[Ads-l] toboggan (as a cap), antedating to ca. 1886

Tue Jan 7 21:14:33 UTC 2025

I do think that there was a bit of tobogganing craze in the Northeast
and Upper Midwest (and Ontario?) in the mid-1880s, with toboggan hats
becoming popular winter-wear elsewhere in the country, even in places
generally deprived of snow. (And some of the things I ran across
indicate that lightweight knit hats called "toboggans" were also worn
by babies and women, even when it wasn't cold.)

BTW, for anyone interested, here are some early examples of toboggans
worn in the Bronx in the winter of 1888:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Park_Racetrack#/media/File:Tobogganing_at_Fleetwood_Park,_1888.jpg.
(Growing up with the term in the '60s and '70s, I'd always equated the
toboggan with simple beanies or stocking caps, so the notion that
these were elongated, with tassels or pom-poms, was new to me.)

As for formation, I wonder whether we might compare the standalone
toboggan -- which I think must've derived from "toboggan cap" and
"toboggan hat" -- with the "boater," which apparently emerged not that
long before the "toboggan."

Originally a "boater hat" (or "boaters' hat"; after people who boat),
then clipped to "boater" and embraced by the non-boating public
outside the realm of boating.

Not quite the same, and not a great addressing of polysemy, but it
occurred to me that there may have been a similar evolution in naming.

-- Bonnie

On Tue, Jan 7, 2025 at 1:48 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> I remember discovering that usage many decades ago in Wisconsin—the New York and New England toboggan is always sense 3 in the DARE entry reproduced below.  Seems like a weird isogloss, as well as a weird polysemy. Anyone want to speculate on how that happened? Sense #3 is evidently (< OED) from a native term borrowed into English in eastern Canada.  Not sure how we got from there to senses 1 and 2, much less in the southeast.  Maybe (via toboggan cap/scarf) a clothing item worn while tobogganing (in sense 3), then a loss of transparency.
>
> LH
>
> toboggan, n  <https://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00059577?rskey=mqtthE&result=2>
> often toboggan cap , toboggan
>
> 1 often toboggan cap, ~ hat; also aphet boggan, boggin; rarely tobogganing cap: A stocking cap. chiefly South <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.Sth>, South Midland <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.S%20Midl>; also Inland North <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.Inland%20Nth>
> 2 usu as toboggan scarf: A long winter scarf. esp North <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.Nth>
> 3 A single bobsled or a double-runner. <https://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00015986#ID_00015986>New England <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.NEng>
>  <https://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00010689?rskey=mqtthE&result=3>
>
>
> > On Jan 7, 2025, at 12:04 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > As a native North Carolinian, I sometimes feel the need to stick up
> > for the often-mocked "toboggan" as a thing you wear on your head in
> > winter. This regionalism (Midwest, Southeast) has shown up on the list
> > before, but I can't find that anyone has gone looking for early
> > usages.
> >
> > OED has pushed back the standalone "toboggan," with the meaning of a
> > knit cap (originally with a sort of "tail"), to 1907. (The solitary
> > "toboggan" for hat was preceded by "toboggan hat" and "toboggan cap.")
> >
> > You'll find some earlier examples below.
> >
> > I should mention, though, that not all of the following are slam-dunks
> > for standalone "toboggans" as hats. I can't rule out that at least one
> > or two of these appearances aren't shorthand for "toboggan suits,"
> > "toboggan costumes," "toboggan jackets," and the like, though I think
> > that those abbreviations might have been very rare. (Tobogganing seems
> > to have become a big thing in northern climes in about 1885.)
> >
> > Although predominantly popular in winter, early toboggans (hats) were
> > all-year things. Babies seem to have been early adopters of toboggans:
> > millinery shops were selling toboggans (even lace ones) for small
> > children as early as 1887. At the same time, their mothers were
> > wearing a style of "crush hat" known as a toboggan in the warmer
> > months.
> >
> > -- Bonnie
> >
> > ------------------------
> >
> > All the best people down that way are now wearing toboggans. ["Of
> > Interest to Buffalo Tobogganists," The Buffalo Evening News, 9 January
> > 1886, page unnumbered, but presumably the third;
> > https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-news-wearing-toboggans-hats/162409019/.
> > Originally published in the Detroit Evening Journal.]
> >
> > A very handsomely decorated team of black horses were attached to a
> > double cutter and wore little toboggans between their ears, ornamented
> > with ribbons. ["Elegant Equipages," Daily Globe (Saint Paul,
> > Minnesota), 5 February 1886, p. 1;
> > https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-saint-paul-globe-toboggans-on-horses/162406262/.]
> >
> > Babies lace toboggans are the latest novelties in the millinery
> > stores. [Monmouth (Illinois) Review, 29 April 1887, unnumbered page,
> > but presumably fourth;
> > https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-monmouth-review-babies-lace-toboggan/162446763/.]
> >
> > KNIT GOODS
> > Toboggans and Hoods in all new designs.
> > [In an advertisement in The Quincy (Illinois) Herald, 22 December
> > 1887, p. 8; via newspaperarchive.com.]
> >
> > The plug hat rage has died out altogether and the young bloods are
> > thinking of wearing toboggans. ["Additional Local," The Journal (Falls
> > City, Nebraska), 23 December 1887, page unnumbered, but presumably the
> > eighth; https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-falls-city-journal-toboggan-hat-1/162409319/.]
> >
> > WOULD like the acquaintance of young lady dressed in red, wore
> > toboggan, who loaned gent opera-glass Sunday afternoon at three
> > o'clock performance. [Advertisement in The Enquirer (Cincinnati), 13
> > February 1888, p. 8;
> > https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-toboggan-hat/162406413/.]
> >
> > No one need wear Toboggans or Sunbonnets during the Hot Summer days
> > when you can buy Straw Hats at 25, 30, 40, 50 & 75 cents each. [In an
> > advertisement in The Frontier (O'Neill City, Nebraska). The Library of
> > Congress says that this appeared in the 25 April 1889 issue of that
> > newspaper; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2010270509/1889-04-25/ed-1/seq-8/.]
> >
> > How that boy suffered! The younger boy, who wore a toboggan and a
> > melancholy expression, was soon affected in a like manner. ["Chat and
> > Comment," Indiana (Pennsylvania) County Gazette, 9 December 1891, p.
> > 4; https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indiana-gazette-toboggan-hat-129/162407671/.]

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