This link kindly provided by Freddy the Pig in this thread provokes a question concerning clothing habits in the old west. The first paragraph reads:
The first movie I can recall which features dusters is Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) but a quick check on IDBM reveals that:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was released in 1962.
Is there an example earlier than this, and is the wearing of dusters a revisionist idea of what men actually wore in the old west, notwithstanding the summer heat?
Actually, dusters were not widely worn in the West, as portrayed in the movies, because the men shown wearing them in the movies (cowboys and outlaws) would not have been able to afford them IRL.
Here is a great archive link showing dozens of pictures of the Old American West, including many of working cowboys and some outlaws. None are wearing dusters. Ranch owners may have worn them, but working cowboys were young, poor, and transient. As the pictures reflect, when a coat was needed they wore whatever coat they had, probably the only coat they had.
I dont’ remember The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance well enough to know who was wearing the duster(s), but I note that the characters in it (except for Lee Marvin/Liberty Valance) were not of the rootless (and poor) cowboy type later made an archtype in the spaghetti westerns – and inaccurately shown wearing dusters.
The duster had a second life with the coming of the automobile, when it became more widely known and worn everywhere as part of a motoring costume, which would include a duster as well as goggles and cap for the driver or a motoring veil for the lady passengers.
Define “near 125 degrees”. I know that in Arizona I’ve personally survived a day of 122, and a billion days of around 115, 117, etc. (I realize that the majority of places in the west aren’t as hot as Arizona.)
Were they really expensive or something? I recall them being quite popular in the movie Tombstone, which would make sense because the Earps and Doc, as well as a lot of residents of Tombstone would have been fairly wealthy. Perhaps if they were a luxuray item, people wore them despite the heat to show off in addition to the practical value. Like women in Dallas today breaking out the fur coats when the mercury drops below 55.
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.
–Several of the photos showed long coats, and some of the murkier ones might have as well.
–Dusters were basically raincoats; none of those photos (and I only saw about half of them, I admit) were taken during a rainstorm.
–Cowhands couldn’t afford dusters? Bank robbers could. Cost wasn’t really an object for them. Think about it.
–Not all bank robberies (or any other Western activity, for that matter) occurred during the summer. My WAG estimate is that only about a fourth of them did.
Anyway, you’re probably right; Dusters galore are likely a result of directors trying to look “cool,” like those John Woo movies where gangsters hold their guns sideways. But I think there were some…
I THINK I remember watching the extra features on the DVD of Once Upon a Time in the West, where they state that the reason Leone used dusters was that they were so prevalent in period photos of the west that he (and/or his costumer) found in his research.
Krokodil, I have one too. Bought it in Sedona, I believe. I LOVE that coat. It is basically my raincoat - the material it’s made of is rain resistant (or something or other) and hosing it off is the recommended cleaning method. Doesn’t get much easier than that!
Expensive though - I paid $175 (I think?) for it over thirteen years ago.
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.
Perhaps it started with the James Gang’s raid on Northfield, Minn. They traveled disguised as cattle buyers, thus the long canvas coats.
BTW, the US cavalry wore similar coats over their blue serge uniforms when performing stable duty. It seems long canvas coats = don’t want to get splashed by shitting & pissing livestock. Not an issue when working in the saddle, but only when at ground level in close proximity.
On the subject of Hollywood, duster wearers in the movies I’ve seen have been bad guys. I may suffer from selective memory in so saying. My view on this is that long coats add to the menace of said bad guys. I’m thinking of the scene early in Once Upon A Time In The West when Frank and his gang approach the homestead before killing the occupants. The dusters moving in the breeze seem to intensify the dramatic effect.
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.)