How to Pants a Hero by Paty Jager #historical #western

While working on the Work In Progress(WIP) the other day, I had a scene where the heroine needed to take the pants off the injured and unconscious hero. This is when they first meet. My fingers stalled. How were men's pants fastened in 1900? Were they the same as the early books I'd written?

I went to my research books and pulled out an 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue which is a replica, and The Writers Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West by Candy Moulton.

Thumbing through the Sears pages I made a decision of the type of pants my hero would wear. There were several choices from the tailor made pants for $.75 made of wool and cotton blend to the $5 pair of pants made of imported French and German worsted in a variety of striped patterns. There were also overalls (jeans) made from different weights of blue denim. These were anywhere from  $.38 to $2.38 for a pair of white painters' overall.

vintage pants on Ebay

My hero isn't a cowboy or a person who rode horses a lot. He works with his hands making writing tablets for the blind out of wood. And he himself is blind. So I determined he would wear an average price-range, wool trouser with flannel drawers underneath.

But I still didn't know how the pants were fastened. I learned from The Writers Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West that men rarely wore a belt. The pants were so high waisted the top button was above the hips. Once it was buttoned, the pants didn't fall off. If a man didn't have a waist thinner than his hips, he could use suspenders to keep his pants up. Men's pants had a fly front just as today, only there were buttons instead of a zipper. The buttons were hid under the fly.

And so my heroine has to remove the unconscious hero's trousers so the doctor can inspect him for injuries.
Here is an unedited excerpt on the de-pantsing of the hero by the heroine from Claiming a Heart the third book in the Halsey Homecoming trilogy.

She stood by the cot staring at the last piece of clothing she had to remove. Wool trousers. Drawing in a deep breath, she steeled herself for the task. The red flannels he wore would cover his lower body, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to touch him so intimately. After all, she’d have to slide the britches over his hips and down.

“Lookin’ at him ain’t gettin’ the job done.” She leaned down and unbuttoned the waist button. Working the other buttons under the flap loose required her fingers to touch a part of a man’s body she shouldn’t be touching.

She held her breath and worked the buttons loose as quickly as her stiff fingers would go. A whoosh of air relaxed her lungs when the buttons were all free of the holes. Sliding her hands inside the pants and down his hips, she worked the garment down and eventually off his legs.

Sweat beaded her brow when she stood at the end of the cot holding his trousers. 

Clothing and the Western Woman

Women living in the west in the 1800’s dressed in the silks, satins, and fashionable dresses for special occasions just like the women in the east. However, they also dressed decidedly different when facing the rigors of western living.

In the rural areas women’s clothing could be dated to when they first arrived from the east and up to ten years earlier. Silk and satin could be scarce in the rural areas. In these instances, they would make ball gowns out of gingham and calico adding extra flounces, bustles, and trains to make them "fancy". Another way to make the dress more fashionable was by adding handmade lace collars and wool braid around the hems to enhance the garments.

They had one special dress they wore only to dances, church, and socials. A corset would be worn with their finest dresses to special occasions.

Common material for women’s clothing:

Linsey-woolsey - a strong, coarse fabric with a linen or cotton warp and a woolen weft.

Calico - a plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may contain unseparated husk parts, for example. The fabric is less coarse and thick than canvas or denim, but owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance, it is still very cheap.

Silk - a natural protein fibre, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fibre of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons.

Plaid -any fabric woven of differently colored yarns in a crossbarred pattern.

Muslin - a cotton fabric made in various degrees of fineness and often printed, woven, or embroidered in patterns,especially a cotton fabric of plain weave, used for sheets and for a variety of other purposes.

printed cotton - cotton fabric with color added through block printing with dyes.

Wool challis - a soft fabric of plain weave in wool, cotton, rayon, or other staple fiber, either in a solid color or, more often, a small print.

Dimity - a thin cotton fabric, white, dyed, or printed, woven with a stripe or check of heavier yarn.

Grosgrain- made from wool, silk or a combination of fibers such as silk and wool or silk and mohair.

Striped silk taffeta - is traditionally plain and extremely tightly woven with fine horizontal ribs produced from white silk cocoons..

Most garments had a pocket sewn in the right side seam. Generally, each dress was the same style(they used the same pattern over and over), the fabric and decorations made them different. In the early part of the 1800’s most wore one piece dresses. A dress with a full skirt required 10 yards of calico or 14 yards of silk because silk wasn’t as wide on the bolt as calico. From 1850 on women started wearing two-piece outfits(skirt and blouse). It wasn’t until the 1890’s when the “shirtwaist” or blouse became popular. By 1886 the chemise (like a long slip) was replaced with the camisole a shorter version of the chemise with square or round neckline, lace and embroidery.

 In 1882 stores began selling ready-made clothing.

When traveling on stage coaches and trains, linen dusters were worn to keep the dirt and coal dust off their clothing.

Three essentials of any western woman were their apron, bonnet, and shawl. An apron was a full length garment worn while cleaning the house and cooking. It helped to keep their clothing clean, making less laundry. They called any type of hat a bonnet. Most had a sunbonnet with ties under the chin and a wide cloth brim reinforced with cardboard or thin slats of wood to make the brim stiff and keep the sun off their faces. They would also have a winter bonnet or hat. Some would even have a fancy bonnet to wear to weddings, funerals, and socials. The shawl was a quick wrap to throw on to greet company or make a trip to the outhouse. They usually had a special one to wear to social events if their family had the means.

Working and dealing with the heat they would shed undergarment layers, specifically petticoats and a corset. Rather than the five or six petticoats that was customary they would work in one or two. This also helped on wash day when they only had to laundry a couple petticoats and not half a dozen. To keep their skirts down without all the layers to hide their limbs, they would sew metal bars or lead shot in the hems, thwarting any strong winds. They also wore bloomers under their skirts rather than all the layers of petticoats. In winter, flannel or quilted petticoats kept their legs warm.

Western women worked by their husband’s sides. To make their chores easier they shortened their skirts, wore split skirts, and some even wore men’s clothing. It made walking and riding horses easier. They also were less likely to wear the tight corseted styles. They could do their work easier in loose-fitting garments.

 

This information was found in: The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West by Candy Moulton.

Wednesday Western - Clothes do Make a Cowboy

My historical westerns are set in the late 1800's. Because of this, I've spent hours reading books on proper clothing for the time and the area. People who lived in large cities tended to dress differently than those who were eking out a living in the untamed land of the west.

I like to dress my male characters in flannel. It's soft feeling when the heroine can't resist any longer and puts her hands on him. ;) It was also warm in the winter and made of cotton so it wicked away perspiration. But contrary to what many think the pants were not all denim. In fact, they wore mostly duck, wool, corduroy or cotton jeaning, when is now called denim. And Cowboys mostly wore wool. No wonder they wore long flannels underneath! I can't imagine riding for hours on end with your body encased in wool. I'd have to have a barrier between my skin and the rough, itchy fabric.

Depending on what part of the West a cowboy worked determined how he dressed. The common clothing items were a hat, coat or slicker, two shirts and  two pairs of pants and boots.

Boots for the time period had stovepipe uppers, square toes, and low heels. While "Cowboy" boots were being made at this time, most bought standard work boots sold from the Montgomery Ward and Company catalog for $2.75. A pair made with hardwood pegs holding the upper to the sole cost more. They ranged from $7 to $15 a pair and were measured to fit the person foot. In the 1870's the higher heel and narrower boot was made to fit in the new narrower stirrup. The higher heel was needed to keep the foot from sliding through the stirrup. This is also when the V cut appeared and the leather loops o the side to pull the boots on. The boots were mostly black. IN the 1880's the fancy stitching started appearing on cowboy boots.

Coats were made of canvas, duck, or jeaning and often had blanket liners. Coats were sold through Montgomery Ward or Carhartt.  Canvas and buckskin waist or hip length coats were worn by Southwestern cowboys. This material worked best at protecting them from mesquite thorns and brush. Northern cowboys wore a long wool coat that resembled a suit coat.  In 1881 rain gear for cowboys was developed by Abner J. Tower. It was a slicker in black or yellow that had a long slit in the back to fit over a horse and saddle. Cowboys would waterproof the slickers with linseed oil. The slickers had red flannel liners and cost $3.50.

Vest were worn under the slickers or coats for an added layer of warmth. But mostly they were worn because they had four small pockets to hold personal items like: a watch, tobaccos and cigarette makings, a tally book or other small items the cowboy needed. They liked the warmth of the vest with the missing sleeves to allow more movement of their arms.

Gloves were worn to protect their hands from the rough work and the weather.'

Scarves or bandannas were worn around their necks. They could be pulled over their noses to keep out dust when following a herd, tied around their hat to keep the hat on and their ears warm and wrapped around their necks to keep them warm. They also made wash rags, bandages, and tourniquets

This is just a brief glimpse at some of the clothing a cowboy wore. Is there a piece of clothing you've wondered about? Why they
wore it or what it was made of?