Kenwood Sleeping Bag 1893 - the Middle 20th Century
Apr 28, 2018 11:32:23 GMT -5
Nathanael Logsdon likes this
Post by sargevining on Apr 28, 2018 11:32:23 GMT -5
I started out as a small cottage vendor of US WW1 personal items, marketing mainly through a Facebook Page called Y Guy Supply . One of the paths I'm taking is to provide after-market accessories for the Wolesly pattern Officer's Bedroll sold by What Price Glory. These bedrolls were designed as a "valise" to carry your sleeping gear in---basically a commericial improvement of the classic canvas tarp bedroll used by adventurers, cowboys, and soldiers for the last two centuries. The research was informed by my life long love of backpacking and camping as well as 25 years in reenacting. The research led me to what is becoming known as "Classic Camping", an endeavor which I have embraced with a good deal of enthusiasm and has led to selling those products from the WW1 military reenacting field that are applicable to post-war camping and trekking, along with civilian items which would not be appropriate for military impressions, by creating the fictional early 20th century company "Vico Ranch and Expedition Outfitters" and selling though another Facebook Page of the same name.
The first step in the process of filling the bedroll was in researching what might have been used to provide what we call today a "sleeping pad", but was know more universally at the time as a mattress. These would have to be sized to fit conviently in the commercial bedrolls of the period as well as on a common cot or bunk. This led to the discovery of the CottoDown mattress made by the Waco Mattress Company in Waco, Texas.
But, beyond the bedroll and mattress, an Officer on campaign, trekker on the trail, prospector in the gold fields, cowboy on the range, or motor camper by the roadside requires warm covering in cool and cold weather. While the practice of using folded and pinned wool blankets to perform this task had been the norm for centuries, researching advertising in the late 19th Century leads us to commercially produced sleeping bags of wool, fur, and down available for purchase. Much of that marketing was aimed at military officers. More affluent and educated civilians became aware of such products through their use in the polar and other expeditions of exploration financed by scientific societies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most well know of which was the National Geographic Society. Much of the scientific research of such expeditions involved the evaluation and development of all sorts of what we call today "camping gear". Further spurring interest, production, and innovation of outdoor products was the discovery of gold in Alaska in 1895 and the resulting Gold Rush which generated an extreme need for cold weather clothing and sleeping systems. Advertising of these products now became widespread, appearing in newspapers and other publications aimed at a more general population. Such advertising, articles in period outdoor publications, and in some cases patent applications, form the primary sources of documentation and research for less sturdy articles of commercial outdoor equipment that are scarce today because many were discarded as a result of hard use and damage resulting from that use. This makes the aquisition of originals both expensive and difficult. The rarity and expense of originals of this type of equipment leads to a need for reproductions that can be used by period reenactors and Classic Campers. I found the following commercially offered sleeping bags advertised during the period 1890-1939 (and in some cases, well beyond): The Kenwood, Jaeger, and Johnson sleeping bags and the more substantial Woods Arctic Sleeping Robe. Each would have been seen on campaign, the trail, or in motor camps of more affluent outdoorsmen and military officers, and all of which, collectively, form the genesis of the modern sleeping bag we know today. The following addresses the Kenwood Sleeping Bag which I will be offering on both Facebook pages (and a future website), along with the Jeager and Woods bags which will be addressed in future articles.
This article in Volume 116 of Printer's Ink gives a short, albeit inaccurate as far as start of production is concerned, history of the Kenwood sleeping bag and other products produced by Kenwood Mills. The magazine is a trade publication of the Advertising Industry of the time and, as we shall see, Kenwood was being marketed on a wide basis before the middle 1919 date the article written in 1921 might suggest.
The earliest advertisement for the Kenwood Sleeping bag I've found is an article in the September 1893 issue of the Nidiologist, a special interest magazine for collectors and researchers of bird's nests. While of no real value as to discerning design elements, it gave me a starting point to search year by year for advertisements which might show drawings, photographs, or dimensions of the bag. The $6 price quoted in the ad translates to about $165 in today's dollars.
The earliest dipicton of the bag was found in a May 1895 edition of Forest and Stream. From this, we find the system involves two bags, a "light" one and a "heavy" one and gives us the weight and colors of each.
A better depiction and narrative description of the bag is found in July 1895 issue of Hardware Dealer's magazine. Its possible, if not probable, that this is the bag design as advertised in 1893. The description tells us that it was fastened at top and along the open sides of the bag with snaps and that the bag is strongly felted with a soft nap on the inside. The drawing gives us an idea of the placement of the snaps, that the interior of the bag was of a slightly different shade, and its intended use wherein the snaps can be used to in such a manner that one is snug inside the bag, but one's hands are free to use (I've tried this on my prototype and its kind of neat). This is what would have been on the shelves of hardware and sporting good stores at the beginning of the Alaska Gold Rush in 1896.
What a difference two years makes. By the time this 1897 advertisement appears in the Army and Navy Journal, the Gold Rush was in full swing. Apparently feed back and research resulted in the addition of a canvas outer cover. Advertisements in the Army and Navy Journal appear from 1897-1901 meaning that Regular Army and some National Guard officers serving from the Spanish American War until at least 1901 would have been familiar with the bag. Junior officers beginning thier carreers during this period would have had them in thier campaign kit for many years to follow, probably into WW1.
This 1898 advertisement gives us an illustration of the new bag design. In addition to the canvas cover, we see that the snaps have been abandoned in favor of ties, and no mention of it being used as a cape, robe, or knapsack is being made as was in the 1895 version. There also appears to be the addition of grommets to tie the bag into the canvas outer cover.
This extract from the Reports of Explorations In The Territory of Alaska published by the War Department in 1899 mentions use of the Kenwood bag by the military in 1898.
The report of the Quartermaster General for FY 1901 also shows 24 Kenwood bags being purchased for use by troops in Alaska. It is apparent that these bags were purchased for enlisted men's use due to the climate. Officers would have been required to purchase thier own gear.
The next clue to construction of the bag is given in this 1915 advertisement in the Los Angeles Times Sun. From this we get the circumference and length of the bag, and that the canvas cover was "heavily paraffined". We can assume that these dimensions are the same for the earlier versions of the bag.
The final iteration of the bag begins showing up about 1920, as this ad in Feild and Stream depicts. Gone are the ties and grommets (in fact, their disapppearance is heralded as one of the features of the bag), replaced by "wings" that are to be tucked in while sleeping, rather than tying or snapping the bag shut. Here we also see that the additional fabric at the top of the canvas outer bag was intended to cover the head in tent like fashion.
Other images and articles of the bag from period sources show or mention the use of both an overcast stitch or binding at the exposed edges of the bag. All show that the bag was assembled in the usual "inside out" method for making any cloth bag.
Modern images of the Kenwood bag are nearly impossible to find. The two below are from an old blog post where the author mentions the bag belonging to her father and shows the edging to be an overcast stitch. It apears to be one of the "light" bags. The image of it on the clothes line shows the "wings".
Prorotype versions of the reproduction can be seen here and here. I will be making these bags on a custom order basis in three versions: 1893-1896 with snaps, 1897-1920 with laces and grommets, and the final version with "wings" without laces and grommets. These will be available in your choice of the "light inner bag", "heavy outer bag", or both (I will not be making the canvas cover at this time). We will be using a premium felt (one layer for the light bag, two for the heavy) with a flannel layer on the inside of the bag to reproduce original felted wood pulp roller material with soft inner nap described in the earlier verions of the bag as the original material is no longer available. We have no way to adequately test the temperature rating of the bags, but can report that I have slept in the "Heavy bag" version of the prototype, without a flannel inner layer, in the low 50s in an open ended pup tent on a cot with a Cottodown matress without any discomfort. In fact, I was quite comfortable, even though I had not installed any snaps or ties to close the top of the bag. As time goes by, I will be testing the system in lower temperatures. We will announce availability on this forum and on both Facebook pages as we wait for some equipment and material to be delivered.
The first step in the process of filling the bedroll was in researching what might have been used to provide what we call today a "sleeping pad", but was know more universally at the time as a mattress. These would have to be sized to fit conviently in the commercial bedrolls of the period as well as on a common cot or bunk. This led to the discovery of the CottoDown mattress made by the Waco Mattress Company in Waco, Texas.
But, beyond the bedroll and mattress, an Officer on campaign, trekker on the trail, prospector in the gold fields, cowboy on the range, or motor camper by the roadside requires warm covering in cool and cold weather. While the practice of using folded and pinned wool blankets to perform this task had been the norm for centuries, researching advertising in the late 19th Century leads us to commercially produced sleeping bags of wool, fur, and down available for purchase. Much of that marketing was aimed at military officers. More affluent and educated civilians became aware of such products through their use in the polar and other expeditions of exploration financed by scientific societies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most well know of which was the National Geographic Society. Much of the scientific research of such expeditions involved the evaluation and development of all sorts of what we call today "camping gear". Further spurring interest, production, and innovation of outdoor products was the discovery of gold in Alaska in 1895 and the resulting Gold Rush which generated an extreme need for cold weather clothing and sleeping systems. Advertising of these products now became widespread, appearing in newspapers and other publications aimed at a more general population. Such advertising, articles in period outdoor publications, and in some cases patent applications, form the primary sources of documentation and research for less sturdy articles of commercial outdoor equipment that are scarce today because many were discarded as a result of hard use and damage resulting from that use. This makes the aquisition of originals both expensive and difficult. The rarity and expense of originals of this type of equipment leads to a need for reproductions that can be used by period reenactors and Classic Campers. I found the following commercially offered sleeping bags advertised during the period 1890-1939 (and in some cases, well beyond): The Kenwood, Jaeger, and Johnson sleeping bags and the more substantial Woods Arctic Sleeping Robe. Each would have been seen on campaign, the trail, or in motor camps of more affluent outdoorsmen and military officers, and all of which, collectively, form the genesis of the modern sleeping bag we know today. The following addresses the Kenwood Sleeping Bag which I will be offering on both Facebook pages (and a future website), along with the Jeager and Woods bags which will be addressed in future articles.
This article in Volume 116 of Printer's Ink gives a short, albeit inaccurate as far as start of production is concerned, history of the Kenwood sleeping bag and other products produced by Kenwood Mills. The magazine is a trade publication of the Advertising Industry of the time and, as we shall see, Kenwood was being marketed on a wide basis before the middle 1919 date the article written in 1921 might suggest.
The earliest advertisement for the Kenwood Sleeping bag I've found is an article in the September 1893 issue of the Nidiologist, a special interest magazine for collectors and researchers of bird's nests. While of no real value as to discerning design elements, it gave me a starting point to search year by year for advertisements which might show drawings, photographs, or dimensions of the bag. The $6 price quoted in the ad translates to about $165 in today's dollars.
The earliest dipicton of the bag was found in a May 1895 edition of Forest and Stream. From this, we find the system involves two bags, a "light" one and a "heavy" one and gives us the weight and colors of each.
A better depiction and narrative description of the bag is found in July 1895 issue of Hardware Dealer's magazine. Its possible, if not probable, that this is the bag design as advertised in 1893. The description tells us that it was fastened at top and along the open sides of the bag with snaps and that the bag is strongly felted with a soft nap on the inside. The drawing gives us an idea of the placement of the snaps, that the interior of the bag was of a slightly different shade, and its intended use wherein the snaps can be used to in such a manner that one is snug inside the bag, but one's hands are free to use (I've tried this on my prototype and its kind of neat). This is what would have been on the shelves of hardware and sporting good stores at the beginning of the Alaska Gold Rush in 1896.
What a difference two years makes. By the time this 1897 advertisement appears in the Army and Navy Journal, the Gold Rush was in full swing. Apparently feed back and research resulted in the addition of a canvas outer cover. Advertisements in the Army and Navy Journal appear from 1897-1901 meaning that Regular Army and some National Guard officers serving from the Spanish American War until at least 1901 would have been familiar with the bag. Junior officers beginning thier carreers during this period would have had them in thier campaign kit for many years to follow, probably into WW1.
This 1898 advertisement gives us an illustration of the new bag design. In addition to the canvas cover, we see that the snaps have been abandoned in favor of ties, and no mention of it being used as a cape, robe, or knapsack is being made as was in the 1895 version. There also appears to be the addition of grommets to tie the bag into the canvas outer cover.
This extract from the Reports of Explorations In The Territory of Alaska published by the War Department in 1899 mentions use of the Kenwood bag by the military in 1898. The report of the Quartermaster General for FY 1901 also shows 24 Kenwood bags being purchased for use by troops in Alaska. It is apparent that these bags were purchased for enlisted men's use due to the climate. Officers would have been required to purchase thier own gear.
The next clue to construction of the bag is given in this 1915 advertisement in the Los Angeles Times Sun. From this we get the circumference and length of the bag, and that the canvas cover was "heavily paraffined". We can assume that these dimensions are the same for the earlier versions of the bag.
The final iteration of the bag begins showing up about 1920, as this ad in Feild and Stream depicts. Gone are the ties and grommets (in fact, their disapppearance is heralded as one of the features of the bag), replaced by "wings" that are to be tucked in while sleeping, rather than tying or snapping the bag shut. Here we also see that the additional fabric at the top of the canvas outer bag was intended to cover the head in tent like fashion.
Other images and articles of the bag from period sources show or mention the use of both an overcast stitch or binding at the exposed edges of the bag. All show that the bag was assembled in the usual "inside out" method for making any cloth bag.
Modern images of the Kenwood bag are nearly impossible to find. The two below are from an old blog post where the author mentions the bag belonging to her father and shows the edging to be an overcast stitch. It apears to be one of the "light" bags. The image of it on the clothes line shows the "wings".
Prorotype versions of the reproduction can be seen here and here. I will be making these bags on a custom order basis in three versions: 1893-1896 with snaps, 1897-1920 with laces and grommets, and the final version with "wings" without laces and grommets. These will be available in your choice of the "light inner bag", "heavy outer bag", or both (I will not be making the canvas cover at this time). We will be using a premium felt (one layer for the light bag, two for the heavy) with a flannel layer on the inside of the bag to reproduce original felted wood pulp roller material with soft inner nap described in the earlier verions of the bag as the original material is no longer available. We have no way to adequately test the temperature rating of the bags, but can report that I have slept in the "Heavy bag" version of the prototype, without a flannel inner layer, in the low 50s in an open ended pup tent on a cot with a Cottodown matress without any discomfort. In fact, I was quite comfortable, even though I had not installed any snaps or ties to close the top of the bag. As time goes by, I will be testing the system in lower temperatures. We will announce availability on this forum and on both Facebook pages as we wait for some equipment and material to be delivered.