I’ve seen this only twice, and both were on TV. In one ep of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” Jethro is wearing this big furry-looking coat when he becomes a “freshman” somewhere. And in the cartoon “Raw! Raw! Rooster,” Foghorn Leghorn’s old annoying college “pal” Rhode Island Red comes to visit, and he’s wearing the same sort of outfit as he’s singing “Freddy the Freshman.”
So how did that outfit become associated with freshmen?
Not just freshman - it was meant to suggest “collegiate”. What you are referring to is a raccoon coat, which actually WAS in style in the 1920’s, particularly with college kids, and people who wanted to look like them. This was lots of people, “collegiate” fashion being in at the time. Not that all students wore the things, or wore them all the time, but it survived as an emblem.
Ah, they’re 1920’s style “raccoon coats”.
Well, someone had to do it
precious.
They looked great with a straw hat (or a freshman beanie), a ukulele, a canoe, and a sweetheart, too.
From the 1927 novelty soing Doin’ the Raccoon:
College men, knowledge men,
Do a dance called raccoon;
It’s the craze, nowadays,
And it will get you soon.
Buy a coat and try it,
I’ll bet you’ll be a riot,
It’s a wow, learn to do it right now!
Oh, they wear 'em down at Princeton,
And they share 'em up at Yale,
They eat in them at Harvard,
But they sleep in them in jail!
At Penn, they’re made of rabbit,
At Vassar, sex appeal,
At Nebraska, made of airedale,
In Chicago lined with steel!
From Collegiate Sam (1928):
His raccoon coat - his raccoon coat - is ally cat! Meow!
They threw him out - they threw him out - of every frat.
From Collegiate Love (1929):
If you want to get her goat,
You’ll have to buy a raccoon coat,
For that’s – collegiate love!
Don’t forget the hip flask. And if you were a girl you strut around in unbuckled galoshes, flapper-style. Honest.
Ahh, the good ol’ days.
Straw hats were for spring and summer! P-u-lease!
The racoon coat made a comeback in the early 1960’s, but we settled with just a huge racoon collar. I think I was a college sophomore.
Hold on, Zoe. I won’t bet the farm on this, but – I think the boater straw, like the coat, was an identifier that defied the normally strict rules of fashion seasonality. IIRC, I’ve seen the coat + hat combo often. Like I posted, this was also the period when girls wore floppy galoshes with not a cloud in the sky.
23-Skidoo! Oh, you kid! You’re the cat’s pajamas!
Ah, memories.
Of someone else. I ain’t THAT old. :rolleyes:
. . . Well, if we are going to get really historically picky here, the term “flapper” had nothing to do with the 1920s or galoshes. It was used as early as 1900, referring to fluttery, butterfly-like society girls.
The PIPE! Don’t forget the PIPE!
A new collegiate can’t be a sophisticated intellectual unless he’s seen smoking a pipe!
Doubtful. I tried that once in college, and I swear my I.Q. went down 20 points.
You think it could have been the corncob? 
Corncobs are for hillbillies.
You needed a Briar, or Meerschaum.
There’s actually an old Garfield figurine of him in a raccoon coat with a boat skimmer holding a pennant that says “GO!” It’s kind of cute, in a hideous-omg-horrible-fashion way.
And the bee’s knees, too.
One added feature of the raccoon coat was that to be truly fashionable, it had to be full length - practically dragging on the ground behind you. The things must have weighed a bloody ton, and I have no idea how many raccoons it took to make a coat.
Walloon
Great photo. What are they wearing under the coat? I see the neck tie and shirt, but what is that big white curtain they have draped on them under the coat?
On three of them anyway.
LL
Oh god, I can only imagine walking across campus with one of those coats on today. Would PETA kill you or only maim you?
“Big white curtain”? They’re wearing white, button-up varsity sweaters under their raccoon coats (Wisconsin’s colors are cardinal red and white). The photo was probably taken on a fall day before or after attending a football game.