traditions that characterize westernwear heightens its visual interest but makes it challenging to isolate specific cultural origins or “pure” design motifs. Encounters between Native Americans and European settlers and the subsequent appropriations, blending, and borrowing of material cultures was unique to each group and region. Although different cultures exhibited distinct sartorial customs, certain decorative treatments and materials such as fringed leather, buckskin, geometric weaving patterns, and colorful beadwork, were present in different nations and subsumed into Western aesthetics and clothing, sometimes with acknowledgement of their sources but often not.5 On occasion, as in the example of a late nineteenth-century leather
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Figure 6.1 Man’s hunting shirt with Apache details. Autry Museum, Los Angeles; 89.77.1 Photo by Susan Einstein, Los Angeles, CA.
hunting shirt in the collection of the Autry Museum, the decorative techniques were distinctive enough to be identified with a particular culture of origin (Figure 6.1). The man’s shirt was cut along conventional European lines with long sleeves, button placket, and collar but embellished with fringe down the sleeves and shoulders. The pockets include decorative cutouts backed with red wool inserts—a technique characteristic of Apache design—suggesting that this was custom made by an Apache maker.6 More often than not, embellishments on Western clothing represent a hybrid or combination of Native American and European American design traditions that are not so clearly attributable. Garments made and worn by Indigenous Americans and European Americans offer evidence of both cultural appropriation and intercultural material exchange that corresponds to T. V. Erekosima and Joanne Eichner’s construct of cultural authentication.7 Defined by the authors as “the creative transformation of borrowed artifacts by members of one culture from another when artifacts are configured or used in different ways than initially conceived,” cultural authentication occurs when an item or material introduced by an outside culture in a colonial context is adopted and modified, and over time becomes a valuable part of the adopting culture’s dress. In regards to clothing in the United
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States, scholars James Hanson and Linda Baumgarten have demonstrated evidence for this phenomenon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.8 The example of the Apache-styled shirt illustrated above shows how Indigenous people adapted natural materials and sewing techniques in the construction of a European styled shirt. Coincident with this practice, trade goods from Europe, such as glass beads and wool, were fully incorporated into Indigenous craft and design practice.9 In many cases, wool—in the form of broadcloth blankets—replaced animal hide or tree bark fibers, while glass beads replaced and existed alongside quill ornaments. As a theoretical construct, cultural authentication is not useful for distinguishing between “Western” or “non-Western” objects or practices. Such categorizations fundamentally uphold colonialist hierarchies, and as such are only appropriate for examining and critiquing the historical record. However, when considering how Indigenous communities have changed, valued, and recognized examples of material culture like Pendleton’s wool blankets woven on jacquard looms, a European technology, that were worn as robes and brought into Indigenous traditions, cultural authentication is a valid framework that can also extend to garments that combine old and new, Indigenous and imported material. The manner in which the shirt described above can be traced to specific Apache origins is absent from the majority of postwar derivations. In most instances, Native American design elements or inspirations tend towards being unspecific motifs or attributes that can’t be traced back to a recognizable source. This is the more common form of appropriation, openly copying or re-creating elements of Indigenous design, or attributing an Indigenous connection to a vaguely Native-inspired garment or motif. There are countless examples of names of individuals or Nations attributed to garments with no connection to Indigenous makers. For example, a 1951 Miller Stockman catalog referred to a women’s velveteen blouse belted with a silver concho belt as a “Navajo Blouse” (Figure 6.2).10 This shows that the company was trying to invoke “Navajo” in one way or another, but there is nothing explicitly Navajo about the loose-fitting “Western tailored” collared blouse unless the reader adheres to Miller Stockman’s description, which identifies the round “Indian concha buttons” at the open neckline. The belt is composed of larger nickel silver concha medallions “inscribed with attractive Indian designs,” that are not evident in the illustration, and turquoise stones. The blended Southwestern, Navajo, and Mexican references are implied through different design details in this simple ensemble. Native American aesthetics were defined both broadly and inconsistently at this time, and describing something as “Indian” was often part of a symbolic valuation process regardless of specific design inspiration. Many of the garments and accessories in question, like this one, exhibit a generalized view of Native American cultures drawing predominantly from Plains and Southwestern nations. Indeed, freely labeling a product as “Navajo” when it has no connection to the nation or Diné (Navajo) makers would presently be illegal under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990.11 The ways in which Native Americans have been represented, or misrepresented, in popular Western histories, art, and design has been explicated by scholars such as Philip Deloria, Elizabeth Cromley,
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Figure 6.2 “Navajo Blouse,” Miller Stockman catalog, Fall/Winter 1951. Miller International archives.
Elizabeth Hutchinson, and Robert Berkhofer, all of whom trace a long and complex history of representation, collecting, and fetishization in which clothing plays a part.12 In addition, anthropologist Renato Rosaldo’s concept of “imperialist nostalgia” offers conceptualization of the continued fascination with Indigenous cultures.13 Representations of Native Americans have occupied a complicated and ideologically fraught position in the visual culture since European arrival on the continent, that tended to position them as either frightening or tragic, but never fully human.14 Fascination with Indigenous people and depictions of their perceived “exoticness” flourished in literature, painting, sculpture and illustration.15 Photographs served as evidence of a “vanishing race,” as representations or artifacts of anthropological study, and as inspiration for fueling the imaginations of creative writers and filmmakers.16 Photographic depictions of Native Americans that followed ethnographic conventions supported notions of manifest destiny and the Frontier Thesis, legitimizing what was presented as the progress of civilization, and establishing the tropes of representation for later mass media such as film and television.17 Early in the twentieth century Native Americans,
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represented in opposition to modernity, were sublimated into modernist notions of authenticity. In Playing Indian, Phillip Deloria surveys the practice of dressing like and performing as “Indians” in venues such as summer camps, men’s clubs, and bohemian communities. Deloria situates the twentieth century’s fascination with Native culture as part of the modernist search for authenticity or lost connection claiming that: “Indian play helped preserve a sense of frontier toughness, communal warmth, and connection to the continent often figured around the idea of being authentic.”18 The assumption was that Indigenous people existed in static, pre-modern societies, lived in harmony with nature, and exhibited strong family bonds, all of which seemed appealing at a moment of rapid industrialization, urbanization and social change. In essence, it’s a racialized take on the appeal of the antimodern, where paternalistic tones add a romantic gloss to the othering of Indigenous people. Rosaldo described such attitudes as imperialist nostalgia in which “putatively static savage societies become a stable reference point for defining civilized identity,” as the agents of colonialism longed for and valorized the forms of life that they themselves destroyed or altered.19 This notion of imperialist nostalgia also helps to explain seemingly contradictory perspectives, such as how Indigenous people were characterized as bloodthirsty, uncouth, or degenerate while simultaneously earning praise for other qualities including resourcefulness, spirituality, or their craft and design sensibilities.20 The presumed authenticity of Indigenous cultures and the valorization of “primitive” art were widely held assumptions in avant-garde artistic circles in North America and Europe in the early twentieth century.21 “Primitive” was generally used to describe pre-industrial cultures, as well as contemporary art and objects originating from non-Western origins.22 While it is hard to see any merit in a pejorative label like “primitive” today, at the time it was valued insofar as the “primitive” was seen as a return to a purer moment that could inspire the creative output of white artists and designers. This effectively meant that Indigenous art was valorized in relation to white standards, and removed the possibility of agency or input from the makers. Such haphazard borrowing of decultured objects more often than not without due credit further exemplifies the settler mentality that anything, a design motif or cultural product, was free for the taking. Liberal use of the term “primitivism” in artistic and popular venues provides further evidence for the othering of Native Americans, or any non-Western cultures, and the tacit acceptance that they were in some way inferior, or fixed in the past.23 At the same time, Indigenous art and design was drawn upon by curators, fashion editors, and designers with nationalist intentions who sought to locate “American” identity, a design tradition separate from Europe, and based on Indigenous art.24 Between 1915 and 1919, for example, a collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and textile and fashion designers in New York resulted in an exhibition of fashions inspired by Native North American as well as South and Central American garments in the museum’s collection.25 The resulting “Exhibition of Industrial Art in Textiles and Costumes” paired the new garments with the artifacts that inspired them. The majority of the designers engaged in this endeavor were white women who belonged to progressive communities
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that supported women’s equality and favored artistic bohemian fashions. No Indigenous makers or contributors were part of this effort. They assumed an un-specific pan-American view that incorporated form and ornament derived from Indigenous North American and South and Central American sources for design motifs and ornament. The designs featured soft silhouettes and bold graphic surface treatments that coalesced with contemporary graphics and the emerging loose-fitting and uncorseted silhouettes of the 1920s. While their appreciation may have been sincere, the access to de-contextualized material culture and emphasis on formalist concerns echoes the same rhetoric of modernist primitivism. This effort was also coincident with World War I, when the United States was defining itself on the world stage in a new way, and parallels can be drawn to Cold War ideologies in terms of exceptionalism. There is a notable parallel in that Indigenous people and cowboys were both viewed through an antimodern, or pre-modern, lens and served as representatives of a “simpler” time, venerated for their toughness, and for supposedly possessing a truer relationship with the natural world. Both were also perceived to be vanishing from modern society while clearly continuing to exist.26 Representations of cowboy and Indian favored the archetypal, lacking individuality, cultural ties, and proper names, as personal achievements were channeled into generalized types.27 Although popular culture, particularly Western movies, tended to present the Indian as the cowboy’s nemesis, perpetuating decades of hurtful stereotypes and jingoist ideology, there were and are Indigenous cowboys who wore westernwear and actively participated in and identified with cowboy life.28 Some worked as cattle hands, and some were successful rodeo riders, such as the legendary Jackson Sundown (WaayaTonah-Toesits-Kahn), a Nez Percé man whose skills were so venerable that he intimidated other contestants from entering events in which he competed from 1912 to 1916.29 Indigenous participation in rodeo, as riders, and as event organizers continued through the twentieth century. The Crow Fair, for example, is an annual celebration that includes horse racing and rodeo and has been run by the Crow Tribe in Montana since 1904 that is still active today (Figure 6.3). Probably one of the most wellknown and beloved Indigenous performers in the twentieth century was Will Rogers, the “Cherokee Cowboy,” whose career spanned Wild West shows, vaudeville, and over fifty films. By the mid-1930s, he was the highest-grossing actor in Hollywood.30 Rogers’s wit and humor made him a savvy political commentator whose populist ideals resonated with depression era audiences. His Indigenous identity was not only acknowledged, but was part of the appeal and a central element of his comedy, even though he never appeared in “Indian” costume, and was almost always a cowboy on stage and screen. In the late 1940s and 1950s, popular culture continued to position Indigenous people in contrast to modernity, a foil and backdrop for the Americanization of the West.31 In 1944, for example, a propaganidistic Sunset magazine feature “The West Will Wait,” treated Native Americans as an element of the unchanging Western landscape, a landscape servicemen could rightfully claim upon returning home.32 The connection to nature, and the disconnection from progress, are both taken for granted. In the postwar era, when there was no longer any doubt that the West was thoroughly Americanized,
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Figure 6.3 A group of Native Americans watching the Crow Fair. Crow Agency, Montana, August 1941. Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images.
stereotypical representations persisted. In media such as films, toys, games, and comics, Native Americans, largely characterized as “warrior Indians,” were the necessary counterpoint to the cowboy. In addition to representations of Indigenous people as natural and timeless, they were also depicted as fierce and warlike, and therefore easily bound to idealized conceptions of masculinity.33 An additional layer of signification is added to the gendering of westernwear when Indigenous representation enters into it.
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As noted in Chapter 5, accessories such as “tom-tom” moccasins, “pow-wow boots,” and silver and turquoise jewelry were offered through outlets like Seventeen and Sunset magazines in the 1950s as examples of Native-inspired items that could be included in a fashionable wardrobe. In terms of postwar fashion, Native American forms and motifs continued to be associated with notions of American identity, albeit in superficial and misguided ways. A May, 1953 multi-page feature in Seventeen entitled “Good Neighbor Sportswear,” offers an example of Native American costume being used to signify “America” (meaning the United States), while simultaneously remaining in the background. The title “Good Neighbor Sportswear” played off of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy between the United States and Latin America and included four pages of styles inspired by the Americas.34 South America was evoked through beach ensembles and sporty separates in black, white, and red. Mexico was represented by a model in coordinated capris, boxy jacket, and blousy top belted at the waist, with a matador twirling his cape behind her. The two pages of photographs representing “All American” style show models wearing full-circle skirted, New Look silhouettes in small-scale floral or check prints (Figure 6.4). An apparently white male model placed behind the women on each page wears two costumes: that of a generalized Native American in a feather headdress and fringed ensemble; and in buckskins and the coonskin fur cap of the trapper. The copy boasts: “When American men in coonskin caps and leather coats guarded our frontiers, their women dressed up in gay calicoes and cottons.”35 The Turnerian assumptions are strong; the frontier must be “guarded” from unnamed assailants, and the men in buckskins (taken from but not attributed to Indigenous culture) protect their women. While the men appear ridiculous in their costumes, the women in neo-colonial revival sweeping skirts (which are notably far less modern than those attributed to other nations) are posed clutching bouquets in a manner that is significantly more meek and mild than their Latin American counterparts. The Native American garb, positioned in the All-American context, is framed as part of a national identity but it is distinct from the fashionable ensembles. The costume, complete with feathered war bonnet and tomahawk, looks like a cheap theatrical prop and is intended to be recognizably “Indian” but not part of contemporary American culture, and certainly not for the fashionable consumer.
The Squaw/Patio Dress: Domesticating Otherness The editorial above describes a dress as having “full, gathered squaw skirt with black rickrack and matching camisole top.” The casual use of the racial slur “squaw” is jarring to the contemporary reader but would not have been uncommon in 1953. This attribution demands further discussion, and is complicated further by the fact that an identical garment was also referred to as a “patio dress.” The current popular explanation for the existence of two names is based on contemporary conventions, simply an acknowledgement that “squaw” is a derogatory slur and patio dress is how the dress should
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Figure 6.4 “All American,” Seventeen, May 1953. Photos by Robert Monroe.
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be described accurately today. However, the reality does not fit neatly into this chronology and is not as clear cut. The curious anomaly of the two names coexisting speaks to a marked ambivalence and strained conflation between Indigenous and white women at mid-century. The patio (or squaw) dress, popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, effectively conformed to the New Look silhouette, but was nowhere near as rigidly structured as the couture originals. The attribution is also used loosely; the dress noted in the Seventeen editorial above lacks many of the details that characterize the style. Typically, the name refers to a below-the-knee or mid-calf circle skirted dress, or matching blouse and dress ensemble, in washable cotton or rayon, with a tiered full skirt (Figure 6.5). The waistband is fitted to the anatomical waist (several examples from the late 1950s and early 1960s include an elastic at the waist seam), although in pattern illustrations and advertisements the dress was nearly always pictured belted or with sash belt tied in a bow. The upper body is relatively unstructured with soft, dolman sleeves usually capped or three-quarter length, and the modest V-neckline is often finished with a small open collar. Western flair is added with trimmings and
Figure 6.5 Patio/squaw dress, c. 1955. Author’s photo. Private collection.
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embellishments: textured rick-rack and ribbons, often in shiny metallic, and sometimes a lacy ruffle. The trimmings can be quite elaborate and tend to follow the tiers in the skirt or form a wide border around the hem. The top is embellished in bands around the shoulder that sometimes run straight across, or make a deep V shape down front and back. A crinoline under the full skirt could be worn for additional volume, and was similar to square-dancing dresses that were closely associated with the West and folk traditions. This style was worn for recreational social dancing, like square dancing, that enjoyed a renewed popularity in the mid-twentieth century had its own set of traditional gendered conventions (Figure 6.6.).36 In combining Western and Southwestern motifs such as pleated, flounced skirts and bands of repeating geometric motifs with 1950s silhouettes, the patio/squaw dress—more than westernwear that simply copied or feminized men’s garments—represents another move towards a women’s Western aesthetic suited to suburban middle-class lifestyles. Its origin story is complicated, and while it was fabricated by different makers, regional identity connects them. The style was first created by designers and companies based in Arizona—Phoenix, Tucson, and Scottsdale, specifically—and became synonymous with the Southwest. Designer Dolores Gonzales, working under the label Dolores
Figure 6.6 “Glamorous Patio Dresses,” Miller Stockman catalog, 1962. Miller International archives.
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Resort Wear, was selling squaw dresses by 1948, and is often credited with its invention.37 However, nearly identical styles coexisted fabricated by other designers, notably Lloyd Kiva New, who was Cherokee. While Kiva New created a variety of designs including some dresses with full, pleated and embellished skirts that were labeled “squaw skirts” by notable publications such as Life magazine, whether or not he chose that name and attribution to describe his work is not specified. Most of the dresses in this style were sold at a cheaper price point than those of named designers and were manufactured by different ready-to-wear labels such as Jerome of Arizona, Faye Creations “Patio Fashions,” or Sun Ray of Arizona. Its popularity is evidenced by versions of the dress that were offered in fashion publications, catalogs, and through sew-at-home patterns indicating that distribution was in fact national. Some companies that offered it, like Miller Stockman, did not use the term “squaw dress,” preferring to stick with the name “patio dress,” and the outdoor domestic lifestyle it evoked. Others however, favored the spurious Native American connection, while companies like Sun Ray of Arizona used the two names interchangeably in the same decade in advertising the dresses. Finding similarities between the mid-century dress and Indigenous costume of any kind are tenuous at best, and demand that we stretch our imagination. According to scholars Nancy Parezo and Angelina Jones, who have written about the dress’s origins, the characteristic tiered pleated skirt does have a Diné (Navajo) precedent.38 The Southwest had long been a locus of intercultural exchange between Indigenous, Mexican, and European Americans. A skirt comparable to that of the squaw dress was a floor-length, gathered, trimmed, and tightly pleated calico skirt, that Parezo and Jones locate in Navajo women’s dress following contact with white women who wore long calico dresses. Early incarnations were the result of cross-cultural exchange following the Navajo people’s traumatic relocations and incarceration at Bosque Redondo in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in the late 1860s. Parezo and Jones state: The Diné Navajoized garments during the 1870s and 1880s, modifying New Mexico women’s and traders’ wives garment construction techniques to manipulate the commercial cloths that came as government rations or in the trading posts. This culturation process brought the new dress style into balance with Navajo values by making it beautiful.39 Thus, the skirts exemplify cultural authentication, and the blending of new materials with traditional techniques (Figure 6.7). Another element of the squaw dress that loosely approximates the ornament from Cheyenne, Sioux, Yakama, and Blackfoot women’s dresses is the wide band of decoration that emphasizes the neckline and runs over the shoulders and across the upper back. Indigenous examples exhibit this aesthetic feature, although the bands tend to be much wider, usually covering the entire shoulder, and are rendered in beadwork.40 These dresses were constructed from animal hide, often with fringed edges, and the colorful and elaborate beading unique to each garment is testament to long hours of careful labor. In contrast, the squaw/patio dress was a mass-market product, typically
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Figure 6.7 A Navajo family tends to their goats and sheep on sand dunes in Arizona, 1952. Photo by Ivan Dmitri/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.
made from cotton, corduroy, velvet, or a washable synthetic blend textile, Twistalene, that holds broomstick pleats, with simple appliqued decoration. The style is appropriating a variety of sources, none of which are executed in a manner to be distinct or recognizable upon first glance. The conflation of styles is mirrored by the manner in which design traditions of different nations like the Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni are subsumed under a generalized “Southwestern” framework. An article from Women’s Wear Daily from 1953 entitled “The Squaw dress evolution: Southwest’s color and history contribute to style,” employs celebratory language to describe the “long and colorful story” of Pueblo Indians taking cues from the hoop skirts and petticoats of white settlers, and improving upon them by adding their love of color, which is described in the text as an “inborn trait” of Native people (Figure 6.8). The final step in this transformation is, naturally, the 1950s version where technologically advanced pre-crinkled cottons and color combinations that were “taken directly from the Indians” combine into a thoroughly modern dress with Southwestern flair. In today’s media parlance, an article like this would more appropriately be labeled advertorial as it appears to not be research based and two advertisements for squaw dresses—from Dolores and Sun Ray of Arizona, respectively—appear on the same page.
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Figure 6.8 “Arizona: Southwest’s Color, History Contribute to Style,” Vera Mason, Women’s Wear Daily, New York, vol. 87, no. 118, (Dec 15, 1953): 19.
A closer look at the image, which is styled in the manner of before-and-after type fashion spreads, and its accompanying caption makes the evolutionary narrative abundantly clear. The Indigenous woman, described as a “Hopi maiden,” is diminutive in the background and holds a broom. Her clothing, apart from the squash blossom necklace lacks definition, but is described in the accompanying caption as “traditional.” It is as though she exists in some undefined past. In contrast, the presumably white woman in the foreground showcases her up-to-date dress to best effect, with out-stretched arms
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Figure 6.9 “Sun Ray of Arizona” advertisement, 1953.
holding up the full skirt. Her dress has a decorative neckline, a trim waist, and it hits at mid-calf, showing off pointy high-heeled shoes. While this article offers an ostensibly didactic take on the dress’s ethnic and regional origins, manufacturers’ engagement with them varies. An illustrated advertisement from 1953 for “The Squaw dress,” by Sun Ray of Arizona, depicts a young woman with short, light hair, holding cat-eye glasses (Figure 6.9).41 Her dress has puffed cap sleeves and a wide scoop neck with a bold trim that is repeated in two bands on the skirt. The text boasts of the versatility of Twistalene, and lists where to purchase the dress, but does nothing to connect the garment to its moniker. The Western connection is alluded to through the play on words “duo in the sun” calling to mind King Vidor’s 1946 Western film Duel in the Sun. An advertisement from the following year featuring a squaw dress pattern issued by Simplicity, however, makes the connection more explicit (Figure 6.10).42 The young woman in the dress wears a headband with a single feather, and stands near a campfire. The headband itself is a pastiche: headbands were indeed worn in some nations but not by those nations of the plains, who would have traditionally worn feathers.43 Here, a single erect feather is paired with the headband as in many Western films. As presented, the ensemble is effectively a costume for “playing Indian,” to borrow Deloria’s term. The accessories paired with the ensemble support the notion of the dress as a type of Native American-
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Figure 6.10 Simplicity pattern advertisement, 1954.
inspired garment when in fact, the silhouette, construction, and materials relate only obliquely to any discernible Indigenous styles. The tightly belted wasp waist is particularly inconsistent with Native American dress from any region. The word “squaw” has a long and sordid history. It is currently considered an offensive slur, a sentiment that was likely shared by many Indigenous people at the time these dresses were advertised, when it was nevertheless commonplace in the scripts of Western movies and serials, and many other popular outlets.44 At best it was used as a generalized term referring to an Indigenous woman, at worst it was a pejorative insult used to deride a woman for being anything from an ignorant drudge, slovenly, or sexually promiscuous.45 Although she was antithetical to notions of elegance and fashionability, on the rare occasion when “the squaw” had appeared in relation to fashion, she was positioned as a primitive outsider. For example, an advertisement that appeared in Women’s Wear in 1919 that included imagery of Native American beaded dresses alongside the silhouette of a woman in modern Western fashions, bore the title “Lady or squaw, she obeys the impulse to dress up.”46 Although these words linked two types of women, the remaining text expounds on the Native American’s taste in regalia in a manner that made it clear that “the squaw” could wear a finely beaded costume, but she was not a lady. Similarly, while they do not use the offensive term, Pendleton’s catalogs from the turn of the
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century through the 1920s emphasized its proximity to the Umatilla reservation and wide network of Native American consumers. According to Pendleton marketers, the Umatilla reservation was, “the emporium of Indian fashion. What a Paris hat is to a Chicago girl on Easter morning, a Pendleton robe is to the debutante of every reservation from Arizona to the Dakotas.”47 The implication here being that Indigenous women follow tastemakers and have their own standards of beauty and style, which in this case was supplied by a white-owned company. In spite of the many negative connotations attached to the name “squaw dress,” manufacturers, advertisers, and journalists still chose to use it, presumably to add exoticism, while subsuming it into a Southwestern image suitable for mainstream consumption.48 A closer investigation into the language, specifically the shared names patio dress and squaw dress, demonstrates that ideals of Native American and white femininity were both conflated and contrasted through the design and promotion of the dress. There is a discriminatory historical bias that unfairly characterized Indigenous women as passive and docile, particularly those from Pueblo cultures of the Southwest whose lives were not nomadic. European Americans subsumed Pueblo women into their gendered conceptions of domesticity with relative facility.49 This was largely on account of the notion that these women more closely shared qualities with white women that were embedded in conceptions of the home as a metonym for civilization and cultural evolution.50 Racialized constructions of home, as a private domestic space, were used as “object lessons” in efforts to assimilate Native Americans into a domestic life in accordance with middle class Christian ideals of femininity in the early twentieth century. A parallel can therefore be drawn between this characterization of the squaw and the mid-century suburban housewife whose lifestyle was evoked through the name “patio dress.” The name “patio,” is derived from the Spanish term, meaning a roofless courtyard or garden terrace used for recreation.51 The word speaks to a domestic setting and open-air dining, while evoking the colonial past of California and the Southwest. The patio enjoyed newfound attention in postwar social life, as an outdoor space that extended the home’s convenience by incorporating elements of the living room, family room, and kitchen, particularly if it included a barbeque.52 The patio dress was something to wear while hosting guests for dining or cocktails outdoors. There is a breezy, casual air to the dress that is in part youthful and playful, but also communicates much about ideals of mid-century femininity. Indeed, the 1950s housewife in her full-skirted New Look ensemble is a defining image of the decade, and has since come to embody much of what was considered both glamorous and oppressive in the lives of women after the war. Although not every woman was a housewife or was content in that role, the pressures to conform to the image of a capable domestic caregiver who was fashionably up to date and attractive to heterosexual men was real for many women. It is here that we see a convergence between the narrow definitions of normative white femininity and the identity attributed to the squaw. Both names evoke a passive ideal of femininity centered around domestic life. Both essentialized perceptions of women as laborers in the home, possessing a natural facility for entertaining family and
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visitors.53 I am not suggesting that white suburban housewives and Indigenous women faced the same challenges or benefitted from equal rights—their lived experiences were far from equal. Yet, the simultaneous use of the names is telling of a twentieth-century moment when aspects of Indigenous lifestyles and aesthetics that were described as “traditional” were re-cast, updated, and sublimated in the service of reinforcing gendered conventions for fashionable consumers. The dress had largely fallen out of favor in mainstream fashion along with the New Look silhouette by the late 1950s, but continued to be visible in square-dancing communities and rodeo settings; vintage examples would later be collected and re-signified by participants in the rockabilly subculture or “revival” beginning in the late 1970s. Although the dress was no longer fashionable by the early 1960s, derogatory representations of the squaw persisted. For instance, vulgar squaw imagery lent itself to a fashion critique of the chemise or “sack” dress in 1959. A popular style in the late 1950s and early 1960s, following the New Look’s contoured emphasis on the waist and bust, the chemise (attributed to Spanish couturier Balenciaga) offered an alternative with its loose, soft silhouette and shorter hemline. Some fashion critics bristled at the abrupt change and argued that the chemise was unfeminine because it concealed the body’s curves.54 A cartoonist from True West magazine also disliked the shape, and drew an unfavorable parallel between the chemise and the clothing of a blanket-draped Indigenous woman with feather headband.55 Two women (presumably white) behind her wear sack dresses with smooth rounded edges in imitation of the folds of the blanket. Using language evoking the “Tonto speak” accents heard in films, the angry caricature lists a series of instances where the “Injun’s been robbed,” that include appropriation of music and dance as well as consistently being victimized in Western films.56 It concludes by adding the chemise dress to the list of appropriations: But now me mad For the white squaw’s took The Injun’s original— The chem-ise look The War cry is on And this ain’t no gag—now Both red and white squaw Are lost in a bag.57 The essence of the cartoon—that the chemise makes women look as though they are wearing a sack or a bag—echoes popular criticism but the specifically racist nature of this judgment is unique. This cartoon exemplifies the inverse of the kind of romantic primitivism that led earlier generations of designers to engage with Native American aesthetics. The woman depicted here is homely, a crudely rendered stereotype, and the cartoonist implies that women wearing the chemise style are imitating
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an “Indian” look, which is branded as inherently ugly. The fact that such a cartoon would be published indicates that racist representations of Indigenous people were still abundantly present in popular visual culture.
Buckskins During the earliest years of Western exploration and expansion the practice of white settlers wearing Native American garments, or appropriating their materials emerged largely out of necessity. Clothing brought from Europe often deteriorated under harsh environmental conditions, and often the only available replacements were those made by Indigenous people, usually women.58 Buckskin garments worn by white European American frontiersmen are a salient example. Buckskins were worn by fur traders, mountain scouts, show performers, army officers, rodeo cowboys and, of course, Native Americans, who also took on some of these roles.59 Buckskin jackets and suits generally followed the silhouettes of tailored European clothing, sometimes crudely, while others could be quite refined.60 Worn out of practicality, buckskin was durable and protective, and the fringed trim supposedly offered additional protection, wicking away surface moisture and insects. Some European American adopters found the leather to be superior for withstanding outdoor conditions, while others felt its propensity to shrink and remain soggy when wet a good reason for avoiding it.61 Regardless of how particular wearers reacted to it, buckskin took on a symbolic role for many Americans living in the West, and offered a visual shorthand for the frontier experience. Buffalo Bill was devoted to it, and there is evidence suggesting that when some nineteenth-century frontiersmen visited a town or city they would wear a buckskin suit as a mountaineer “costume” in order to distinguish themselves from urban dwellers.62 Thus this particular appropriation from Native American design and material traditions, and its connection to a rugged outdoor life was, for nineteenth-century Americans of European descent, a way of legitimizing their place in the United States. Buckskin jackets retained frontier associations well into the postwar era. According to author Thomas King, beaded buckskins, like full feather headdresses, are “first and foremost White North America’s Signifier of Indian authenticity.”63 As such it is unsurprising that they appear on so many characters in Western movies. The symbolic weight they carried was articulated evocatively for audiences through the costuming in Shane (1953), a popular Western starring Alan Ladd.64 Ladd’s mysterious character Shane enters the life of the Starretts, a settler family whose land is threatened by an acquisitive rich cattleman. Shane travels alone and seemingly comes out of nowhere, riding in from a range of mountains behind the ranch. His unknown origins and individuality are heightened by the clothes he wears: buckskin trousers and a shirt that ties with a leather lace at the neck and embellished with a row of fringe across the chest. The shirt is worn untucked and hangs below hip level while
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around his waist he wears a wide belt with large silver conchos and a pistol and holster. The buckskin and pistol effectively juxtapose nature with technology. Unlike the other men and boys in the film, who wear more conventional shabby work clothes seemingly donned in a piecemeal fashion, Shane’s coordinated golden buckskin look appears as a unified natural extension of his body.65 It stands for a non-urban, independent kind of masculinity, and because it is composed of animal hide and drawn from Native American aesthetics, is read as being closer to nature. Shane’s striking appearance changes in one significant scene in the film. On his first visit to the town’s general store he purchases a new set of clothes: a pair of blue work pants and a matching blue denim shirt. His comment “It’s been a long time since I got store-bought clothes” tells the viewer that Shane is not a regular consumer of commercial goods, and that until that moment he had not been dependent upon the conventional marketplace. Shane’s new uniform lacks the swagger and individuality of his buckskins. Ironically, this was at the same time that denim was becoming sartorial shorthand for the rebellious outcast in contemporaneous films. The new clothes are purchased off the shelf, and he wears them for the duration of the time he resides with the Starrett family. The adoption of industrially mass-produced products and the shedding of his buckskins signify Shane’s temporary acceptance of a new lifestyle, namely domestic life and farm work on the ranch. Not until the end of the film, when he leaves the ranch to resume his solitary life, does Shane wear his buckskins again. After his confrontation and victory over the rival gunfighter, Shane rides back into the open country towards the mountains alone, suggesting that, for him, there is still a space where he can find peace outside of society. The change from buckskins to ready-made “store-bought” clothes and back again signals a deliberate lifestyle choice on the part of the character. It intensifies the association not only between buckskin leather and rugged independence, but also between the pre-industrial and modern ways of being. By the time Shane was released, the type of buckskin attire available to mainstream consumers was no longer exclusively hand crafted by Indigenous makers, but rather manufactured en masse for women and men by companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. and Miller Stockman. Miller Stockman for example, offered a variety of suede outerwear with fringed sleeves, pockets and yokes for men and women between 1945 and 1965. The example illustrated here, a women’s jacket from 1952/3 is a threebutton suede jacket which adheres to a fashionable silhouette in that it is fitted in the waist and cut narrow over the hips (Figure 6.11).66 The long fringes run the length of the sleeve and across the back at shoulder-blade level. The hem is also fringed and fringes descend from the front patch pockets. In addition, the chest is embellished with two horse heads and a coiling rope motif that runs around the back, where a bucking horse is embroidered in white thread. Described as a “highly styled jacket,” it was available in rust, white, or palomino-colored suede. The type of leather is not specified in the catalog; it is described as “imported suede” but likely a cowhide. The jacket was offered as an example of Western stylishness, and as such, it is another instance of a garment that had previously been worn by men, being designed with women in mind. Although examples like Shane suggest that the
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Figure 6.11 Women’s fringed suede jackets, Miller Stockman catalog, Winter 1952–53. Miller International archive.
association between buckskins and masculine virility remained strong, women wore them and played with the gender connotations of the garment, confirming that into the early to mid-1950s, buckskin jackets no longer served solely as indicators of frontier lifestyles or masculinity. Although Western films were instrumental in shaping the image of the Native American in popular culture, as people they were at once present and absent. In her study of the Western genre, Jane Tompkins noted the presence of a palpable Indian threat in several Westerns, with drums sounding in the distance, and the sight of war paint and feathers, yet concluded that “as people they had no existence.”67 Native Americans were represented as nameless foes, essential in driving many plotlines, but mainly absent as individuals with defined, fully dimensional characters. A subtle shift in this decades-old convention began in the postwar era, when the “golden age” of the Western film coincided with the Cold War. Western productions, both high and low budget, offered a field of ideological play for addressing the social concerns of the day, one of which was a new “enemy,” namely the USSR and communism.68 From the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, new concerns and some new perspectives informed the Western genre, and around 1950, the so called “cult of the Indian” emerged. Some
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progressive film makers complicated depictions of both white Americans, the U.S. cavalry and Indians. Films such as Broken Arrow (1950) and Devil’s Doorway (1950) offered sympathetic, less overtly racist, characterizations of Native Americans that attempted to humanize Indigenous characters and showed European Americans as the aggressors.69 This inversion was part of a wider attempt on the part of progressive groups and individuals to address racial inequality in the United States prior to the Civil Rights movement, and it also served as an outlet for liberal critiques of Cold War “Red-baiting.”70 While such films were a small step towards more thoughtful representation, white actors were cast as leads and the stories failed to include Indigenous perspectives. A complete and honest reversal of damaging stereotypes of Indigenous people in film has yet to take place. While some postwar examples from visual and material culture offered sympathetic depictions of Native Americans and their cultures, the representations are still a Hollywood product, more telling about the biases of their makers than about Indigenous people themselves.
Straight Arrow Favorable, but not unproblematic, depictions of Indigenous people in postwar material culture included Straight Arrow, the protagonist of the eponymous radio program.71 Between 1949 and 1952, the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) hoped to make their Shredded Wheat breakfast cereal more popular with children. The result was a multimedia effort that created Straight Arrow as a radio and comic book character that also appeared in a series of collectible cards in Shredded Wheat cereal boxes. Straight Arrow was a Comanche boy orphaned and raised by a white family. Like many adventure heroes, he led a double life; to friends and fellow farmers he was a white cattle rancher named Steve Adams, but when justice needed defending he changed into Native American garb, fringed buckskins, feathered headband, moccasins and face paint, and became Straight Arrow. Illustrated by Fred L. Meagher, the cereal cards were issued over three years in a series of four books for a total of 144 cards, each with a tip from Straight Arrow himself. The cards were a marketing gimmick to sell cereal to children with a Native American character in a heroic role that was obviously a costume. To assist in the vicarious participation with this imagined story, Straight Arrow cards instructed children about what “Cowboys and Indians” wore, and the crafts they made, along with skills such as archery and horsemanship. Labeled “Injun-uity” cards, they offered instructions for making crafts and tips for outdoor survival, such as how to build a campfire, bow and arrow, or teepee, and shared some of “Straight Arrow’s secrets of Indian lore and know-how.”72 Clothing and accessories were a part of this, and an example from 1950 provided instruction on how to make leather armlets, fringed armbands tied with leather laces that could then be painted in accordance with the “Indian code for armlet decoration” (Figure 6.12). The term “Indian” appears frequently but the cards fail to identify a
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Figure 6.12 Straight Arrow cereal cards, 1950 (book 2, cards 8 & 9), National Biscuit Company. Private collection.
specific culture, tribe, or place. Straight Arrow was a prototypical pop culture Indian; as noted above, he wears a feathered headband and fringed buckskins, possesses a wealth of hand skills, and is knowledgeable about the natural world. Straight Arrow did exemplify ingenuity and, derivative and generalized as it was, his secret “Indian” identity permitted him more freedom and agency than he possessed as a typical white rancher. The strange twist is that he supposedly was Indigenous by birth and concealed this to pass in white communities, but embraced it when he needed to do something especially outstanding, clever, or intrepid and clothing mediated this change. While the character was cast in a flattering light, the idea of “Indian” identity as something that can be put on or taken off like a costume devalues and oversimplifies it. Straight Arrow was an unusual hero, not least because he adopts a Native American appearance the way a superhero would, but unlike comic book superheroes, Native Americans are not fictional. This very characterization is symptomatic of framing Indigenous cultures at a distance from mainstream American culture. Such distance in time and place is emphasized in the armband card, in
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which references to Native practices were made in the past tense—“they decorated their armbands to show outstanding skills they had mastered”—while other instructions were offered in the present tense. Making armbands, belts, or moccasins was a way for European American children to participate in “playing Indian” through hobby craft. It brought hackneyed ideas and imagery of Native American craft into the mainstream and essentially primed young consumers to draw connections between Native American design and leatherwork, fringe, and bold graphic painting, thereby cementing the familiarity of such tropes at an early age. While this example is not bound to fashion retail, for children or adults, it shows how “Indian” accessories, aspects of material culture, offer access to a kind of otherwise unattainable power. The objects, not the people, are empowered and the act of putting them on or mimicking the craftmanship was treated as an interaction with something authentically Native American. Straight Arrow’s craft suggestions are only one example of a larger move at mid-century to engage white American children with “Indian” wearable crafts such as beading and leatherworking, possibly by parents who were themselves invested in or familiar with such cultures or handicrafts in general.
Chetopa Twill Alongside the participatory engagement with Native American material culture, visible through Native-inspired crafts, representations of Native Americans and/or allusions to Native American culture were appropriated widely for a variety of merchandise, including clothing. An Indigenous man, typically depicted in profile with a feathered headdress, was particularly ubiquitous in visual culture, used as a mascot for baseball teams, Indian Motorcycles, Chippewa Boots, Indian Head corn meal, hood ornaments for Pontiac cars, and countless other print and material incarnations. In 1952, Lee participated in this practice when it gave a cotton twill textile used for work pants and matching shirts the name “Chetopa twill.”73 Chetopa, an Osage Chief whose nation inhabited territories in what is now Oklahoma in the late nineteenth century, was reputed to be a capable and strong leader and an intimidating figure for neighboring tribes.74 The name Chetopa lends the textile a sense of Western identity although, yet again, the connection was extremely contrived. Chetopa Twill, a medium-weight durable permanent-press twill weave, was developed from the kinds of coarser textiles that Lee was already using for its work clothes. Chetopa twill trousers and work shirts could be worn together for a uniform look, but were sold separately in different colors whose names invoked nature and Native craft traditions. The garments were produced for men and the advertising was directed at men. Although they are marketed as work clothes, the nature of the work displayed in the advertisements was not as physically demanding as that depicted in earlier advertising for Lee jeans or overalls and bore no relation to
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Figure 6.13 Lee Chetopa Twill advertisement, 1952. Lee archives.
Native American occupations as depicted in popular culture. The men depicted in a 1952 print advertisement announcing Chetopa twill wear crisp matching shirts and pants are all European American (Figure 6.13).75 The man in the darker ensemble also wears a tie and holds what looks to be a folded blueprint. He is clearly in a position of responsibility and appears to be giving directions. The pairing of Chetopa twill garments with men in managerial or decision-making roles constituted much of the imagery from 1952 and 1953. Another 1952 color advertisement shows four men in matching shirts and pants, two of them with ties, pointing at a model of houses and buildings as though they were architects or urban planners. A third advertisement in the same vein shows two men leaning
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over a blueprint while another man in bib-overalls works with a saw in front of a half-built barn. The implication of the imagery is clear; these are clothes for working men but they are directed at the foreman and not the laborer. Wearing the tie, the conventional symbol of male authority, these men have moved at least one step above manual labor, from receiving to giving instructions. With this advertising imagery Lee sought to again extend the appeal of its products beyond the laborer, or farmer to articulate its appeal to another niche of middle-class male consumer. The 1952 advertisement that introduced Chetopa twill includes a small line drawing on the upper right corner of an Indigenous man in a feather headdress riding a galloping pinto horse and brandishing a spear. The caption reads: “Chetopa, an Osage Indian Chief was famed for good looks and rugged strength—as is the new fabric which bears his name.” The drawing of man on horseback is not specific and resembles many dime-novel or comic book renderings of an “Indian” on a horse. Chetopa is also the name of a Kansas town located roughly 170 miles south of Kansas City, Missouri, where Lee had its headquarters. Although the town was also named after the chief, Lee could just as easily have identified the new product with this small local community, or could have simply used the name without explanation. The decision to draw a connection between the historical figure and the new product was a deliberate one, indicating that Lee wanted to identify its new types of work clothes with Western themes. The image of a Native American is a small component of Chetopa twill’s branding, yet it is in dialogue with much of visual culture at the time. Inserted as a symbol of the mythologized Indian Brave, it provides yet another example of the Indian “warrior” or “brave” being an idealized representation of rugged masculinity. The cowboy and ranch-themed imagery of other Lee advertisements, particularly those for Riders, invited those wearing Lee jeans to be cowboys or to play at being cowboys. Whereas Chetopa exists merely as a mascot hovering above or below the white men at the center of the image. While other Lee products were tangibly connected to the cowboy lifestyle, consumers were not made to identify with the Native American figure; he is not wearing the pants, and the design does not incorporate any Native American-inspired details or decoration. Chetopa’s garb, unlike the garments for sale, is not contemporary but it is part of a ubiquitous trend in advertising and popular culture. This image from the Chetopa twill advertisements perpetuates the unchanging stereotype of the man on horseback, swinging a weapon and wearing a war bonnet and leather leggings.76 Although Native American imagery has been a part of print culture for over a century, predating the film and television representations that have garnered more scholarly attention, few comprehensive studies on the subject exist. Cécile Ganteaume has examined how imagery of Native Americans is thoroughly embedded in expressions of national identity in a variety of US departments and agencies, circulating as coins, stamps, government seals, and on an array of imagery and equipment for the armed forces.77 Stephanie Molholt’s draws more from popular culture and identifies the “Plains Indian
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Motif ” as one of the key visual themes running through generations of advertisements.78 Essentially, the unchanging, stereotyped Indian is dressed in the regalia of Plains tribes, not unlike Chetopa in the Lee advertisements. The Plains Indian is intended to stand in for any and all Indigenous people, ignoring cultural specificity and negating the other ninety-five percent of groups and nations outside the Plains.79 Finally, the Chetopa twill branding articulates another instance of the lasting semantic associations between “the Indian” and nature. The naming of the twill colors—Desert Tan, Flint Gray, Field Green, and Forest Green—evokes Western environments, including forest and desert landscapes. There is also “Moccasin Brown,” which specifically relates to Native footwear. Again, Lee is employing generalized notions of the West, and of Indigenous people.
Robes and Blanket Jackets Pendleton created wool blankets in a variety of designs and colorways that appealed to Native American consumers, on and off reservations. Blankets were worn as robes by people from many nations, particularly the Pacific Northwest, Plains, and Southwest.80 The first trade blankets took the place of animal hide, tree bark, or woolen robes that had previously been laboriously woven by hand. Joseph Rawnsley, whose career at Pendleton lasted from 1901 to 1929, is credited for being the first designer responsible for developing “Indian design” blankets for Pendleton.81 Rawnsley was considered a gifted designer, and much of his success can be attributed to his personal engagement with his customer base. Seeking design inspiration, he spent time with the Indigenous residents of Northwestern Oregon, the Umatilla and Nez Percé nations, to learn what colors and pattern combinations they preferred so he could incorporate them into his work. He would later extend his research to the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni population of the Southwestern nations, and references gathered during visits there were reflected in numerous blanket designs. Tastes for Pendleton blankets varied by region, and among nations; for instance, colors that were favored by the Crows in the North were not as saleable to the Navajos in the Southwest.82 Pendleton’s engagement with Indigenous communities was continually promoted in the company’s marketing campaigns throughout the twentieth century. The company’s first catalog from 1901—“The Story of the Wild Indian’s Overcoat”—featured an image of Nez Percé Chief Joseph, whose name was attached to one of the company’s most well-known blanket designs.83 The catalog title conveys how Pendleton simultaneously promoted its blankets as wearable robes to the Native community, and as versatile, decorative blankets to others. The exoticism of the “Wild Indian” is made explicit yet the illustration of Chief Joseph is quite dignified, and although the connection is meant to add cachet to the product, the catalog does not imply that European American consumers wear the blanket in the same way. Yet blanket designs were, in the 1920s and 1930s, incorporated into conventional European American mainstream fashions. Pendleton was already making men’s wool shirting and some Western
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Figure 6.14 Pendleton toboggan coat, c. 1930. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
inspired garments by this time. Blanket jackets, which were made from some of the same colorfully patterned jacquard-woven designs, were issued as “toboggan coats” for men and women (Figure 6.14). The large-scale geometric motifs, created by the blanket patterns, here rendered in contrasting black and white, are comparable to the bold geometric graphic sensibility of fashionable Art Moderne styles popular at the time.84 The heavy weight of the wool lent itself to simply structured, narrow coats that conformed to fashionable silhouettes of the day. Actress Anita Page was photographed in 1923 wearing a blanket coat, in the Harding pattern, which shows how the motifs can be understood within the broader aesthetic preferences of the day, which we would now recognize as Art Deco. The coat looked elegant, especially when paired with the low heels and shorter skirt lengths in vogue in the early 1920s (Figure 6.15).85 The blanket jacket is a unique instance where a garment worn by Native Americans in one manner (draped) was reconstructed through tailoring into a more conventional garment
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Figure 6.15 Anita Page in Harding pattern toboggan coat, 1923. Pendleton archive, Portland, Oregon.
(by dominant European American standards) for white consumers. The marketing and labeling surrounding Toboggan coats makes no connection to the Native American inspiration for the design, favoring instead images of athletic young white women. Tom Mix, one of the most famous Western movie heroes of the 1920s, favored blanket jackets, especially those with the wide stripes of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s point blankets in both his films and off-screen appearances from the late 1910s through the early 1930s.86 By the postwar era Pendleton no longer produced this style of blanket coat, yet two unique examples from the personal collection of the film cowboy Gene Autry suggest that the garment type retained a presence in westernwear. Autry had long been an admirer of Tom Mix, and it is not surprising, therefore, that he sought inspiration from Mix’s wardrobe.87 Although many of Autry’s film characters wore relatively subdued Westernstyle garments, Autry had a vast personal wardrobe of more flamboyant attire including bespoke ensembles from Nathan Turk, Tartaglia, Rodeo Ben, and Nudie. Nudie garments worn by the star, now in the Autry Museum’s collection, include bespoke wool blanket jackets created from Pendleton blankets. Two are made from the Chief Joseph pattern in beige and white colorways, whereas the third is created from a Pendleton Glacier National Park blanket, which is almost an exact copy of the Hudson’s Bay point blanket (Figure 6.16). Nudie’s label is inside all three unlined jackets, and they include Autry’s name (bespoke garments from Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors almost always included the
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Figure 6.16 Nudie/Pendleton blanket coat. Autry Museum, Los Angeles; 91.221.498. Author’s photo.
client’s name in ink). The jackets demonstrate that Pendleton blanket coats remained part of the Western visual vocabulary, apart from what the company was producing at a given time, and exemplify how a famous designer appropriated a garment type from an established manufacturer. Wearing the robe has a long tradition in the Indigenous communities who wore Pendleton blankets, as did offering blankets as gifts to commemorate significant events and personal milestones.88 Yet as with much Indigenous dress, colonialist and imperialist perspectives perpetuated the notions that the wearing of robes was a sign of primitive culture, or of a lack of civilization. In his work on colonial practices, historian Bernard Cohn considers dress as an outlet for the affirmation of Indigenous identity as well as a locus for exercising cultural dominance.89 Clothes are not mere symbols of power or authority—they are authority: “authority is literally part of the body of those who possess it.”90 The pejorative term “blanket Indian” was used to refer to an Indigenous person who failed to assimilate according to ideals of Western modernity. Like the forbidding of Native languages and religions, the prohibition on wearing traditional garments was instituted at residential schools and other colonialist institutions as a means of obliterating Indigenous cultures in the service of assimilation.91 The term was widely understood since the late nineteenth century. Nineteenth-century writers like the liberal-
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minded Martha LeBaron Goddard, who worked to advance Native people’s rights, wrote enthusiastic and flattering, if somewhat patronizing, accounts of the Zuni populations in the Southwest. She noted that the older generations of “blanket Indians” were “the most despised human beings here in the United States.”92 Goddard failed to expand upon the point, as though any reader in 1886 would comprehend why such an individual would be derided for their inability or unwillingness to assimilate. Merrill Gates, a member of the white philanthropic class who saw themselves fit to critique and re-fashion Indigenous lifestyles, sought reform along the lines of capitalism and wanted, “the Indian out of the blanket and into trousers—and trousers with a pocket in them, and with a pocket that aches to be filled with dollars!”93 Scholars like Jane Simonsen have also noted the missionary zeal of reformers whose Christian notions of virtue and domesticity underpinned their efforts to convert “blanket Indians” into industrious, middle-class homeowners.94 Years of disparagement notwithstanding, the wearing of blankets persisted in Native American communities. Indeed, the expression “going back to the blanket,” in reference to Indigenous people returning to their ancestral beliefs and customs, is especially salient. The expression was initially used in the pejorative by the dominant settler colonial culture to diminish whose who rejected assimilation.95 It was later reconsidered by Indigenous community leaders, notably Luther Standing Bear who in 1933 saw going “back to the blanket” as a means of reconnection, in today’s parlance, decolonization: Many an Indian has accomplished his own personal salvation by “going back to the blanket.” The Indian blanket or buffalo robe, a true American garment, and worn with the significance of language, covered beneath it, in the prototype of the American Indian, one of the bravest attempts ever made by man on this continent to rise to heights of true humanity.96 This statement speaks to taking pride in one’s own traditions, and is notably significant in re-enforcing the importance of clothing’s social function. The facility with which he connects the garment, the blanket, with having the communicative potential of language is further evidence of clothing’s cross-cultural signification. In connecting language and clothing, he also underscores its importance as embodied cultural identity, especially resonant as both Indigenous dress and language practices had been censored for so long. An evocative mid-century depiction of the convention of blanket wearing was featured in The Exiles (1961), a film by director Kent Mackenzie. He was an independent filmmaker outside of the Hollywood system who created a groundbreaking depiction of mid-century Indigenous urban life. The Exiles was an experiment in Neo-Realism based entirely upon interviews and time spent with young Indigenous people living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bunker Hill between 1958 through 1960.97 There are no professional actors, and the film spans the course of one day in the life of the protagonists, while they shop, drink, gamble, and party with their friends. The young people talk, dress, and behave not unlike other youth at the time, which makes Mackenzie’s portrayal unique at a
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Figure 6.17 The Exiles, 1961 (dir. Kent Mackenzie).
moment when representations of Indigenous Americans in film were far from modern, urban, or youthful. Although multiple parallels could be drawn between the characters in The Exiles and any other young adults on a night out in an urban neighborhood, the film shows that specific Native American practices, particularly dancing, drumming, and singing, continued. During a party scene, one of the protagonists, Homer Nish, wraps a blanket over his shoulders. The blanket’s pattern is hard to discern, except for the dark border and a few vertical lines and when the revelers stroll home in the early morning, he still wears the blanket as a robe (Figure 6.17). It is draped over his shoulders and contrasts with his modern clothes and slicked-back hair. The blanket wearing speaks to his ancestry and to traditional cultural practices adapted to a contemporary urban context, as part of casual dress.
Frontierland: Historic Exhibition, Retail, Carnival In its postwar marketing and distribution of blankets and garments, Pendleton remained loyal to retailers and continued issuing many of the same designs season after season. Such business practices had served the company well in both mainstream retail and the Native American blanket markets. A notable change in the mid-1950s, however, casts light on the company’s positioning of its fashionable attire and on its relationship to Indigenous communities. In January 1954, Robert H. Burns, a representative of Walt Disney, contacted Pendleton’s management and indicated that the Disney
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company hoped that Pendleton Woolen Mills would be interested in participating in a new merchandising opportunity in “Frontierland,” part of the soon-to-be-opened Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California. Burns made a formal presentation to Pendleton management explaining that Disney wanted to create a working store with an Old West theme centered around Pendleton’s product lines.98 It would resemble a nineteenth-century dry-goods store on an ersatz rural shopping street in Frontierland—Disney’s evocation of the American frontier, from the days of the American Revolution to Southwestern settlement of the nineteenth century—where, it was claimed, history would “live again.”99 Burns emphasized that Disney did not want a “static display” of the Old West, but rather a dynamic working store.100 Although Bishop was impressed with Burns’s enthusiasm and embraced the novelty of the Disney venture—Pendleton ultimately become one of the first companies to sell goods at Disneyland—the concerns he raised shed considerable light on the Pendleton company and how it envisioned its products, especially clothing (Figure 6.18). First, there was the matter of accountability to retailers. Pendleton did not have its own retail outlets and therefore it did not want the Frontierland store to compete with its established clients. In order to avoid this conflict, Pendleton offered a profit-sharing compromise. When a purchase was made at the Disney Frontierland store, 50 percent of the sale’s profits would go the Pendleton distributor in a particular area if the customer provided their zip code. This arrangement was well received by retailers, and the profit-sharing scheme reflected the notion that Frontierland was not simply a shop, but also a major advertising and public relations project.101 The Pendleton store fit neatly into the Disney Corporation’s concept of using history, or historical tropes, in commercial affairs. It also speaks to its cultural politics. As we have seen thus far, and Michael Steiner’s work on Frontierland further supports, the frontier as a concept is endlessly malleable. It possesses more emotive power as a lasting narrative streaked with nostalgia, anxiety, and hope than it did as a lived experience. While Disney’s Frontierland sought to evoke nostalgia and an idyllic past, anxiety was absent.102 In his official dedication of the park, Walt Disney stated that Disneyland was dedicated to “The ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that created America,” a lofty assertion that calls into question Disney’s idiosyncratic and deeply conservative view full of fictions and omissions.103 Frontierland, loosely based on the historical West, glorified white Americans’ expansionist struggles for survival against the natural environment and Native Americans, all in the spirit of triumphalist adventure. Following the Frontierland map visitors could travel through recreations of Southwestern desert terrain, along the Mississippi with riverboat rides, followed by canoe rides paddled by “real Indians” in wooded mountainous areas. Western historian Richard Francaviglia sees Frontierland as an allegory in both a historical and a geographical/cartographic sense, where “Disney shaped the West into a stylized iconic form, a place where heroes make history and pave the way for civilization . . . [and] affirm the conservative tenet that there is no civilization without individual freedom.”104 However, the only individual freedom to pursue in this controlled landscape was the freedom to
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Figure 6.18 Pendleton Woolen Mills store, Frontierland, Disneyland, c. 1955. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
consume and to be entertained, but great effort was made by Disney to ensure that the products available for purchase in the Old West-themed retail outposts bore a connection to Western history. Disney likely sought out Pendleton because of its established reputation as a Western blanket and clothing manufacturer, and because Pendleton’s history would lend a degree of authenticity to the Old West theme. Indeed, the language used to describe Pendleton’s Frontierland endeavor implies that the products served to legitimize Disneyland’s interpretation of Western history. The predominant term used to describe Pendleton’s retail space was “exhibit,” which lent it didactic and authentic resonance and emphasized the connections between exhibition and sales. “Frontierland Exhibit of Pendleton Woolen Mills” was the first official title used in Pendleton’s internal correspondence about the
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Disneyland store, as well as in all communications with Disneyland and other Pendleton retailers. Frontierland was “exhibiting” goods in a specially designed interior, but the items on show were contemporary and available for sale. Burns’s original pitch to Pendleton was to have an exhibit with “the vitality of a working store.”105 Yet, it remains unclear what exactly qualified it as an “exhibit” as opposed to simply a shop with an Old West-themed décor. There were no artifacts on display, and the items for sale were not exclusive to the location. The idea of a living “exhibit” appears to have been the ability to purchase products on site. Pendleton’s presence in Frontierland was essentially as a store but, as noted, the company had vested interests in downplaying the retail aspect. In addition to being labeled as an exhibit, it was framed within the broader context of advertising and public relations. Looking back in 2004, Bishop Jr. recalled comparing the cost of annual rental space at Disneyland with the annual price of a printed advertisement in The Saturday Evening Post, and that the former was deemed well worth the money because statistics from Disney predicted that the park would average ten million visitors a year, three million more than the readership of that publication.106 Pendleton envisioned the Frontierland location as an interactive, multimedia advertisement.107 After visiting Disneyland in the summer of 1955, Pendleton representative Bill Carpenter saw the new space as a public relations victory, commenting: “our exhibit in Disneyland lies [in] the most fertile ground of all for applying the very essence of the theory of advertising and public relations. How better to educate the general public with the excellence of Pendleton woolens than to display them in a setting and in an atmosphere which enhances our product and stimulates the admiration of our guests.”108 Despite referring to potential customers as “guests,” it is clear that Carpenter saw this venture as a profitable sales outlet for Pendleton products. Bishop’s final concern over Frontierland related to Pendleton’s updated image as a fashionable womenswear brand. He worried that Pendleton’s “high-style” merchandise might suffer from by being associated with the Old West atmosphere at Disneyland.109 Although Pendleton prided itself on its long and reputable history, it also sought to remain up-to-date in terms of the sportswear market. For the most part, blanket styles and some plaids had changed little over the years, but as far as other products were concerned the company encouraged designers to be creative with reference to colorways, fabrics, and silhouettes. To a degree, Disney’s anxiety that the exhibit not be “static” was paralleled by Bishop’s concern that his products not be frozen in time. Others at Pendleton, however, felt that the company’s identification with the frontier should be strengthened, and saw references to the Old West as fitting well with the company’s embrace of quality, one asked: “Wasn’t Pendleton already ‘selling’ the far West anyway?”—a claim that, judging from the rest of the company’s advertising at the time, was true even as it was diversifying its sportswear line considerably.110 In the end, Bishop trusted the opinions of his colleagues and set aside his resignations, thus began a thirty-five-year collaboration between Pendleton Woolen Mills and Disneyland.
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The store’s prominent outdoor signage read: “Pendleton, since 1865 High Grade Westernwear, Woolens.” Pendleton had control of the exhibit, display, and public relations at the Frontierland store and collaborated with other Western brands, adding Levi’s jeans, Justin boots, and Stetson hats to the items offered for sale.111 The displays, shelving, and fence-post railings were in keeping with company’s approach to store and window dressing, and Pendleton’s blankets and shirts were prominently showcased within a rustic trading-post setting. A photograph from the mid-Fifties also shows how the women’s apparel—the “high fashion” sweaters, 49er jackets, and skirts—were displayed separately as “elegant apparel for Ladies and Misses” (Figure 6.19). The interior was wood paneled throughout, and lit with gaslight-style lamps, all of which evoked a “Victorian” atmosphere. Other contemporary photographs show blankets and lengths of plaid yardage covering most of the counter and table surfaces, and a few headless dress-forms clothed in jackets and shirts, while items from other companies were spotted around the store. Large-scale Levi’s banners on the walls were typical of the sort used by Levi’s retailers at the period, and featured scenes of families moving West, complete with a covered wagon, and the Saddleman was present as a standing cardboard sign in his red shirt and jeans. The design of the store was unquestionably Western in style, but the interior was relatively restrained. There were no accessories like horse tack, Native American artifacts, branding irons, old spurs, and animal hides that were so often a part of Western décor at the time. The women’s fashion items were relegated to the back of the store, suggesting that they did not fit so well with the overall scheme as the obviously Western-themed items. In front came the blankets, yardage, boots, jeans, and other cowboy accessories. Female mannequins—arranged along the well-lit rear wall—displayed skirts, sweaters, blouses, handbags and shoes, and apart from the mountain scene painted behind them (a landscape that resembled the outdoor scenes featured in Pendleton’s illustrated advertisements), the display is not much different from one in a department store setting. Sales staff were neatly and conservatively dressed in button-down or polo shirts, without any trace of cowboy costume in their styling, suggesting that Pendleton was not called upon to participate in the more performative, theatrical aspects of Frontierland. Frontierland was a profitable merchandising opportunity for Pendleton, even though Bishop remained somewhat skeptical about the venture after visiting in April 1956, reporting that Frontierland had “more of a carnival spirit than [an] educational [one]” and wondering how the carnival atmosphere reflected upon the company image.112 By the end of the first year of operation, however, the Pendleton store had welcomed 1,218,827 visitors, many of whom had encountered the line for the first time.113 Some customers had known Pendleton only as makers of blankets, while others thought it made only shirts. Therefore, it seems that the Frontierland venture was successful in informing the public about the company and its range of products.114 Disneyland’s exclusionary pricing for both admission and rides, which were further divided into hierarchies and priced accordingly, ensured that the theme park was for the enjoyment of middle-class visitors, and white middle-class visitors predominantly.115
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Figure 6.19 Pendleton Frontierland store interiors, c. 1955. Pendleton archives, Portland, Oregon.
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Within three years, Pendleton was discussing new promotional ideas with Disney. Given that the Old West was “the hottest theme on television at the present time,” and Pendleton saw itself, and was seen by many as symbolic of the Old West, it was in a good position to take advantage of that popularity.116 During a 1959 brainstorming session, possible film or television ventures were discussed. Bishop carefully noted that “Western flavor is part of our theme, but not the cowboy and Indian theme,” suggesting that he wanted to distance Pendleton from depictions of antagonistic conflicts between cowboys and Indians.117 His comment hints at the division in Pendleton’s consumer base. The blankets were bought by both white Americans and Native Americans but the latter provided the most established consumer base, whose patronage had sustained the company for several generations.118 Shirting and sportswear, was purchased by different demographics but almost exclusively targeted to white upper-middle class consumers. Bishop’s guarded response may reflect a genuine expression of sensitivity towards Indigenous people, and a wish to distance his company from demeaning and hostile depictions of “Indians” in contemporary film and television. Conversely, it may have simply been grounded in marketing savvy, so as not upset Indigenous consumers. It’s also likely that both sentiments were at play. Frontierland single-mindedly represented white settlers and sheriffs as the “good guys” and Indians as the bad ones. It was a place for carnival games where visitors could fire air-powered rifles at plastic Indians for sport. A river ride passed a burning settler’s cabin purportedly set ablaze by some unseen vandal Indians, and a costumed Davy Crockett boasted about “polishing off [i.e., shooting] a pack of pesky Redskins.”119 It is unclear if, or to what degree, shoppers at the Pendleton store were in agreement with such representations, but the store must be considered within this wider racist environment. While these dehumanizing representations were nothing new and by no means exclusive to Disney, the park actively perpetuated them. Over the decades, Frontierland’s most blatantly racist games and dramatizations have been modified to conform to a less jingoistic view of history but it continues to paint a pro-settler picture of the frontier.120 Cowboy–Indian conflict was not on display in the Pendleton woolen mills store, but it was a dominant theme at Frontierland, and for better or worse— and it was considered for the better, financially—Pendleton associated itself with that particular conceptualization of the Old West. The multivalent and often contradictory presence of Native American design, together with representations of Indigenous people themselves, informed westernwear styles and its reception. Between 1945 and 1965, representations of Indigenous people in popular media and in design shifted more than in the previous two decades. Although some sympathetic attitudes voiced by a few progressive individuals were evident in some films and other areas of cultural production, stereotypes persisted. Native American designs, though frequently appropriated and re-interpreted in a generalized or erroneous manner, have inflected the aesthetics of westernwear since colonial encounter, and these practices continued to be informed by earlier conventions postwar. People from the Plains were still,
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more often than not, reduced to the disembodied heads of war-bonneted braves, while the Southwest remained a place where nameless women engaged in silent domestic toil. Contradictions abounded; squaw dresses were considered fashionable while disparaging characterizations of the squaw were ubiquitous. Frontierland upheld Turnerian ideals, while young Indigenous people in Los Angeles, living a roughly forty-five-minute drive from Disney’s theme park, blended traditional dances, song, and dress into modern urban entertainments appropriate to contemporary life.121 In terms of clothing, items and techniques that had for generations been associated with Indigenous dress, such as buckskins, fringed leather, and Pendleton blankets, were offered by westernwear retailers often without making reference to their Indigenous origins, or by creating imagined connections. These elements of dress, long separated from most of their historical and cultural referents, were fully absorbed into mid-century conceptions of Western style. In spite of the fact that Indians were almost always the antagonists of cowboys in popular culture, the two shared several qualities considered desirable for mid-century conceptions of masculinity, and archetypal representations were used to promote a variety of goods, including clothing. The most telling feature shared by the garments and representations noted here is the labelling of them as “American” while consistently insisting upon their otherness, whether in the service of compelling exoticism or degrading stereotypes. The absence of Indigenous input in all of the cultural products discussed reveals that these perceptions say more about unreconciled notions of national identity and America’s frontier mythology than they do about the lives and sartorial traditions of Indigenous people.
Conclusion
Thirty years ago, fashion historian Valerie Steele presented fashion, the “F-word,” as a problem in academia.1 Clothing’s connection to the body and its very materiality, she argued, was enough to invite disregard or even contempt let alone merit intellectual inquiry. Steele posited that contrary to these biases, fashion—whether one engages with it deliberately or not—is part of how social spaces are negotiated, identities communicated, and creativity expressed, in addition to being a considerable economic force. Around the same time, historians who specialize in the American West proposed banishing, replacing, or at least challenging the word “frontier.” According to these scholars, including Patricia Nelson Limerick, that “F-word,” as it was labeled, was embedded in ethnocentric and nationalist narratives to the extent that it could never be fully untangled, and should be avoided as much as possible. Much has transpired since. Fashion studies programs have multiplied at universities as valuable sites of scholarly inquiry, and what was once the “New” Western history has over three decades worth of discourse that has enriched and complicated how and why the frontier, a word that was never abandoned, remains salient. My aim was to explore what happens when the two “F-words,” Fashion and Frontier, intersect. More specifically, to show how they have always been interdependent, the communicative capacity of clothing and the symbolic resonance of the West and the cowboy rely upon each other. This symbiotic relationship goes back as far as westernwear itself. While the twenty-year window considered here is relatively brief, it was a transformational moment for the nation, and for American fashion. In focusing on westernwear I have connected one part of working-class sartorial history to wider fashionable trends, shed light on four manufacturers that had yet to be studied (Lee, Pendleton, Wrangler, and Miller Stockman), offered more support for locating fashionable innovation outside of East Coast industries and with youth cultures in the West, and addressed how and why Native American influence, and representations of Native Americans, were incorporated into the Western visual vocabulary. Enlivening these interconnections meant casting a wide net and doing considerable intertextual reading; to see garments alongside (and in) print media, film, music, and television to understand the Western genre as a cultural force. Indeed, if we are to argue for fashion’s contribution to the study of material culture or cultural history, its embeddedness across a range forms needs to be accounted for. 247
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It is my hope that this approach will inspire further interdisciplinary investigation. Postwar westernwear demonstrates how fashion is never a passive reflection of the values or concerns of an era. It not only actively constitutes them but in fact, embodies them. My contribution to fashion studies, apart from recording the histories of four previously unstudied American companies, is to construct new narratives for understanding American sportswear and its relationship to modernity. Twentieth-century sportswear, the foundation for much of today’s everyday casual dress, was often treated as something new, fresh, and modern in terms of construction, reception, and the lifestyles it was designed to accommodate. While there is considerable truth to this, it is too narrow a perspective because the presence of Western styling and construction in so much sportswear demonstrates that anachronistic details and the influence of the past were ever present in many designs. Indeed, several of the distinctive features and qualities of American sportswear—easy to maintain textiles, “American” fabrics such as denim, durability, ease of movement through stretch and tapered fit—were characteristic of westernwear since its inception. Situating sportwear’s precedent in laborers’ apparel, specifically workwear with regional aesthetics and histories, shows that American fashion has consistently drawn from Western sources for inspiration. In its materials, construction, and decorative motifs, westernwear exemplifies vernacular modernism. It was something old, offered as something new, which is not unheard of in fashion but here precisely suited to the time. Westernwear was familiar, traditional even, though not always in materials and execution but seeing it in the context of casual sportswear, was modern. Mediating this tension between tradition and modernity is ideology around the imagined West, the shared stories and a century’s worth of representations that, however jingoistic or exaggerated, were impossible to avoid and provided a shared visual language for a kind of understandable America in a time of change. Westernwear is at once modern and antimodern; suited to new postwar lifestyles and constantly looking back. While at first it seems contradictory, this ambivalence is indicative of a tension that suffused this particular cultural moment. Postwar American design championed architectural styles that were modern, but not too modern, and clothes that were casual, but not too casual. Westernwear could represent the steadfast legacy of the cowboy for men, while simultaneously offering a playful, novel, alternative for women consumers. The balance between new and old, tradition and modernity, was always in flux. American culture negotiated how these concepts signified as demographics, the economy, and the country’s place in the world continued to shift. While politicians extolled the nation’s dominance over new frontiers, and corporations promoted technological advancements for any and all domestic products, anxiety over the nuclear threat and the Cold War loomed large. The Old West may have been a comfortable site of nostalgia, but Western mythologies were also of the moment; permeating political rhetoric, entertainment, and of course, fashion. While the identifying characteristics of westernwear can be traced to the nineteenth century it is far from a uniform style. The range of garments featured here, and the trajectories the different companies followed in communicating their Western identities, has proven fertile ground for
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understanding the mediated and measured ways that workwear transitioned into the everyday. The creative play that exists within its parameters showcases a wealth of design interpretation. Variations in textile, color, embroidery, pattern, and ornament attest to its adaptability as a style and its consistent presence in visual culture. The Western aesthetic is workwear, denim, and studded saddle leather as much as it is fringed buckskins, embroidered satin shirts, rhinestone applique, and silk bandanas. Westernwear’s success is largely due to the way it can appeal to back-to-nature aesthetics, rough-andtumble outdoor living, glamour, and performativity at once. The like West itself, there is no single definition of westernwear. All can be equally “authentic” and, most significant to the fashion historian, one iteration never completely superseded another, they coexisted simultaneously. While some elements can be connected to a particular practice, time, or place, westernwear’s adaptability and longevity exists outside of these constructs. For a style that is so often labeled “timeless” or “classic,” in popular media the history of westernwear is in fact marked by a series of displacements and contradictions; regional and national, functional and fashionable, rural and urban. This ambiguity is perhaps what has secured westernwear’s appeal. Ambiguity leaves space for interpretation that keeps designers going back to it. While rodeo riders, cowboys and cowgirls continue to wear it daily. The years in question show a style with specific class and regional origins becoming a national style. In The Language of Fashion, the celebrated French critic and semiotician Roland Barthes, who set out to decipher the signs and signifiers of dress, proclaimed that “any vestimentary system is either regional or international, but it is never national.”2 My findings illustrate that westernwear originated as a regional style before becoming recognized as an “American” look specific to the United States.3 Contrary to Barthes claim, westernwear absolutely signifies as a national style. The range of cultural traditions that informed it reflect the diversity of the West, and while they may be subsumed under the “American” label, the histories of Mexican, Indigenous, and European sartorial traditions are evident in the objects themselves. The subsequent internationalization of westernwear however, is another story; one outside the bounds of this book but no less interesting for that. Familiar and strange, modern and traditional, the ways this manner of dress intersected with all of the above is why it was worn by diverse demographics in as many venues as it was in the twenty years after World War II, and perhaps why we continue to see it today.
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Introduction 1 Phillip Wildbill was a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla-Walla) was active in both his community and the rodeo. At the time this picture was taken, he was in the role of Whipman of the Pendleton Round-up, a job akin to chairman. Pendleton Round-Up & Happy Canyon Hall of Fame, Virginia Roberts, E-mail with author, Feb. 16, 2021. 2 “Lurex” US trademark electronic search system, patent registration number 0418535. First used 01/01/1946. United States Patent and Trademark Office. 3 Regina Lee Blaszczyk, “Styling Synthetics Dupont’s marketing of fabrics and fashions in postwar America,” The Business History Review, vol. 80, no. 3 (Autumn, 2006): 503. 4 Lewis Nordyke, “Boss of the Plains: The Story Behind the Stetson,” Saturday review, May 16, 1942. 5 Paul Hogan, Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 12. 6 For an understanding of clothing as material culture, see Susanne Küchler and Daniel Miller, Clothing as Material Culture (New York: Berg Publishers, 2005). For the place of Western history, and the significance of the Western genre in the twentieth century, see Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in TwentiethCentury America (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). See also Lee Clark Mitchell, Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), and Stanley Corkin, Cowboys As Cold Warriors: The Western And U S History (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004). 7 Holly George-Warren and Michelle Freedman, How the West Was Worn (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001). 8 Laurel Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” Dress, vol. 28 (2001); “The Evolution of Western Style in Menswear,” in Andrew Hinchcliffe Reilly and Sarah Cosbey (eds), The Men’s Fashion Reader (New York: Fairchild Books, 2008), 465–79. 9 Jamie Lee Nudie, Nudie: The Rodeo Tailor (Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2004). 10 Cheryl Buckley and Hazel Clark, Fashion and Everyday Life: London and New York (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), 1. 11 Ibid., 4. 12 Stuart Hall, “What is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” in Kuan-Hsing Chen and David Morley (eds), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 2006), 474.
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13 Lee Clark Mitchell, Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Jane P. Tompkins, West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Edward Buscombe and Roberta E. Pearson (eds), Back in the Saddle Again: New Essays on the Western (London: British Film Institute, 1998). 14 For attempts to define and reconcile understandings of the West and the Frontier in the twentieth century, see Richard White and Newberry Library, The Frontier in American Culture: An Exhibition at the Newberry Library, August 26, 1994–January 7, 1995 (Chicago and Berkeley, CA: The Library; University of California Press, 1994); Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, Oklahoma paperbacks (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998); Kerwin Lee Klein, “Reclaiming the ‘F’ Word, or Being and Becoming Postwestern,” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 65, no. 2 (May 1996): 179–215. 15 “The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Frederick Jackson Turner,” http://nationalhumanitiescenter. org/pds/gilded/empire/text1/turner.pdf. 16 Ibid. 17 I use the term “evolution” because Turner espoused a progressive evolutionary ideology. For the concept of the Western frontier as a social border, see Klein, “Reclaiming the ‘F’ Word, or Being and Becoming Postwestern,” 184. 18 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 63. 19 Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000). 20 “The Lesser-Known History of African-American Cowboys,” Smithsonian Magazine, https://www. smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/ (accessed December 11, 2020). Further details on recording the numbers of Black cowboys are noted in Bruce A. Glasrud and Michael N. Searles, Black Cowboys in the American West: On the Range, on the Stage, Behind the Badge (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016), 10. 21 Tracy Owens Patton and Sally M Schedlock, “Let’s Go, Let’s Show, Let’s Rodeo: African Americans and the History of Rodeo,” The Journal of African American History, vol. 96, no. 4 (2011): 503–21. 22 James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Cambridge University Debate 1965. “The American Dream is at the Expense of The American Negro,” reproduced in Scott J. Hammond, Kevin R. Hardwick, and Howard Leslie Lubert (eds), Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought: Reconstruction to the Present (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2007): 684. 23 Thomas King, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 21. 24 Klein, “Reclaiming the ‘F’ Word, or Being and Becoming Postwestern”; Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation; White, The Frontier in American Culture; Patricia Nelson Limerick, Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000); Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West,(Norman, OK, and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993). 25 The trans-Mississippi West refers to the area West of the Mississippi. Patricia Nelson Limerick, Clyde A. Milner, and Charles E. Rankin, Trails: Toward a New Western History (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1991). Patricia Nelson-Limerick, “The Adventures of the Frontier in the Twentieth Century,” in Richard White, Patricia Nelson Limerick, and James R. Grossman (ed.), The Frontier in American Culture (Chicago and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). 26 Ibid. Also Klein, “Reclaiming the ‘F’ Word, or Being and Becoming Postwestern.”
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27 Klein, “Reclaiming the ‘F’ Word,” 200. 28 The University of Nebraska Press offers twenty titles under its “Postwestern Horizons” series, https://www. nebraskapress.unl.edu/series/postwestern-horizons (accessed December 2, 2020). Lee Clark Mitchell, Late Westerns: The Persistence of a Genre (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), 15. Films such as The Harder They Fall (2021), The Hero (2017) and series like Godless (2017) and Westworld (2016) are testament to the genre’s enduring popularity. 29 William R. Handley and Nathaniel Lewis, True West: Authenticity and the American West (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2004): 5. 30 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 34. 31 Henry Louis Gates, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (New York: Vintage Books, 1998): 207. 32 T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (Verso, 1983). 33 “Occidentalism” is derived from Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, which refers to how “the Orient” was a discursive construct created by Europeans to define non-Western cultures as other. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2003). My use of “American Occidentalism” is to be understood in terms of Americans understanding parts of their own country (i.e., The West) as other. This terminology has been used to describe the West, and the Southwest in particular, in Thomas J. Harvey, Rainbow Bridge to Monument Valley: Making the Modern Old West (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013). And Barbara A. Babcock, “ ‘A New Mexican Rebecca’: Imaging Pueblo Women,” Journal of the Southwest, vol. 32, no. 4 (1990): 400–37. 34 Marian Wardle and Sarah E. Boehme, “Brandings” in Branding the American West: Paintings and Films 1900–1950 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016), 35. 35 Quoted in Lee Clark Mitchell (epigraph) Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film. 36 Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 133.
1 Westernwear: Histories and Contexts 1 Marty Stuart, “Foreword,” in George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 9; Laurel Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” Dress vol. 28 (2001): 40. 2 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 22; Helvenston, Sally, “Fashion on the Frontier,” Dress 17 (1990): 141–55. 3 Bolero jackets were introduced as part of women’s dress in Spain and France in the 1850s and later became part of a Mexican charro’s ensemble for men. Berg Dictionary of Fashion History, http://www.bergfashionlibrary. com.ezproxy.pratt.edu:2048/view/bdfh/bdfh-div10678.xml (accessed January 26, 2015). For chaps, see Wilson, “The Evolution of Western Style,” 465. Also see Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” Dress, 28 (2001): 41. According to Wilson, chaps with the hair left on were developed in California in the 1860s.
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4 Laura R. Barraclough, Charros: How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity. American Crossroads (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019), 9. 5 Ibid., 5. 6 Wilson, “The Evolution of Western Style,” 467. 7 The characteristics of hickory stripe shirts, rough cotton textiles woven in stripes or checks, and the attached collar and front placket of a late nineteenth-century man’s work shirt are outlined in Wilson, The Evolution of Western Style, 468. Conchos are circular silver medallions, typically engraved, that were used as ornament in saddlery and as decorative accessories. They can be linked with a chain or laced together on a leather thong to make a belt. William Ketchum Jr. defines conchos as “shell or flowerlike decorations of shell or metal often applied to saddles, bridles, chaps or other equipment,” in Ketchum, Collecting the West: Cowboy, Indian, and Mining memorabilia (New York: Crown Publishing, 1993): 165. 8 Ibid., 466. 9 Josephine Paterek, Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1994), 461. GeorgeWarren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 14. 10 Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” and “The Evolution of Western Style in Menswear.” 11 Ibid., 472. 12 Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” 40. 13 Ellen Sampson, Worn: Footwear, Attachment and Affects of Wear (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 2020), 73. 14 Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” 35. 15 Ibid., 37. 16 Ibid., 80. 17 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn. 18 Wilson, “The Cowboy: Real and Imagined,” Dress, vol. 23, no. 1 (January 1, 1996): 6 19 Laurel Wilson posits a trajectory from function to fashion in “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion,” and “The Evolution of Western Style in Menswear,” in Andrew Hinchcliffe Reilly and Sarah Cosbey (eds), The Men’s Fashion Reader (New York: Fairchild Books, 2008), 465–79. 20 This attribution of workwear details or hardware is particularly prevalent in midcentury sportswear, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 in relation to designers like Claire McCardell. 21 Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1986); Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Shane White, Stylin’: African American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Luis Alvarez, The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II , American Crossroads 24 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008); Catherine Sue Ramírez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 22 Américo Paredes, Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border (Austin: CMAS Books, Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1993), 23.
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23 Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion”; George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 30, 31; Paredes, Folklore and Culture on the Texas–Mexican Border. 24 Tracy Owens Patton, and Sally M. Schedlock. “Let’s Go, Let’s Show, Let’s Rodeo: African Americans and the History of Rodeo,” The Journal of African American History, vol. 96, no. 4 (2011): 507, doi:10.5323/ jafriamerhist.96.4.0503 (accessed December 5, 2020). 25 Buntline was a promoter who organized a series of travelling shows in the 1870s. In 1872, John “Texas Jack” Omohundro began demonstrating cowboy skills in Buntline’s melodramas. Wilson, “The Cowboy: Real and Imagined.” 26 Paredes, Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border, 23. 27 For unlikely choices, see Mitchell, Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film, 24. 28 Ibid., 25. 29 Mitchell, Westerns. 25. 30 Blake Allmendinger, The Cowboy: Representations of Labor in an American Work Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 8. 31 Ibid., 3. 32 Lon Tinkle and Allen Maxwell, The Cowboy Reader (New York: D. McKay, 1959), 1. 33 Ibid. 34 Allmendinger, The Cowboy, 3. 35 Buck Rainey, The Reel Cowboy: Essays on the Myth in Movies and Literature (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co Inc., 1996), 8. 36 Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 67 & 82. 37 Joy S. Kasson, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 12 & 236. 38 Tompkins, West of Everything, 7. 39 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 18. 40 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 71, 72 General Custer was killed ten days before, at Little Big Horn. 41 Ibid., 72. 42 Ibid. 43 William Manns et al., Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West (Santa Fe, NM: Zon Intl Pub Co, 1997), Manns cites Stuart’s Forty Years on the Frontier, 11. 44 Ibid. and George-Warren, How the West Was Worn, 33. 45 Manns, Cowboys and the Trappings of the Old West, 11. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 44. 1872 Visalia Saddle Company of San Francisco, Main and Winchester for leather accessories and Shipley’s of Kansas City, MO, 1890s.
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Notes
48 Ibid., 41. 49 Ibid., 41. 50 Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America 1877–1920 (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 36 and Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 36. 51 Lears, 36, 203. 52 George-Warren, Public Cowboy No. 1. 256. 53 Tompkins, West of Everything, 45. 54 Mitchell, Westerns, 4. 55 Peter Boag, Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012). 56 Manns et al., Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West. 171. 57 According to Smith and Grieg, the National Police Gazette juxtaposed the two words in 1893 and the MW catalog had closed the gap by 1895. Catherine Smith, Women in Pants: Manly Maidens, Cowgirls, and Other Renegades (New York: H.N. Abrams, 2003), 75. 58 Tompkins, West of Everything. Chapter 2 “Women and the Language of Men,” 47–69. Victoria Lamont, Westerns: A Women’s History (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016) 59 No date. Cited in Manns et al., Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West, 171. The 101 Ranch was the largest diversified farm and ranch and originated the 101 Ranch Wild West Show. 60 Smith, Women in Pants, 73–82. 61 Elizabeth Clair Flood and William Manns, Cowgirls: Women of the Wild West (Santa Fe, NM: Zon Intl Pub Co, 2000). 62 Peggy O’Donnell, “The Settler Fantasies Woven Into the Prairie Dresses,” Jezebel, https://jezebel.com/the-settlerfantasies-woven-into-the-prairie-dresses-1831746430 (accessed July 6, 2021). 63 “How Annie Oakley, ‘Princess of the West,’ Preserved Her Ladylike Reputation,” Smithsonian Magazine, https:// www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-annie-oakley-princess-of-the-west-preserved-her-ladylikereputation-55701906/ (accessed December 7, 2020). 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid., 133–6. 66 Ibid. 67 Helvenston, Sally, “Fashion on the Frontier,” 141, 144. 68 States such as Oklahoma or Oregon, for example, which were settled late in the nineteenth century, probably had greater access to ready-to-wear clothing in their early days because transportation routes were better established. Ibid., 149. 69 Ibid., 146. 70 Ibid., 147. 71 Ibid., 143. 72 Ibid., 152.
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73 “Cowgirl: dude girls of the west are taking to nifty riding clothes with fancy skirts and pants,” LIFE (Time Inc, 1940), 47. 74 Peter Applebome, “Wrangling Over Where Rodeo Began,” The New York Times, June 18, 1989. 75 LeCompte, Cowgirls of the Rodeo. 84. 76 Ibid. 77 Smith, Women in Pants. 82. 78 Bloomers differed from divided skirts in that they were very full and tapered to the leg. LeCompte, Cowgirls of the Rodeo, 61. 79 Ibid., 26. 80 Kevin L. Jones, Christina M. Johnson, and Serena Williams, Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960, illustrated edition (New York: Prestel, 2021), 135. 81 LeCompte, Cowgirls of the Rodeo, 26. 82 Ibid., 34, 85. 83 Ibid., 28. 84 “National Cowgirl Museum,” http://www.cowgirl.net/HallofFameHonorees/McGinnis,Vera.html (accessed June 7, 2014). 85 Vera McGinnis, Rodeo Road; My Life as a Pioneer Cowgirl (New York: Hastings House, 1974), 23, 32. 86 Ibid., 26. 87 Ibid., 34. 88 LeCompte, Cowgirls of the Rodeo, 83. 89 Ibid., 83. 90 Berg Dictionary of Fashion History http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com.ezproxy.pratt.edu:2048/view/bdfh/ bdfh-div11813.xml (accessed January 26, 2015). 91 Ibid., 103. 92 LeCompte, Cowgirls of the Rodeo. 93 Elizabeth Ewing, History of Children’s Costume (New York: Scribner, 1977). For late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century examples of sailor suits for children, see Jennifer Daley, PhD candidate, King’s College London, “The Marketing of Patriotism: The Political Usage of Sailor Fashion during the First World War,” forthcoming. 94 Jerome L. Rodnitzky, Recapturing the West: The Dude Ranch in American Life (Universisty of Arizona Press, 1968), 112. 95 Wilson, “The Cowboy: Real and Imagined,” Dress 23, no. 1 (January 1996): 6. 96 Ibid., 8. 97 Rodnitzky, Recapturing the West, 115. 98 Sandra Curtis Comstock, “Imperial Denim: The Place of Blue Jeans in the Consolidation and Transformation of American Power in the 20th Century” (PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, 2008): 80.
258
99
Notes
Sandra Curtis Comstock, “The Making of an American Icon: The Transformation of Blue Jeans During the Great Depression,” In Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward (eds), Global Denim (Oxford and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011), 28.
100 Ibid., 117. 101 Rodnitzky, Recapturing the West. 102 Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 122. 103 Ibid. 104 Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963, Americans and the California Dream (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 31. 105 Ibid. 106 James Sullivan, Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon (New York: Gotham Books, 2006); Graham Marsh et al., Denim: From Cowboys to Catwalks: A History of the World’s Most Legendary Fabric, rev. edn (London: Aurum Press, 2005); Comstock, Imperial Denim. 107 Kevin Starr, California: A History, Reprint edition (New York: Modern Library, 2007). 108 Cotton duck is a 2x2 woven cotton, not a twill weave. , 17,180. 109 Ibid., 17. 110 Comstock, Imperial Denim, 27, and Lynn Downey et al., This is a Pair of Levi’s Jeans: The Official History of the Levi’s Brand (San Francisco: Levi Strauss & Co. Publishing, 1995). 111 Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture; the Growth of a New Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954): 348. 112 “What Is Vernacular?” By John A. Kouwenhoven, http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/kouwenhoven/kouw.html (accessed November 13, 2020). Originally published in John A. Kouwenhoven, Made In America The Arts In Modern Civilization (New York: Doubleday, 1948). 113 The denim’s weight is determined by how much one yard of textile weighs. 114 Comstock, Imperial Denim 28. 115 Ibid., 30. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid., 18. 118 Ibid., 45 Harris notes that the degradation of the labels makes exact dating impossible. 119 Ibid., 45. And Sullivan, Jeans, 32. The arcuate was not trademarked until 1943. 120 Downey et al., This Is a Pair of Levi’s Jeans. 121 Comstock, Imperial Denim. 85. 122 Ibid., 86, 87. The increase in both Levi’s and Lee’s print advertising, branding, and promotion as authentic cowboy brands in upscale venues was also in response to competition from growth of national low-price retailers like JCPenney, Sears, and Montgomery Ward.
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123 Comstock in, Global Denim. 32 124 Lawrence Culver, The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Culver discusses 1880s California boosters, Charles Lummis, 33, and Charles Dwight Miller, 35–6. 125 Ibid., 8. Also Wendy Kaplan, California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way” (Los Angeles: Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2011). 126 Sunset, September 1944, 40–1. 127 Kaplan, California Design, 1930–1965, 28. 128 Melissa Leventon in Wendy Kaplan, California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way (MIT Press, 2011), 246. 129 Leventon 247. 130 Ibid., 253. 131 California Apparel Creator et al v. Wieder of California, Inc. et al., District Court, S.D. New York May 16, 1946, https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/68/499/2312773/ (accessed December 2, 2020). 132 Life, July 28, 1947. 62.
2 Four Westernwear Companies 1 American History: Lee Jeans 101. VF company publishing: Lee Company (2000): 3. 2 Jean Svadlenack, Lee archivist, correspondence, October 14, 2019. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 5. The company was granted a fifty-year charter on December 31, 1894, after the first five-year charter expired. 6 Lee Jeans 101, 5. 7 Jean Svadlenak and associates “101 Lee Cowboy Pants to 101 Lee Riders,” 2020, internal document. 5 8 Lee Jeans 101, 5. 9 “Salina Made Overalls.” Salina Evening Journal. September 30, 1912, and “Made in Salina: First Overalls from new plant today.” Salina Evening Journal. October 3, 1912. 10 Ibid., 7. 11 Author interview with Lee archivist and museum consultant Jean Svadlenak, Merriam Kansas, May 21, 2012. And Lee company history online: https://www.lee.com/about/history.html (accessed July 22, 2021). 12 Ibid. and George R. Cowden, “Promotion: A yearly publication bristling with sales increasing information for Union-Alls Salesmen,” 1919. H. D. Lee Mercantile Company. Lee archives.
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Notes
13 The Union Suit emerged in 1868 as a woman’s undergarment. Part of dress reform, it combined a wool flannel upper and lower body covering. Into the twentieth century, it was more popular as long underwear for men. Patricia A. Cunningham, Reforming fashion 1850–1914, The Historic Costume Collection (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 2000) http://costume.osu.edu/?s=union+suit (accessed July 22, 2021). 14 J. Howard Flory “Lee Covers His Man,” Partners: The Magazine of Labor and Management, December 1951, 13. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 15. 17 Ibid., 15. 18 Lee Jeans 101, 7. 19 Ibid. 20 E.H. Merill, “History of the H. D. Lee Mercantile Company,” 1935, 5. Lee archives. 21 Kansas City Star, Monday, September 10, 1917, Volume: 37, Issue: 358, Page: 11. 22 Kansas City Star, Tuesday, October 2, 1917, Volume: 38, Issue: 15, Page: 13. 23 Jean Svadlenak, “Lee Union-Alls,” 27. 24 Flory, “Lee Covers His Man,” 16. 25 Ibid. 26 Author interview, Len Larson, Merriam, Kansas, May 21, 2012. 27 Lee Jeans 101, 7. 28 Ann Brownfield and David W. Jackson, We Were Hanging by a thread: Kansas City Garment District Pieces the Past Together (Kansas City: The Orderly Rat Pack, 2013), 26–8. 29 Ibid. Though statistical data from the early twentieth century is scarce, by 1947 Kansas City was home to 95 garment factories, and 160 were listed in 1955 city directories. 30 Jean Svadlenak, “The Buddy Lee Story,” nd. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 2. Different Buddy Lee ensembles—including athletic gear, color-matched tradesmen’s shirts and pants, as well as playsuits—were also created. 34 The Cowboy Pant was designed in 1924, but first available to consumers in September of 1925 and is sometimes referred to by number, Lot 101. Lee price list #12, September 15, 1925. 35 W.D. Gremp, Lee Rider Story, nd, late 1950s. Lee archives, 8. 36 Unknown author. “The Story of JELT Denim.” 1957. Lee archives. 37 Jelt Denim is An 11½ oz. textile with tightly twisted yarns, supposedly stronger than a 13 oz. denim. It was made for Lee at Canton Mills, Georgia, and was originally referred to as “supertwist” in mill records. “The History of Jelt Denim,” Author Unknown, 1957, Lee archives.
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38 Robert D. Friedel, Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 34 & 39. The earliest slide fasteners were developed in the 1890s with subsequent revisions, design modifications, and name changes through the early twentieth century. 39 Ibid., 41–2. 40 Ibid., 147–9. The term “zipper” was common by the late 1920s, and originated with a product called “The Zipper,” a rubber boot first issued by B.F. Goodrich in 1923. 41 Trynka, Denim. 42 Ibid., 32. 43 Lee Jeans 101, 11. 44 November, 1933 print ad, Country Gentleman—first mention of U-shape crotch in ad or price list in Lee U.S. Archive collection (catalog #2004.339.1) 45 W.D. Gremp, “The Lee Rider Story,” 8. nd (post 1958) internal document, Lee archives, clippings. 46 “Sanford L. Cluett 1874–1968”, https://www.sanforized.de/ueber-uns (accessed July 22, 2021). 47 Print advertisements from the mid 1930s through the 1950s featured Sanforization. An illustrated color ad printed in the Dude Rancher in 1947 shows a cowboy struggling to fasten his jeans while another says: “Next Time I’ll buy Lee Riders, They’re Sanforized.” Lee archives, clippings. 48 Lee Jeans 101, 12 49 Gremp, Lee Rider Story, nd, late 1950s, 8. 50 Lee didn’t trademark the term Lee Riders until 1960 (#694,288). The application, filed July 23, 1959, states the term was first used in commerce in December 1935. 51 “Special Bulletin to All Western Salesmen,” Chester A. Reynolds, General Sales Manager, June 28, 1940. Memo included in 1940 Western Wear Salesmen Advertising Binder. Lee archives. 52 Rand and Greenough were married in 1942, the same year this photograph was publicized in Life magazine to promote the new Slim Fit Lee Riders. Jean Svadlenack “101 Lee Cowboy Pants to Riders,” 6. 53 The Dell Publishing Company owned several niche publications. The Dell Detective Group refers to a group of men’s magazines, including Detective that were operated by Dell Publishing. Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956), 270. 54 Ibid. 55 Lee archives, print advertising, clippings, 1945. 56 Author Interview, Larry McKaughan, Seattle, WA, October 4, 2011. 57 Robert W. Kapoun and Charles J. Lohrmann, Language of the Robe: American Indian Trade Blankets (Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1992), 122. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid.,123. 60 Ibid., 124, 125. 61 Ibid., 7.
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62 Patrick Houlihan “Foreword,” in Language of the Robe, xiii. 63 Ibid., 8. 64 Ibid., 13–14. 65 Ibid., 121. 66 Ibid., 129 67 Ibid., 127. 68 Dictionary of Fiber and Textile Technology (Charlotte, NC: KoSa, 1999), 104. 69 Ibid., 124. 70 Ibid., 125. 71 Alfred L. Lomax, Later Woolen Mills in Oregon (Portland Oregon: Binfords & Mort, 1974), 264. 72 Kapoun and Lohrmann, Language of the Robe, 124. 73 Wolf Schneider, “Pendleton: No Oregon town has more Western cachet,” Cowboys and Indians, September 2009, http://www.cowboysindians.com/Cowboys-Indians/September-2009/Pendleton-No-Oregon-town-has-moreWestern-cachet/ (accessed September 10, 2013). 74 Holly George-Warren, How the West was Worn, 13. 75 Early Pendleton brochures (nd, c. 1930) list a design called “The Clansman,” while later examples use specific family names. Pendleton archives, clippings. For more on the invention of Scottish Highlander traditions and the invention of them, see Hugh Trevor-Roper’s “The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland,” in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 15. 76 Fay E. Ward, The Cowboy at Work: All About His Job and How He Does It (New York: Hastings House, 1958), 241. 77 Pendleton archives, Brochure, nd but c. 1920. 78 Jessa Krick, “From concept to closet: Pendleton Woolen Mills and the women’s 49er jacket 1949–1961,” (Master’s Thesis, The Bard Graduate Center, 2003), 13. 79 Pendleton archives “Buckaroo and Dude Ranch” brochure, c. 1940, Box1 RG 7. 80 Author phone interview, David Bissett, November 15, 2011. 81 Pendleton archives, magazine print advertisement clipping, c. 1943–4. Men’s Clothing box 1, 1928–52. 82 Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the technological Wild West (New York: Viking, 2003), 44. 83 The Oregonian, “Woolen mills cut ordered,” 1/7/1942. 84 Ibid. 85 Steven L. Wright, “Pendleton’s ‘Western Shirt’ 1936/37–1982,” Pendleton archives, unpublished. 86 Unnamed publication, Pendleton archives, clippings “High navy man gives Washougal wool mill pride,” 6/14/1943 87 The Oregonian, “Woolen mills cut ordered,” 1/7/1942. 88 Unknown magazine clipping, May 25, 1945 Pendleton archives, clippings.
Notes
89
Carolyn R. Hines, Cone: A Century of Excellence (Greensboro, NC: Cone Mills Inc., 1991), 14.
90
Ibid., 17.
91
Wrangler (Greensboro, NC: Wrangler Inc., 1994), 1.
92
Sullivan, Jeans, 54.
93
Wrangler, 3.
94
Greensboro Daily News cited in Wrangler, 3.
95
Ibid., 7
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
98
Miller company history, http://www.rockymountainclothing.com/Company.asp?content_id=20 (accessed October 7, 2013).
99
Robin Cherry, Catalog: an illustrated history of mail order shopping (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), 18–20.
263
100 Miller company history, http://www.rockymountainclothing.com/Company.asp?content_id=20 (accessed October 7, 2013). 101 The same models appear in Wrangler’s 1952 price lists and Miller Stockman catalogs; the models featured in Lee’s advertising for colored denim in Seventeen magazine in 1963 also appeared in Miller Stockman’s summer 1964 catalog. 102 Steven E. Weil and G. Daniel DeWeese, Western Shirts: A Classic American Fashion (Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2004)67. 103 Ibid., “label dating guide,” 77. 104 Ibid., 67. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid., 79. 108 Ibid., 107. 109 Ibid., 73. 110 Fay E. Ward and John R. Erickson, The Cowboy at Work: All About His Job and How He Does It, reprint (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 241. 111 Larson’s career at Lee lasted from 1970 to 2009. He worked in the quality control and experimental sewing departments and as director of product technical services. Author Interview, Merriam, Kansas, May 21, 2012. 112 Ibid. 113 Gremp, The Lee Rider Story, 10. 114 Advertising, merchandising and manufacture was done in-house. And Lee operated twenty-two separate plants in the country by 1970. Author interview, Len Larson, Merriam, Kansas, May 21, 2012.
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Notes
115 Ibid. 116 Cooper, “Casual, but not that casual”, 48. 117 Author phone interview, David Bisset, November 15, 2011. 118 The population of the state of Oregon was only 1,768,687 people in 1960. Population Estimates: Estimates of the Population of States By Age 1960–1966. Unites States Census https://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-384.pdf (accessed February 17, 2014).
3 Dressing the Atomic West: Locating “the Western” in Mid-century America 1 Ibid. 2 Postwar constructions of the cowboy hero are examined in detail in Stanley Corkin, Cowboys as Cold Warriors: The Western and U.S. History (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004) and Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). 3 Campbell Craig, America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009). 4 Ibid., 4. 5 Cynthia Lee Henthorn, From Submarines to Suburbs: Selling a Better America, 1939–1959 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006). 6 Ibid., 221. 7 “Better living through Chemistry” was a widely used expression derived from DuPont’s advertising slogan coined in 1935 “Better things for better living. . . through Chemistry.” 8 Thomas Hine, Populuxe (Woodstock, NY: Overlook TP, 2007). 9 Ibid., 4. 10 Greg Castillo, Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). 11 Lary May, Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 5. 12 Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 225. 13 Ibid., 226. 14 Analyses of mid-century product advertising directed at women and their consumption of domestic products, as well as clothing, can be found in Thomas Hine’s Populuxe, 63. See also Alison J. Clarke’s Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), and John C. Spurlock & Cynthia A. Magistro, New And Improved: The Transformation of American Women’s Emotional Culture (New York, New York University Press, 1998): 8–9.
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15 Coontz, The Way We Never Were, 224. 16 Quoted in Culver, The Frontier of Leisure, 200. Wright articulated these ideas as early as 1935, and also discussed them in his 1945 publication Democracy Builds. 17 Monica Penick, “Modern but not too modern: House Beautiful and the American Style,” Vladimir Kuli et al., Sanctioning Modernism: Architecture and the Making of Postwar Identities, Roger Fullington Series in Architecture (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), 219. 18 Ibid., 220. 19 Sandy Isenstadt, The Modern American House: Spaciousness and Middle Class Identity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 161. 20 Ibid., 253 21 Ibid. 22 Dianne Harris, Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). Baxandall and Ewen,Picture Windows. See also Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 23 Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 116. 24 Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Kevin Stayton, and Brooklyn Museum of Art, Vital Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940–1960 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), 22. 25 Kristina Wilson, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design (New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press, 2021), 135. 26 Paul Boyer “The United States, 1941–1963,” in Rapaport and Stayton, Vital Forms, 56. 27 Traci Brynne Voyles, “Anatomic Bombs: The Sexual Life of Nuclearism, 1945–57,” American Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 3 (2020): 651–73. 28 “Bemberg” advertisement. American Fabrics, vol. 2, 1947, 12. 29 “Atomic Action Heels.” Harper’s Bazaar: New York (New York: Hearst Magazine Media, Inc, February 1961), 102–13. Jessica Daves, “Fashions: Blues That Move With The Times: 1961 Suit Look, U.S.A.” Vogue; United States (New York: Condé Nast, February 1, 1961), 125–31. 30 Ira Louvin, Charles Louvin & Buddy Bain, The Louvin Brothers [1952] “Great Atomic Power” MGM Records, July 1952. 31 Ibid. 32 Comstock, Imperial Denim, 4. 33 Karen Jones and John Wills, The American West: Competing Visions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009). 34 Ibid., 285. 35 John M. Findlay and Bruce W. Hevly, Atomic Frontier Days Hanford and the American West, Emil & Kathleen Sick Series in Western History and Biography (Seattle, WA: Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest in association with University of Washington Press, 2011), 26 & 78.
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Notes
36 Ibid., 76. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 100. 39 Ibid., 102. 40 Chandra Mukerji and Michæl Schudson, Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991), 3. 41 “The Westerner,” and other essays are re-printed in Robert Warshow, The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre & Other Aspects of Popular Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 42 The Great Train Robbery (1903) is considered to be the first Western. For a detailed evolution of the genre, see Phil Hardy, “The Western”, The Aurum Film Encyclopedia, v. 1 (London: Aurum Press, 1983); David Lusted, The Western, Inside Film (Harlow and New York: Pearson/Longman, 2003). 43 Michelle Tolini Finamore, Hollywood Before Glamour: Fashion in American Silent Film (Houndmills, Basingstoke and New York Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). And http://www.westerncostume.com/about-us/history (accessed July 22, 2021). 44 Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attraction[s]: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” in Strauven Wanda (ed.), The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 381–88. “The cinema of attractions directly solicits spectator attention, inciting visual curiosity and supplying pleasure through an exciting spectacle- a unique event whether fictional or documentary, that is in interest of itself ” (384). 45 Comstock, Imperial Denim, 85. 46 Ibid., 85. 47 For detailed reference material on Western films, see Michael R. Pitts, Western Movies: A Guide to 5,105 Feature Films (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2013); Hardy, The Western. 48 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation. 348. 49 Jane Gaines and Charlotte Herzog, “The fantasy of authenticity in Western costume,” in Edward Buscombe and Roberta E. Pearson (eds), Back in the Saddle Again: New Essays on the Western (London: British Film Institute, 1998), 172. 50 Ibid. 51 Sunset, November 1950, 97. 52 Michael E. Starr, “The Marlboro Man: cigarette Smoking and Masculinity in America,” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 17 no. 4 (1984): 53–5. 53 Downey et al., This is a Pair of Levi’s Jeans, 316. 54 An exhaustive record of Western inspired domestic novelties and their manufacturers would be impossible. Collector’s sourcebooks offer several examples. See Sheila Steinberg and Kate Dooner, The Fabulous Fifties: Designs for Modern Living (Atglen, PA: Schiffer,1993), 154–69, and William C. Ketchum, “Cowboy Kitsch,” in Collecting the West: Cowboy, Indian, Spanish American, and Mining Memorabilia (New York: Crown Publishing, 1993), 125. 55 “About the Artist,” True West Online https://truewesthome.com/goodan.aspx (accessed April 23, 2020). 56 Jonna Perrillo, “At Home on the Range: Cowboy Culture, Indians, and the Assimilation of Enemy Children in the Cold War Borderlands.” American Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 4 (2019): 945–67.
Notes
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57 John Sharnick, “It’s Go Western For Young Men,” New York Times, September 24, 1950. https://searchproquestcom.libproxy.newschool.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/111740411/pageviewPDF/6E0C7D5765934167 PQ/1?accountid=12261 58 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 148. 59 Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation. Over the next decade, it would fluctuate between 18 to 20 percent, with a low of 9.5 percent in 1964. 60 Look, June 24, 1958, 60. 61 For a recent insightful commentary on country music and “authenticity,” see the podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones by Tyler Mahan Coe, in particular “Wynonna.” episode 12. Jan 9, 2018, https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/ wynonna and “Owen Bradley’s Nashville Sound.” episode 19. May 4, 2021, https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/ owen-bradley-nashville-sound. 62 Bill C. Malone, Don’t Get above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). In spite of differences based on location, religion, occupation, and ethnicity, there is sufficient shared social history and rural context that justifies country artists and fans being considered as a group. 63 Diane Pecknold, The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry (Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books, 2007), 14. 64 Ibid., 48–49. 65 Ibid., 54. 66 For live performances they wore a good set of clothes, their “Sunday Best,” or conversely, work clothes such as bib overalls that highlighted their rural origins to the point of parody in the tradition of minstrel shows. Ibid. 59. 67 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn. 38. 68 Nudie, Nudie: The Rodeo Tailor. 69 Peter La Chapelle, “All That Glitters: Country Music, Taste, and the Politics of the Rhinestone ‘Nudie’ Suit,” Dress, vol. 28 (2001): 3–12. 70 Ibid., 6, 9. 71 Ibid. 72 George-Warren, How the West was Worn, 44. 73 Ibid., 65. 74 Sullivan, Jeans, 144. 75 Although the 11-MWZ (men’s with zipper) was the original name, in 1952 the name was changed to 13-MWZ when they switched to a 13 oz. denim. There is a myth that the name derived from it being the thirteenth prototype designed by Rodeo Ben, but this is not the case. Author interview with Phil McAdams, Wrangler Specialty, February 15, 2012, and James Sullivan, Jeans: a Cultural History of An American Icon (New York: Gotham Books, 2006). 76 George-Warren, How the West Was Worn, 70. 77 Compared to left-hand twill and right-hand twill, broken twill is created when the diagonal weave of the twill is intentionally reversed at every two warp ends to form a random pattern. https://www.heddels.com/dictionary/
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broken-twill/ (accessed July 22, 2021). A 1952 trade brochure refers to a “coarse-weave denim,” which is presumably the same broken twill that they have used since 1947. Bud Strickland, director of product development at White Oak Mills, describes the broken twill as a balanced weave with no directional twill line. This would minimize skew or torsion around the leg, but Strickland does not see any added strength benefits. Author interview, Greensboro, NC, February 22, 2012. 78 Phil McAdams, president of Wrangler Specialty, cites consumer research and experience with long-term customer loyalty to the Wrangler brand, particularly among rodeo cowboys and ranchers. Author interview, February 15, 2012. 79 Deadstock garments in the Wrangler archive include paper tags with “America’s Top Cowboys” well into the 1960s. 80 Wrangler archives. Blue Bell Wrangler Western Shirts swatch sheet. 81 Michael Allen, Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1998), 7. 82 Author interview, Phil McAdams, February 15, 2012. 83 Lee’s connection to Cheyenne Frontier Days was promoted in print advertisements featured in The Dude Rancher and Life. Casey Tibbs also appeared in Life wearing Lee Riders in 1952. 84 The Dude Rancher, April 1952, and Life magazine, May 26, 1952. Lee archives, print ads, clippings. 85 In the introduction to The American Circus, Kenneth Ames remarks upon the circus’s multiple connections to gigantism, in its scale and expansion over the nineteenth century, and attraction to “bigness” in its spectacles, including the animals and people exhibited. The American Circus (New York: The Bard Graduate Center and New Haven: Yale UP, 2012), 12, 19. 86 Lee 101, 17. 87 “101 Lee Cowboy Pants to 101 Lee Riders,” Jean Svadlenak and associates, May 4, 2020. 88 David Dary, “Introduction,” A Western Legacy: The National Cowboy Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 4–8. 89 Ibid. 90 While the name “Riders” was used in advertising as early as 1935, it was used consistently in branding and promotions from 1946 on. Jean Svadlenak, “101 Lee Cowboy Pants to 101 Lee Riders,” internal document May 4, 2020. 91 Ibid., 15. 92 Ibid., 16. 93 “Brand, n.”. OED Online. March 2020. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.libproxy.newschool.edu/ view/Entry/22627?rskey=X8Rimq&result=1&isAdvanced=false (accessed April 23, 2020). 94 Contemporary collectors’ sourcebooks on 1950s fashions show many examples of branding iron motifs used in skirts, shirting, and bandanas. Steinberg and Dooner, The Fabulous Fifties,155, 163. 95 Multiple patents for barbed or spiked wire were issued from 1867 through 1874, but the creation of what is now commonly recognized as mechanically produced barbed wire is credited to Joseph Glidden’s design of 1874. Christopher Knowlton, Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), 137.
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96
Allmendinger, The Cowboy: Representations of Labor in an American Work Culture, 4.
97
Ibid., 25.
98
Decorative branding irons are featured in Sunset magazine mounted on knotty pine walls in rooms furnished with Navajo rugs. Sunset, “Western Fun & Relics,,” July 1944, 40–1.
99
Goldwater’s Department Store in Arizona created a successful “branding-iron,” print for women’s blouses that expanded into towels, glassware and wrapping paper. Laurence Culver, The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010): 224.
100 Alexey Brodovitch, “Cattlebrands,” Portfolio: A Magazine for the Graphic Arts, vol. 1, no. 2 Summer, 1950. 101 Many patches included an illustrated image as the central motif. Levi Strauss & Co. used their “2 horse brand” patch with horses attempting to pull apart a pair of jeans, while Can’t Bust’Em used the same idea with men in a tug-of-war, and Boss of the Road used a sturdy bulldog. 102 Jean Svadlenak, Lee archivist, quoted in Nick Williams and Jenny Corpuz, Denim Branded: Jeanswear’s Evolving Design Details (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Fashion Press, 2018), 141. 103 Lee Jeans 101, 13. “In reality a steer does not twitch so much as to affect the brand, but the log has been institutionalized and the twitch logo remains in use through 2000.” 104 The Lazy S appears in multiple branding records, including those reproduced in The Texas Almanac, which attributes the earliest use of the Lazy S to the Slaughter Family in 1879. The Texas Almanac 1945–1946 (Dallas: A.H. Belo corporation, 1946), 231. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117166/m1/233/ 105 Roland Barthes, Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation (New York: Macmillan, 1972). 106 Michael Allen, Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination, 7.
4 Westernwear as Ready-to-Wear 1 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 22. 2 Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 17. The promotional campaign was created by Kitty D’Alessio at the Weintraub advertising agency in October 1949. Jane Farrell-Beck and Colleen Gau, Uplift: The Bra in America (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 128, 129. 3 Seventeen, October 1963, 11. 4 Seventeen, August 1963, 17, and November 1963, 22. 5 K. A. Cuordileone, “Politics in an Age of Anxiety: Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in American Masculinity, 1949–1960,” The Journal of American History, vol. 87, no. 2 (September 1, 2000), 527. 6 Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were, 210. 7 Ibid., 211. 8 Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946–1958,” Journal of American History, vol. 79, no. 4 (March 1993): 1455–82. Meyerowitz stipulates that “Friedan’s widely accepted version of the ‘feminine mystique,’ I suggest, is only one piece of the postwar cultural puzzle. The popular
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literature I sampled did not simply glorify domesticity or demand that women return or stay at home. All of the magazines advocated both the domestic and the non-domestic, sometimes in the same sentence.” 9 Claudia Brush Kidwell and Margaret C. S. Christman, Suiting Everyone: The Democratization of Clothing in America (Washington, DC: National Museum of History and Technology, 1974). “The democratization of clothing in America” is a phrase coined by the authors to describe the mass production and mass distribution of affordable clothing in the United States. 10 Ibid. 11 Populuxe 16–17: “People in factories, the very heart of the working class, were rapidly ascending to middle class incomes. The average industrial wage rate had doubled from pre-depression incomes.” 12 Arlene C. Cooper, “Casual but not that casual: Some Fashion of the 1950s,” Dress, vol. 11 (1985): 47–56. 13 Ibid., 47. 14 For a comprehensive look at the variety and features of bras offered by major American manufacturers postwar, see Jane Farrell-Beck & Colleen Gau, Uplift, 112–39. 15 Rebecca Arnold, The American Look: Fashion, Sportswear and the Image of Women in 1930s and 1940s New York (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 1. 16 Ibid., 7. 17 Sandra Stansbery Buckland, “Building Our Own House: American Designers 1940–44,” in Patricia Cunningham and Linda Welters (eds), Twentieth Century American Fashion (London: Berg, 2005), 100. 18 Richard Martin, All-American: A Sportswear Tradition (New York: Fashion Institute of Technology, 1985), 12. 19 See Valerie Steele’s introduction in Kohle Yohannan, Claire McCardell: Redefining Modernism (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998), 8. 20 Ibid., 11. 21 “Work Dress,” Harper’s Bazaar (New York, Nov 1942): 54. 22 Martin, American Ingenuity 55. 23 For historical background on the connection between ready-made clothing and low social standing, see Kidwell and Christman, Suiting Everyone, 15. 24 Comstock, Imperial Denim, 79, and James Sullivan, Jeans, 77. 25 Struthers Burt, “Boccaccio in Chaps,” Vogue, May 15, 1935. 26 Downey et al., This Is a Pair of Levi’s Jeans, 62. 27 For more on women’s gradual adoption of trousers, see Gayle V. Fischer, Pantaloons & Power: A NineteenthCentury Dress Reform in the United States (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2001); Catherine Smith, Women in Pants: Manly Maidens, Cowgirls, and Other Renegades (New York: H.N. Abrams, 2003). 28 Ibid. 29 Comstock in Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward, Global Denim, 26. 30 Ibid., 29. 31 James Sullivan, Jeans, 70.
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32 See Kirkham in Jacqueline Atkins, Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain, and the United States, 1931–1945 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2005), 208. See also Valerie Mendes and Amy de la Haye, Fashion Since 1900 (London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 2010), 116, and Comstock, 41. 33 Sullivan, Jeans, 77 34 Although the Lady Lee Riders trademark was issued in 1947 according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office database (http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:l4tx5i.2.1), U.S. Patent office application (#711,910) the jeans were not available to the consumer until December of 1947. “History of Lee’s earliest Female Products” Jean Svadlenak and associates, March 23, 2020. 35 “History of Lee’s earliest female products,” Jean Svadlenak and Associates, March 23, 2020, 38. 36 Lee archives, “Ladies and Misses Blue Jeans” price lists, 1952. 37 “History of Lee’s earliest female products,” Jean Svadlenak and Associates, Lee archives, internal document, May 23, 2020, 43. 38 “Lee Westerners” United States Patent and Trademark Office records list the filing date as May, 14 1958, http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:o48aj7.2.1 They also date the first use of “Leesures” to December, 2 1957 http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:o48aj7.2.1 (accessed February 15, 2014). 39 Wrangler archives. Blue Bell Wrangler Western Shirts swatch sheet. 40 Detailed product breakdown with sizes available in 1952 trade brochure. Models include women’s front zip 80W & 81W, side zips 880W, 881W. Wrangler archives. 41 Michael Allen limits the “golden age” of rodeo to the 1950s. Mary Lou LeCompte sees 1930 to 1947 as the period in which rodeo became more commercially viable, but it offered fewer opportunities for women. Gene Autry was the most successful rodeo promoter; his popularity and financial backing ensured the sport’s survival but as Hollywood stars and entertainment became more important, women’s events were pushed out. LeCompte sees 1948–67 as a time when cowgirls, through the Girls’ Rodeo Association, revived their profile in the sport. Mary Lou LeCompte, Cowgirls of the Rodeo: Pioneer Professional Athletes (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 157. 42 Wrangler archives, clippings, April 1951. 43 In 1949 and 1950, Berva Dawn was a sponsor girl at the Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden Rodeos. She also modeled for the Don Hoy Hat Company. See https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/drc/initiatives/rodeohistorical-society-oral-history/ (accessed July 21, 2021). 44 Lucas appeared as a stuntwoman in four films between 1950 and 1955, and was credited as an actress in two episodes of The Cisco Kid: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1615478/ (accessed February 26, 2013). 45 Lucas’s advertisement appears in April 1953 issue of The Blackboard, along with contemporaneous issues of The Dude Rancher, Western Dude Ranchers, and The Horse Lover’s Magazine. 46 “Blue Denim: Long Let it Fade,” Harper’s Bazaar (New York, May 1948): 122–3. 47 Mademoiselle, June 1953. 48 I Love Lucy, “Lucy and the Loving Cup,” Jan 7, 1957: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0609291/ 49 Undated letter to the art critic Murdock Pemberton quoted in Wanda M. Corn, Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern (Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum; Munich and New York, 2017), 117.
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50 Ibid. 51 Sullivan, Jeans, 78. Keith credits her husband at the time, Western movie director Howard Hawks, for helping her develop her style: “his woman could be chic, she could be sexy, but you’d better believe she could also make a ham and hoe a row of beans.” 52 Multiple titles exist as a testament to Monroe’s influential style and presence in midcentury and beyond, including: Keith Badman, Marilyn Monroe: The Final Years (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012); Sarah Bartlett Churchwell, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005); Clark Kidder, Marilyn Monroe: Cover to Cover (Iola, WI: Krause Pub, 1999); Norman Mailer, Marilyn, a Biography (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973). 53 Pendleton archives. RG 7, box 1 “Buckaroo” Clothing flyer c. 1940. 54 References to the construction of pre-war ladies’ flannel shirts describe: “same style as men’s shirt except made with gusset under the arm,” nd, RG7 MW price lists 1923–30. Office conference notes from September 5, 1947, show that CCW wanted ladies shirts made “just like we used to make them, mannish and full with long tails.” He said this is the type of ladies’ shirt was what his clientele wanted. Office Conference Notes, RG 3, box 1. 55 C.M. Bishop voices concerns that with womenswear “our business would depend on style.” RG 3 box 1, August 26, 1947, Pendleton archives. 56 Ibid. 57 Pendleton archives, November 28, 1949. “The introduction to the womenswear field by Mrs. Ross [of New York] was like an introduction to a new world.” RG 3, box1. 58 Melissa Leventon, “Distinctly California: Modernism in Textiles and Fashion,” in Wendy Kaplan (ed.), Living in A Modern Way: California Design 1930–1965 (Cambridge, MA, and London: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The MIT Press, 2011), 237. 59 Ibid., 237. For examples from interior and industrial design, see Pat Kirkham’s and Bill Stern’s chapters in Living in A Modern Way. 60 Office conference notes, RG 3 box 1. August 26, 1947, consulting with Dorothy Liebes, textile designer for a retainer’s fee. 08-25 RCB: “choice of colors in womenswear is where we would benefit from Miss Liebes’ advice,” 07-31. 61 Ibid., Dorothy Liebes referred to as a color expert, April 11, 1953. C.M. Bishop suggested employing someone to consult on styling, such as D. Liebes. CCW questioned this on the basis that “our styling to date is identified strictly with Pendleton” and taking on someone like D. Liebes would “take away from our control and put us in the groove with everyone else.” Office Conference notes RG 3, box 1. 62 Ibid. 63 RG 3 box, 1 “Miss Liebes is a Westerner and said she was very interested in developing and promoting Western merchandise,” September 16, 1947. Pendleton archives. In addition to Liebes and Quigley, menswear designer David Bissett claims that his being from Washington factored into his being hired at Pendleton in the 1960s. David Bisset, author interview, November 15, 2011. 64 Ibid. 65 Krick, From Concept to Closet, 19. 66 Ibid., 24.
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67 Ibid., 31 & 33. 68 Comments on womens’ styling by C.C. Wintermute, sales dept. in office conference with Pendleton management, 07/08/1949. Pendleton archives, RG 3 Box #1. 69 Arnold, The American Look. 70 Tina Skinner, Fashionable Clothing from the Sears Catalogs: Mid 1950s (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2002), 27, 88. 71 Bobbi Brooks advertisement, Seventeen (New York, January 1953), 21. 72 Bill Brown, original design for Nudie’s logo, 1942, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, object #2001.26.15. Jolly Brown Suit, nd, made by Nathan Turk, Van Nuys, CA. National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (2001.26.14). For examples of contemporaneous suits, see Jonathan Walford, Forties Fashion: From Siren Suits to the New Look (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2008), 24. See also Claudia Brush Kidwell and Valerie Steele, Men & Women: Dressing the Part (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 138. 73 Mendes and de la Haye, Fashion Since 1900, 158–92. 74 Marling, As Seen On TV , 19. 75 Seventeen, May 1953, 93. 76 Sunset, 1963, Lee archives clippings. 77 Frederic A. Birmingham (ed.), Esquire Fashion Guide for all Occasions (New York: Esquire Inc., 1957), introduction by Oscar E. Schoeffler, xv. 78 Scott, “California Casual,” 155–61. 79 Ibid., 154. 80 The Arrow shirt man, illustrated spokesman of the Arrow shirt company from 1907 through 1931 represented an idealized leisured masculinity for American men. For more, see Carole Turbin, “Fashioning the American Man: The Arrow collar Man, 1907–1931,” in Barbara Burman and Carole Turbin (eds), Material Strategies: Dress and Gender in Historical Perspective (Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 100–19. 81 This was point “F” in a list the included: A—styled and made in California; B—Casual, easy fitting apparel; C—Broader shoulder expression; D—Tradition slightly sacrificed for comfort; E—Use of unusual colors or color combinations. The Men’s Apparel Research Guild, “The California Market and Its Importance to Men’s Wear retailers.” Cited in Scott, “California Casual,” 157. 82 Time, October 6, 1958. Pendleton archives, Men’s clothing, clippings box 2, 1953–64. 83 Steven Gelber, Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America (New York, Columbia University Press, 1999), 268–71. 84 Glenn Adamson, Craft: An American History (New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), 226. 85 “Something new in old clothes,” Colliers, April 4 1953, 48. 86 Office Conference Notes, Pendleton archives, RG 3 box 1 10/30/1953, 11/18/1948. 87 Brochures advertising Pendleton “Spot Display units.” Pendleton archives, RG 7 box 1, nd. Illustrations on the pamphlet look the similar to artwork reproduced in another Pendleton advertisement featured in The Dude Rancher by E.B. Quigley, a prominent Western artist whose work is in the Pendleton Woolen Mills’ private collection. Quigley reproduction from The Dude Rancher c. 1950.
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88
Bill Staats, “Quigley, Painter of horses,” The Western Horseman, September 1953, 12–13.
89
Ibid.
90
Pendleton archives images, 1946. Friedman’s West Allis, WI.
91
The “Bold Look” is described in Maria Constantino, Men’s Fashions in the Twentieth Century: From Frock Coats to Intelligent Fibers (New York: Costume and Fashion Press, 1997), 85. More characteristics of the look can also be found in Esquire Fashion Guide for all Occasions, xiv.
92
Esquire Fashion Guide For All Occasions (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), xiv.
93
Marling, As Seen On TV , 173.
94
“Men’s and Boy’s Short Sleeve Sport Shirts,” price list, Blue Bell, Spring, 1953. Wrangler archives.
95
Comparable men’s shirts and textiles with sombreros can be found in Steinberg and Dooner, The Fabulous Fifties, 160.
96
The 1957 Esquire style guide claimed that “Every man is a country squire week-ends,” 85. A Look magazine feature from 1956 celebrated unconventional colors in menswear. Perkins H. Bailey “Men go for color from the ground up,” Look, June 26 1956, 29. While Karal Ann Marling notes that “market research noted an upsurge in the sale of colored sports shirts in the suburbs where leisure-time rituals like the barbe-que, clearly demanded new forms of attire.” Marling, As Seen On TV , 173. It can also be seen as foreshadowing the Peacock revolution, a moment where menswear became more colorful, flamboyant and expressive, which took place in the 1960s. Christopher Breward, “Foreword” in The Day of the Peacock: Style for Men 1963–1973, 9.
97
Steven E. Weil & Daniel DeWeese, Western Shirts: A Classic American Fashion (Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2004), 37.
98
Rodeo rider Vera McGinnis often uses the term “gaudy” in reference to Western styles. Describing a rodeo scene, she remarked how contestants were “westerned up in their loud rags,” Vera McGinnis, Rodeo Road; My Life as a Pioneer Cowgirl (New York: Hastings House, 1974), 23.
99
Life Magazine, May 2, 1955 “The Peak Year for Pink,” 74. The article states: “The color that women have traditionally appropriated from babyhood has taken a turn in the other direction. Across the U.S. a pink peak in male clothing has been reached as manufacturers haave saturated more and more of their output with the pretty pastel . . . Responsibility lies with New York’s Brooks Brothers, whose pink shirt, introduced in 1900 but long unnoticed, was publicized for college girls in 1949 and caught on for men too.”
100 Julie Mundy, Elvis Fashion: from Memphis to Vegas (New York: Universe, 2003), 13. 101 Ibid. 102 Salesky, Bernard, “The Fashion Conscious American Male,” Challenge, vol. 11 no. 1 (October 1962): 29–32. 103 Ibid., 31. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., GQ had a circulation of 60,000 by 1962. Other indications that men were concerned with their appearance were references to diets for men in popular magazines, which though not as common as women’s were present. See Roy deGroot, “How I lost 45 pounds on the Rockefeller diet,” Look, June 26, 1956, 63. 106 Dude Rancher, April 1945. 107 Gelber, Hobbies, 269.
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108 Gary Cross, Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 44. 109 For “Atomic” design inspiration, see Sheila Steinberg et al., The Fabulous Fifties, 45–7; for definitions of “organic modernism,” Kevin Stayton and Paul Boyer, Vital Forms. 110 Gary Cross, Men to Boys, 26. 111 Bernard Rudofsky, Are Clothes Modern? An Essay on Contemporary Apparel (Chicago: Theobald, 1947), 197. 112 Ibid. 113 Lears positions modernity against the pre-industrial and characterizes antimodernism as a reaction against market capitalism, rationalization, and the banalities of Western society in favor of more “authentic” experiences and ways of making. T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
5 Westernwear in Youth Culture and Subculture 1 Sarah Thornton, Introduction to The Subcultures Reader (London, New York: Routledge, 1997), 1. 2 Chaney, The Cultural Turn, 36, 37. 3 Dick Hebdige, Subculture, the Meaning of Style, New Accents (London: Methuen, 1979). 4 Ken Gelder, Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 3, 44. Gelder cites the importance of the Birmingham School and the Chicago School’s model of Symbolic Interaction, as being the first to move away from deviance models for understanding subculture. Also See Sarah Thornton’s introduction to The Subcultures Reader (New York, London: Routledge, 1997). 5 Ibid., 3–4. 6 Ibid. 7 See Sullivan, Jeans, 85, and Fiske, Marsh and Trynka, Denim: From Cowboys to Catwalk. 8 Sullivan, Jeans, 85. 9 Comstock, “The Making of an American Icon: The Transformation of Jeans in the Great Depression,” 26. See also Betty Betz “Gold in Them Jeans,” Nation’s Business (January 1953): 29–31. 10 Marling, As Seen On TV , 175. 11 Carolyn R. Hines, Cone: A Century of Excellence (Greensboro, NC: Cone Mills Inc., 1991), 29. The numbers of white-collar workers surpassing blue collar workers in 1956 is discussed in Cooper, “Casual but not that casual,” 36. 12 Author interview, Bud Strickland Greensboro, NC, February 2, 2012. 13 Sullivan, Jeans, 85. 14 Life, “Coed Clothes,” February 24, 1947, 119–20. 15 The phrase “studied carelessness” was used by Simone de Beauvoir to describe college women at Vassar in 1947. See also Rebecca Tuite, Seven Sisters Style: The All-American Preppy Look (New York: Rizzoli Universe Promotional Books, 2017), 43.
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16 Life, “Showdown Wins Dress Up,” March 28, 1955, 65–6. 17 Seventeen, “Do’s and Don’ts of Blue Jeans,” August 1954, 74. 18 Sullivan, Jeans, 85. 19 “Elvis Presley’s Effect on Clothing Deplored,” (The New York Times, November 17, 1957), 122. 20 Leerom Medovoi, Rebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 177. 21 For documentary photographs that showcase the longevity of biker style, see Life, July 21, 1947, 31. Life, August 11, 1947, 113, Danny Lyon, The Bikeriders (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003). 22 Theodore Strauss “Close Up: The Brilliant Brat,” in Life July 31, 1950, 49–58. 23 Unlike the Hollywood blockbuster, the exploitation film, of which “teenpics” are a subgenre particularly marked toward teenagers, is defined by low production values and special interest topics. Leerom Medevoi, Rebels: Youth and the Cold war Origins of Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 136. 24 Thomas Doherty and Thomas Patrick Doherty, Teenagers And Teenpics: Juvenilization Of American Movies (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2010); Leerom Medovoi, Rebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity, New Americanists (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005). Both offer images and detailed accounts of teen movie trends. 25 Kirse Granat May, Golden State Golden Youth: The California Image in Popular Culture 1955–1966 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 6. 26 Medevoi, Rebels, 161. and Sarah Lichtman, “Teenagers have taken over the house,” PhD Dissertation (New York: Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, 2013): 26. 27 Regan Rhea, “Teen Obsession: Competing images of Adolescents In American Culture 1945–1963” (Phd. Diss. University of Wisconsin, 2008), 4. 28 Gereon Zimerman, “Teenagers” Look, January 24, 1956, 22. 29 There are multiple incarnations of the Perfecto motorcycle jacket, which debuted in 1928. Rin Tanaka, Schott NYC: 100 years of an American Original (New York: Schott NYC & Rin Studios, 2013). 30 Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress,” 44. 31 A 1939 Sears Roebuck catalog shows a variety of Western belts with metallic and colorful jeweled studs named “Buffalo Bill” and “Blackhawk” comparable to any offered in Miller Stockman catalogs. By 1953, however, although they continued to offer belts in tooled leather with Western buckles, the studded varieties are absent. William Manns et al., Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West. Tanaka, My Freedamn 5: Rock’n’Roll Fashions from the 1930s to the 1950s (Tokyo: Cycleman Books, 2007), 108. 32 Miller Stockman, Spring/Summer 1949, catalog no.79. 33 Rin Tanaka, Harley Davidson Book of Fashions (Tokyo; Cycleman Books, 2008), 12 34 LIFE (Time Inc, 1947), August 11, 112. 35 Rock’n’roll is frequently summarized as a straightforward blending of blues and country music, but such observations are too simplistic, suggesting that the genres were in some way “pure” and excluding other influences on the development of the genre. For a more detailed explanation of the contributions of Latin American styles to the development of rock’n’roll, see Reebee Garofalo, “Off the Charts,” George Lipsitz, “Land of a Thousand Dances:
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Youth, Minorities and the Rise of Rock and Roll,” in Lary Mary (ed.), Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 267–84. These authors explain how Latin influence, particularly in the Los Angeles area, and Caribbean influences heard out of New Orleans are excluded from formulas that define rock’n’roll as a mix of country and blues. It is challenging to decipher the subtle stylistic nuances between rhythm and blues and early rock’n’roll, and indeed some have argued that there is no difference at all. 36 Most early rhythm and blues and/or rock’n’roll performers were African Americans from the South who took their music to a louder, stronger, and faster extreme. See Glenn C. Altschuler, All Shook Up: How Rock’n’Roll Changed America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), and Linda Martin and Kerry Seagrave, Anti Rock: The Opposition to Rock’n Roll (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1988). In addition, Pete Daniel’s Lost Revolutions and Michael Bertrand’s Race Rock and Elvis provide resources specific to the South and to Elvis fans. 37 Quoted in Altschuler, All Shook Up, 6. 38 This was not the first time African American tastes and culture influenced mainstream white norms, yet according to scholars like T.H. Lhamon, it was the first time African American culture would become mass culture. T.H. Lhamon, Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 44. 39 “Are Negroes Setting The Styles?” The White Sentinel (June 1955), 6. The White Sentinel served as a mouthpiece for the National Citizen’s Protective Organization and in his speech Burston was addressing the Millinery Merchandising Executives’ Association. 40 See section on Bernard Lansky, “Don’t Buy Me Out, Just Buy From Me,” in Paul Gorman, The Look: Adventures in Pop and Rock Fashion (London: Adelita: 2006). 41 “Bill Haley Biography,” Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame https://rockhall.com/inductees/bill-haley/bio/ (accessed June 3, 2015). 42 John Swenson, Bill Haley: The Daddy of Rock and Roll (New York: Stein and Day, 1982), 32. 43 Leerom Medovoi labeled such pictures “social problem films,” Medevoi, Rebels, 38. 44 Ibid., 119. 45 Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1994), 56. 46 Bertrand, Race Rock and Elvis, 120. 47 Concert photographs including young fans are documented in Alfred Wertheimer’s Elvis at 21: New York to Memphis (San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions, 2006), and Lisa Jo Sagolla, Rock’n Roll Dances of the 1950s (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Books, 2011). 48 “Denim Council Formed,” New York Times, April 20, 1955. 49 Ibid. 50 Sarah A. Lichtman, “Teenagers Have Taken over the House,” 50. 51 Betty Bentz, “Gold in Them Jeans,” Nation’s Business, Jan 1953, 31. 52 Life, August 31, 1959, 78. 53 Lee archives clipping, Published, 1951 in Country Gentleman, Progressive Farmer and Farm Journal, as well as other magazines.
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54 Lee archives, clippings, print ads 1950–5, featured in Life magazine April 11, 1955. 55 Ebony, May 1955. 56 Rhea, “Teen Obsession,” 48. 57 Published in This Week magazine, September 1958. Lee archives, clippings. 58 Patricia Mears et. Al., Ivy Style: Radical Conformist (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 16. 59 Ibid., 93, 95. 60 Richard Martin and Harold Koda, Jocks and Nerds: Men’s Style in the Twentieth Century (New York: Rizzoli, 1989). 61 Jerryll Habegger and Joseph H. Osman, Sourcebook of Modern Furniture (New York: W. W. Norton 2005), 409. Sara Pendergast, Contemporary Designers, 3rd edn (Detroit: St. James Press, 1997), 72. 62 The Daily News Record, March 18, 1965. 63 Ibid. 64 Jessa Krick “From concept to closet,” 31. 65 Deirdre Clemente, Dress Casual: How College Students Redefined American Style (Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). 66 Jessa Krick “From concept to closet,” 31. 67 Ibid., 48. 68 These same ads for “Country clothes” “sportswear” were present in Glamour, Mademoiselle, and Ladies Home Journal concurrently. 69 Prices listed: Jacket $19.95, skirt $14.95, trews $17.95 vest: $9.95 and cloche $6.95 70 Frank King promotions manager, 10/15/1964. Pendleton archives, RG 3 box #4, office conference notes. Bobbie Brooks also advertised in Seventeen and was one of the five largest womenswear manufactures in the nation in the 1960s. http://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/brooks-bobbie/ (accessed July 22, 2021). 71 Seventeen, August 1964, 48–9. 72 Pendleton archives, office conference notes, record group 3, Box #4, 10/15/64. 73 In December 1963, office conference notes suggest that replacing Rand’s drawings with photographs was under consideration, with some hesitation. Pendleton archives, RG 3, box # 4. 74 Vogue, January 1, 1965. 75 Joel Lobenthal, Radical Rags: Fashions of the Sixties (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990); Mendes and de la Haye, Fashion Since 1900. 76 Linda Benn deLibero, “This Year’s Girl: A Personal/Critical History of Twiggy.” in Shari Benstock & Suzanne Ferriss (eds), On Fashion (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 41–58, and Lobenthal, “London,” Radical Rags, 9–39. 77 Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 110. 78 Ibid., 6, 15.
Notes
279
79
Ibid., 31.
80
Ibid.
81
Ibid., 119.
82
Miller Stockman, Spring 1962, 10.
83
Author interview, Leonard Larsen, Merriam Kansas, May 21, 2012.
84
Seventeen, April 1965.
85
For details on slim fits from the 1960s, see Valerie Mendes and Amy de La Haye, “Affluence and the Teenage Challenge, 1957–1967,” Fashion Since 1900, 175, 176.
86
Blaszczyk, “Styling Synthetics,” 485.
87
Dacron and Orlon were both trademarked by DuPont, Dacron being a polyester fiber and Orlon being an acrylic first produced in 1950. Phyllis J. Tortora, Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1996).
88
Ibid., 489.
89
Ibid., 515.
90
“Stretch and the American Concept of Fashion,” American Fabrics, Winter/Spring, 1964, 55.
91
Ibid.
92
Popular Sears mail-order catalogs offered a variety of capris or pedal pushers in denim, corduroy, or cotton. Tina Skinner, Fashionable Clothing from the Sears catalogs: Mid-1950s, 80, 83.
93
Columbia records issue 4-41131, Rockabilly Hall of Fame: http://www.rockabillyhall.com/CarlPerkins.html (accessed March 1, 2014).
94
See for example, “Indian beaded Tom-Tom moccasins” Seventeen, January 1953, 187. “Pow-wow boots and matching bag” from The Moccasin Shop, Seventeen, March 1953, 195. “From the magic land of Mexico” earrings, Seventeen August 1954, 292. “Twin good luck rings designed by Indian Silversmith,” Seventeen August 1954, 295.
95
“East is East but West is Best,” Seventeen (New York, July 1962): 86–7.
96
Sagolla, Rock’n’Roll Dances of the 1950s.
97
Ibid., 84–9.
98
The music was written by Norman Meade and lyrics by Ben Raleigh, but the song itself was copyrighted by Blue Bell Inc.
99
Peter B. Flint, “Killer Joe Piro, who popularized discotheque dancing dies at 68,” The New York Times, February 9, 1989. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/09/obituaries/killer-joe-piro-who-popularized-discotheque-dancingdies-at-68.html (accessed February 1, 2014).
100 Clippings, nd, Wrangler archives. 101 John Irwin, Scenes (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1977). See also Gelder, Subcultures, 45. 102 Ben Finley and James Houston, Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport (San Francisco: Pomegranate Art Books, 1996), 81
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103 Ibid., “A Royal Sport,” first published in A Woman’s Home Companion 1907, later in The Cruise of the Snark, Macmillan 1911. 104 Ibid., 107. 105 Westways, August 1945, Automobile Club of Southern California. 106 Ibid, 82, 85. 107 Author Jean Parsons reduces the surfer look to: swim trunks, or chinos for streetwear, and windbreakers with flip-flops or huarache sandals. “Leisure,” The Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, http://www. bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bewdf/BEWDFv3/EDch3045.xml?q=surfers&isfuzzy=no#highlightAnchor. 108 Leroy Grannis, Jim Heimann, and Steve Barilotti, Leroy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s (Cologne: Taschen, 2007). 109 Tom Wolfe, The Pump House Gang (New York: Farrar Strauss & Giroux, 1968), 26. 110 Ibid., 22. 111 May, Golden State Golden Youth, 97. 112 Ibid., 135. 113 “Levi’s Fact Sheet” in Tailors to the world: Levi Strauss & Co. Oral History Transcript, 1972–6. Interviews conducted by Harriet Nathan. University of California Digital Library, https://archive.org/details/ tailorstotheworld00levirich (accessed February 1, 2014). 114 Advertisement reproduced in Downey et al., This is a Pair of Levi’s Jeans, 260. 115 Ibid., 261. 116 http://www.theweejun.com/index.php/white-levis-by-the-majorettes-1963/ (accessed February 13, 2014). 117 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTvKh64sl_w 118 See Leroy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s. 119 Brian Wilson apparently thought of the name, as bandmates described: “Brian thought it would be a really cool name since all the surfers wear Pendleton shirts.” In Keith Badman, The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band: On Stage and in the Studio (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2004), 16. The name was changed in 1961 by a Hollywood music publisher when their first single was released, thinking it would be better suited to the song Surfin’ and tie them more closely with other surf bands at the time. See Mark Holcolm, The Beach Boys: Rock’n’Roll Hall of Famers (New York: Rosen Central, 2003). 120 Badman, The Beach Boys, 17. 121 Kirse Granat May, Golden State, Golden Youth: The California Image in Popular Culture, 1955–1966 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 100. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid., 102. 124 Ibid., 107. 125 May, Golden State Golden Youth, 107. 126 Wolfe, The Pump House Gang, 33
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127 Pendleton has since adopted the name “board shirt” for this style, which it continues to offer annually. http:// www.pendletonusa.com/custserv/custserv.jsp?pageName=Heritage (accessed February 1, 2014). 128 Laura L. Cummings, “Cloth Wrapped People, Trouble and Power: Pachuco Culture in the Greater Southwest.” The Journal of The Southwest, vol. 45, no.3 (Autumn, 2003): 329. 129 James Diego Virgil, Barrio Gangs: Street Life and Identity in Southern California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988), 2,3. 130 Cummings, Cloth Wrapped People, 329. 131 Scholars who have examined zoot suits and their cultural meanings include: Stuart Cosgrove, “The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare.” History Workshop Journal, no. 18 (Autumn 1984): 77–91. Catherine Ramirez, The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism and the Cultural Politics of Memory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009); Luis Alvarez, The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009); and Kathy Peiss, Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 132 Cummings, “Cloth Wrapped People,” 332. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 135 This approach has recently come under scrutiny, and scholars like Laura Cummings and Curtis Marez have worked to reverse the trend by examining these groups historically, culturally, and politically, as opposed to focusing on the comparably smaller gang culture connected to it. In his study of Chicano barrio gangs, James Diego Virgil addresses the antisocial, criminal element of the subculture, but situates it within the larger, non gang-affiliated community whose distinctive styles emerged from the experience of multiple marginality; they were marginalized in urban spaces, economic roles, as well as ethnic and personal identities. Cholo is a subculture, and in the more extreme cases a gang culture, that for its participants is means of urban adaptation. James Diego Vigil, “Cholo: The Migratory Origins of Chicano Gangs in Los Angeles” in Global Gangs: Street Violence Across the World (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 49. 136 Curtis Marez, “Brown: The Politics of Working Class Chicano Style,” Social Text, no. 48 (Autumn, 1996): 121, 122. 137 Ibid., 121–8. 138 Ibid., 109. 139 Ibid., 112. 140 Ibid., 33. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid., 111. 143 Ibid., 33. 144 Ibid., 7. 145 Longtime Pendleton menswear designer David Bisset claims that Western markets preferred shadow plaids to traditional tartans. Author phone Interview, January 15, 2011. 146 Carlos Hernandez, “A Pocho Love Triangle: My Wife, my Pendleton and Me” http://pocho.com/pochos-andpendletons-a-love-story/ (accessed February 1, 2014).
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Notes
147 Virgil, Barrio Gangs, 7. 148 Ibid., 110. 149 Robert Genat and Don Cox, The Birth of Hot Rodding (St. Paul, MN: Motorbooks International), 9. 150 Ibid., 9–10. 151 Ibid., 74. 152 Ibid., 11. 153 Wolfe, The Pump House Gang, 129. 154 Ibid., 122. 155 Ibid., 128. Along with hot rodders, Wolfe includes “beats, motorcycle gangs, the car kids, the rock’n’roll kids, the surfers and of course the hippies.” 156 Adamson, Craft: An American History, 236. 157 Birth of Hot Rodding, 11. 158 Jennifer L. Roberts, “Lucubrations on a lava lamp: Technocracy, counterculture, and containment in the sixties,” In American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000), 184. 159 The author and specific origins of “The Streets of Laredo,” otherwise known as “The Cowboy’s Lament,” are unknown, but records suggest it emerged around 1886. George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 28.
6 The Native American Presence in Westernwear: Design and Representation 1 Americans https://americanindian.si.edu/americans/# (accessed November 20, 2020). 2 http://nativeappropriations.com/ (accessed August 2, 2021). 3 Examples can be found in McGinnis, Rodeo Road, as well as Flood and Manns, Cowgirls: Women of the Wild West. 4 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 88. 5 Emil Her Many Horses (ed.), Identity by Design: Tradition, Change, and Celebration in Native Women’s Dresses (New York: Smithsonian, 2007). 6 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn 35. 7 Joanne Eicher and Tonye V. Erekosema, “Distinguishing Non-western from Western Dress: The Concept of Cultural Authentication.” Proceedings of the 1980 National Meeting of the Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing (Washington DC, 1980). Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/162461. Tonye V. Erekosima and Joanne Eicher, “Re-Examining Cultural
Notes
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Authentication to Analyze Dress and Textiles [Abstract],” in Proceedings of the 1994 Annual Meeting of the International Textile and Apparel Association (Monument, CO: ITAA, 1994). 8 James Hanson, “Laced Coats and Leather Jackets: The Great Plains Intercultural Clothing Exchange,” In Plains Indian Studies A Collection of Essays in Honor of John C. Ewers and Waldo R. Wedel (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1982); Linda Baumgarten, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2012). 9 Incorporation is the third of four steps in the process of cultural authentication outlined by Tonye V. Erekosima and Joanne Eichner. The four steps are: selection, characterization, incorporation, and transformation. “Kalabari Cut-thread and pulled-thread cloth,” 50. 10 Miller Stockman, Fall/Winter 1951, 60. 11 United States Federal Trade Commission https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0179-buying-american-indianarts-and-crafts, visited November 20, 2020. 12 Philip Joseph Deloria, Playing Indian, Yale Historical Publications (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Elizabeth Cromley, “Masculine/Indian,” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 31, no. 4 (December 1, 1996): 265–80; Elizabeth Hutchinson, The Indian Craze: Primitivism, Modernism, and Transculturation in American Art, 1890–1915 (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2009); Robert F. Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian, from Columbus to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). 13 Renato Rosaldo, “Imperialist Nostalgia,” Representations, no. 26 (April 1989): 107–22. 14 David Jenkins, “The Visual Domination of the American Indian: Photography, Anthropology, and Popular Culture in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Museum Anthropology, vol. 17, no. 1, 1993: 9–21. 15 Hutchinson, The Indian Craze, 94. Paul Chaat Smith, Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 16. 16 The term “vanishing race,” reflects a commonly held assumption around the turn of the twentieth century that Native people were destined for extinction, and was first used by Edward Curtis as the title of a photograph. The phrase has since been connected to his artistic output and criticized by historians, including Christopher Lyman, The Vanishing Race and Other Illusions (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982). 17 Gidley, “Manifest Destiny and Visual Culture,” Photographing American Indians, Repression and Revision,” in David Holloway and John Beck (eds), American Visual Cultures (London and New York: Continuum, 2005), 21. 18 Philip Joseph Deloria, Playing Indian, Yale Historical Publications (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 129. 19 Renato Rosaldo, “Imperialist Nostalgia,” Representations, no. 26 (April 1989): 107–22, doi:10.2307/2928525. 20 Elizabeth Cromley, “Masculine/Indian,” Winterthur Portfolio 31, no. 4 (December 1, 1996): 265–80. 21 Jackson Rushing, Native American Art and the New York Avant Garde: A History of Cultural Primitivism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995) and Elizabeth Hutchinson, The Indian Craze: Primitivism, Modernism, and Transculturation in American Art, 1890–1915 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 22 Ann Marguerite Tartsinis and Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, An American Style: Global Sources for New York Textile and Fashion Design, 1915–1928 (New York: Bard Graduate Center, Yale, 2013), 20. 23 Ibid.
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Notes
24 Whitney Blausen, “In Search of a National Style,” in Mary Schoeser and Christine Boydell (eds), Disentangling Textiles: Techniques for the Study of Designed Objects (London: Middlesex University Press, 2002); and Tartsinis, An American Style. 25 Tartsinis, An American Style,19. 26 The term “antimodern” is borrowed from Lears, No Place of Grace. 27 Cromley explains the Indian’s loss of individuality. The cowboy as type is discussed in Chapter 1. Cromley, “Masculine/Indian.” 28 For a selection of photographs of Native Cowboys, see William Manns et al., Cowboys & the Trappings of the Old West, 14, 65,79. 29 Rodeo Hall of Fame Inductee: Jackson Sundown https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/rodeo-hall-of-fame/5092/ (accessed July 22, 2021). Sundown’s story was also memorialized in fiction in Ken Keysey and Ken Babbs’ Last Go ‘Round: A Real Western. 30 Thomas King, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 39. 31 Martha A. Sandweiss, Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 219, 235. 32 Sunset, “The West Will Wait” September 1944, 2. 33 Cromley, “Masculine/Indian,” 269. 34 For more on the Good Neighbor Policy, see Bryce Wood, The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961); and for an example of how it worked in popular culture, see J. B. Kaufman, South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program, 1941–1948 (New York: Disney Editions, 2009). 35 “Good Neighbor Sportswear,” Seventeen (May 1953): 93. 36 James LaVita, “The Study of Costume in Square Dancing,” in A Spectrum of World Dance (New York: Congress on Research in Dance, 1987), 98–109. 37 Gaile Dugas, “The Squaw Dress from the Southwest,” Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, New York May, 18, 1955), 45. Retrieved June 22, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/16630328/press-and-sun-bulletin/. Nancy J. Parezo and Angelina R. Jones, “What’s in a Name?: The 1940s–1950s ‘Squaw Dress,’ ” American Indian Quarterly 33, no. 3 (June,2009): 388. 38 Ibid., 373–404. The authors also note similarities to Apache and Mexican styles, which (like the Navajo style) favor gathered, three-tiered, flounced skirts. 39 Ibid., 384–5. 40 Emil Her Many Horses, Identity by Design; Tartsinis, An American Style, 78. 41 Seventeen, March 1953, 89. 42 Seventeen, July 1954, 13. 43 Costume designer Richard Lamotte in The Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian (2009), dir. Neil Diamond & Catherine Bainbridge. 44 Ibid., 381.
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45 For a detailed examination of the historical uses and connotations of the word “squaw,” see Parezo and Jones, “What’s in a Name?” 46The advertisement was issued by the Dress Up Bureau and was part of an attempt to cultivate a mystique around Native Americans and link their tastes to contemporary Americans. Tartsinis, American Style, 56. 47 Kapoun and Lohrmann, Language of the Robe, 123. 48 Parezo and Jones, “What’s in a Name?” 382, 388. 49 Cromley, “Masculine/Indian,” 270, 271. 50 Jane E. Simonsen, “ ‘Object Lessons’: Domesticity and Display in Native American Assimilation,” American Studies 43, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 75–99. 51 The origins of patio can be found in Spanish texts dating back to the eighteenth century. Oxford English Dictionary online, http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.bgc.bard.edu:2048/view/Entry/138835?redirectedFrom=patio #eid (accessed March 12, 2015). 52 Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963, Americans and the California Dream (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 20. 53 Ibid.. Cromley cites tourist accounts of being received in pueblo villages with “a welcoming and properly feminine attention,” Also see Lean Dilworth, Imagining Indians of the Southwest: Persistent Visions of a Primitive Past (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996). The idea of the patio dress for the suburban hostess is discussed in Chapter 3. 54 Mendes and de la Haye, Fashion Since 1900, 160. 55 True West, November/December 1959. 56 The term “Tonto speak” to define the particular accented broken English spoken by Natives in Western movies is borrowed from Ojibwa film critic Jesse White, The Reel Injun, 2009. 57 Unidentified artist. True West, November/December, 1959. 58 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 13. 59 Ibid. 60 Linda Baumgarten, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 75. 61 James Hanson cites frontiersman Rudolph Kurtz, who found buckskin offered superior protection than cloth from sun and mosquitoes, while visiting Englishman John Keats Lord disliked the way buckskin shrank and was impossible to clean. Ibid.,109. 62 Hanson notes that these suits were likely tailor made in cities like St. Joseph and St. Louis, and kept as regular stock. “Laced coats and leather jackets,” 112. 63 King, The Inconvenient Indian, 55. 64 Shane was nominated for six Academy awards and won one for best cinematography in 1954. http://www.imdb. com/title/tt0046303/awards?ref_=tt_awd (accessed June 16, 2014). 65 For natural extension of the body, see Gaines and Herzog, “The fantasy of authenticity in Western costume,” in Buscombe, Back in the Saddle Again, 172.
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66 Miller Stockman, Winter catalog no. 91, 1952–3. 67 Jane P. Tompkins, West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 8. 68 Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 347, 349. Also see Stanley Corkin, Cowboys as Cold Warriors: The Western and US History (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press: 2004). 69 Ibid. The problems that persist in these representations include patronizing views of native people’s “simplicity,” along with notions that to see Natives as equals they most comport themselves in accordance with white norms. They also cast white actors in Indigenous roles. 70 Ibid., 137. 71 “Straight Arrow cards and mail-in premiums,” http://iloveshreddedwheat.com/1949-52-straight-arrow-cards/ 72 FOOTNOTE TEXT MISSING 73 The “Chetopa” name was trademarked by Lee in 1952. United States Patent and Trademark Office. http://tess2. uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4805:qynz63.3.2 74 Louis F. Burns, A History of the Osage People (Tuskaloosa, AL: Alabama University Press, 2004), 34. 75 The following advertisements were drawn from two widely circulated men’s magazines: Thrilling Publications, July 1952, Dell Detective, June 1952. 76 John C. Ewers, The Pretend Indians: Images of Native Americans in the Movies (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 16. 77 Cécile R. Ganteaume, Officially Indian: Symbols That Define the United States (Washington, DC: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 2017). 78 Stephanie A.L. Molholt “American Indians in Print Advertising since 1890,” in Elizabeth DeLaney Hoffman (ed.), American Indians and Popular Culture, vol.1 (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), 154. 79 Ibid. “By focusing on one culture, the Plains Indian motif advertisements obscure and negate ninety-five percent of the other American Indian groups and Nations . . . this motif contains issues such as confusion of cultures, degradation, dehumanization, and issues regarding the vanishing Indian.” 155. 80 Kapoun and Lohrman, Language of the Robe, 7. 81 Ibid., 124. 82 Ibid., 261. 83 Ibid., 123. 84 Suzanne Lussier, Art Deco Fashion (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 2003). For the term “art moderne,” see Pat Kirkham & Susan Weber, History of Design: Decorative Arts & Material Culture 1400–2000 (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2013), 611. 85 http://blog.pendleton-usa.com/2012/10/11/the-toboggan-coat-for-fall-2012-the-return-of-a-jazz-age-favorite/ (accessed June 27, 2014). 86 Films where the jacket can be seen include Ace High (1918), The Wilderness Trail (1919), and North of Hudson Bay (1923). 87 George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 46. 88 Ibid., 3.
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89
Bernard S. Cohn and American Council of Learned Societies, “Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge the British in India,” ACLS Humanities E-Book, Princeton studies in culture/power/history, 1996, http://hdl.handle. net/2027/heb.01826. 114. Although Cohn’s focus is on the British in India, similar ideology was seen throughout the Americas.
90
Ibid.
91
Ward Churchill, Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools (San Francisco: City Lights, 2004). See also Luther Standing Bear cited in The Language of the Robe, 5.
92
Martha LeBaron Goddard, “A Zuñi Religious Service at Manchester-By-The-Sea,” Journal of the Southwest, vol. 37, no. 4 (December 1, 1995): 566–70.
93
Gates quoted in Adamson, Craft: An American History, 111.
94
Jane E. Simonsen, “ ‘Object Lessons’: Domesticity and Display in Native American Assimilation,” American Studies 43, no. 1 (April 1, 2002): 76.
95
Kimberly G. Wieser, Back to the Blanket: Recovered Rhetorics and Literacies in American Indian Studies (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017), x.
96
Standing Bear, Luther. Land of the Spotted Eagle (United Kingdom: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 191.
97
http://www.exilesfilm.com/index.html (accessed July 24, 2021).
98
Pendleton archives, RG 3 box 80, folder 20, Janaruy 5, 1954.
99
Disneyland: A Complete guide to Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Main Street, U.S.A (Anaheim, CA: Disneyland, Inc., 1956): 18.
100 Steven L. Wright, “Mickey Mouse Wears Wool in the Wild West: Pendleton’s Disneyland Operation, 1955–1990,” unpublished, Pendleton archives, 2. 101 Pendleton archives, letters from store proprietors: “we hope that many manufacturers take a cue from your farsightedness and at least stay out of competition with the retailer.” Stampfer’s Iowa, Oct 20, 1955, & “I am sure that all Pendleton dealers will appreciate the manner in which you will handle sales at this exhibit.” Fred Sington, Birmingham, Alabama, July 15, 1955. I am grateful for this insight from former Pendleton archivist Steven Wright. Steven L. Wright, “Mickey Mouse Wears Wool in the Wild West,” 3. 102 Michael Steiner, “Frontierland as Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Architectural Packaging of the Mythic West,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, vol. 48, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 5. 103 Richard Francaviglia, “Walt Disney’s Frontierland as an Allegorical Map of the American West,” The Western Historical Quarterly, vol. 30, no.2 (Summer 1999): 167–9. 104 Ibid., 168–9. 105 Steven L. Wright, interview with C.M. Bishop Jr., January 2004. Pendleton archives, unpublished, 6. 106 Ibid. 107 In fact, the number of visitors to Disneyland exceeded all predictions. Following its July 1955 opening, Disneyland saw over 1 million guests in its first seven weeks alone. Karal Ann Marling, “Disneyland 1955: Just take the Santa Ana Freeway to the American Dream,” American Art, vol. 5 (Winter–Spring 1991): 172. 108 RG3, C.M. Bishop, box 83, folder 13 “Disneyland Year-end Report, July 17, 1955–July 17, 1956. 109 Pendleton archives, office conference notes, February 5, 1955, RG 3, box 3.
288
Notes
110 Pendleton archives, February 5, 1955, RG 3, box 3, folder 4, office conference notes. RG 3, box 3, folder 4, office conference notes. “Fits in with the ‘quality’ idea,” not assigned to any one speaker. 111 Pendleton archives, July 20, 1956, RG 3 box 3. Office conference notes. 112 Pendleton archives, RG 3, box 3 folder 4. Office conference notes. 113 Pendleton archives, RG3, folder 13. “Disneyland year-end report, July 17, 1955–July 17, 1956.” 114 Ibid. April 2, 1956. 115 Sabrina Mittermeier, A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme Parks: Middle Class Kingdoms (Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2021), 4. 116 Pendleton archives, RG3, box 4, February 11, 1959. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid., Indian communities were the main focus of blanket business. 119 Limerick, “The adventures of the frontier in the twentieth century,” 70–1. Steiner’s “Frontierland as Tomorrowland,” describes a scene on the opening day at Disneyland: “we took a shortcut through the Painted Desert and got sidetracked by a pack of pesky redskins . . . It took us a while to polish them off,” 3. 120 Karen R. Jones and John Wills, The American West: Competing Visions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 320. Jones and Wills investigation of the changing meaning of the burning settler’s cabin on Frontierland can be compared to the current 2013 description featured on Disney’s current website: http://disneyland.disney. go.com/disneyland/frontierland/ (accessed March 10, 2013). 121 One avenue of further study that would complicate the binaries discussed above would be to examine how Indigenous people were dressing at the time, and how or if they signaled their “Indianness” or their modernity.
Conclusion 1 Valerie Steele “The F-Word,” Lingua Franca, 1991. Reproduced http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/180/steele.htm (accessed December 15, 2020). 2 Roland Barthes, The Language of Fashion (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2006), 5. Barthes compares histories of dress to histories of folklore, which, he also suggests, lack national examples. 3 Marty Stuart, “Foreword,” in George-Warren and Freedman, How the West Was Worn, 9. See also Wilson, “American Cowboy Dress: Function to Fashion.”
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302
Index
Adamson, Glenn 144, 203 Adrian (Gilbert) 42, 78 African Americans 117 advertising to 7, 140, 141, 174 discrimination against 7, 77 influence on fashion 171 in the west 7 see also Black cowboys Allen, Michael 99, 111 Allmendinger Blake 104 Alvarez, Luis 20, 32 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America 165 American Bandstand 192 American Fabrics 185 American International Pictures 166 American look 15, 118, 119, 157, 162, 249 American Me 200 American Museum of Natural History 212 American Occidentalism 10 Amoskeag Mills 40 Anaheim, California 240 antimodern 25, 160, 212, 248 Apache 209, 210 arcuate 40, 52 Arnold, Rebecca 118 arrow pocket 113, 133, 135 Arrow Shirt man 141 art moderne 235 atomic.= bomb 77, 78 imagery 78, 81 power 79 prints 78 see also nuclear Atomic Frontier Days 80–2 authenticity 23, 93, 110, 117, 175, 186, 205, 241 and Indigenous cultures 208, 212, 226 problems with 9, 10 Autry Museum of the American West 4, 88, 113 Autry, Gene 83, 86, 88, 95, 149, 236
Babe Ruth 52 baby boomer 162, 180 Baldwin, James 7 bandana 82, 84, 100, 105, 106, 114, 188, 200, 249 barbed wire 22, 104, 200 Barraclough, Laura 16 Barthes, Roland 110, 249 Baumgarten, Linda 210 beach pajama 122 beadwork 1, 208, 219 Berry, Chuck 171 Bertoia, Harry 176, 177, 205 bib-overall 39, 47, 48, 50, 69, 253 Big Tex 100 bikers culture 165, 202 representations in film 165, 166 style 166, 169, 170 Bishop, C.M. 61, 130 Bishop, C.P. 58 Bishop, Roy 59 Bissett, David 70 Black Bear shirts 142, 144 Black cowboys 3, 7 black leather jacket (Schott Perfecto)165, 166 Blackfoot 219 blanket, Indian 238 blanket jacket 58, 60, 234–6 Blaszczyk, Regina Lee 185 Blue Bell company history 5, 62–3, 94 logo 62, 63 manufacturing 68, 72, 119, 125, 126, 187 marketing 75, 88, 90, 98, 99, 186, 126, 127 Boag, Peter 25 board shirt 197 board shorts 194, 195, 197 Bobbie Brooks 178, 191 Boehme, Sarah 11, 71 bohemian 128, 196, 212, 213 303
304
Bold Look 147 bolero 29, 30, 83 bomber jacket 202 Boyer, Paul 78 brand loyalty 24, 46, 70, 97 personal brand 32, 93 Western brand 71 branding (cattle) 102, 104, 106 see also cattle brand Brando, Marlon 165, 166, 171 Brenston, Jackie 171 Brodovitch, Alexey 105, 109 Broken Arrow 229 Brown Power 199 Brown, Bob 134 Brown, Dee 28 Brown, Jolly 134 Buckaroo Clothing 60, 129, 131 buckle back 40, 52, 55 buckskins 13, 16, 23, 207, 215, 226–30, 246, 249 Buddy Lee 50, 51, 63, 100 Bullocks Wilshire 29, 122 burn your own brand 109, 112, 156 Burns, Robert H. 239, 240 Burt, Maxwell Struthers 37 Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary) 26 California fashions 42, 43, 141, 142, 198 lifestyle 41, 194, 200, 128, 141, 194, 196, 203 sportswear 42, 43, 45, 88, 141, 198 and Western history 38, 41 California look 42 California Apparel Creators 43 Canton Mills 52 capri pants 166, 186, 215 car club jacket 203 Car Craft 204 Casey Jones (brand) 63, 94 Castillo, Greg 73 casual (fashions) 69, 72, 114, 118, 128, 141, 145 Catalina 42 cattle brand 86, 104, 105, 107, 108–11 chain stitch 53, 66, 93, 100, 202 Chanel, Coco 121, 203 chaps 2, 16, 18, 20, 31, 36, 82, 88, 152, 168, 169 Charro 16, 82 chemise dress (Sack dress) 225 Cherokee 213, 219 Chetopa 231–3 Cheyenne 23, 219
Index
Cheyenne Frontier Days 100 Chicano aesthetics 199–200 culture 162, 198 Chief Joseph (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Nez Percé leader) 234 Chief Joseph (blanket pattern) 57, 236 children’s apparel 64, 86, 89, 90 Chinese (population in the West) 7, 168 chino 35, 119 Chippewa boots 231 chola 199 cholo 199–201 Christianity 224, 238 cinema of attractions 83 Civil Rights movement 229 Civil War 15, 16, 22, 23 Clark, Hazel (and Cheryl Buckley) 4 Cluett & Peabody 53 Cluett, Sanford L. 53 Cody, Buffalo Bill 23, 26, 226 Cohen Lizabeth 72 Cohn, Bernard 237 Cohn, Nudie 4, 93, 134, 208 see also Nudie suit Cold War anxieties 72, 112, 116, 229, 248 Westerns 71, 228 Cole of California 42 Comstock, Sandra Curtis 40, 122 conchos 16, 34, 82, 169, 210, 227 Cone Mills 62, 163 conformity 116, 166, 180 coonskin cap 215 Cooper, Gary 7 Cooper, James Fenimore 26 Corn, Wanda 128 corset 28, 33, 34 Cotton Code 122 counterculture 162, 180, 206 country music 12, 16, 71, 79, 91, 171 authenticity and 93 fashions 93, 94, 95 origins 93 cowboy and authenticity 9, 10, 22, 85 clothing 2, 15–20, 24 Masculine archetype 22, 84, 85, 155 origins 21 Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum 149, 153 cowboy boot 2, 16, 18, 171, 191, 145 cowboy hat 33, 34, 51, 83, 85, 104, 114, 125, 182, 191
Index
cowgirl clothing 27, 29, 30, 31, 37, 88 marginalization of 32, 114 origins 25–6 creative revolution 12, 180 craft 39, 77, 110, 203, 210, 212, 231 Crockett, Davy 88, 245 Cross, Gary 157, 159 Crow Fair 213 Cuevas, Manuel 94 cult of the Indian 228 cultural appropriation 13, 208, 209, 23, 245 cultural authentication 208–10, 219 dance craze 192, 193 Davis, Jacob 38–40 Dean, James 165 decolonization 238 Deloria, Philip 210, 212 democratization of clothing 117 denim. and American identity 39 and class 121, 122, 162, 171–2 colors 88, 102, 180, 186, 196 dress 119–21 manufacture 39, 40, 52, 55, 62, 102, 163 stretch denim 185, 192 visibility of 82, 89, 119, 127, 128, 162, 165, 162 see also jeans Denim Council 172 department store 29, 46, 58, 73, 74, 121, 122, 172 Devil’s Doorway 229 Diamond chair 176, 177 Dietrich, Marlene 121 Diné 210, 219 see also Navajo Dior, Christian 137, 138, 139, 155, 203 Disney, Walt 239, 240 Disneyland 240–2 divided skirt 29, 32, 33, 121, 208 DIY (do-it-yourself) 144, 145, 158, 203 Dolores Resort Wear 218 Domino, Fats 171 drag racing 166, 201 dude ranch 36, 37, 41, 89, 118, 121, 129 Dude Rancher 36, 100 Duel in the Sun 222 DuPont 72, 185 Ebony 141, 174 Eichner, Joanne 209 Eloesser-Heynemann Company 102
305
Enstad, Nan 20 Erekosima, T.V. 209 Esquire 139, 142 Evans, Dale 88 Exhibition of Industrial Art in Textiles and Costumes 212 exoticism 57, 224, 234, 246 F-word 8, 247 Farm Security Administration 30, 119 fatherhood 142, 156, 157 Faye Creations 219 feathered headdress 1, 231 Fell, Theron 55 femininity anxieties about 90, 114, 117 conventions of 29, 32, 34, 114, 128, 129, 158 Findlay, John 80 Ford, Henry 39 Ford, John 84, 124 Fort Sumner 219 Francaviglia, Richard 240 Frank, Thomas 180, 205 Freeth, George 194 Friedan, Betty 117 frontier in American studies 9, 247 mythology 12, 23, 71, 77, 79, 86, 196, 205, 226, 240, 246 thesis 6, 8, 211, 215 Frontier Lady (Lee) 124, 125, 176, 182, 184 frontier pants 93, 124, 129, 131 Frontierland 13, 207, 239–43, 245 G.I Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act) 77 Gaines, Jane 84 Ganteaume, Cécile 233 garment industry 62, 142, 204 Garment Workers of America 48 Gates, Henry Lewis 9 Gates, Merrill 238 gauntlets 1, 16, 37 Gelber, Steven 144 Gelder, Ken 161 Genat, Robert 202 gender 8, 9, 20, 26, 28, 32, 40, 112, 117, 118, 121, 147, 158, 163, 170, 199, 228 see also femininity and masculinity General Electric 72, 81 Gentlemen’s Quarterly 155 George Warren, Holly (and Michelle Friedman) 4 Giedion, Siegfried 39
306
Index
Goddard, Martha LeBaron 238 Gold Rush 38, 79, 80, 131, 172 Gonzales, Dolores 218 Good Neighbor Policy 215 Goodan, Till 86, 87 Gordon, Elizabeth 76 Grannis, Leroy 194, 195 Great Moments in Rodeo 98, 114, 116 Greenough, James “Turk” 54, 95 Greensboro, North Carolina 4, 45, 62, 63 Gunning, Tom 83
Indian Motorcycles 231 Indigenous art and design 13, 56, 207, 210, 212, 226, 231, 234, 245 makers 56, 210, 213, 219, 227, 234 representation 7, 56, 57, 207, 208, 209–14, 225, 226–34, 245 see also Native American International Style 42, 76 Irwin, John 194, 162 Isenstadt, Sandy 76 Ivy Style 176
H-Bomb Ferguson 78 H.D. Lee Mercantile Company 46, 47, 49, 50, 55 see also Lee hair boys 203, 204 hair on hide 53, 105, 106, 108, 110 Haley, Bill 171 Hall, Stuart 5 Halsman, Philippe 129 Hamley’s 17, 58 Handley, William (and Nathaniel Lewis) 9 Hanford reactor 80, 82 Hanson, James 210 Harding (blanket pattern) 235, 236 Harper’s Bazaar 78, 105, 108, 119, 127 Hawaii 194, 195 Hepburn, Katharine 121 Herzog, Charlotte 266 heteronormativity 26, 90, 158 Hevly, Bruce 80 hillbilly 93, 94, 79 Hine, Thomas 72 hip consumerism 180, 205 hobby craft 231 Hollywood 83, 84, 121, 122, 127–9, 137, 139, 165, 166, 172, 204, 213, 229, 238 homestead act 47, 77 Hopalong Cassidy 88–90 Hopi 220, 221, 234 hot rod 200, 201, 203, 204 hot rodders 12, 162, 193, 201–5 House Beautiful 76 huaraches 197 Hudson, Charles Crump 62 Hudson’s Bay Company 56, 236 Hutchinson, Elizabeth 211
Jackson Sundown (Waaya-Tonah-Toesits-Kahn) 59, 213 jacquard 56, 60, 210, 235 jamaica shorts 188 Jantzen 131 Jeanies 186 jeans and American identity 38, 39, 40, 128, 162 cowboys wearing 41, 83, 84, 156 origins of 38, 39 for women 121–8, 163, 164, 176 as workwear 45, 47, 121, 122, 155 158 and youth culture 162–5, 172, 173, 192, 193, 196 Jelt Denim 52 Jerome of Arizona 219 Jones, Angelina 219 Justin boots 243 juvenile delinquent 166, 196
I Love Lucy 127 I. Magnin 29 Indian Arts and Crafts Act 210 Indian head corn meal 231
L-85 restrictions 61 LaChapelle, Peter 94 Ladd, Alan 226 Lady Lee Riders (style #331) 123, 124
Kansas 22, 23 Chetopa 233 City 17, 47, 54, 233 Salina 4, 45, 47, 48 Kaplan, Wendy 42 Karman 68 Keene, Adrienne 208 Keith, Slim 128, 129 khakis 172, 176, 197, 200, 202 Khrushchev, Nikita 73 kidney belt 169 King, Thomas 19 Kirkham, Pat 122 kitchen debate 73, 168, 169 Klein, Kerwin 9 Knoll 176 Kouwenhoven, John 39
Index
Lady Levi’s 121 123 Lady Westerner 138, 139, 155, 184 Larson, Leonard 68, 69 Latin America 215 Lazy-S 108, 111, 123 leatherwork 134, 231 Lee company history 46–50 and rodeo 54, 100, 101 and technology 52, 53 and war effort 48, 55 and Western identity 50–2, 101, 104, 138, 182 see also H.D. Lee Mercantile Company Lee cowboy pants (101 Cowboy Waist Overalls) 51, 52, 53, 102 Lee Riders 155, 173, 174, 182, 54, 100, 102, 104, 109 Lee Westerners 125, 126, 138, 139, 155, 156, 175, 176, 180 181, 182, 185 Lee, Henry David 46 Lesser, Tina 119 Levi Strauss 38, 39 Levi Strauss & Co. 45, 105, 107 company history 38–40 and tradition 53 and Western identity 41, 85, 86, 100 Levittown 76 Libby’s Tomato Juice 84, 85 Liebes, Dorothy 130 Linderman, Bill 75 Little Richard (Richard Penniman) 171 Lloyd Wright, Frank 76 Lohrmann, Charles 56 London, Jack 194 Lone Ranger 88 Look 75, 88, 89, 92, 166 lounging robe 58, 146 Louvin Brothers 79, 91 Lucas, Shirley 127 lurex 1, 2, 207 McCardell, Claire 119 McGinnis, Vera 32–4, 36 Mackenzie, Kent 238 Macy’s 36, 121 Mademoiselle 127, 178, 180 Madison Square Garden Rodeo 34 Maidenform 114, 115, 158 manifest destiny 211 Marez, Curtis 199 Marlboro man 84, 85, 111 Marling, Karal Ann 114, 137 Martin, Richard 119
307
masculinity 5, 155, 156, 227 archetypal depictions 85, 233, 246 crisis of 25, 116, 117, 144, 159, 214 Maxwell, Vera 119 May, Kirse Granat 198 Meagher, Fred L. 229 Mears, Patricia 176 Mexico 3, 6, 16, 215 Miller Stockman 4, 5, 45, 135, 149, 151, 157, 182, 192, 219, 227 catalogs 58, 67, 149, 150, 152, 157, 162, 168, 169, 183, 210, 211, 228 company history 64–8 Stockman Farmer Supply Co. 64 Western shirts 65–7, 149–52 Miller, Phillip 68 Mitchell, Lee Clark 9, 22, 111 Mix, Tom 11, 82, 83, 236 moccasins 189, 215, 229, 231 modern architecture 76, 77, 185 design 77, 78, 105, 119, 130, 159, 176, 185, 205 lifestyles 118, 131, 139, 141, 159, 239 modernism 38, 76, 78 regional modernism 128 vernacular modernism 113, 141, 159, 248 modernity 1, 10, 11, 12, 38, 158, 159, 176, 207, 248 Modess 163, 164 Mojave Desert 200 Monroe, Marilyn 128, 129 Monsanto 185 Montana 9, 24, 29, 30, 36, 83, 145, 213, 214 Montgomery Ward 17, 24, 64, 198 motorcycle 165, 175 Mulhall, Lucille 26 Nabisco 229 Nardis of Dallas 105, 108 National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum 101 National Recovery Act 122 nationalism 5, 11, 71 Native American appropriation 208–10, 225, 226 design 13, 56–8, 207, 210, 226, 231, 245 representation 7, 213–14, 225, 226–34, 245 in rodeo 26, 59, 213, 214 Native appropriations 208 nautical style 122 Navajo 208, 210, 211, 219, 220, 234 see also Diné New Era 190, 191 New Look 136–8, 143, 147, 163, 215, 217, 224, 225
308
Index
New Mexico 65, 79, 109, 128, 219 New West 80, 142 New Western History 8, 247 New York Times 165, 186, 187 New, Lloyd Kiva (Lloyd Kiva) 219 Nez Percé 213, 234 Nixon, Richard 73 Nottage, James, H. 113 nuclear family 74 testing 79, 248 threat 72, 78, 111, 112 Nudie suit (Nudie the Rodeo Tailor) 93, 94, 134, 152, 237 O’Keefe, Georgia 128 Oakley, Annie 26, 28, 36 Oregon Trail 47, 55 Osage 231, 233 Pachuco 199 pacific northwest 59, 131, 162, 234 Page, Anita 235, 236 Palm Springs 29, 14, 142 Paredes, Americo 20 Parezo, Nancy 219 patio (definition) 224 patio dress 13, 219, 224 pedal pushers 186 Peiss, Kathy 20 Pendleton 49er 131, 132, 157, 178, 243 blanket design 56–8, 234–6 company history 55–61 and Disneyland 239–45 and Indigenous community 56–8, 59, 245 and rodeo 58, 59 and war effort 61–2 Pendleton Round-Up 1, 59, 188, 207 Pendleton Woolen Mills 55, 58, 61, 240, 242 Penick, Monica 76 Perfecto (one star) 166, 167 Perkins, Carl 186 Pickford, Mary 34 picture window 76 Pierce, Webb 94 pink 121, 152, 153 pioneer 24, 33, 77, 80 Piro “Killer Joe” 192 Plains Indian Motif 233 playing Indian 212, 222, 231 Pollock, Jackson 162 pompadour 172, 203
Popover dress 119 Populuxe 72, 75, 159 Portland, Oregon 4, 45, 57, 59, 60, 70, 131 prairie dress 27 Presley, Elvis 152, 171, 203 Preston, Jimmie 171 primitivism 212, 213, 225 Princess Fair 189, 190 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association 58 Proximity Cotton Mill 163 Pueblo 220, 224 Quant, Mary 180 Quigley, E.B. 145 racism 8, 22, 208, 225 railroad 7, 11, 45, 47, 48, 62, 63, 194 Ramirez, Catherine 20 ranch house 76, 77 Rand, Sally 54 Rand, Ted 131, 178 Rawnsley, Joseph 56, 234 ready-to-wear 5, 38, 42 and jeans 38, 39, 40 midcentury industry 117–18, 130 and Native American inspiration 207, 219 westernwear presence 65, 94, 113, 132, 158, 160, 188–9 Rebel Without a Cause165, 166 Red Tab 41 red-baiting 171, 229 regalia 1, 207, 234 Reno, Nevada 37–9 resort fashions 35, 36, 88, 118, 122, 126, 186, 194, 219 vacations 118, 121 Reynolds, Chester 48, 52, 101 Rhea, Regan 166, 174 rhythm and blues 171 Richland, Washington 80, 81 Riley, Marge 29, 31 Roberts, Jennifer 206 rock’n’roll fans 172, 192, 195 music 80, 170, 171, 197, 204 reactions to 170, 171, 202 style 171, 172 rockabilly 225, 79 Rockmount Ranchwear 18, 68, 153 rodeo 37 94, 97, 99, 100, 154 fashions 30–1, 100, 151, 154 Indigenous participation 1, 59, 213, 214 women’s participation 27, 32–5, 126
Index
Rodeo Ben (Bernard Lichtenstein) 18, 19, 94–7, 99, 134, 149, 236 rodeo queen 32 Rogers, Roy 88, 92 Rogers, Will 26, 213 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 215 Roosevelt, Theodore 25 Rosaldo, Renato 211 Rose, Phil 88 Rothstein, Arthur 29, 30 Rudofsky, Bernard 159 Russell, Charles 9 Saddleman 85, 86, 100, 243 sailor blouse 35, 122 Salina, Kansas 4, 45, 47, 48 Sampson, Ellen 18 San Francisco 38, 40, 50, 102 sanforization 53, 63 Saturday Evening Post 49, 50, 142, 242 Scenes 194 Schiaparelli, Elsa 121 Schnee, Ruth Adler 78 Schott 166, 169 science fiction (sci-fi) 78, 79 Scott, William, R. 141, 159 Sears Roebuck 64, 168 Seventeen 115, 135, 137, 163, 164, 173, 176–82, 186, 187, 189, 191, 215, 217 Shane 226, 227 Ship’n Shore 189, 192 Shorthorn (label) 105, 107, 123, 153 showgirl 35, 54 Shredded Wheat 229 Simonsen, Jane 238 Sioux 23, 219 Sir Pendleton 142 Slotkin, Richard 24 Smith, Paul Chaat 208 Smith, Warren 79, 91 snaps 18 Snow, Carmel 119 Sorensen, Berva Dawn 126, 127 Southern California Automobile Club 194 Southwest artists in 128 fashions 218, 219 Indigenous communities 219, 220, 224, 234 space exploration (space age) 3, 80, 171, 191 Spanish colonial architecture 76, 224 garment styles 3, 24, 37, 208
sportswear 12, 69, 88 and American identity 215, 248 definitions of 42, 118, 119, 248, 159 Western influence 113, 114, 133–6, 147, 149, 158, 185, 189, 190 and the youth market 189, 190, 198, 203, 191 Sportswear Round-Up 141 square dancing 218 squaw (racial slur) 207, 215, 223 squaw dress 217–20, 222, 224 see also patio dress stagecoach 16, 124, 187, 189 Standing Bear, Luther 238 Stansgaard Displays 145 Starr, Kevin 38 Stayton, Kevin 77 Steele, Valerie 247 Stetson 24, 243 stiletto heel 135, 157 Straight Arrow 229, 230 Strauss, Levi 38 stretch 182, 184–6 see also stretch denim studs (spots) 31, 165–8 studded belt (riding belt, dress belt, jewel belt) 168, 169 subculture 161, 225, 194, 206 definitions of 161, 203 suburban housing 75, 76, 77 lifestyle 41, 116, 118, 142, 165, 218, 225 Sun Ray of Arizona 219, 220, 222 Sundown, Jackson 59, 213 Sunset 36, 41, 84, 85, 105, 138, 142, 144, 213, 215 Sunset Strip 195 Sunweights 142, 143 surfers 12, 162, 193, 194–8, 205, 206 surplus (army and navy) 194, 200, 202, 203 synthetic textiles 1, 66, 72, 78, 185, 220 Tanning, Dorothea 128 teenagers 152, 164, 165, 166, 172–4, 176, 186, 192, 201 Texas 21, 22, 35, 36, 100 105, 109, 127, 145, 146, 192 The Beach Boys 197, 198, 204 The Birth of Hot Rodding 202 The Cowboy’s Lament (The Streets of Laredo) 206 The Exiles 238, 239 The Majorettes 196 The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit 117 The Pirouettes 192 The Pumphouse Gang 195, 196
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310
The Twist 192 The White Sentinel 171 The Wild One 165, 166 The Women 37 The Wrangler Stretch 179, 180, 192, 193, 196 Tibbs, Casey 97, 100, 101, 151, 154, 155 Time 138 toboggan coat 235, 236 Tompkins, Jane 23, 25, 228 trade blanket 55, 56, 234 Traje de Charro 16 True West 225 Tucson Jacket 60, 129, 131 Turk, Nathan 93, 134, 135, 136, 236 turnabout skirt 131, 157, 178 Turner, Frederick Jackson 6, 8, 9, 160 Twistalene 220, 222 twitch (hot-iron branded cowhide label) 102, 107–9, 111, 123, 124 U-shaped saddle crotch 53, 68, 97, 173 Umatilla reservation 55, 224, 234 Union Carbide 78, 79 Union-All 47–50, 52, 55, 156 United States Surfing Association 194 uranium 77, 79, 80 USA Confidential 170 USSR 72, 228 Valadez, John 201 vanishing race 211 vaquero 16, 17, 23, 82, 168 Virgil, James Diego 199, 200 Vogue 36, 78, 121 Vreeland, Diana 119, 180 Wagoner, Porter 94 Wallace China Company 86 Ward, Faye E. 68 Wardle, Marian 11, 71 Warshow, Robert 82 Washougal, Washington 58, 61, 62 Wayne, John 83 wear-testing (product testing) 69, 95 Weil, Jack 65, 68 WESA (Western & English Sales Association) 66 west and American identity 6, 7, 37, 128 definitions of 5, 6, 9–11 landscape 10, 61, 76, 84, 95, 104, 213, 243 mythology 12, 71, 77, 246
Index
Western (movies) 7, 37, 82–4, 112, 149, 155, 213, 223, 226, 228, 236 Western Costume 82 western design 41, 42, 114, 129, 134, 139, 157, 189, 192 Western Gambler 60 western shirts 18–21, 65, 84, 114, 149, 151, 152, 153, 157, 158, 184 westernwear definition 2, 10 functionality 2, 15, 17–20, 40, 205 tailors 18, 19, 93–7, 99 134–6, 149, 152, 236, 237 reactions to 24, 113, 149 Westward-Ho 86, 87, 105 Westways 194 westweave 180 white Levi’s 196 White, Shane & Graham 20 Wiechman, Berthé 131 Wild West Show 12, 22, 27, 37, 213 Wildbill, Phillip xii, 1, 207 William Hart 83 Wilson, Jackie 171 Wilson, Kristina 77 Wilson, Laurel 4 Wilson, Sloane 117 winos 199 Wolfe, Tom 162, 195, 196, 203 Women’s Wear Daily 220, 223 workwear advertising 49, 50, 73, 74, 139, 140, 155 and fashion 69, 119, 128, 132, 162, 160, 186 manufacture 45, 47, 53, 62, 63, 68, 94, 95, 96, 102, 122, 145 visibility 46, 64, 163 World War I 34, 48, 50, 213 Wrangler 11-MWZ 94, 97 company history 64, 94–8 and rodeo 98–100, 116, 126, 127 women’s jeans 125, 126, 187, 188, 189 Wrangler Stretch 192, 193 see also Blue Bell Wrangler of Cheyenne 135, 137 Yakama 219 Young Pendleton 178, 179 youth culture 161, 162, 179, 180 youthquake 180 zippers 52, 94, 124 Zuni 220, 234, 238
311
312
313
314
315
316