roll your sleeves up?

[kaelin]

I have done some searching, book reading, photo looking, and found nothing yet...?

Where did the idea come from to roll your sleeves up on your jacket, shirt sleeves etc. all in one?? I see a lot of kewl kids doing this here of late. Whats the research on this method?
Reminder here: please prove by images, or research based material.

Thank you

[OldKingCrow]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Wait wut ?

I am certainly no kewl kid but I have found practical utility in rolling up my sleeves ?

Farby or ruin some hardtards ultra-period immersive moment ? Sucketh mine arse.

Chris Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[DaveGink]

Re: roll your sleeves up?



Is this what you mean by sleeves rolled up over jacket?

If it is, I haven't noticed reenactors doing that around here. And this is the only image I could think of off hand of this being done.

As far as sleeves rolled up in general, without coat, look up camp scenes on the library of congress site and you will find plenty.

[kaelin]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Chris,
You are too funny. Sorry to ruin the moment for ya!

You know what I mean, I see these guys with rolled up jacket sleeves, rolled up pants legs, everything is rolled up. I am not wanting to join the kewl crowd, I just want to see some research on this method with out the "well I do it because.."(sorry ;))

Come on Chris, I know you for being a researcher. Lets dig down, get real, roll our sleeves up!

Dave- Thank you, thats exactly what I am looking for, so there was ONE guy who did roll his sleeves up. Great, we are getting some where. I have seen plenty of images and read some material on "shirt" sleeves being rolled up. My question is the the jacket sleeves, all in one combo being rolled up. Make sense?

Thanks

[OldKingCrow]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Oh I see...I thought youns was talkin bout just rolling your sleeves up.

Sonny Crockett would be proud.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

See lots of artillery in shirts rolled up or shirt/vest combos but running through a couple dozen photos just now I didnt notice anyone other than what Dave posted.

[cgoser]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

My two cents and no photographic evidence, but this just seems to be a common sense kind of issue. One wouldn't expect to find this on parade, and would certainly think a good sergeant would knock some sense into a soldier doing it, however, on fatigue duty, camp duty, or in the field, I could imagine soldiers making themselves comfortable and adapting to the heat in any way possible. If this means rolling cuffs to get more air flow across exposed skin, it would make perfect sense. As Dave points out, look for camp duty pictures. I would also think that as much as it took to take a picture in the period, even if sleeves were rolled up on coats, they might unroll them for the picture. It's a phenomenon of acting differently when you know you are being watched.

Even in the modern army when on work details in the heat, soldiers are often allowed to unblouse the boots, removes shirts, and sergeants enforce work rest periods. I can't imagine that the 19th century would be much different.

Clay Goser

[dirtyshirt]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

My two cents and no photographic evidence, but this just seems to be a common sense kind of issue. One wouldn't expect to find this on parade, and would certainly think a good sergeant would knock some sense into a soldier doing it, however, on fatigue duty, camp duty, or in the field, I could imagine soldiers making themselves comfortable and adapting to the heat in any way possible. If this means rolling cuffs to get more air flow across exposed skin, it would make perfect sense. As Dave points out, look for camp duty pictures. I would also think that as much as it took to take a picture in the period, even if sleeves were rolled up on coats, they might unroll them for the picture. It's a phenomenon of acting differently when you know you are being watched.

Even in the modern army when on work details in the heat, soldiers are often allowed to unblouse the boots, removes shirts, and sergeants enforce work rest periods. I can't imagine that the 19th century would be much different.

Clay Goser

Clay,
I agree with you 100%. We did plenty of sleeve rolling in Iraq. But when we were on the big bases with all the brass running around and SGM's, best believe there was someone at the entrance to EVERY public are telling Soldiers to roll their sleeves back down. So I don't think there would be a whole heck of a lot of photographs showing this. As far as written documentation, the question would be is the act of rolling ones sleeves up significant enough to jot down in a diary or write home about. But there is a well known song that says it over and over. "Then pull off your coat, roll up your sleeves, Richmond is a hard road to travel I believe!"

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

This is the only photo that I could find, with a soldier with rolled up jacket/coat sleeves.

[ohio volunteer]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Clay and Brandon, et all

Common sense would dictate that owning another human being is wrong, yet if you were to ask thousands of people in 1860, they would be able to easily justify it. Extreme point? yes it is, but the point being, just because we (with our 21st century norms, ideals, beliefs and own culture) thing something is common sense, doesn't mean it is in the historical time period your studying. If we really buy into the whole man, method, and materials way to approach reenacting, this is one of the types of question we need to be asking - where is our evidence for acting this way - our own ideas, or theirs?

That being said, when I saw this post I quickly looked through all of the LOC photos I have saved on my computer and only found this, kinda of a bad example, but you can clearly see his shirt-sleeves rolled into his coat. (also note how his shirt tails are tucked in as well, which has been well documented)

It seems to me that this was a practice, but not as prevalent as many reenactors would lead you to believe.

The LOC info for those who want a closer look is,
Call Number: LC-B817- 7060
Description: Petersburg, Va. General view of the commissary department, 50th New York Engineers

[DaveGink]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Here are a couple more showing coat sleeves rolled up, as well as a couple of pants.

[Coatsy]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Dave, Jake, and Andrew,

Thank you for posting these examples. Great period examples for us all.

[kaelin]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

I will continue the praise, great examples guys. Thank you for understanding the question at hand.
Ok, lets see some more examples either through images or documentation.

[ohio volunteer]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

I think it might be interesting, in going along with Clay and Brandon's ideas, to see if there are any specific orders detailing soldiers not to do it? I remember reading Sherman's orders during the Atlantic Campaign and the March to the Sea about soldiers wearing boots, and other uniform issues. Who wants to dig in the ORs?

Just a thought,

[OldKingCrow]

Re: roll your sleeves up?

Good Lord, Moses, Mary and Garo Yepremian ......

Looks like Billy is fix'n to try and boot a boulder through the uprights for 3.

This clearly explains the superiority of SEC football throughout history

AK my man...good work.

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida