Five minute history - the American dude ranch
By Lynn Downey
I’ve been fascinated by the American dude ranch for years. Since its inception in the 1880s, the dude ranch has always been a vacation destination for men and women, mostly from the eastern states, who want to experience the West and the cowboy lifestyle.
In the early days, the experience was rustic and centered around riding and camping. Today, you can ride an electric bike into the desert, as well as take a trail trek on a horse through the mountains. But no matter how modern the activities, the dude ranch still offers guests a touch of cowboy spirit.
My interest in this buckaroo getaway began when I was working as the historian and archivist for Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco. The company made clothing specifically for people to wear at dude ranches in the 1930s and 1940s, and that was so interesting to me. I began to research the history of dude ranching and collect memorabilia. (I’m not obsessed or anything, but I have about one hundred pieces of ephemera in my house: post cards, brochures, photos, pamphlets, magazines, ads.).
Anyway, in 2012, I starting thinking about writing my first novel and I decided to set it on a dude ranch. In addition, I wanted the time period to be the 1950s, because that was one of the high points of dude ranching’s popularity, and I could have fun with what people wore.
It took me a while to write the book, because I was still working full time. In 2014 I formed my own archival/consulting business, which gave me more hours to write, but I had some nonfiction books that needed to come out first. One of them was a cultural history of the dude ranch, American Dude Ranch: A Touch of the Cowboy and the Thrill of the West. Doing the research for this book helped me envision what I wanted my fictional ranch to look like.
Dudes Rush In, that first novel, came out in 2020, and the sequel, Dude or Die, was released last year. The books are set in 1952 and 1954, respectively, and my main characters are women. They are sisters-in-law, but have different back stories and ways of dressing. As well as attitudes toward denim.
Levi Strauss & Co. created the first blue jean for women in 1934, called Lady Levi’s. They were designed for women to wear on dude ranches, because in those days – and in fact all the way through to the 1960s – it was just not acceptable for a woman to wear jeans. At least in public. You’d never see the equivalent of Martha Stewart wearing jeans in Connecticut in 1954.
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But on a dude ranch, they were the perfect product, and nobody looked down on a woman who jumped onto a horse wearing denim. In fact, ranchers told prospective guests to make sure to bring jeans with them. Not only that, the women who owned or co-owned dude ranches wore jeans themselves. They were the right garment for the kind of work they had to do to keep ranches going.
My main character, Phoebe Kelley, is from San Francisco and comes out to Tribulation, Arizona to help her late husband’s sister Mary and her husband Sam run their H Double Bar dude ranch. Back home, Phoebe wears dresses, gloves, and a hat when she goes out. She has a little trouble showing up to dinner at the dude ranch wearing jeans and a western shirt, but Mary assures her it’s the right way to dress (and that’s what the guests wear, too).
Mary, who was raised on a ranch in Arizona, dresses in stylish western wear: side zip, slim denim pants, feminine western shirts, and boots (scuffed but still trendy). She also loves big earrings and bracelets which are always coordinated with her other clothes. Although she looks like she could be on the cover of a fashion magazine, her clothes never keep her from saddling a horse or stacking some hay, should the occasion arise.
Both Phoebe and Mary sometimes wear a western dress from the era. It was known as a “squaw dress,” which is a thoroughly unacceptable name today, of course. It was called that because the style was based on clothing worn by indigenous women in the Southwest. It was also sometimes called a patio dress, because lots of suburban women adopted it in the 1950s to wear at backyard parties. This is the name I use in my books.
An important character in Dude or Die is Thelma Powell, who runs the Desert Grande guest ranch. (A guest ranch is a fancier dude ranch.) Powell seems determined to put all of Tribulation’s other ranches out of business, especially the H Double Bar. Mary, Sam, and Phoebe go to an Open House that Thelma throws when the ranch opens, and readers get a sense of her personality by the way she dresses: tight black western slacks with pearl snaps on the pockets, tucked into black Acme boots, paired with a silver satin shirt with black piping and an embroidered yoke. That was taking western wear to a high level. She even outshone Mary.
Writing historical fiction about the West opens up so many possibilities: for setting, language, interesting characters and, for my purposes, clothes. My work for Levi Strauss & Co., and my own collection of vintage clothing and jewelry (which I wear regularly), gives me the chance to be self-indulgent with my own interests when I write my novels. But I am also true to history, because the clothes we wear – and wore – reveal our characters in a way that is both fun and fascinating.
Levi’s historical images courtesy Levi Strauss & Co.
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Thank you so much for hosting Lynn Downey today, with such a fascinating guest post about ladies’ fashion at dude ranches!
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club