What I Wore: Football Edition

Here in the 1920s, we like football almost as much as you do. It's a fresh, new sport that's fun to watch, whether it's the Chicago Bears or the original "Monsters of the Midway," the University of Chicago Maroons (a team which, I understand, no longer exists in your era).

The Fashion Encyclopedia says, "Attending sporting events was a popular leisure time practice during the 1920s. Fashion-conscious spectators dressed in attire appropriate for a variety of sports events. Often fashion was dictated by the weather. For instance, male and female college students who attended autumn and early winter football games wore bulky raccoon fur coats or heavy tan-colored camel hair and woolen polo coats belted at the waist or with a partial belt at the back. Women's sportswear was becoming more masculine. By the late 1920s college-aged women wore tailored woolen tweed suits with knee-length skirts and loose-fitting slacks to collegiate sports events."

I think "masculine" might be going a bit too far, but I have borrowed a few ideas from my brother Charlie's closet, including tweed, sturdy leather shoes, and felt hats. I do, however, draw the line at wearing slacks, at least in Kerryville. In a big city like Chicago I might get way with something that daring, but I'd rather not chance it.

In the 1920s, both women and men like to wear raccoon coats to football games. I'd like one that

looked like the picture on the right (which is actually opossum), but they're too expensive for my budget. Sure would keep the chill off in the stands at Soldier Field, where the wind whips off Lake Michigan!

Did you know that the Chicago Bears (and professional football in general) got its start during my era? In 1920, Mr. George Halas founded a team called the Decatur Staleys. In 1922 they were renamed the Chicago Bears. The nice man over at the Chicago Bears website told me this: "The first major signing took place in 1925 when the Bears signed Red Grange to a contract. Halas then took Grange and the Bears on a coast-to-coast barnstorming tour in which the club played 16 games in nine weeks. The first game of that stretch was played before 36,000 at the team's home site, Wrigley Field."

Wrigley Field, of course, is now where the Chicago Cubs play baseball. The Bears' Soldier Field was built in 1924 (although the first game played there did not involve the Bears, but was a college game between Notre Dame and Northwestern). Originally called the Grant Park Municipal Stadium, it was soon renamed to honor the men who fought in the Great War. In the 1920s we think Soldier Field is very grand, like a Greek temple with its columns and porticos, but I see you 21st-century people done something with it that makes it look like a bathtub toy.

My Soldier Field

Your Soldier Field

Until next time,

Marjorie
XXX000