Receiving a Letter

Oh the letterman jacket. What was once the ultimate prize in academic / sporting achievement is now the property of boy bands and market stalls alike. There is so little knowledge of the far from humble jacket that it is a little startling why people even wear them. What’s even more perplexing is when people call them letterman jackets and they don’t even have any patches on them. Well seeing as it is Saturday and you’re reading this rather that drinking too much I will give you a very brief history of letters and jackets.

Join me as we saunter back to the mid 19th Century and vicious College rivals Harvard and Yale have just played a series of baseball games with the Crimson coming out on top. Players who had helped contribute to this were rewarded by having a big H stitched onto their flannel baseball tops. This would later trickle down to Harvard’s American Football team who started awarding Hs or ‘letters’ to players that played in a significant amount or very important games, that could be then sewn onto their jerseys.

The warmup top of the day was the cardigan with a shawl neck, to keep the cold out and the warmth in. Many players would be awarded with one than one letter if they played more than one season and so one letter would be placed on the cardigan and the other on the jersey, displaying to the entire team just how important they were. This would again move on to all schools across the United States and Canada, where letters would be awarded for great achievements, with students then sewing them onto their own garments for the school to see. It wouldn’t be until the 1920’s and 30’s that schools started to provide the clothing with the letters already attached with space for more academic decoration.

The move to jackets, we can only assume, came about with fashion moving from the heavy and restrictive wool to the more athletic and more often than not, expensive boiled wool and leather jacket. These jackets were designed to be worn as a matter of pride and ‘peacocking’, not a subtle piece of design as many people are remaking them nowadays, which really does, in our opinion, take away their appeal. The excitement of the jacket / sweater was looking at all the patches and wondering what they had done to earn them and who this person was.

That’s enough for today, I hope you enjoyed your learning.