Documentation of The American Hunting Shirt

[Dennis Glazener]

Really interesting research on hunting shirts in America

https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/18158

Look down toward the bottom of that page and see this:
HurstNeal2013.pdf    40.35Mb    PDF    View/Open

Click on "View/Open" and wait for the large file to download. You can then view the entire file and/or save it to your hard drive.

Dennis

[Sequatchie Rifle]

A very interesting and informative paper- thanks for sharing the reference!

[ddoyle]

Impressive work for a Bachelor's degree these days!

Worth printing and having a proper read. Learned a ton.

I do however heartily disagree with Mr Hurst's unfounded assumption that the " Fringe on the hunting shirt does not function" pp 53.

Mr Hurst then goes on to describe the expense and bother of utilizing a fringe.

So they were wasteful and silly? or did they understand hunting the way a lynx does and choose thier garments the way the cat chooses it's feet?

Crawl the grass/bush and then decided if fringe functions.  And of course there are about half a hundred uses for the fringe when cut from the garmet.

Thanks for the read

[PPatch]

Thanks Dennis, a good read so far.

dave

[Shreckmeister]

I saved the document it was a pretty big file now I just have to find time to read it

[Tim Crosby]

 Very interesting, Thanks for posting.

   Tim C.

[chrisdefrance]

Dennis,

   Thank you so much for the Hurst Thesis on the American Hunting Shirt. Well done thesis. The Hunting Shirts have always looked comfortable for hunting. Always wanted one. I would like to take this off the " Wish List ".

Thanks - Chris

[David R. Pennington]

The fringe may have been partially style, but form follows function. One advantage, whether intended or not, is that the fringe helps wick the moisture away and evaporate it so the garment dries quicker after being caught in a shower. The other obvious advantage is the camouflage effect it produces by breaking up your outline.

[ddoyle]

David, wicking and camo. Brilliant. It is emabarrasing how many hours I have contemplated the function of fringe and I never pondered up those two. Anyone  else got any other function ideas? Maybe chicks dig fringe?

[Arcturus]

I read this work last year.  It's quite good.  I do disagree with the author on the fringe and cape being solely decorative;  they did provide protection, wick moisture, break up the outline, etc.  But remember, we're talking short fringe on these eastern hunting shirts, not the longer fringe seen out west in the 1800's.  Yes, chicks do indeed dig fringe!  Then as now, people dressed for function, but also no doubt style and fashion played a role too.

[Jerry]

Excellent information. Thanks for posting. Jerry

[Dphariss]

I printed all 92 pages. Gives a new meaning to the term "shirt men".
Thanks Dennis

[Chuck Burrows]

With all due respect but that idea of fringe wicking moisture from the main garment is one of those mythconceptions that just won't die. Sounds good in theory but based on 45+ years of wearing skins with 6-7" fringe it does just the opposite - it sucks up moisture and water like a string mop and the main garment just gets wetter not drier....
Don't think it had much to do with camo as a design feature since the long fringe was worn by those folks who lived in dry often open plains country where if anything a shirt with long fringe stands out - IMO the main reason for long fringe in the west - it just plain looks good especially when riding on horseback...folks forget even back then folks sometimes just liked to look good.......

[Mike R]

Good paper, but he missed a very important early accounting of hunting shirts in western PA--thus implying the first appearance in PA much later than in VA--Mark Baker in his epic Sons of a Trackless Forest [a book based on his Masters thesis]appends numerous pages from the accounts/ledgers of the trading firm of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan from several years in the 1760s, and there are several references to both hunting shirts and hunting frocks [perhaps uncaped shirts?].  The operation was out of the Fort Pitt area, showing early use of such shirts in PA and the Ohio country.  If you have not read Mark's book, it is a treasure--especially the Appendices!

[wmrike]

You absolutely, positively cannot underestimate the impact of fashion.  The form-follows-function only works to a certain degree, otherwise we would not be able to compartmentalize styles into these neat little 20-year-long boxes.  The idea that all the backwoodsmen arrived at a common mode of dress at the same time because that's what worked is a fanciful.

[Dewey]

Good paper, but he missed a very important early accounting of hunting shirts in western PA--thus implying the first appearance in PA much later than in VA--Mark Baker in his epic Sons of a Trackless Forest [a book based on his Masters thesis]appends numerous pages from the accounts/ledgers of the trading firm of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan from several years in the 1760s, and there are several references to both hunting shirts and hunting frocks [perhaps uncaped shirts?].  The operation was out of the Fort Pitt area, showing early use of such shirts in PA and the Ohio country.  If you have not read Mark's book, it is a treasure--especially the Appendices!

I would love to have that book ... but not at $400+ !!!

But I "heard" on another forum that a reprint is due out in 2016.

Hope it's true !!!


I would think that the frock would be similar to the frock coats shown by Miller.

[Dewey]

Or not ...


"In the eighteenth century in Britain and America, a frock was an unfitted men's coat for hunting or other country pursuits, with a broad, flat collar, derived from the traditional working-class frock."

So not a frock coat yet, but not a hunting shirt, ether.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frock#/media/File:Reynolds_fane_detail.jpg

[David R. Pennington]

Chuck would be right about a shirt made of buckskin, but I was thinking about cloth garments. Buckskin is like a sponge.

[Mike R]

You absolutely, positively cannot underestimate the impact of fashion.  The form-follows-function only works to a certain degree, otherwise we would not be able to compartmentalize styles into these neat little 20-year-long boxes.  The idea that all the backwoodsmen arrived at a common mode of dress at the same time because that's what worked is a fanciful.

If that was directed at my post, I was not trying to imply that at all...just that the author stated the first reference to hunting shirts in PA was in the 1770s [1771 if I recall] and clearly they were in use in PA in the 1760s.  Hunters from VA and PA came together in western PA [as well as along the Great Wagon Road circuit] early on--at least by the F&I War and the idea of the shirt could easily have been transmitted then.  Smocks/frocks had long been used by workmen to cover their clothes and it is not much of a step to the split shirt, then ornamentation.  The Rev War saw widespread use of the hunting shirt as a uniform, thus the varied colors.  Few have made note of the early statements by G. Washington about "Indian dress" and I have wondered about the role of the native American in designing the split front rifle shirt--they were provided european shirts in trade, typically 'one size fits all' [as were soldiers of the day], and splitting the front makes the shirt more versatile in fit, in donning, and in use.

P.S.  later shirts were made with an open front and not "split" as in cutting a 'regular' shirt.