[QUOTE=Krokodil]
I own and wear a duster (of dubious authenticity) and may be kidding myself about how widespread their popularity was. Let me point out a couple of things:
–The “Wild West” of Gunsmoke and True Grit and all those “Singin’ Cowboy” movies only existed for about ten years, circa 1875-1885. Most of those terrific photos in your link were from later, and were of soldiers, settlers and prospectors.
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Actually, the photos are from 1861 on. There are many taken prior to 1885. The photos are listed in chronological order under each category, so it’s very easy to find the older ones. As to subject matter – we have to take our photographic evidence as we find it. Working cowboys and outlaws would be some of the subjects least likely to be memorialized by early photography, which tended to record landscapes (several photographers were sent West by Congress in the 1870s to bring back pictorial information about the land) or people in formal poses, often wearing their best clothes. To the extent early photos of working cowboys exist, they don’t substantiate widespread use of dusters. Although for all we know, maybe they just didn’t have them on when the pictures were taken.
Well, you got me there. No pictures in rainstorms, you’re right. However, I would note that the duster as used in the movies isn’t generally used as a raincoat or only worn in a rainstorm. (Even if we concede it was basically a raincoat, which I don’t think is correct; a raincoat at that time would be made of oilcloth, though certainly it could have been “duster” in cut and style.)
Well, the question as I read it was whether dusters were actually widely worn in the Old West. As far as I know, based on photographs and what was known of the economic circumstances of those people shown wearing them in the movies – cowboys and outlaws – the answer is probably “no.” If you want to limit the inquiry to wealthy bankrobbers in the fall in a rainstorm, fine with me; but I doubt you’ll find much evidence one way or the other.
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I think there were some, too. It’s not like the duster is an inauthentic piece of clothing that didn’t exist at the time. It existed, and some people wore it. But not everybody wore it, as sometimes seems the case from these movies. And the known circumstances of life in the West would seem to indicate that those most frequently shown wearing them – young men, poor men, transient men – would probably be among the least likely to own one.
It’s also worth noting that Sergio Leone’s Wild West was not particularly authentic. It was a backlash against the 1950s American cowboy genre (the “Singing Cowboys” you referenced), where cowboys were clean and polite and sang songs around the campfire, a la Roy Rogers. Leone’s characters were diametrically the opposite: dirty, violent, and mean. He was wildly successful in creating what we now consider the “flavor” of the old west, but he didn’t necessarily succeed, or even try, to recreate the truth of it.