Mammoth Cave Costume

Unidentified Mammoth Cave Costume, Library Special Collections, Western Kentucky University

Another presentation that focused on the history of southwestern Kentucky was given by Donna Parker, recently retired from the Western Kentucky University Library. Like most Americans, I knew of the great Mammoth Cave system, but it was a real surprise to learn that for close to a century, women visitors to the cave wore a special costume provided by the owners of the cave.

The cave was well-known by the 1840s. It was just one of many natural wonder destinations that well-off tourists traveled to experience, along with Niagara Falls, the Natural Bridge of Virginia, the Hudson River Valley, and New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Early on it must have been obvious that fashionable dress was dangerous in the cave. The owners developed a woman’s costume, consisting of a shortened dress with bloomers or trousers worn beneath.

The wearing of these costumes is well-documented in photographs, diaries, letters, and personal travel accounts. Many women expressed embarrassment at being forced to wear trousers, others saw it as just part of the experience.

Jennie Ray Younglove at Mammoth Cave

The Kentucky Museum has an exhibition on Mammoth Cave, and in it they included this photograph of a woman visitor. You can barely see the trousers beneath her skirt. One of the best sources of information were the photos taken of visitors to the cave. The WKU Library Special Collections has a nice selection of these, dating from the 1850s to the 1930s when the practice of providing costumes ended.

Kentucky Museum and Library Digital Collection

This photo is from the digital collection of the Kentucky Museum. Though undated, this photo is from around 1905, and maybe as late as 1912 or so. It’s interesting in how the costume has changed. The skirt was abandoned, the bloomers shortened. It could be that these women were accustomed to wearing bathing suits, were at that time were very similar to the cave costume.

Unfortunately, the museum has not been able to locate any extant cave costumes. It’s possible that as things changed and women became more accustomed to wearing bloomers, the oldest costumes were remade into the more abbreviated versions seen above. At any rate, there was a fire in 1916 at the Mammoth Cave Hotel, and it is possible the remaining costumes were destroyed then.

I like to think that somewhere, in an obscure collection, a Mammoth Cave costume still exists. The problem is one of identification. How would one distinguish the cave costume seen in the first photograph from a bloomer outfit worn by a dress reformer? How could the bloomers in the third photograph be distinguished from a 1905 gymnasium suit? I’m not sure it could be done.

I can only hope that somewhere one rests in a box with a note attached, confirming the garment as the elusive cave costume.

Pajamas for Women, Part 4

There was also a trend toward nautical themes. The short “Oriental” pants were replaced by so-called “Gob” trousers, gob being slang for “sailor”.

Advertisement for Atlantic Coast Line, found in December, 1933 Fortune magazine

A 1930 article in Good Housekeeping reported:

“Beach fashions are distinctly masculine. A marked change has occurred in beach attire, for smart women are forsaking fancy pajama suits for long, wide, sailor-like trousers… In their smartest version these trousers feature a fullness set in at the knee.”

These one-piece beach pajamas remained in fashion through the mid-1930s. In 1931 Good Housekeeping declared, “Pajamas are never smarter. For the beach they are comfortable and feminine in colorful combinations of linen, shantung, or jersey.”

The evolution of beach pajamas was complete, but it’s worth noting that pajamas did not stay on the beach. Brave women like Mrs. Joseph Walton, “[wore] a velveteen jacket, a light crepe overblouse, and dark trousers…” on the streets of Palm Beach in 1929.

Wright’s Bias Fold Tape Sewing Book No. 24, 1931

By 1930 middle class and wealthy women were already wearing pants in the form of knickers for hiking, breeches for riding, and bloomers for gymnasium. But pajamas wearing on the beach was different in that women of most economic classes could participate. Cotton beach pajamas were cheap to buy and even cheaper to sew at home. Pattern companies like McCall’s, Butterick, and Pictorial Review sold pajama patterns for the home sewer.

Cecilia Nordstrom, on her family’s farm in Birkenfield, Oregon, 1933, Photo courtesy of her granddaughter, Tania van Winkle

Oregon farm girl Cecilia Nordstrom showed off her new pajamas in 1933. She later recalled, “Frivolous is lounging pajamas when you live on a farm. No one has time to lounge.” Nevertheless, she ordered this one from a catalog, and she looks quite pleased with it.

Pajamas-wearing was also different in the public nature of the beach. No longer confined to the school gym or the hiking and riding trails, beach pajamas were women in trousers in view of large crowds of people. Pants for women were here to stay, even though it would be several more decades before women wore pants for more than work or very casual occasions.

Pajamas for Women, Part 2

Greenhut-Seigal Cooper catalog, Spring/Summer 1912

The style did not catch on as outerwear, but increasingly it was marketed as lingerie. When famous actresses began wearing pajamas on stage, manufacturers were alerted to this by Women’s Wear.

By the middle of 1911 a trade report from Cincinnati said, “Manufacturers of shirtwaists and pajamas say the trade is quite good…” And James McCreery & Co. on 34th Street in New York City had “silk pajamas for women” in their shop windows. Copy in the 1912 spring-summer catalog from Greenhut-Seigal Cooper declared, “Pajamas are growing more popular with women every year.

Women’s Wear​ Novelties in Pajamas, June 28, 1917

By WWI, pajamas were not just for sleeping. They were advertised as loungewear, and Women’s Wear categorized them as negligee. They were even suggested as “an excellent tea gown”. These early women’s pajamas were two pieces like men’s but were feminized most often by being made of pastel colored silk, elaborately decorated with lace and embroidery.

Billie Burke in Gloria’s Romance. 1916

Around 1914 a new idea in women’s pajamas emerged – the one-piece jumpsuit type. These became very popular after actress Billie Burke wore them in a film in 1916. She became so associated with the style that one-piece pajamas were called Billie Burkes until they fell out of favor around 1920.

Even after pajamas had been made for women for a decade, articles in Women’s Wear show that manufacturers worried they were just a fad. As manufacturer R.F. Raskid said in 1917, “I consider [pajamas] as merely a passing fad, that will have worn itself out in the course of a few months…” But pajamas, along with bifurcated workwear like overalls and coveralls, gained favor during the years of WWI because they were practical. And while overalls for women did decrease in popularity after the war ended, women did not give up their pajamas.

“Billie Burkes”,​Butterick Quarterly, Summer 1919

In 1919, Women’s Wear declared, “For lounging and the care-free hours, pajamas are at present favored by the best dressed women. They have freedom, are comfortable, and offer a wide variety of styles.” By 1919 pajamas were mentioned almost daily in the sleepwear section of Women’s Wear. They were no longer a novelty.

In writing about pajamas, Women’s Wear continued to refer to them in “Oriental” terms like Persian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Turkish. Historian Victoria Pass has been conducting research into what Paul Poiret seemed to know in 1911 – that the Orientalist tropes used to market pajamas with trousers to women connected pajamas to “the exotic other”, making the masculine nature of the pants less of an issue.

“Silk Pajamas on the Beach”​ Women’s Wear, ​July 26, 1922

Until 1922, women for the most part confined their pajamas-wearing to their homes. But in July of that year Women’s Wear published a startling new use for pajamas. “Silk Pajamas on the Beach – A New Use for the Silk Pajamas that have long been Manufactured and Used for Negligee Purposes Is Shown in the Accompanying Photograph. This bather, after her dip, has slipped on the pajamas as a protection from sunburn.” The location was unnamed, but later reports identified it as the Lido in Venice, Italy.

It was not until fall of 1923 that Women’s Wear asked its readers, “Will American Women Adopt Pajamas for the Beach?” A few months later Women’s Wear first used the term, beach pajamas.

Tomorrow, Part 3.

Pajamas for Women Part 1

I’m back from the Costume Society of America Southeast Region Symposium, and I’m pleased to share here my paper that I read. I’ll post it over the course of four days. I hope you enjoy it.

In the mid-1920s a new fad traveled from Italian beaches to those in the United States – that of pajamas as beach attire. It was not new for women to wear bifurcated garments for sports and as underwear, but pajamas for women were relatively new in the 1920s. So how and why did women take to wearing their newly adopted sleepwear on the beach?

Sears,​ Roebuck​ Catalog​, 1902

Even men in the US and most parts of Europe did not begin sleeping in pajamas until the 1870s. Most likely the first Westerners to adapt the Indian Pay- jama as night and loungewear were Englishmen living in India. In 1878 Harper’s Bazar reported, “The loose Japanese costume called the Pajamas has been adapted [by men] as a nightgown, for lounging in the daytime and in midsummer it is worn to board yachts.”

(Of course, the garment was Indian, not Japanese, but at least they got the continent right.)

Wilmington (Delaware) Evening Journal​
December 27, 1905​

The first reference I have found to American women wearing pajamas was a comment in an 1895 newspaper article that referenced women’s pajamas in fashion plates. Over the next decade there were occasional references to and ads for women’s pajamas in American newspapers, but not until the summer of 1905 does one see any multiple sources advertising pajamas for women. That year a syndicated sewing pattern for women’s pajamas was for sale in many US newspapers, and some department stores advertised readymade pajamas for Christmas gift giving.

 A 1905 article that ran in many American newspapers titled “Pajamas Healthful”, had the following to say about women wearing pajamas:

“Women everywhere, the country over, and in city and country alike, do wear nightgowns, as they have long, if not always have done. Do women wear pajamas in these days? Well, some, but not many.

“It was a little fad to wear them, for a time, and there are some women who now wear them; but their number is not large, and the custom is not growing.”

Good Housekeeping January, 1906

In 1906 Good Housekeeping magazine offered for sale a sewing pattern for “Lady’s Pajamas”. In the description for the pattern was this line: “The upper part of the pajamas is cut in the broad Mandarin style and the sleeve is loose at the bottom, also reminding one of that Eastern garb.” There didn’t seem to be a big demand for women’s pajamas until 1911 judging by the lack of ads for them in Women’s Wear, the forerunner of Women’s Wear Daily, and in their absence in clothing catalogs. So what happened that convinced American women to wear what was considered, in the West anyway, a man’s garment?

Paul Poiret Harem Pants, Shown in L’Illustration. January 1, 1911

For one thing, in 1911 French designer Paul Poiret introduced what he called harem pants, a design based on a pants style worn by Middle Eastern men and some women. By making a reference to the “Oriental” and not to the Western men’s trousers, he made it seem as though the woman was emulating the exotic “Oriental” and not her own husband or father.

Coming tomorrow, part 2.

A Mountain Goat?

This photo was a gift from Janey who writes The Atomic Redhead. There was just enough information written on the back of the photo to piece together a bit of a history. It reads, “A mountain goat? Jackie Moore (later Husen)” Quite remarkably, I found two more photos of Jackie, one on Pinterest; the other on Flickr. It appears that whoever had these photos of Jackie had the good habit of labeling them.

An internet search brought up a Jackie Husen Park in Portland, Oregon. I posted all this info with the photo on Instagram, where @truevtgfashion recognized the park as being near her home. She found that, “Jackie Husen Park, named for a long-time local resident whose husband made the property available to the district.”

Another Instagram user, @k.stone.707, found Jackie on Ancestry.com. She was Jacqueline Adelle Moore, who married Carl Calvin Husen in 1946. She was born in 1926, and died in 2000. She was listed on Findagrave.com, where I learned that Carl died in 2006.

Okay, so I have no details about who Jackie was as a person, but looking at this photos of her, taken when she was probably between 18 and 20, we can see that she had an adventurous side. She knew how to put together a great casual outfit. And she had a lovely smile.

Currently Reading: Fabulous Hoosier by Jane Fisher

Lots of times I pick out a book because of the illustrations. I picked up this one at my local Goodwill purely because I loved the photograph above. That’s Jane and Carl Fisher in 1909, on a “honeymoon” trip by car from Indianapolis to California. Jane was 15; Carl was twenty years older. By the time they were married Carl had made a fortune from car headlights and had built the Indianapolis Speedway. He went on to plan the Lincoln Highway and the Dixie Highway which led to what was probably his largest project, the building of Miami Beach.

For seventeen years or so Jane was swept along in the frenzy of Carl’s ideas. Even though she divorced him in 1926, they remained friends until his death in 1939. Several years later she wrote Fabulous Hoosier, which told how Carl managed to make and lose several fortunes over his 65 years.

The story was interesting, but as usual, I read memoirs looking for the clothes. Jane did not disappoint. She told how her love of swimming led to an ad concept for the developing Miami Beach.

Unwittingly, I was the original of the Miami Beach bathing beauty that was to help make our city famous. Carl had built the Casino, with its pavilion for pleasure, sun-bathing and swimming… The first women of the Beach swam there each morning in long black stockings, bathing suits that would serve today for street dresses, and bathing shoes. Demure mop caps covered our long hair.

I had mastered the new racing stroke, the Australian crawl, and longed for greater freedom in the water. I found it in what I have been told was the first form-fitting bathing suit, with a shockingly short skirt that came only to my knees, and most daring of all, anklets instead of the modest long black stockings. The following Sunday a minister in a church on the mainland used my bathing suit – and me in it – as a symbol of the brazenness of the modern woman…

Within a few weeks of my public pillorying, not a black stocking was to be seen on the Beach… Carl told me excitedly: “By God, Jane, you’ve started something! We’ll get the prettiest girls we can find and put them in the @$@&% tightest and shortest bathing suits and no stockings or swim shoes either. We’ll have their pictures taken and send them all over the @$@&% country as “The Bathing Beauties of Miami Beach!

One of the shortcomings of the book is that Jane couldn’t commit to a chronological timeline. She’d be telling about something that happened in 1915, and then she’d skip to 1920 and then back. So the best I can tell the above story happened in 1919.

She also mentions wearing pajamas on Miami Beach.

[One visitor] expressed delight over such Miami Beach surprises as “strawberries for breakfast at Christmas and being driven about by a lady wearing pajamas.” I was the lady in pajamas – as startling in the early ‘twenties, even in freedom-loving Miami Beach, as my form-fitting bathing suit had been five years before.

And:

Whatever was new, was mine. I had the first Irene Castle bob south of the Mason-Dixon Line, wore the first lipstick – sparingly, the first knee-high skirt, the first pajamas.

And if the bathing suit story happened in 1919, that made the pajamas-wearing happen in 1924. By that time, pajamas had shown up on European beaches, but the first sighting of pajamas on the more fashionable Palm Beach, Florida, was the winter season of 1925. In that case, Jane truly was a trendsetter.

Those lines alone were worth the price of the book and the time spent reading it.