Chris Hornung
March 4, 2020

1886 Peck & Snyder Catalog Illustrations

“In the present gentle stage of the football game a mass of flowing locks is said to afford sufficient protection to the skull of the college man. But as the game seems to be evolving towards something more glorious and dangerous than the game of to-day, it is safe to presume that helmets will soon be added to football armor. Then bangs will have fulfilled their mission, and may start on their onward way once more.”

“From the present time until the close of the football season there will be great depression in the barber business at the various colleges, for a football player’s crowing glory, like that of a woman, is his hair. When he begins training, he avoids the tonsorial artist’s shears as faithfully as he does late hours and tobacco. As the weeks pass his hair grows and wanders at its own sweet will until it reaches a state of riot and luxuriousness that fairly out Paderewski’s Paderewski. It curls around his ears; it stands erect upon his head like the quills upon the fretful porcupine; it hangs over his collar with the grace that lurks about a half pruned hedge fence, and it mats itself upon his brow like the untutored forelock of a friendless mule.”

Georgetown Times, January 20, 1894

"Long Hair Kickers," Racine Daily Journal. September 30, 1893

Football Cap Advertisement,
Spalding Official Football Guide, 1892

During the first 20 years of the sport's evolution, a wide variety of caps were employed on the football field. Their popularity amongst football players is well documented in hundreds of period team and individual photos. However, none of these cap styles were exclusively worn by football players of the era. Nineteenth century catalogs and period photos show the same style Eton caps, skull caps, and stocking caps worn by tennis, canoeing, yachting, crew, track, hockey, lacrosse, skiing, and bicycling athletes, making definitive identification of nineteenth football caps without provenance or manufacturer tagging practically impossible.

Football Caps, 1902 Victor Sporting Goods Catalog

Football Caps, 1899 Robert Ingersoll Catalog

By the early 1890's American football players had found a replacement for the limited head protection that the football cap afforded, "untutored" locks of hair. As a result, after 1892, football caps rarely appear in collegiate football team or game photos.

Richard Simmons, University of Pennsylvania. 1893

With the brutality of the game ever increasing, in 1894 the Georgetown Times, predicted that the "mass of flowing locks" on the football field would soon be replaced by "helmets....added to football armor." The Times' prediction was prescient. The first head (ear) protectors were introduced in 1894, and within 10 years a majority of players would be wearing head harnesses in college football games.

Caps were rarely worn as football game equipment beyond the mid-1890's. By the early 1900's the football toque was adopted as cold weather gear on college campuses and were frequently worn by rooters at athletic events. American sporting goods companies continued to sell skull and stocking caps as "football caps and toques" into the 1910's by which point their use was relegated to warm-up and sideline wear.

University of Pennsylvania Football Game, 1892, note lack of headgear

1905 William Reed & Sons

1888 Amherst College Track Athlete

1884 Yale Track Team, BST Auctions

1890 University of Pennsylvania Crew Team

The British foot ball tradition of awarding presentation caps to players was honored by several American collegiate football programs in the first quarter of the twentieth century. For football players at Yale and Princeton, there was no higher honor than to be awarded their sweater and cap emblazoned with the University "Y" or "P." Players who competed for their class teams were awarded sweaters and caps with their graduating class year.

“A Brief History of Boarding School: UK and Canada.” A Brief History of Boarding School: UK and Canada, Ourkids.net, www.ourkids.net/school/brief-history-of-boarding.

Crane, Diana. Fashion and Its Social Agendas Class, Gender and Identity in Clothing. TPB, 2009.

Philadelphia Times, March 5, 1893

1904 Class Presentation Cap, Yale University

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 23, 1897