A coonskin cap is a hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon. The headwear became associated with European Americans occupying lands on the United States borders with Indigenous nations in the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. The cap became highly popular among boys in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia in the 1950s. [1] The original cap consisted of the entire skin of the raccoon including its head and tail.[ dubious – discuss ]
The coonskin cap is an iconic cap associated with the early American frontier. Originally designed by the Native American peoples of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia; the style was later adopted by early pioneers to the area following the decades after the American Revolution. Individuals associated with the headwear generally include Daniel Boone, [2] Davy Crockett, Meriwether Lewis, and Joseph L. Meek. Early media such as the song The Hunters of Kentucky helped introduce the coonskin cap in the popular culture of American psyche. [3]
Politician Estes Kefauver of Tennessee adopted the coonskin cap as a personal trademark during his successful 1948 campaign for election to the United States Senate. Tennessee political boss E. H. Crump had published advertisements accusing Kefauver of being a raccoon-like Communist puppet. In response, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap during a speech in Memphis, proclaiming: "I may be a pet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon." [4] He continued to use the coonskin cap as a trademark throughout his political career, which included unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, an unsuccessful campaign for the Vice Presidency as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, and successful Senatorial re-election campaigns in 1954 and 1960. [4]
In the 20th century, the iconic association was in large part due to Disney's television program Disneyland and the first three Davy Crockett episodes starring Fess Parker, which aired from December 1954 to February 1955. In the episodes, which once again made Crockett into one of the most popular men in the country, the frontier hero was portrayed wearing a coonskin cap. The show spawned several Disneyland Davy Crockett sequels as well as other similar shows and movies, with many of them featuring Parker as the lead actor. Parker went on to star in a Daniel Boone television series (1964–1970), again wearing a coonskin cap.
Crockett's new popularity initiated a fad among boys all over the United States as well as a Davy Crockett craze in the United Kingdom. The look of the cap that was marketed to young boys was typically simplified; it was usually a faux fur lined skull cap with a raccoon tail attached. A variation was marketed to young girls as the Polly Crockett hat. It was similar in style to the boys' cap, including the long tail, but was made of all-white fur (faux or possibly rabbit). At the peak of the fad, coonskin caps sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day. [5] By the end of the 1950s, Crockett's popularity waned and the fad slowly died out. The fad is recalled by numerous cultural references, such as the wearing of coonskin caps as part of The Junior Woodchucks uniform in Disney's Donald Duck comics. Novelist Thomas Pynchon referenced both the hat and the fashion in his novel V. , where he refers to the hat as a "bushy Freudian hermaphrodite symbol".
Coonskin caps are powerful cultural symbols that continued to be seen in film, television, and other contexts in the latter decades of the 20th century.
The Junior Woodchucks of the World is a fictional scouting organization appearing in Disney comics and the DuckTales animated television franchise, most notably in adventures featuring Disney characters Huey, Dewey, and Louie as members.
Colonel David Crockett was an American politician, militia officer and frontiersman. Often referred to in popular culture as the "King of the Wild Frontier", he represented Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives and fought in the Texas Revolution.
Carey Estes Kefauver was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the U.S. Senate from 1949 until his death in 1963.
A knit cap, colloquially known as a beanie, is a piece of knitted headwear designed to provide warmth in cold weather. It usually has a simple tapered shape, although more elaborate variants exist. Historically made of wool, it is now often made of synthetic fibers.
A hide or skin is an animal skin treated for human use. The word "hide" is related to the German word Haut, which means skin. The industry defines hides as "skins" of large animals e.g. cow, buffalo; while skins refer to "skins" of smaller animals: goat, sheep, deer, pig, fish, alligator, snake, etc. Common commercial hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, buckskin, alligator skin and snake skin. All are used for shoes, clothes, leather bags, belts, or other fashion accessories. Leather is also used in cars, upholstery, interior decorating, horse tack and harnesses. Skins are sometimes still gathered from hunting and processed at a domestic or artisanal level but most leather making is now industrialized and large-scale. Various tannins are used for this purpose. Hides are also used as processed chews for dogs or other pets.
A flat cap is a rounded cap with a small stiff brim in front, originating in Northern England. The hat is also known in Ireland as a paddy cap; in Scotland as a bunnet; in Wales as a Dai cap; and in the United States as an English cap or Irish cap. Various other terms exist Flat caps are usually made of tweed, plain wool, or cotton, while some are made using leather, linen, or corduroy. The inside of the cap is commonly lined for comfort and warmth.
The newsboy cap, newsie cap, or baker boy hat (British) is a casual-wear cap similar in style to the flat cap.
A homburg is a semi-formal hat of fur felt, characterized by a single dent running down the centre of the crown, a wide silk grosgrain hatband ribbon, a flat brim shaped in a "pencil curl", and a ribbon-bound trim about the edge of the brim. It is traditionally offered in black or grey.
Western wear is a category of men's and women's clothing which derives its unique style from the clothes worn in the 19th century Wild West. It ranges from accurate historical reproductions of American frontier clothing, to the stylized garments popularized by Western film and television or singing cowboys such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. It continues to be a fashion choice in the West and Southwestern United States, as well as people associated with country music or Western lifestyles, for example the various Western or Regional Mexican music styles. Western wear typically incorporates one or more of the following: Western shirts with pearl snap fasteners and vaquero design accents, blue jeans, cowboy hat, a leather belt, and cowboy boots.
"The Ballad of Davy Crockett" is a song with music by George Bruns and lyrics by Thomas W. Blackburn. It was introduced on ABC's television series Disneyland, in the premiere episode of October 27, 1954.
The Country Bear Jamboree is an attraction in the Magic Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World Resort and Tokyo Disneyland at Tokyo Disney Resort. It was formerly located at Disneyland Park at Disneyland Resort. The attraction is also known as the Country Bear Musical Jamboree at Magic Kingdom and the Country Bear Theater in Tokyo Disneyland.
The Karakul hat, also known by other names, is a hat made from the fur of the Karakul breed of sheep. It originally comes from Bukhara. The fur from which it is made is referred to as Astrakhan, broadtail, qaraqulcha, or Persian lamb. The hat is peaked, and folds flat when taken off of the wearer's head.
Fashion in the years following World War II is characterized by the resurgence of haute couture after the austerity of the war years. Square shoulders and short skirts were replaced by the soft femininity of Christian Dior's "New Look" silhouette, with its sweeping longer skirts, fitted waist, and rounded shoulders, which in turn gave way to an unfitted, structural look in the later 1950s.
Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes is a free-floating canoe experience at several Disney theme parks. The oldest of the rides is located at the Disneyland park in Anaheim, California. Boarding from the park's Bayou Country section, up to twenty visitors paddle a canoe around the Rivers of America, accompanied by two guides. This is the only Disneyland attraction that is powered by park visitors.
A raccoon coat is a full-length fur coat made of raccoon pelts, which became a fashion fad in the United States during the 1920s. Such coats were particularly popular with male college students in the middle and later years of the decade.
A cricket cap is a type of soft cap, often made from felt, that is a traditional form of headwear for players of the game of cricket, regardless of age or sex. It is usually a tight-fitting skullcap, usually made of six or eight sections, with a small crescent shaped brim that points downwards over the brow to provide shade for the eyes. It is often, but not always, elasticised at the rear to hold it in place upon the wearer's head. Sometimes, rather than tight-fitting, the cricket cap comes in a baggy variety, that is always kept in place by elastic. The style of cap is also often used as official headwear as part of school uniforms for boys from private schools, particularly in the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth of Nations. Although not common in the modern period, the cricket cap used to be a fashionable form of headwear for people who were casually dressed, and not necessarily worn just for playing the game.
The raccoon, also spelled racoon and sometimes called the common raccoon or northern raccoon to distinguish it from the other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of 40 to 70 cm, and a body weight of 5 to 26 kg. Its grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur, which insulates it against cold weather. The animal's most distinctive features include its extremely dexterous front paws, its facial mask, and its ringed tail, which are common themes in the mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas surrounding the species. The raccoon is noted for its intelligence, and studies show that it is able to remember the solution to tasks for at least three years. It is usually nocturnal and omnivorous, eating about 40% invertebrates, 33% plants, and 27% vertebrates.
Davy Crockett was a five-part serial which aired on ABC from 1954–1955 in one-hour episodes, on the Disneyland series. The series starred Fess Parker as real-life frontiersman Davy Crockett and Buddy Ebsen as his friend, George Russell. The first three and last two episodes were respectively edited into the theatrical films Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (1956). This series and film are known for the catchy theme song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett".
Kazakh clothing, worn by the Kazakh people, is often made of materials suited to the region's extreme climate and the people's nomadic lifestyle. It is commonly decorated with elaborate ornaments made from bird beaks, animal horns, hooves and feet. Although contemporary Kazakhs usually wear Western dress, the Turkic people wear more traditional clothing for holidays and special occasions.
