A friend sent a nice picture of an early Rawlings Safe-T-Vue Face Protector, so I am sharing the image and some background information. (Earlier posts on the evolution of helmets and face masks are linked below.)

All or most football headgear was leather from the 1890s through the 1940s. Plastic helmets appeared on football fields in 1940, but shortages of plastics for civilian use during WWII delayed their widespread use.

Birdcage face masks that protruded from helmets appeared in the 1930s, but it was not until the 1950s that plastic helmets with protruding face masks became common. After that, however, the combination of players wearing equipment made of hard materials and using helmets as weapons led some football authorities to demand the elimination of plastic helmets or face masks.

Rawlings, one of the top suppliers of football gear at the time, had a better (or worse) idea. They developed clear face protectors attached to the helmet and resting on the player's face. The version below is an early model. Like many early face masks, it attached to the helmet with leather straps.

Rawlings improved the Safe-T-Vue by attaching them with snaps similar to those used with chin straps, as touted in their 1956-57 Rawling's Fall and Winter Catalog.

An advantage of the Safe-T-Vue was that it did not obstruct the wearer's view, although Alan Ameche managed to win the 1954 Heisman Trophy wearing a similar device, and The Horse wore one of a different color.

Football Archaeology

Football History As Told By Sporting Goods Catalogs: Nose Guards and Face Masks

The equipment used by football players at different points in the game's history tells us much about the game during each period, making period sporting goods catalogs an interesting archival source of football history. My first post examining catalog items covered the history of…

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2 years ago · Timothy P. Brown

Football Archaeology

Today's Tidbit... The NFL's First Face Mask?

I've previously written about the evolution of nose guards and face masks. Until now, I thought transparent plastic face masks first appeared in the early 1950s when Riddell produced one for Otto Graham, but a friend, Ron Pomfrey, provided the following image of a helmet John Woudenberg wore with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1940 to 1942. It is a great item…

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8 months ago · Timothy P. Brown

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