if you undertake travel in the interior part of the country, don t forget the capot. Latrobe, 1803 Jeff & Mark A collection of more than 400 years worth of historical images of the capot and the blanket coat. Abridged version Produced by Jeff Pavlik and Mark Petee 2013 Images have been cropped from their original sources for educational purposes 1
Introduction What we present here is by no means definitive nor a complete study of the capot. We see it as merely a journey through art, celebrating this simple yet effective piece of clothing whose basic design was slowly modified through the centuries while lasting all the while in its usefulness. Our hope is that those who wish to reenact the past utilize this chronology to find the capot design that best represents their own chosen point in history and to recreate this garment for themselves with more knowledge and a keener eye to the details of a specific era. This presentation is an abbreviated version of our project. The full project is now over 300 slides and contains many more images and an array of historical quotes that describe the capot in specific times and places. The full project also contains many modern pictures of reenactors and their capots in various eras of history. The bibliography and works cited will be available with the completed project. The full version will be published at http://colonialbaker.net/capot.html 2
Our purpose in assembling this presentation is to show the evolution and changing style of the capot, a form of outerwear worn by Europeans since the earliest years of exploration in North America. The capot as a sailors garment provided functional simplicity and usefulness in the colder climates, which also led to its adoption by the natives of the continent who traded with the French. The design of the garment was later utilized by British traders and military forces. Americans then began to adopt the capot and it became a standard outerwear in the western fur trade. Canadians continued to update this style of clothing for work and leisure do to it s practicality and its significance to their heritage. A capot is distinguished as an outerwear garment, possibly with a hood, that commonly overlaps in the front, often times tied with a sash and generally cut lower then the waist varying in length from the calf to the mid-thigh. 3
17 th century European capots Dutch townsmen, Vrancx, 1622 Dutch sailors exploring the Arctic, Gerrit de Veer. circa 1600 French fisherman wearing a capot. Lagniet, 1647 17 th century French capots Portaging a canoe, Fr. Claude Chauchetiere, 1685 Canadien militiaman wearing a capot fastened with a simple mariners cuff. la Potherie, c. 1690 Details of Huron man in a capot. Map cartouche, Jean-Baptiste Franquelin, circa 1700
18 th Century French Capot A View of the Taking of Quebec, (this portion showing Canadian militiamen), Hervey Smyth, 1760 Ex-Voto, Notre Dame de Liesse, St Lawrence Valley, early 18 th century Canadian habitants, Davies, 1780 s Canadian Voyageurs, circa 1730
18 th Century Blanket Capots Unknown German artist, late 18 th century comparing Native and Canadian clothing British Soldier Canadian Farmer Friedrich von Germann, circa 1778 Early 19 th Century Blanket Capots J.C. Young M.M. Chaplin, circa 1840 c. 1825-1827 Rhindisbacher, 1820 s
John Lambert, 1806 George Heriot, 1807 Heriot, 1815 Rhindisbacher, 1820 s Capots in Canada 1800-1825 John Crawford Young, c. 1825
James Duncan, 1831-34 Rebel insurgents at Beauharnois Seigneury, Nov. 4, Jane Ellice, 1838 Sir Henry James Warre, 1840 s Capots in Canada 1830-1850 R.C. Todd, 1845 artist unknown, 1845 Images of various Canadien habitants George Gipps, 1830-40 s
Grant, 1851 Wolf, 1853 V.C. (Unknown), 1857 Armstrong, c. 1860 Krieghoff, circa 1850 s Capots in Canada 1850-1875 Hind, 1863 Shrapnel, c. 1875
Capots in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Miller, 1837 Deas, 1844 Kurz, 1851 Kurz, 1851 Capots in the Hudson Bay Company Journal of the Yukon, Murray, 1847 Traders Leaving Lower Fort Garry, William Henry Edward Napier, c. 1857 Winter Travelling in Rupert's Land, George Seton, 1857 Sketches of Hudson Bay Life, Bullock, 1874-1880
Black Hooded Capots in the Hudson Bay Company Kane, ca. 1847 Napier, 1850 Hind, 1862 Moncrieff, 1857 Heming, 1896 Fort Nelson, British Columbia - circa 1895
Notman Studios, 1876 Harpers Weekly, c. 1880 Late 19 th century Canadian Snowshoe Club Capots Snowshoe club, 1886 Ice-Carnival Sketches, c. 1880 s Sandham, 1886
Anonymous Cheyenne drawing of hunter, ca. 1889 Cree Hunter, c. 1890 s Remington, 1889 M.Russell, 1898 Late 19 th century Native Americans in Capots Remington, 1887 Flathead Delegation to Washington, D.C. - 1884
20 th century Native American multi-striped capots Remington, 1901 Remington, 1902 Russell, 1912 Bear Blood (aka Pascal Antoine), Flathead, 1903 Blood Indians, 1910 Glacier National Park, 1934
20 th century Rendevous style capots As you have observed from the historical images presented, a capot of this style is appropriate for reenacting the early 20 th century but has little to no resemblance to the capots of the 17 th, 18 th or most of the 19 th centuries. 20 th century blanket advertisements While often sold as being proper garments for historical reenactments of early American history, most facets of this design are only seen starting in the 1880 s and do not become standard to the garment until the beginning of the 20 th century. It seems that their continued popularity with Native Americans in the west cemented the view that this style was the common garment of the Canadians, the voyageurs and the mountain-men among others from the 17 th - 19 th century. Modern advertising and artwork along with the culture of reenactors and those involved in rendezvous only solidified this form of the garment as being proper to earlier eras. Michael Gnatek, late 20 th century