The Artifact of the Month for March is a women’s motoring duster, a light, loose-fitting long coat. Originally, dusters were worn by cowboys in the 19th century in the American West, to protect their clothing from trail dust. At the turn of the twentieth century, both men and women wore dusters to protect their clothes when riding in open automobiles. Dusters were sometimes referred to as car coats or motoring jackets.
Jerry Moon of Colchester donated the duster to the museum. Moon tells of discovering the duster in a chest full of clothes when he moved into his father’s house. The Moon family has lived in the McDonough/Schuyler County area for five generations. Moon found the chest in the basement and thought his mother had saved the clothing. The chest had been sitting untouched for the past 60 years. Moon believes the duster probably belonged to a female relative who lived in the McDonough County area around the turn of the 19th century.
When the automobile was first invented, riding in a car was very different from what it is now, and protective clothing was needed. Early autos were open and had no windshields, no side windows, no rear windows, no doors, no roof, and rain, wind, and cold air could soak or chill motorists. Later automobiles with windshields and tops still left riders vulnerable to dust and oil splatters. Road conditions did not help to make driving comfortable. Riding in open and semi-open cars over unpaved country roads covered everyone with clouds of dust and dirt on even a short outing. Between 1900 and 1910 specially created protective driving clothes became popular for both men and women, and the duster was especially popular as a way to protect clothes from everything kicked up from the car.
Early motoring clothing was not only practical but also very stylish. Other types of outerwear, as well as a whole array of special hats, goggles, gloves, and other driving accessories, were created to address the need to protect drivers and passengers. There was a short-lived craze for driving clothes that emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century. The people who could own early cars were the wealthy, and they had the money to spend on specialized clothing. Owning a duster or motoring jacket quickly became a status symbol, indicating the wearer owned, or knew someone who owned a car.
The loose-fitting duster at the museum is 44 inches long and is made out of lightweight linen fabric. This duster would have been worn in the warmer months; in colder weather, a heavier car coat would have been worn. The 14-inch wide sailor-style collar on this duster was a popular style during the early 1900s. Some linen dusters had fancy linings and trims, but the museum duster is unlined linen with simple trim.
After about 10 years, the motoring duster became obsolete due to changes in automobile design. By 1927, over 80 per cent of the cars produced in America had windows, doors, and a roof, as compared to 10 percent in 1919, which meant motorists no longer needed to cover themselves up in protective clothing to go for a drive. This motoring duster illustrates a part of motoring history, back in the early days of the “horseless carriage.”
This duster also conveys a part of fashion history. The label inside the duster is from the Standard Mail Order Co. – New York City. That this duster came from New York City to Colchester, Illinois, serves to illustrate another facet of local history. In the early 1900s, there was a growing mail-order business and they were being used by resident. Some might think women in rural west central Illinois in the 1900s might be isolated from the latest fashions but as this duster indicates they were not. The Standard Mail Order Company, the company that produced the duster, is little remembered now but was once one of the giants of the mail-order business, similar to Sears and Roebucks and Montgomery Ward.
The mail-order business was pioneered by the Montgomery Ward & Company established in 1872 in Chicago and by the Sears, Roebuck, and Company founded in 1893. The mail-order business began to boom beginning in 1896, when mail could be delivered via RFD- Rural Free Delivery. With RFD, mail-order businesses could serve almost everywhere in the United States. Mail-order houses were farm family’s link to shopping outside their local sources. Regardless of geography, rural Americans could purchase “store-bought” goods, manufactured goods mass-produced in factories. The mail-order houses offered customers convenience. Customers no longer had to wait for the next trip to town to buy something. Since mail-order houses catered to the entire county, their inventory included a range of products, and offered low prices because they could buy merchandise at reduced rates from wholesalers. Fashions were no longer restricted to middle and upper-class city folk who had access to department stores. Rural customers could now become aware of new styles almost as soon as they were produced in the big cities and sold in mail-order catalogs.
Jacob Rubel, the founder of Standard Mail Order Co., New York City (the producer of the linen duster) was an astute businessman who saw a unique opportunity in the mail-order business. In 1913, he wrote an article entitled, “Developing a Mail-Order Market Overlooked by Big Houses” in Printer’s Ink – A Journal of Advertisers. In this article, Rubel shares his story of creating his own mail-order house. He tells of starting his mail-order business in 1899 and how within four years of starting, he occupied a thirteen-story building with a floor space of ten acres in New York City. His business grew by leaps and bounds and in 1914 expanded into another 12-story building on 55th St. between 9th and 10th Avenues.
How did the Standard Mail Order Co. (SMOC) become so successful so quickly? Rubel discovered a market overlooked by the big mail-order houses like Montgomery Ward’s and Sears Roebucks. The SMOC focused on getting bargains to sell such as mill ends, odd lots, slightly smaller production runs, and items the mills wanted to get rid of and that SMOC could get for rock-bottom prices. The SMOC also focused its advertising on small towns and rural regions, areas where customers were looking for low-priced woman’s, men’s, and children’s clothing.
The SMOC also brought a new twist to their advertising. Because they were getting smaller lots, they could not offer an inexhaustible supply of their merchandise. The big mail-order houses produced a catalog every six months and customers could peruse the catalog at leisure, ordering when the fancy struck them. They knew the item would be available. SMOC decided to take the idea that instead of a department store, they were more of a “department store bargain counter by mail.” They offered bargains only until they were bought out – a limited supply — so they started to issue their catalog every six weeks. Instead of calling it a catalog, SMOC called it a “Bargain Bulletin,” emphasizing to the customer the merchandise was available for a short time only. Encouraging shoppers to order right away, and get the bargains while they lasted. The bulletin was printed on cheap paper with editions running into the millions. It showed the customer the company’s emphasis was on offering the best prices, not on printing a big catalog. In 1914, the Standard Mail Order Company they received 25,000 pieces of mail every day. By 1020, the Standard Mail Order Company was no longer in existence. It merged with Perry-Dame & Co. to become Perry-Dame & Co., the Standard Mail Order House of America.
The garment industry in New York City at the turn of the century was extensive. In 1910, 70% of the nation’s women’s clothing and 40% of the men’s was produced in New York City. Someone in Colchester buying a linen duster from New York City in the 1900s might sound like it would have been an isolated instance but it probably wasn’t. It is likely that many women in Colchester, Macomb, Adair, Bushnell, and all the other towns in McDonough and surrounding counties, were wearing New York City fashions they had purchased from a mail-order house.
Buying fashions made in New York City today is not as easy as it was back in the 1900s. Up until the 1960s, 95% of clothing sold in the United States was manufactured in the Garment District of New York City. Now most companies have moved overseas and the number has decreased to approximately three percent. This linen duster serves to give us a glimpse into local history, as well as, tells us how mail-order houses brought fashion to all parts of America at the beginning of the 20th century.
Research assistance was provided by Dr. Carmen Keist, Assistant Professor, Dietetics, Fashion Merchandising and Hospitality Department, Western Illinois University.