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Acoonskin cap is ahat fashioned from the skin andfur of araccoon. The headwear became associated withEuropean Americans occupying lands on the United States borders with Indigenous nations in the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. The cap became highly popular among boys in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia in the 1950s.[1]
The coonskin cap is an iconic cap associated with the early American frontier. Originally designed by the Native American peoples of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia; the style was later adopted by early pioneers to the area following the decades after the American Revolution. Individuals associated with the headwear generally includeDaniel Boone,[2]Davy Crockett,Meriwether Lewis, andJoseph L. Meek. Early media such as the songThe Hunters of Kentucky helped introduce the coonskin cap in the popular culture of American psyche.[3]
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PoliticianEstes Kefauver of Tennessee adopted the coonskin cap as a personaltrademark during his successful 1948campaign for election to theUnited States Senate. Tennesseepolitical bossE. H. Crump had published advertisements accusing Kefauver of being a raccoon-likeCommunist puppet. In response, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap during a speech inMemphis, proclaiming: "I may be apet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon."[4] He continued to use the coonskin cap as a trademark throughout his political career, which included unsuccessful campaigns for theDemocratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956, an unsuccessful campaign for theVice Presidency asAdlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, and successful Senatorial re-election campaigns in 1954 and 1960.[4]
In the 20th century, the iconic association was in large part due toDisney's television programDisneyland and the first threeDavy Crockett episodes starringFess Parker, which aired from December 1954 to February 1955. In the episodes, which once again made Crockett into one of the most popular men in the country, the frontier hero was portrayed wearing a coonskin cap. The show spawned severalDisneyland Davy Crockett sequels as well as other similar shows and movies, with many of them featuring Parker as the lead actor. Parker went on to star in aDaniel Boone television series (1964–1970), again wearing a coonskin cap.
Crockett's new popularity initiated afad among boys all over the United States as well as aDavy Crockett craze in the United Kingdom. The look of the cap that was marketed to young boys was typically simplified; it was usually afaux fur lined skull cap with a raccoon tail attached. A variation was marketed to young girls as the Polly Crockett hat. It was similar in style to the boys' cap, including the long tail, but was made of all-white fur (faux or possibly rabbit). At the peak of the fad, coonskin caps sold at a rate of 5,000 caps a day.[5] By the end of the 1950s, Crockett's popularity waned and the fad slowly died out. The fad is recalled by numerous cultural references, such as the wearing of coonskin caps as part ofThe Junior Woodchucks uniform in Disney'sDonald Duck comics. NovelistThomas Pynchon referenced both the hat and the fashion in his novelV., where he refers to the hat as a "bushy Freudianhermaphrodite symbol".
