A post more in keeping with the purpose of this site, as opposed to keeping track, for instance, of Donald Trump's mental decline or the eclipse of the United States as a serious nation.
After all, we're supposed to be focused on the 1890 to 1920 time frame here.
So, some focus on things 1911.
1. The first one we've already covered, the Colt Government Model.
The M1911 is the greatest handgun of all time.
Everything Old is New Again. Yeoman's laws of History and Behavior and the U.S. Military Sidearm.
While it had been in the works for a few years (not many, really) the final version of John Browning's design for a .45 Automatic Colt Pistol handgun for the Army was adopted in 1911, as we recently covered.
Wednesday, March 29, 1911. The adoption of the M1911.
The Colt Government Model has never gone away, although there was a period of time after the service adopted the M9 in which it looked like it would. It not only did not, it actually revived in the civilian and even military markets thereafter. It's just too good of a design to leave. Technologically, there hasn't been a single handgun design feature introduced after it that didn't already exist at the time, and there's never been anything to surpass it.
2. Tony Lama Boots
Here's an odd one you wouldn't quite expect.
Anthony Lama was born to an immigrant family in Brooklyn just six months after his family arrived in the United States from Italy. By age 11 both of his parents had died and he apprenticed to a shoemaker in Syracuse, New York. At age 16 he joined the U.S. Army illegally (he was underage) and, given that he had leatherworking skills he was assigned as a saddler in the cavalry. Saddlers worked all sorts of leather at the time and were highly regarded for their leather working skills. Lama, in that capacity, worked and repaired footgear.
After being discharged upon completion of his service, he stayed in El Paso where he continued to repair boots for servicemen. That soon spread into shoemaking. He opened what was initially a small repair shot in the city in 1911. His reputation was such that he was soon sought out by local cowboys and then entered the cowboy boot manufacturing business.
Showing somewhat the nature of the worldview of Catholics, in 1917 he married local Esther Hernandez, and therefore the family consisted of what Americans at the time regarded as two "races", Italian and Hispanic. By the 1930s it was making boots on a wholesale basis. The family business was incorporated in 1946, showing the extent to which it had grown. In 1990 it was bought by Justin boots, so it now belongs to another company, but the brand name and brand continues on.
I've had two pairs of Lama's over the years. They were both very high shaft real cowboy boots and I liked them both. One pair, with a very high heel, I still have, although they're really only useful for riding.
3. The Maine Hunting Shoe.
L. L. Bean was the inventor of the Maine Hunting Shoe, and the shoe, which is really a boot, caused the company to come into existence the next year.
Rubber soled with a leather upper, they boot came about as Bean himself was tired of getting cold wet feet while hunting. The design, which was initially extremely high topped, took off rapidly, allowing for Bean to turn the shoe into an enterprise.
The boot has remained popular for decades, indeed, well over a century, which belies how revolutionary it was at the time. In 1911 outdoor boots were normally hobnailed, if in fact they just didn't have simple leather soles. Rubber soles shoes had first appeared in the 1860s, but they were problematic and for hte most part, outdoor boots, did not use them until they started to be introduced in earnest in the 1920s. Even as late as World War Two every major army other than the US Army used hobnailed boots.
The Maine Hunting Shoe proved to be really popular in the niche in which it occupied. During World War Two it was adopted by the U.S. Army as the "Shoe Pack", something my father always referred to them as. At some point, and I'm not sure when, these boots evolved into the popular insulated boot of similar construction. Apparently some shoe packs had insulated insoles in World War Two so it must have been no later than that period. During the Korean War the insulated style was widely issued. The boots, while designed by Bean, were largely manufactured by other companies.
I have two pairs, one of which is a Cabela's knock off. My good pair are like the originals, very high topped. I actually bought them some time in the 1980s for duck hunting, as I lacked a dog and found myself frequently getting into the water to retrieve ducks, and I otherwise was doing a fair amount of stomping around in wet terrain. They're great for that. I've known some people who really favored the shoe variant of it, which I've never owned.
4. The M1911 Campaign Hat.
The M1911 was the last felt campaign hat to be issued by the U.S. Army and, like the M1911 pistol, it's never gone away.
Campaign hats are a type of broad brimmed hat adopted for military use. In most instances, they very closely resemble broad brimmed hats common in their culture of origin, and in some instances there's no difference at all. This is pretty much the case with the M1911 campaign hat.
Broad brimmed hats have been used by the Army since there was an Army. Usually the M1858 "Hardee" hat is cited as the first example, but it really isn't. During the American Revolution soliders commonly used them, with some of them being "cocked" and some not. The cocked ones are the best remembered in the example of the "tricorner" hat, but you can find examples where only one side was cocked or there was no cock at all.
Contrary to common assumption, Congress completely disbanded the Army after the Revolution, choosing to rely on state militia's for ground troops instead. It wasn't until the Northwest Indian War that it came back into existence. 1794 ought to be regarded as the actual birthdate of the U.S. Army, since there's been an Army since then.
I'm not an expert in 18th Century military uniforms, and for that reason I can't really say when the tricorner went out of favor. What I can say is that the Army generally followed European uniform patterns after that, and it wasn't until the Mexican War that the Army really determined that European military headgear was, well, stupid. After the Mexican War the Army adopted the Hardee Hat, which was a campaign hat, which had originally been contemplated for mounted troops. It officially came in as an Army wide dress hat in 1858, About the same time the Army adopted the kepi, with those first coming in during the early 1850s. The kepi is a pretty simple hat and perhaps we'll deal with it elsewhere, but some deficiencies must have been noted early on as in 1858 the Army also adopted the M1858 "forage cap" which was quite similar, but larger, and which could serve as sort of a wool bucket for foraging.
In spite of being a dress hat, the Hardee hat did see use in the field as a campaign hat, with it frequently being reshaped by the user so that its original shape was practically unrecognizable. Additionally, during the war thousands of troops on both sides chose to wear broad brimmed felt hats rather than official kepis or forage caps as they simply liked them better.
After the Civil War the Army adopted a broad brimmed campaign hat in 1872, the M1872, which was one of the odder official campaign hats in that it was designed so that its substantial brim could be folded up on both sides, sort of like 19th Century naval officers hats. The hat wasn't hugely popular and troops often bought their own more substantial hats. The 1872 hat yielded to the 1876 hat, and from there a series of short brimmed nutria fur campaign hats that went from black to tan in color as the 20th Century approached with the last official version being the M1895. During the entire period, however, soldiers routinely bought private purchase broad brimmed hats of better quality, with the same also being true of boots, and even trousers.
A popular civilian style of "cowboy hat" was the Montana Peak, with it being particularly popular in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. The style was used by the Boer War Canadian volunteer cavalry unit the Strathconas and the North West Mounted Police picked it up unofficially, until 1904 when they officially adopted the style The U.S Army adopted the style on September 8, 1911, with the ridges pointed differently than Mounties variant and the brim being shorter. The Marine Corps adopted the design in 1912. New Zealand's army, following an internal example of some New Zealand militia units, adopted it in 1916.
In every service unit which has adopted it, it remains in use. It was universal issue in the U.S. Army until 1917, when the helmet was introduced and the Army started to issue overseas garrison cap, reflecting that in combat troops were now wearing the helmet and the big hat was awkward to store, but it returned to general issue in 1919 and remained in general issue until some point in 1940. During World War Two it remained an official item but was not generally issued, except to cavalrymen. Following the war it remained in use, but only for rifle and pistol teams, however, in 1964 it returned and was also issued to Drill Instructors. This followed the example of the Marine Corps which had also stopped general issue of the M1912 during World War Two, but which kept it on for marksmanship units. The Marines adopted it for Drill Instructors starting in 1956. A variant was later adopted in blue for Air Force Drill Instructors. Due to the advances in hearing protection, marksmanship units have abandoned the design as it does not readily accommodate the same, for now.
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