077: True Visual History of California Part 2 | David W. Rickman, Illustrator and Historian

In the second part of our interview with illustrator and historian David W. Rickman, we delve into his research methodologies and his quest to accurately depict historical clothing. We discuss how Hollywood has influenced our perceptions of the American West and the common misconceptions about Native American attire in the past. David shares his experiences researching in various museums, including the National History Museum in Los Angeles and the de Young Museum, and talks about the challenges of getting people to wear authentic historical costumes. We also touch on his upcoming book, 'Where Worlds Met,' which explores California costumes from 1822 to 1860 and features never-before-seen images. Join us as we explore these fascinating insights into California history.

00:00 Introduction to the Interview with David W. Rickman
01:00 David's Research Methodology and Museum Experiences
05:04 Challenges in Historical Costume Accuracy
06:50 The Influence of the American West and Individualism
08:57 California's Historical and Cultural Revival
24:28 Misconceptions About Native American Clothing
31:38 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the second part of my interview with Illustrator and historian David w Rickman. In this episode, we talk more about David's methodology for research and how he goes about understanding what people actually wore in the past. We get into some really interesting discussions about how Hollywood has taken over our perceptions of the American West, and also how much we actually don't understand about what Native people wore in the past. I also wanna remind you that if you'd like to see the images associated with our conversation, you can watch the full video on the California Frontier YouTube channel. And with that, let's continue my conversation with David Rickman.

Damian Bacich: 1:00

so how much time do you spend at museums researching?

David Rickman: 1:05

I've not been able to spend as much as I, I would like in recent years, but for a number of years I was a visiting scholar at the National History Museum in Los Angeles County. They have beyond doubt, the best collection of, uh, clothing and artifacts. Um, and I've, I was there with a, a, uh, professional pattern maker named SA Altman, who has a company called Past Patterns. And for several years, every summer we would go out there and spend, oh, like a week going through the collection and discovering new things. Correcting their records because they would have things that were misidentified, taking patterns off of some of the things. And that is the kind of work that I have done as much as I can. Uh, living on the East Coast is a bit of a handicap except that I do have a picture later on of me at the Smithsonian. Photographing one of the last known Curos leather armor that was worn by Sodo Dera. Although this one, I have a feeling was made for a child. Nevertheless, I've been able to go to museums and, and wear, um, ever possible, looked at the things they have. I was just at the, um, history Museum in New Mexico. They said, I've been to the witty in, uh, uh, San Antonio, Texas. Um, I've worked with the De Young Museum. I think I know where most things are now. Um, what I'm interested in. In this part of my life is finding out what hasn't made it into museums and, um, and what those might be. Every once in a while you, you see a discovery that, um, that pops your eyes open. A few of the pictures that I'm, I'm going to have in my new book where World's Met, uh, which we can talk about, uh, a history of California costume from 1822 to 1860 are pictures that have never been published before, um, that were, if not unknown, they were very little known and they never made their way into print. And I think it's going to start a lot of conversations, well, a lot of conversations is a relative term in our small world, but it can start conversations about our assumptions of how the past looked because it's, it's not so much a matter of, of overall difference as a matter of depth. Because we get more in and more information, we know more and more about the small variations. Um, one of them, if you look at the picture on the screen now of by, um, LA Pariso, mission State Historic Park, there's a picture of a vaccaro on horseback, a a, an Indian Vaquero who worked for the mission. And that's actually based on a drawing that was done by, in the 1820s by a British naval officer in San Francisco. And so that's was a source of his clothing and horse gear. Um, that's in the book, the book that's coming up, um, which I've been working on for almost too many years, but it is coming.

Damian Bacich: 4:28

Very interesting. In fact, I, I've, I've been, um, fortunate to see these in person and who's ever watching or listening. If you haven't been to Laima, that's one of the great places to see David's illustrations up close and personally. And these are, these are life size, right? These are human

David Rickman: 4:47

Yeah, if you, if you show me the, the next slide, Damien.

Damian Bacich: 4:51

Okay.

David Rickman: 4:54

yeah, yeah. Those are the life-size cutouts and it's, it's kind of interesting and forgive me, it's a, it's a little frustrating as well that, um, early in my career, uh, just before I left to live on the East Coast, I was asked by La Paris Mission to help design their costumes for their living history interpreters at the park and. Um, so I had hoped that images like this, um, and the, and the work I'd done would change living history costumes in California. And they have to a certain extent, um, but to a great extent they've not been able to break the Hollywood myths. And you see a lot of people, uh, wearing very different things despite the fact that, you know, even at the La Parisa, a mission site, even though, you know, a five minute walk across the lawn would get you a picture of what they actually wore. No one at La Parisa wears these things. They wear something that they invented for themselves. Um, the last big project that I did with Living History was with Fort Ross during its, uh, bicentennial in 2012. And it was such an uphill battle to get anyone to wear authentic costumes that I just said. Alright, I'll tell you what they actually wore, but I won't. Um. I won't design these costume programs any longer because it's just too frustrating.

Damian Bacich: 6:36

Do you think that is? Is it because the costumes, they may be too complicated or too intricate for people? Why do you suppose there's that

David Rickman: 6:47

No, it, it is that it? I think it's a different attitude, Damien. Um, we're getting ready for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution here on the East Coast, and I know several people, young people who are involved with it. Well, people of all ages, but especially young people. Uh, and they take incredible efforts to do things right, getting the right fabrics, getting the right buttons, making the clothing themselves based on actual extent garments and such, and the best of them. It's kind of breathtaking to see just how good it is, but I think they can do that for a reason. Um, I've long believed that the American West is our fantasy world, and it's the world that you project yourself into, and it's particularly appealing to people who want to be individualistic. Uh, the American Revolution is different. It was a group effort that people were working toward, and it's, it's not about individualism. It's about a country coming together. The West is about striking out on your own, whether you're a mountain man or a cowboy or a whatever, and just living your own life and dressing however you wish. Trying to convince people west of the Mississippi that there were, that there are right and wrong ways to dress in order to interpret the past authentically is a real, for the large, large part, it's, it's very frustrating because they don't want to hear it. And I have actually shown up historic sites where I have in California where I've designed the costumes and someone will ask me who I am and they'll say, oh God. And, uh, well, I hope you don't mind what I'm wearing. Just No, go ahead. Because it,

Damian Bacich: 8:48

Yeah, maybe it's a California thing. Exactly that. That makes sense.

David Rickman: 8:53

well, it isn't just California. I mean, it's, yeah. I mean, you see it all through the West, but California, um, there's another aspect which I, I, I've talked about before, I think you and I have discussed, which is the idea that the Californias, after their crushing, uh, cultural defeat by the Americans, they began coming back, uh, especially southern Californians, uh, toward the end of the, of the 19th century, led by people like, uh, Antonio. And what I have termed the, uh, the California revival. And it helped to, um, revive and, and tell us what the past was like. But then it went on and as the generations who actually lived that life began to fade away when Coronas and, and such died. Um, the younger people wanted to romanticize it because it had been romanticized by things like Ramona and, um, well later Zoro, um, that it. Fell out of being an authentic recreation of the past into this kind of golden age, uh, dream of what was, you know, romantic and exciting. I mean, I've often called, uh, living history the perfect haven for fashion victims because you go to events in, the first thing they want to talk about is what's, what's new and what's hot and what they can wear. Yeah, that's fine. And as long as you're not representing yourself as an authentic representation of the past, wear what you want. I mean, that's, that's, that's your right. But the problem is when they then say, well, you know, I am well, the thing that I actually hate is, is first person living history, where they actually try and convince you that against all the evidence that they actually are a person from the past when it's patently ob obvious that they're not.

Damian Bacich: 11:05

I had an experience like that at Disneyland a few years ago where, or maybe it was a couple years ago, I can't remember, and we were in the, with my children in the Star Wars area of Disneyland and the, and the young man there. I was trying to find out where the gift shop was, and he would not. Not break character and admit that we were on Earth and start, you know, for a moment it was fun, but after a while it, it really, it really got on my nerves. I just wanna know where the gift shop is. Right. So, so,

David Rickman: 11:39

you just wanna shake em. Come on.

Damian Bacich: 11:42

But this, this, uh, illustration here at Laima that we're looking at now, what time period would that be?

David Rickman: 11:52

That's about the 1820s. Um. By this time, you know, California was coming out of its starving age, which was 1810 to about 1822, um, after the supply shift stopped coming to California. And so they started being able to address themselves again, as I discussed in my talk this year at the conference. Um, and so this just outfit here that this fellow's wearing is based on several different, um, sources, but particularly, um, there was the, the Beachy expedition, uh, a British naval expedition that arrived in 18 26, 27. And they describe in detail what the, uh, California soldiers were wearing. Now I've added some details that are not mentioned. The, uh, the cartridge box on his waist is not when most people think cartridge box is. It's actually cartridge belt, I should say, uh, called a Canna. And he's, uh. He's wearing one of those that comes from other research when you actually read into the, uh, uh, oral histories, uh, of the, uh, Californias that that Bancroft's agents took down in the 1870s. They mentioned these, and you can also find it in the, uh, the re lamento by Felipe Deneve, uh, saying, okay, this is what we're gonna replace the cartridge boxes that were slung on your shoulder. These are much more convenient. And then there's this wonderful story, which I don't know whether or not, not, I told one of the California informants for Bancroft remembered some idiot shooting a fella sold out a cueta in the waist, uh, because he dropped his gun on the ground and went off and hit the guy in the stomach. But luckily it bounced off the tin two that was in his cartridge belt. Well, based on that, okay, now we know what they wore, but it's, it's, it's small things like that that are gleaned over a lifetime. Of research and, um, it's what makes the difference of, of, uh, you know, just kind of throwing something together and actually doing something that, um, I look at and think to myself, well, that's the best I can do. You know,

Damian Bacich: 14:12

Well, you must over time, you must over time develop an eye for, I, I mean, metaphorically, even an eye for those type of details to be reading a document and notice that he mentions that the, that the soldier was protected by the tin in the cartridge belt that sets off, uh, uh, rings a bell maybe in your brain that, oh, I should take note of that. That in itself is probably a skill you've had to hone over time.

David Rickman: 14:47

You know, it's nice for you to, to make it sound like I did this on purpose, Damien, but I just, it's just after you read a lot and you have the kind of brain that likes to draw connections between one thing and another. Um, and I think I, I have one of those brains I like to, you know, I like different things like word origins and, oh, well, that's connected because of this root term and so forth. Surely you've done that all your life, I'm sure. Um, yeah, and that's one of the advantages of studying one time and place for a long period. Um, not that I can't do that in other parts of the, uh, uh, American history. I, I've done a lot of that. Um, but California, yeah, I can definitely do it. And it's, um. It takes a lifetime of, of dedication and just wanting to know, um, wanting to see the past. I can still remember as a child being on a trip to Carmel Mission and still elementary school, standing in front of the, uh, what is now the basilica at, uh, at Carmel, and having this sudden realization, almost a tangible feeling of history that, oh, people in the past actually stood where I'm standing. And I've had that several times since, uh, not just in California, but elsewhere. But I think that was the, I know that was the first, and I think that was the most, uh, compelling experience I've ever had of that being able to have a sense of what the past, the presence of the past, even in the, in, in, in the. Um, in the now. Um, so yeah, I'm not sure I've answered your question, Damien, but I've, I've gone off and, and talked about this kind of philosophy of, of, uh, experiencing the, uh, the history both viscerally, but then also wanting to confirm what it was like by looking at, uh, at real things and reading real things. Um, yeah, I've, I've often said that I could have gone into fantasy and science fiction, but they never drew me because none of that is real. It's exciting, but it's not real. This is exciting to me because it's real.

Damian Bacich: 17:32

I don't know what it is. Why in some places, some historical places you get that and some you don't. And maybe it's a very personal thing. It might be just the way somebody's attuned to a space. But that to me is one of the reasons it keeps me coming back to this, uh, area of, of study. And it's that that tangible feeling other people have been here, have, have touched this have, and, and in some ways, I don't know why now I'm just kind of speculate. I don't know why that's the case in some places. Um, you know, I've been to Europe and I've been in very ancient locations, Roman. Amphitheaters the temples and, and there's certainly that as well. But I, there's something about certain missions here in California and maybe other historical sites where that is communicated more strongly than others, and I don't know why, uh, but Carmel might be one of those, for example.

David Rickman: 18:37

Mm-hmm.

Damian Bacich: 18:38

So, uh, let's see.

David Rickman: 18:41

may I ask you a

Damian Bacich: 18:42

Hmm.

David Rickman: 18:45

Where did you grow up?

Damian Bacich: 18:47

I grew up in, well, as a young man, we lived in the East Bay in, um, uh, Contra Costa County. Right. And then, uh, we spent a few years in Pacific Northwest and then came back as a teenager, lived in the, the Napa Valley and then, you know, spent, spent my time around there until, until I went away to college. So Northern California.

David Rickman: 19:13

Yeah. Yeah. And like you, I've traveled in Europe and as a small child, I lived in Japan. Um, but it's, I think where we grow up is what gives us our ties and why California does it for me. Whereas, um, bronze Age Greece just never grabbed me. You know, I like it. I, I'll be happy to go and visit the, uh, uh, the sites in Crete, but they don't speak to me in the same way and the same way that I think that we respond to the landscape. We look at, I can't, I look at the Rolling Hills of California with a Live Oaks on it, and it breaks my heart because that says home to me. And I've lived on the east coast for decades now, and it's beautiful and it's got great museums and wonderful friends here, and my life is here, and yet this isn't my home. If someone was to ask me what my home is, it's California, because that's where I grew up, and it's kind of like those little ducklings that come out of the shell and attach to the first moving object, whether it be a, a dog or a, a human. We imprint on, uh, where we're from and it resonates with us.

Damian Bacich: 20:37

I think you're right. I think you're right. That that makes a lot of sense and it gives me something to, to chew on. I'm gonna think more about this and maybe next time we see each other, we'll talk more about it.

David Rickman: 20:49

I'd love to.

Damian Bacich: 20:49

Back to this illustration, and you have others that we can, we should and can get to.

David Rickman: 20:55

Mm-hmm.

Damian Bacich: 20:56

What would you say the major change between a time period, say the 1820s and then later, other, other time periods that you've, that you've depicted, say 1840s or in California was, were there major changes in clothing and dress in in that

David Rickman: 21:18

Oh, oh, Damian, you,

Damian Bacich: 21:19

arrival?

David Rickman: 21:21

oh, Damian, you just pitched me a softball. Uh, yes, indeed. Um, that is, that's an important point and in two ways. Uh, the first way is that in 1834 when the Iad Padres colony came from Mexico, the idea being that they were going to bring in new skills and people were going to modernize California, they just happened to also bring new fashions in California, had been very isolated, both by land and sea, from Mexico. And so the, the new fashions, which include came in with the 18, uh. Teens with the wars against Spain included the long trousers, the caldas, more military looking jackets, uh, women's dresses, uh, which had been in California earlier, but the particular styles of dresses came in in the 1830s and forties. Um, and so there was a real change. The second part of the equation, though, is that just as we today, uh, as gentlemen of a certain age, do not look to the latest teenage fashions and, and copy them, we wear the clothing that we wore, have worn for years and feel comfortable in, in early California. Eyewitnesses tell us that, um, poor women and women of a certain age. Did not adopt the new dresses. They continued to wear the blouses and skirts that they had known well, that the poor people can afford, and that the, uh, older women of higher status had known as girls. And they are going to continue to wear those for most of their lives in the same way who read the eyewitness accounts and see the eyewitness pictures. And you see older men continuing to wear britches right into the American period. And there's one description from the 1840s of, um, an older man in California wearing his hair down to the middle of his back in a braid. Not many people realized that California men, up until the 1830s generally wore their hair exactly the same way that women wore it, which was with in a long braid down their back. Um, so yes, new fashions come in, but whenever I see pictures of white-haired men or sea. Uh, men of my own age, uh, or anyone over 40 reenacting early California, and they're wearing cals and braided jackets and such, I'm saying, you know, it's as if you were dressed like your teenage son or grandson. You're the wrong age to wear that. Just you're the wrong age. So that's a two part answer to your question.

Damian Bacich: 24:23

So what about, we talked about Spanish, Mexican Californians. What about native people? How did their, what kind? Well, how of this, what, what kind of misconceptions do we generally have about how, uh, native people Indians dressed in the early period prior to us statehood?

David Rickman: 24:48

Well, I mean, years ago, um. I gave a talk for the California Missions, uh, conference, uh, called to Cloth the Naked, and it talks about how, uh, the Mission Padres needing to dress the Indians. Who California traditional clothing for men was no clothing. And for women, a skirt, and much to too much can be made of the idea that, you know, this shocked the sensibility to the Spanish. They weren't shocked in the least. There are eyewitness pictures from the, uh, LA Perouse and Expedition, the Padres and, and soldiers and all standing casually and talking to half clad women. No big deal. You know, they're, they're used to that. Nevertheless, if the idea is to bring them into Spanish society eventually and make them full, fully fledged Spaniards. And then later fully flesh Mexicans, then you wanna get them into clothing. That, that's a sign of progress in civilization. That's my interpretation of, of the situation. And so you get father, uh, Mario Pires, for example, writing back to his college saying, can you buy me scrap fabric, any kind of scrap fabric, bolt ends, whatever, and send them to me because I can make clothing for these people. Well, probably what he's talking about is not clothing for the neophytes. Generally, the, the people who did not, had not been at the mission long, had not acquired skills. He probably was talking about a certain class of elite, uh, neophytes. Those who had skills or were useful in other ways, uh, to the Padres. And they were the people who were, um, entitled from their point of view to dress more like a Spaniard. And you, you get the, um. Uh, eyewitness accounts from the missions of people saying, well, you know, I, I dressed the vaqueros and the go. Those who didn't have any skill, they just rode in their breach clout without a saddle. Those who had the skills we dressed head to toe exactly like a Spaniard. And so what we have gotten wrong, I, I actually traced back to the, um, the works of, uh, father Zein Engelhardt. I don't know why he did it, I cannot say, but he mistranslate the, uh, the eyewitness descriptions that came from the Padres Interros, the ones that they had to send back to Mexico City to explain what they were doing for the neophytes. And they very clearly say, we dressed the men in a cone, a shirt, and a breach clout. And for whatever reason, not only did father. Uh, Englehart translate that as we dress them in, in a suit of cotton clothing, when cotton is not Spanish for cotton. Even worse is that some of the pads explain what a cotton is. He says it is a woolen shirt. And, and yet Payas rode right over that and said, we dress him in cotton suits, which was kind of hard to explain why. They also issued them breach clouds, which is also in his translation. But not only did he do that, but he had two artists, one of whom was Alexander Harmer, whom I mentioned earlier, illustrate the, the books now, both. Now different Inglehart had served in Mexico. Alexander Harmer had been a cavalryman in Arizona and New Mexico, and he knew, you know. White cotton clad Native Americans were a common site for both men. And so somehow all the illustrations to Engle Hart's books show these Indian men and women wearing white cotton clothing. Well, that ended up in the movies and that ended up in murals and paintings. And it has absolutely nothing to do with what the neophyte wore. And now I see it being used as a, um, standard dress. Whether the, uh, the illustrators working in Texas or New Mexico or Arizona, they all show their neophyte Indians wearing you white cotton clothing. There's no evidence for that whatsoever. Just that was just something that Rine Englehart, for whatever reason, created.

Damian Bacich: 29:34

And Englehardt was the, the historian, Franciscan historian who, who wrote that multi-volume history that that many people still rely on for the, the, history of the missions in

David Rickman: 29:45

and rightly so. It's, it's a, it's a remarkable work. Um, you know, I can be a nitpicker. God knows I am a nitpicker. Um, Herbert Bolton is a wonderful historian who did something that when I, when I traveled to Anza Trail, I did it in a car. When he traveled to Anza Trail, he did it on a mule or on a horse, you know, depending on what he had that day. Um, I didn't do that. He wrote the best books, foundational books, I should say, on the Anza Expedition. Nevertheless, when he translated that, um, supply list, he took the term anado and translated it as button sided shoes. Well, abodo is not button sided. It means ankle boots. So we know what ankle boots were, but that's not what he wrote. Well, it's gone into countless versions online and, and elsewhere that these people were wearing button sided shoes. Does that in any way negate the importance of Herbert Bolton as a terrific historian? I mean, when I was at Berkeley, he was practically a God there, um, that was his campus. No, it doesn't. It just means that people like me come in afterwards and kind of sweep up the mess and try and tidy up the record and say, no, no, no. Herbert, you, you're a great guy. But those were ankle boots. Those weren't button sighted shoes.

Damian Bacich: 31:30

Right. Those are those details that, that don't really mar the value of the, of the work.

David Rickman: 31:36

AB absolutely.

31:38

So that does it for the second part of my interview with David w Rickman. In the next segment, I'll have the final part of our interview, so I hope you'll join us for that. I. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the California Frontier Show. If you'd like to support the show, the best thing to do is to let other people know about it. If you'd like to support it monetarily, there are a couple ways of doing that. One is by scrolling down in your podcast app to where it says, support the show. There you can become a subscriber for as little as$3 a month. And if you wanna give a one-time donation just below, you'll see where it says Give a one-time donation. Finally, the show is supported by California History Teachers, which is a full year of lessons for fourth grade California history and social studies. You can find out more at www.californiahistoryteachers.com, and if you input the coupon code podcast. You'll receive 25% off your monthly or annual subscription, so check it out.