In days of yore, men wore suits everywhere. It wasn’t just when going to work or out on the town.
And while climate change is a thing, it still got hot during the summer back in the day.
And although air conditioning was invented in 1901, it wasn’t until the 40’s that it was feasible to put it in middle class homes, and probably not until the late 60s that it became common.
Now when I wear a suit, I easily get uncomfortably hot during the brutal summer season. And that’s just because I have to walk from an air conditioned car to an air conditioned building.
Yet in the early 20th century you even see men suited up at the ballgame.
So how did they tolerate this dress code? Were suits made of a different fabric? Did people just not sweat the same way?
One thing I’ve noticed is that early 20th century men’s shirts had detachable collars. I’m guessing that was a way to make your shirt appear “clean and white” when the part under the jacket isn’t. So maybe the suits were just all wrinkled and dirty, and the people stunk?
I’m curious about your thoughts. Thanks to all who reply.
In 1901 by many reports, the world stunk. BO and bad breath was the norm and streets were still filled with horse and dog shit.
People probably just figured sweating was part of life and put up with it. I’m a wimp when it comes to heat, I don’t think I could have tolerated it.
BTW: weird tidbit I picked up way back in my HVAC days. Jefferson had put in a rudimentary cooling system into the White House using a lot of ice from the Potomac in a cellar like an icehouse and natural convection to bring the cool (but still moist) air up into the main floors.
Even today, not everyone grew up with air conditioning. If it gets hot, you sweat. (Conversely, Nanook of the North was not pulling on a jumper as soon as the temperature dropped below 75 degrees.) That said, you can also wear a suit made of a lighter fabric (really thin wool…)
There are places where people still look askance at men wearing shorts on a hot summer day. These old people talk about “when they were still in short pants”. You were expected to do what was expected and not kvetch.
Of course, there are ways to get relief. White and lighter colours reflect more heat. Summer suits made of silk or seersucker or other things are more comfortable than warm wool. You can take off the top, undo the top button, lose the cravat, roll up the sleeves. I’d think nothing of a short sleeve with a tie. But I think many shirts had a button above the elbow to formally roll one’s sleeves up.
I think there was a large element of acclimatization that went on; people back then were entirely un-airconditioned, so they were largely used to it. And it was cooler back then somewhat- they didn’t often see temperatures above 100, unlike today. Even today, there are fairly large differences in temperatures between cities- many parts of the country outside of the Southwest and Gulf Coast aren’t that hot most of the time during the summer.
Also, depending on where you were, there were things like seersucker suits or linen suits which were cooler than wool.
For the last 36 years I’ve either lived in Texas or Arkansas and you just get used to the heat. I sometimes hear people complaining that it’s too hot to wear jeans outside which just seems odd to me. Don’t get me wrong, I sweat just like everyone else, but I suppose I’m just used to it and it doesn’t bother me.
In Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay, about the US Army during the Plains Wars, recruits were issued two all-wool union suits which they wore year-round. They simply lived in their own micro-environment regardless.
Of course this had its limits. The French wore the same greatcoats in the Algerian summer that they’d worn in Russia 20 years earlier, and the US wore wool shirts in Cuba that they’d worn in the Dakotas. In both cases men collapsed and died.
In Washington Goes to War, David Brinkley recalls a Capitol building with no air conditioning. Congressmen wore summer whites of linen or flannel. They took them to the Sunshine Laundry, where the stitching was removed, the panels hand-washed, and laid flat on the roof to dry & bleach in the sun.
In another book I read, an Englishman serving in the Raj recalled that a boiled shirt was cooler than a soft one, because it stood off from the skin and one could freely sweat.
Gentlemen wore straw hats against the sun’s rays, but woe was he who wore one too far into September.
Of course, in the true tropics it was acceptable to wear a pith helmet, which could be soaked overnight and would cool through evaporation. Though not a colonial power, the Austro-Hungarians nonetheless had some of their own, which they adorned with some clever quilting for the puggary.
This statement is very much out of context. It has nothing to do with adult men wearing shorts.
“When they were still in short pants” isn’t about recreational or sports outfits with “shorts.” It refers to the fact that in the Olden Days, little boys wore short pants. They graduated to long trousers when they got older. It’s still done in upper class British circles:
“It’s a very English thing to dress a young boy in shorts,” British etiquette expert William Hanson told Bazaar. “Trousers are for older boys and men, whereas shorts on young boys is one of those silent class markers that we have in England. Although times are (slowly) changing, a pair of trousers on a young boy is considered quite middle class–quite suburban. And no self-respecting aristo or royal would want to be considered suburban.”
"Most boys graduate to full-length trousers at about 8 years old, Hanson explained. He said the shorts-only tradition may stem from the antiquated custom of “breeching,” which dates back centuries in the U.K.
This isn’t discussing 2016. How many men at the casual ballgame are wearing shorts? Even T-shirts were not initially accepted as public wear in the 1950s. And you can wear shorts in more places now, and more people in more countries do. But you might be presumed a tourist in some places, or thought poorly dressed or immature, or not be very welcome in the local church unless your knees are covered.
I’m just really glad those days are over. Women had to wear hats and gloves to go out in public, and then had to wear suits and ties and hats. Frankly, it was sort of ridiculous. Different times I guess.
What I really wonder about is how women coped back in the days of corsets and multiple layers of skirts coming down to at least the ankle, especially lower-class women who actually had to WORK, not just drape themselves on the parlor sofa as ornamentally as they could.
If what I learned from image-searching it is correct, that first photo in the OP is of Calvin Coolidge throwing out the first ball of the 1924 World Series, in early October. So, not really an example of summer heat.
“Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”
I started as a small child living in Texas in a house without air conditioning. And yes, even as children we had to get dressed up for church, and put on our good clothes to go shopping or the doctor.
Without air conditioning, you acclimated. It wasn’t just 72 degrees inside and 95 outside. You had all spring to get used to increasingly warmer temperatures.
That said, our fathers got out of those suits as soon as they got home. Those old TV shows you see where the mothers are in dresses and the fathers are in suits or at least sports coats in the evenings? Nuh-uh. At home clothes were a lot more comfortable.
