When did pants first have belt loops for a waist belt

[Cliff Fendley]

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Sorry if this has been covered but I couldn't find it in a search.

A friend and I were looking at some pictures on the web and it sure looks like some have belt loops and a waist belt in late 1880's photographs. Could someone else look at these and tell me what we are looking at? The guy leaning on the shovel in picture 60 and the couple guys in picture 61.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/02/23/from-the-archive-frontier-life-in-the-west/2713/

I can't say I really see any loops but it does kind of look like a waist belt.

[joec]

Sorry if this has been covered but I couldn't find it in a search.

A friend and I were looking at some pictures on the web and it sure looks like some have belt loops and a waist belt in late 1880's photographs. Could someone else look at these and tell me what we are looking at? The guy leaning on the shovel in picture 60 and the couple guys in picture 61.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/02/23/from-the-archive-frontier-life-in-the-west/2713/

I can't say I really see any loops but it does kind of look like a waist belt.

As near as I've found it started with Levi Strauss in the 1853 or there about. It seems when he came up with the riveted pocket he also came up with belt loops. Here is the site I'm basing it on aside from TV shows etc that have said it was so http://www.poloindia.com/historyoftrousers/right_frame.htm. Other that this I don't know but do tend to believe it personally.

[St. George]

Re: Why no pant's belts in the west?
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2006, 03:14:39 pm »     

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We've covered this before and there's more in the back pages - but once more - we'll re-visit.

Though 'belts' have been around - 'trouser' belts haven't, since there were no trouser loops.

They're essentially a turn of the century invention.

Braces, galluses, or suspenders - all were used during the time - as were the high-waisted trousers.

They were effectively 'hidden' - both from view and from entanglement - by vests and coats - and 'all' men wore those as working dress.

If you didn't like wearing a pair - for reasons best known to yourself - then the adjustment belt was available at the rear and could be tightened as needed.

Many men did this - using friction to hold their pants in place.

The sewn trouser loop wouldn't become a 'staple' of men's furnishings for many years - despite what's seen in the 'John Ford Reference Library'...

I 'do' like this quote from the Dodge City Live Stock Journal:

"A fashion item says that leather belts are in favor.
They were in favor here at one time.
Perhaps there was a difference in them.
Ours were studded with cartridges, and were very popular..."

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Books OToole]

Steve Allie, past director of the Frontier Army Museum (Leavenworth),* told me that belt loops on military trousers don't come in until 1903.

Books



*He is now director of the Infantry Museum at Fort Benning.

[Ima Sure Shot]

There is a very nice collection of old time baseball cards in the Libary of Congress collection of prints and photographs.  Several dated 1887, 1888 clearly show very large belt loops with belts through them.  No ivy leauge adjustment in back on the one I looked at of the player showing his back. Belt loops on baseball uniforms with shirt tucked in no vest, no braces was clearly the norm in 1887.Celeste

[Will Ketchum]

Jim Boeke of River Junction Traders told me some time ago that pants with loops were only worn by baseball players and cowboys
wouldn't be caught daed wearing them. 

Will Ketchum

[St. George]

Indeed.

A belt worn as a part of a team uniform isn't the same as one worn by the rest of the world.

Hardly the norm.

The Army put trouser belts on the new uniforms issued in 1904 - civilians followed, but only after a fashion, until after the Great War, when belts became a normal part of clothing - but braces stayed popular until WWII.

Scouts Out!

[Delmonico]

The earliest I can come up with a picture of someone other than a baseball player having a pair of pants with a belt loop on them is 1905 and is a rodeo cowboy in Denver.  (Picture 12615 of the Butcher Collection)



Now there are two guys wearing belts, but only one appears to be wearing a pair of pants with a belt loop.  I've seen the belt with out the loop before at an earlier time, but not the loops. 



I'm going to go over those pictures with a fine tooth comb late, but I doupt there is enough pixels there to show us if they really have loops or not or if there is really even a belt there.

[Cliff Fendley]

Thanks for the info everyone.