Modes of transportation have come a long way. In Colonial times, options included riding a horse or walking; later choices expanded to include the trains and airplanes. Regardless of the transportation type, how to travel stylishly has been a question for centuries.
Luggage always has been of the utmost importance, as it determines what can be taken on the trip. Before the early 1900s, trunks and hatboxes were two of the most common traveling companions. Traveling trunks, unlike those meant to stay inside, were often covered in animal hides to help ward off water damage when carried atop an open stagecoach. Hatboxes, or bandboxes, protected the hats of both men and women from being crushed in a trunk while traveling. Some hatboxes could hold any kind of hat, while others were shaped for the specific hat type they housed, such as top hats.
Traveling in style also meant being stylishly dressed. Except for daily jaunts around town, people seldom traveled, so the experience was often an unfamiliar and exciting one. People today tend to dress casually and comfortable for traveling, but in the past, travel was a special occasion. Women often wore traveling garments that consisted of less elaborate fashions of the day, often with slightly shortened skirts for easier walking, and simplified accessories and clothing embellishments. In the winter, cloaks and coats were worn for warmth and necessity, while in summer women carried parasols to keep the sun off their fair complexions. Men and women both wore dusters when traveling in automobiles. These durable sack-like coats kept clothing clean while traveling in an open air auto.
Even as late as the mid-1900s, travel was often still regarded as an occasion for Sunday best outfits and the appropriate accessories. People routinely got dressed up to take the train or sit for hours on a crowded airliner, even when traveling for pleasure.
To learn more go to “Sporting Women, What to Wear?” for a look at women’s bicycling costumes, and to “Shawls, Capes, and Coats” and find out what both men and women wore to stay warm. Changing modes of transportation are featured in Making Connecticut an interactive exhibition at the Connecticut Historical Society, www.chs.org, located at One Elizabeth Street, Hartford, CT 06105. Making Connecticut is open Tuesday-Friday 12-5 and Saturday 9-5.
