# Back when men wore suits all the time, how did they handle the summer heat?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 15, 2024, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926 "2024-06-15T22:03:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/21 "2024-06-16T01:29:33Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> Also, depending on where you were, there were things like [seersucker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seersucker) suits or linen suits which were cooler than wool.
And there are (and were) ways to make a wool suit that’s more comfortable in warm weather: use a lightweight fabric, leave the back of the jacket unlined.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/22 "2024-06-16T01:47:35Z")
ISTR reading somewhere that above a certain temperature/sunlight level, clothing like the traditional Arab kind actually keeps you more comfortable, as it’s something like insulation against the sun and heat. Apparently it’s pretty loose-fitting, so there’s lots of airflow, but not much of you is exposed.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/23 "2024-06-16T01:50:44Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> The French wore the same greatcoats in the Algerian summer that they’d worn in Russia 20 years earlier
Hasidic Jewish men still dress this way year-round - even in Israel.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/24 "2024-06-16T02:17:15Z")
According to something I read by Frederick Forsyth, since Roman times the average weight carried by soldiers had averaged 60 lbs., daily marches 16 miles. That would make a difference while wearing a heavy wool coat.
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### Author:  [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/25 "2024-06-16T02:29:04Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> Apparently it’s pretty loose-fitting, so there’s lots of airflow, but not much of you is exposed.
Yes, it’s like your clothes are fanning you.
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### Author:  [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/26 "2024-06-16T02:31:24Z")
> [@needscoffee](#):
>
> it must not have been _that_ hot.
Maybe not when that particular photo was taken, but the OP’s point is that men used to wear suits everywhere - regardless of season, you wouldn’t see men wearing suits in the bleachers at a ball game today.
I confess I’m a bit perplexed. I’m old enough to remember when men wore suits most of the time, but it does seem like an awful burden in summer, pre-AC. Fans, lightweight material, and a stiff upper lip got people through, I guess?
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/27 "2024-06-16T03:22:51Z")
Wow. You have completely missed my point.
Never mind.
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### Author:  [@Retzbu\_Tox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Retzbu_Tox)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/28 "2024-06-16T04:11:09Z")
When researching a historical article about a local movie theatre that had previously been a vaudeville house, I found that there had been an upstairs room for ice blocks and fans to provide a cool draft descending through the building. So, not just places like the White House were ice-cooled before there was air-conditioning, but even neighborhood theatres in small towns.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/29 "2024-06-16T09:06:01Z")
Officers of the Royal Navy could wear “Red Sea rig” to formal-dress events while serving in the Near East: black-tie attire with a red bow tie, red cummerbund, and no jacket.
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### Author:  [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/30 "2024-06-16T09:32:23Z")
Yep. I still remember being surprised when I encountered that in an early issue of Spider-Man as a kid. Aunt May was worried about Peter catching a chill and suggested he switch to his winter-weight suit. Pete, in the early issues, always rocked a blue 2-piece suit with yellow sweater-vest and a tie. You know, like most high school freshmen.
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### Author:  [@GailForce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GailForce)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/31 "2024-06-16T09:46:10Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> a rudimentary cooling system into the White House using a lot of ice from the Potomac in a cellar like an icehouse
How did this work? I mean to say, there ain’t no ice in the Potomac in August so wouldn’t the ice from February have long since melted by the summer? I 've never really understood the concept of ice houses–in the summertime, ice melts.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/32 "2024-06-16T13:12:05Z")
3 posts were merged into an existing topic: [How Ice Houses worked. A Linked reply from the suits thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-ice-houses-worked-a-linked-reply-from-the-suits-thread/1002941/2)
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### Author:  [@sboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sboy)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/33 "2024-06-16T13:16:11Z")
People must have acclimated to the heat, and then slowed way down in activity. I have read numerous books about the civil war and many of those plantation owners remarked that it “would be impossible for white people to work in cotton fields in the sultry southern heat” I do not know how people got any work done in the south in summer,… I LOVE ac!
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/34 "2024-06-16T13:16:20Z")
> [@Toxylon](#):
>
> Huge blocks of ice in the shade covered with insulative material such as sawdust last a surprisingly long time.
As a teenager in the early 1960s, I worked in a London pub and we had ice delivered two or three times a week during the summer. The delivery truck was open-backed and the ice was covered with sacking. The driver and his mate used sharp hooks to lift the blocks and slide them down into the cellar.
It takes a surprising amount of energy to convert H2O from a solid to a liquid.
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### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/35 "2024-06-16T14:21:09Z")
I’m gonna need AC when I move down from elevation. Currently 46F outside 66 inside. I’m in shorts. Just got back from talking to a neighbor outside.
You can adjust to cold as well as heat it seems.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/36 "2024-06-16T14:36:20Z")
> [@GailForce](#):
>
> I 've never really understood the concept of ice houses–in the summertime, ice melts.
It doesn’t melt all at once.
You can try the experiment yourself. Take a single ice cube and lay it out on the sun next to a pile of ice cubes. Do both sides run out of ice at the same time?
Now take even more ice (like big honking sheets of it) and store it in a basement and keep the sun off it, and it lasts even longer. Sure, some of it melts. And sure, it doesn’t necessarily last the entire summer (especially really hot ones). But stock them up, and there’s a good chance of having some left over by the time things cool.
As to the thread, people sweat and the smell was incredible. Sure, there was some acclimatization, but ultimately it was hot and they just dealt with it.
I recall recently reading about JFKs moon speech, which he gave in Houston in mid-September at a football stadium. While some parts of the country might start cooling by mid-September, it was still reportedly about 90 degrees that day and some other people on the stand (all wearing suits of course) said they were all sweating profusely, some through their clothes. It was not any more pleasant in the audience with less airflow and crowded by other people, except perhaps for a few who were in the shade.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/37 "2024-06-16T17:16:52Z")
When I volunteered in Vietnam one December, it was a drizzly day in the mid-70s F. I was delighted because that was at least 16° cooler than the day before. The student who escorted me to the university shivered in her down parka wirh the hood up and apologized for the freezing cold. The driver had the heat on. When I worked in the Middle East, I only had a fan and my classrooms only had windows. You acclimate.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/38 "2024-06-16T21:19:58Z")
It’s one of history’s ironies that the global economy was developed by dour, Protestant Britons and Dutchmen who adopted drab, heavy business suits during the Little Ice Age. And because the attire reflected a moral philosophy as much as an adaptation to local climate, the agents of that global economy out in the warmer places where the desired goods could be obtained had to dress the same as the chiefs back in the cold.
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/39 "2024-06-16T21:37:30Z")
While suits were much more common back in the day, it varied. I was once talking with a colleague, and when I told him that my late father always wore a tie and usually a jacket to work in his diner, the colleague said that his father only wore a suit on a few occasions like church and weddings. FWIW his father was a union laborer in Detroit, so there may have been more strict identification with being labor and not management.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2024, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/back-when-men-wore-suits-all-the-time-how-did-they-handle-the-summer-heat/1002926/40 "2024-06-16T21:56:58Z")
Watching historical movies, like Gettysburg, an excellent, but long depiction of the battle, I am amazed that all the generals and other commanders and even the soldiers, were wearing heavy wool uniforms and coats.
A very hot 3 days in early July. No one takes their coat, or shirt, or boots, off. They are wearing 20 pounds of clothing and must stay in uniform.
[Gettysburg (1993 film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_(1993_film))
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