Chris Enss - How the West Was Worn: Bustles and Buckskins on the Wild Frontier

Chris Enss is an award-winning screenwriter who has written for television, short subject films, live performances, and for the movies, and is the co-author (with JoAnn Chartier) of Love Untamed: True Romances Stories of the Old West, Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon: Women Patriots and Soldiers of the Old West and The Cowboy and the Senorita and Happy Trails (with Howard Kazanjian). Her research and writing and reveals the funny, touching, exciting, and tragic stories of historical and contemporary times.

Enss has done everything from stand-up comedy to working as a stunt person at the Old Tucson Movie Studio. She learned the basics of writing for film and television at the University of Arizona, and she is currently working with Return of the Jedi producer Howard Kazanjian on the movie version of The Cowboy and the Senorita, their biography of western stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

Rounding up the information needed to create a book such as this is a long process. Without the assistance of knowledgeable historians, librarians, and archivists it would not be possible. With that in mind I would like to expression my appreciation to the staff at the National Archives Department in Washington, D.C., and the Archives Department at Sears and Roebuck Corporation in Chicago. Thank you to Ed Tyson at Searls Historical Library in Nevada County and the Nevada County librarians. All were helpful, kind, and patient and eager to lend their expertise.

Id also like to extend my gratitude to Dakota and Sunny Livesay at Chronicles of the Old West. Their encouragement and their newspaper are an inspiration to me always.

Finally, thanks to the editorial staff and art department at Globe Pequot Press. They managed to transform the rough material submitted to them into a quality product of which I am very proud. Thank you Erin Turner; you are an exceptional editor and I am blessed to have worked with you.

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A T W O D O T B O O K

Copyright 2006 Chris Enss

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or by the publisher. Requests for permission should be made in writing to The Globe Pequot Press, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, Connecticut 06437.

TwoDot is a registered trademark of Morris Book Publishing, LLC.

Text design: Lisa Reneson, www.twosistersdesign.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 0-7627-3564-3

Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition/First Printing

For My Brothers Rick, Scott, and Corey:
Your strength, humor, and integrity make me proud.

HOW THE WEST WAS WORN IS DEFINITELY THE GENUINE ARTICLE!

This book is a stunning collection of vintage essays and rarely seen journal entries, detailing the clothes worn by settlers of the early American West.

When author Chris Enss sent me the manuscript and asked if I would write the foreword, I found it a hard collection to put down. Ive always been in love with anything western. Growing up in the heyday of television westerns has given me an appreciation for silver-screen cowboys and authentic frontier buckaroos.

Not only was my youth spent watching and reading about all things western, but traveling throughout the West with my family helped give me a deeper understanding of pioneer hardships. Growing up in Florida, I was one of four children, and each summer, Dad and Mom piled us into a car and headed to the West for a six-week adventure, our Airstream trailer in tow. Our only real hardship was the lack of air-conditioning, which pales in significance to the stories you are about to read.

While traveling through the untamed wilderness of Monument Valley, we were lucky enough to visit the set of a John Wayne western being filmed by the legendary director, John Ford. It was hard not to notice the trappings and gear that the Navajos wore as we jeeped past their mud hogans to the camera set-ups. The Duke, Dobe Cary, Jeffrey Hunter, and Hank Worden galloping across the sand dunes is an image Ill always treasure.

Wayne was wearing his signature red bib-front shirt, and jeans with both a belt and suspenders. My mom had dressed me in shorts, socks, and sandals, but, luckily for me, the Dukes leather bat-wing chaps draped over my legs and feet when he knelt down for a photo opand since I was topped off in a faded yellow Davy Crockett T-shirt featuring Fess Parker, it wasnt too embarrassing for an enamored six-year-old.

I always liked to dress up like a cowboy. Still do! I own over a dozen pairs of cowboy boots, several vintage pairs of chaps, spurs for every occasion, and many shirts with cowboy piping. My treasured Manuel jacket was given to me by my wife, Laura. I have too many hats to count, mostly with my favored large crown. I can mix and match western wear with the best of them, and have been fortunate to be included in so many western-related events that Im never at a loss in finding opportunities to wear my gear.

Not only is it still fun to play at being a cowboy, its a pleasure to read about them. Thats why this book is so special. Nothing like it has been printed before, and its a real treasury of true stories that can help us understand why and how we ended up so fascinated with our ancestors pilgrimage.

Their journey was a tough one, and many personal belongings were left behind, out of necessity. Limited space often meant either wearing all the clothing you owned or leaving it behind. Remember they traveled by covered wagon, boat, horseback, and mule. And they walked. Many of them walked.

Because it made walking easier, pioneer women often cut several inches off the bottoms of their dresses and sewed lead shot into the hem. This kept the billowing material from blowing in the wind.

Where else can you learn that candle soot was used as eyeliner? Or that hundreds of years before cross-dressing entered our vocabulary, young men wore womens bonnets to protect their eyes from the suns glare when no broad-brimmed hat was available. Read all about it, and more, in this wonderful book.

The stories you will discover in How the West Was Worn are short and fast like a gunfight. Enjoy them all and relive the American dream as you follow our ancestors on their trek west.

Always your saddle pal,
Rob Word
Vice President of Programming,
PAX Television Network

HOW THE WEST WAS WORN

What a deformed thief this fashion is.

William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Men and women have always distinguished themselves through fashion. The outfits they chose to wear reflected their performance of different jobs, as well as their roles in society. Due to a lack of availability, however, the average western pioneer did not have the luxury of choosing from a wide assortment of clothing to wear. The one or two outfits he did possess were selected to fit the harsh living and working conditions of the frontier. Soon after the discovery of gold ushered a flood of newcomers into the western United States, conventional fashion changed dramatically. Men traded dress pants and ties for Levis jeans and bandanas. Ladies stowed away their expensive, hooped costumes and donned cheap calico and work boots. Because of such changes, an individuals role in society could no longer be determined by the garments he or she wore.