Today's Tidbit... Two Items in Spalding's 1905 Catalog
Today's Tidbit... Two Items in Spalding's 1905 Catalog
Paging through the 1905-06 Spalding's Fall and Winter catalog led to two items being deemed worthy of discussion. One involved a piece that covered the gap between the vest and pants combination commonly worn at the time. I covered the item briefly in another story about football union suits but did not address their purpose. The other item of note was a new combination pad worn under the pants. Designed by Pop Warner, the combination must have served a purpose, but that purpose continues to elude me.
In the 1905 era, football players often wore outfits that resembled union suits: a colored long-sleeve jersey, a canvas vest, and canvas or moleskin pants to the knees. Wool stockings to the knees, black shoes, and shin guards completed the outfit. Many players and teams skipped the vest, but the union suit was among the standard looks of the day.
With the jersey tucked in, the top of the pants provided an inviting target for opponents to grab when making a tackle. To solve that problem, they developed an elasticized band to cover the gap between the vest and pants.
The elastic band solved the pants-grabbing problem until football pants evolved in the late Teens with the addition of extensive padding on the upper hips and kidneys.
Warner's Combination Pad
During the union suit era, most football pants had built-in pads that came in two styles. The older style had quilted felt or hair in all the right spots, while the more modern style had felt or hair padding along with a series of reeds or canes on the front thighs to provide mechanical protection. The 1905-06 Spalding ad above shows the reeded moleskin pants sold for $5.
Although an earlier Tidbit about disintegrating pants told readers that pants without pads became available in the late Teens, it turns out that Spalding was already selling them in 1905. Those reeded moleskin pants sold for $5 with pads went for $4 without pads, so you saved a buck. Of course, unpadded pants of the time did not have pockets that allowed you to insert separate pads of your choice, so the wearers of unpadded pants either went without padding or wore pads with elastic bands or belts that wrapped around the thighs, knees, and shins to keep them in place. The shin guard ad below shows shin guards secured with leather belts and buckles.
Presumably, you could acquire similar thigh and knee versions, though Spalding did not offer them in their 1905-06 catalog. Instead, they had the Pop Warner-designed combination pad, which covered the thighs, knees, and shins for $5 each. Outfitting a player in unpadded pants and a pair of combination pads ran $14, far more than the reeded moleskin pants and top-of-the-line shin guards, which retailed for $6.75 combined.
Despite the dramatic price difference, some folks, including Pop Warner, thought there was $7.75 worth of benefits to using the combination pads, but those benefits are unclear to me. If the combination pads had more protective material than the padded pants, why not use the more protective material in another model of padded pants? Another potential benefit was that combination pads stayed in place better than the pads in the baggy pants of the day, but why not streamline the pants instead? I don't get it.
So, the rationale behind the combination pad remains to be determined, while anyone who previously wondered why players once wore elastic bands around waists now has their answer.
Subscribe for free for limited content or gain full access with a paid subscription.
You can also support the site via: