# College students wearing fur coats **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950 "2010-06-12T20:23:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2010, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/21 "2010-06-13T06:48:05Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Naw, I’m just talking out of my ass. I bet you’re right, though. Even now, some of the older buildings here at UM have wonky heat. The building my school is housed in is four years old and everything is new and works right, but I took a class in the School of Education (which is housed in what I think is one of the older buildings on campus) and realized how spoiled I am. In the winter, the hallways are broiling and the classrooms are freezing. I bet the heating system _sucked_ eighty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2010, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/22 "2010-06-13T08:46:13Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Got a cite for the claim that classrooms and dorm rooms weren’t heated? > > It’s quite true that early **cars** weren’t heated, and AIUI, raccoon coats first became popular as driving coats. They were also cozy in unheated football stadiums in the days before down jackets and Thinsulate. But I’m having a hard time believing that college buildings for the upper-class youth of the Roaring Twenties were not expected to have any heating facilities at all. > > What you describe sounds more like spartan schoolrooms of the 18th and mid-19th centuries. In fact, a quick google search on the subject turns up records of colleges building central heating plants to supply heat throughout their buildings in the decades before the 1920s: > > [Gustavus Adolphus College installs central heating in 1908](http://gustavus.edu/welcome/campushistory.pdf) > > [Bates College installs central heating in 1909](http://abacus.bates.edu/muskie-archives/BatesHistory/campusBLDG.shtml) > > [Huntington College installs central heating in 1918](http://www.huntington.edu/ubhc/publications/ebooks/75years/75years04.htm) > > So while I agree with your general point that people in the 1920s spent more time in non-climate-controlled environments than we do now, I’m not buying the claim that 1920s college students actually slept or attended classes in unheated rooms. The University of Virginia has, to this day, Lawn and Range rooms–the original student rooms from the early 19th Century–available to 4th-year and grad students of demonstrable distinction. They have no central air, heating or toilets (although there is electricity and there are fireplaces and shared bathrooms). Sounds bleak, but these are the most coveted, prestigious rooms in town. I’m sure the arrangement as not unheard of in other old schools in the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/23 "2010-06-14T01:36:12Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Okay, that’s awesome. > > So I’m a grad student, right? I would _love_ it if the undergrads had to wear those hats now. They’d go so well with their leggings-worn-as-pants and Uggs and baggy cargo shorts. I am going to put something in my will, forcing my kids to have to check back in here in the '40’s to see the threads titled: **“College students wearing floppy pants with chains???”** and \*\* “Underwear showing above the pants? Did this ever really happen, or were those old 2D hip hop videos exaggerating?”\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/24 "2010-06-14T01:58:55Z")
The beanie craze was a result of a flood of surplus US army “smokey the bear” campaign hats in WWI. The army adopted the flat “overseas” caps from the French\* (which aquired the perverse nickname of "piss-cutter) because they were easier to fold and tuck away than a bulky brimmed hat. So kids aquired them for pennies and cut the brims off, and it went from there, cutting jagged rims in them, installing propellers, etc. \*which we recently replaced with berets… which were pioneered as military wear by French WWI tankers. For a nation that likes to disparage Frrench military prowess, we sure take a lot of fashion cues from them. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/25 "2010-06-14T17:58:39Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > One of my favorite short stories begins with a young man in college who is quite keen on a raccoon coat. > > [Love is a Fallacy](http://www.jungleisland.net/lovefallacy.html)… Heh. I remember reading that story in high school, but I hadn’t thought of it in years - thanks! Faber College freshmen wear beanies in the movie _Animal House_, which is set in the fall of 1962: [http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/animalhouse19.jpg](http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/animalhouse19.jpg) “I saw a lady wearing a good-looking fur coat and I asked her what animal it was from. She said, ‘It’s a raccoon coat.’ I said, ‘Whoa, it must’ve been _huge_.’” - Steven Wright ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/26 "2010-06-15T14:49:30Z")
You can see most of the fads being talked about in this cartoon from 1931: [Freddy The Freshman](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ur4dKPW8js). As the hippest dude on campus, Freddy wears a beanie and a huge fur coat. \*Who’s got all the girlies chasing him around? Freddy the Freshman, the freshest kid in town! Now, who wrecks all the parties, and turns them upside-down? Freddy the Freshman, the freshest kid in town! He plays the ukulele, he plays the saxophone, And the pretty babies just won’t leave him alone! Who got bounced at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Brown? Freddy the Freshman, the freshest kid in town!\* It’s funny how much collegiate stuff has changed over the years. I remember reading (I think it was in the book of historic college pranks, **If At All Possible, Involve A Cow** , an awesome book if you can find it) that the beanies were taken very, very seriously; a freshman caught without his beanie could be in for some major roughhousing from the upper classes. It was mentioned also that on-campus class rivalry was often between factions of “Odds” and “Evens”, meaning the freshman and junior classes teaming up against the sophomore and senior classes; “Odds” and “Evens” referred to the year in which they would graduate. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/27 "2010-06-15T16:25:57Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > One of my favorite short stories begins with a young man in college who is quite keen on a raccoon coat. > > [Love is a Fallacy](http://www.jungleisland.net/lovefallacy.html) This was written by [Max Shulman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Shulman) best known for his stories about a young teen ager full of angst named Dobie Gillis. These short stories were later turned into the TV series. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/28 "2010-06-15T16:40:30Z")
BTW, “jalopy” is a term which remained current well past the 1920s. Many of them drove “flivvers”. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/29 "2010-06-15T16:48:58Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > The army adopted the flat “overseas” caps from the French\* (which aquired the perverse nickname of "piss-cutter) because they were easier to fold and tuck away than a bulky brimmed hat. When I wore green, the official name for it was a “garrison cap,” but it was universally referred to as a “cunt cap.” I never heard anyone call it a “piss-cutter.” ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/30 "2010-06-15T16:49:04Z")
Frat pledges were wearing beanies during rush week when I was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin 32 years ago, a marked incongruity at the height of the Punk era. I asked one of them what made joining a fraternity worth this. “We get to fuck each others’ little sisters.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950/31 "2010-06-15T18:34:52Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Naw, I’m just talking out of my ass. I’ve been living in an area that experiences fairly mild winters but does not use modern heating or insulation. Even temps in the forties and fifties can become bone-chattering cold when there is no way to warm up, and I’d regularly sleep in hats and gloves. I hear you; I’ve had the same experience in unheated houses in northern India. Many people in places with hot summers but mild winters just put up with shivering indoors for a couple of months rather than bothering with any heating apparatus. Still, I strongly doubt that unheated bedrooms or classrooms would have been generally considered acceptable on New England or Midwestern college campuses in the 1920’s. We’re talking several months of pretty damn cold temperatures here. > [@Krokodil](#): > > The University of Virginia has, to this day, Lawn and Range rooms–the original student rooms from the early 19th Century–available to 4th-year and grad students of demonstrable distinction. They have no central air, heating or toilets (although there is electricity and there are fireplaces and shared bathrooms). Back in the day, though, the fireplaces would actually have been used to heat the rooms. No central heating != no heating at all, necessarily. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-students-wearing-fur-coats/542950.md?page=1)