Today's Tidbit... 1935 GoldSmith Sports Equipment Shoulder Pads

This is the seventh of seven articles in a series covering the 1935-36 Fall & Winter GoldSmith Athletic Equipment catalog. Preceding each section of the catalog is a one-page cartoon about the history of that type of equipment, in today's case, football shoulder pads.

Click the appropriate link for other stories in the series:

Consulting Staff | Footballs | Shoes | Pants | Jerseys | Helmets | Shoulder Pads | Miscellaneous

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Our shoulder pads cartoon harkens back to Middle Age lancers, the guys in armor who rode softly and carried big sticks. Then we turn to the turn-of-the-century boys with pads sewn on the jersey exterior. Moving ahead to 1935, they believed shoulder pad design and technology had reached their zeniths, and there could not be better-designed shoulder pads than those shown in the catalog since they were at the point that falling on the field felt like "falling into a feather bed."

The cartoon element in the bottom right shows a museum tour guide in 2035 A. D. describing the shoulder pads and helmets worn back in 1935. Our review of the GoldSmith catalog is a dozen years early, but it was a pretty good prediction nonetheless.