Old Pics

[Whiskey Johnson]

Thanks for the Period date, Boot! I was able to find some good dated pic's on the 'net this weekend! Don't worry, I know I need to get to a library for a dated reference.

I know the "Victorian Age" was MUCH more formal than today. BUT, I believe that having a pic taken was such a big deal back then; that we are misled a little bit. I wanted to find some evidence of "rolled up shirt sleeves" in public!

I am sure you all have seen most of the readily available 'net pics. Here are a couple of MY fav.'s so far.

[Whiskey Johnson]

Sorry, screwed up during the resize!

[Boot]

I'm sure you're right and most portraits are very formal and don't represent what would of been seen in the street or on the prairrie.
There are some as you've found and generally larger groups give a better represntation of daily dress.

Keep up the good work.

Boot.

[Henry4440]

A picture of a Buffalo hunting crew taken in the mid 1870's.

[Charlie Bowdre]

Great photo . Ya think that pug would bite

dutchie

[Tubac]

I can make out a Sharps and a Winchester, is the other a trapdoor springfield?

Tubac

[Boot]

I'd say the other one is an old double barelled percussion shotgun.

They could be a buffalo hunting crew, but there's only one buffalo gun between them.

Great picture though, I love the kid and the dog.

Boot.

[Henry4440]

A frontiersman in 1860 wears a planter's hat, fancy vest, tie, wool pants, and buckskin coat.


The famous photo of Texas Ranger Camp Roberts, taken in 1878 gives good insight to what people really wore. All of the hats looked very worn. Most were shapeless from years of hard, all weather use.


By 1890 the Rangers had cleaned up, and most of them wore well-shaped Boss of the Plains hats.

[Henry4440]

Two more pics:


and

[Boot]

There's some great picture getting posted here.

I don't trust the date of first Texas Rangers picture though(1878)it looks much later to me, closer to the time of the next picture, only they're dressed for the field not the studio.

Boot.

[Charlie Bowdre]

Re the 1878 pic . it is listed in the Texas Ranger Museum as c.1878

Capt. D. W. Roberts' Company in camp, ca 1878. Note the far different styles of hats, from Tom Mix to shapeless. ©1999, Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

Other then that I 'm not sure...
dutchie

[Boot]

I know that's what they call it, but I question it.

As fas as I'm aware there were no Tom Mix style hat around in the 1870s
It could possibly be a sugar loaf sombrero, but the whole picture looks later.

Boot.

[Charlie Bowdre]

don't know , wasn't there.

dutchie

[Black Powder]

This guy looks like he coulda been there cuz he sure looks like he's been nearly everywhere else.

[Charlie Bowdre]

One of the original ZZ Tops!!
dutchie

[Steel Horse Bailey]

He was known as ZZ "Kinky" Top! 

[yellow bear]

Jest my two cents - picture I came across researchin' relatives - huntin' party around 1880 in Western Pennsylvania.

[Frenchie]

Second Lieutenant Read, Third Infantry ["The Old Guard"] and Chief of Scouts John O. Austin examine the body of hunter Ralph Morrison, who had been killed and scalped near Fort Dodge, Kansas, 7 December 1868, less than an hour before.
(Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Bureau of American Ethnology Collection)

Apparently scouts didn't always dress in rough-and-ready field gear. Chief of Scouts Austin would be quite at home in a fancy gambling parlor. Or maybe he'd been in one when he got the word that he was needed quickly. In any case, he cuts quite a dashing figure.

[Boot]

I think we need to know the circumstances surounding the picture as to why the chief of scouts is dressed this way, if as you suggest he has come directly from somewhere formal or he's had time to dress for the photograph.
It's not feasable for him to operate in the field dressed in this way.

Boot.

[Frenchie]

I suggested nothing. It's an interesting photograph and I represent it as nothing more than that. I used the words "apparently" and "maybe". I was speculating, thinking out loud, not intending to induce anyone to believe anything in particular. For all I (or you) know, he asked the photographer to delay the shot until he could dash back to the fort and change into his "photographic" clothing. He may have been interrupted in the middle of his own wedding reception. December 7, 1868 was a Monday, so he isn't dressed for church, but maybe he habitually wore his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit the next day. Maybe all the rest of his outfits had been stolen or burned up in a fire. Maybe he thought God or Jesus or the Angel Moroni - or space aliens - had told him to dress that way.

So why is he dressed like that? The answer, as far as I'm concerned, is the difference between ignorance and apathy: I don't know, and I don't care.