Dwight Blocker Bowers, a curator from the Division of Culture and the Arts, recently shared the story of Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap. It was on display earlier at the Starring North Carolina! Exhibit at the Smithsonian affiliate museum, the North Carolina Museum of History.
A coonskin cap is made of actual skin of the raccoon, complete with its face and tail. This hat, worn by actor Fess Parker, features a fabric lining and a leather band.
During the 1950s, the coonskin cap became an iconic symbol, popular among boys in both the national and international scene. This mania that seized the US and the UK was inspired by the fur headpiece worn by Davy Crockett, a frontiersman character played by actor Fess Parker in a mini-series with the same name. The show had five parts, all shown on the Disney TV series.
A Davy Crockett trading card from the Merrie Spaeth Collection that was displayed in the Archives Center of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.
The first three episodes of the series were later edited and merged together to become the film, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, in 1955. As part of Walt Disney’s initiative to focus more on live action rather than animated movies, the series was partly filmed in the Great Smoky Mountains’ natural scenery in North Carolina. The movie version was introduced as an adventure-romance, but the extensive narratives about Crockett ended up transforming the character into a larger-than-life hero who served to educate younger viewers about important points in American history.
A Davy Crockett stamp dating from 1967 that is part of the National Postal Museum’s collection.
The coonskin cap used by Parker as a costume in the show was created using real skin and fur of a raccoon, with the head and tail included. In 2004, the actor donated the cap, along with other costume pieces used on the show, to the National Museum of American History. The cap design that was later on sold to young boys was a simpler version, with just faux fur and an attached raccoon tail at the back.
The Davy Crockett hat featuring brown fur and the raccoon tail.
Apart from the boys’ hat, a version for girls was also sold in the market, known as the Polly Crockett hat. Similar in style to its counterpart, the female version was made of white faux fur. During the peak of the cap’s popularity in the 1950s, 5,000 coonskin caps were sold per day on average. By the end of the decade, though its appeal dropped as the TV episodes ceased to air.
An image of the Polly Crockett hat that was made for girls from the Smithsonian affiliate exhibit, Ohio History Connection.
American Indians traditionally wore coonskin caps as part of their clothing. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as the Europeans settled into the regions of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky, they adopted the cap as their own, using them for hunting. Even Benjamin Franklin wore the cap as a symbol of patriotism during his Paris trip as an Ambassador to France. It has since then become a part of his image.
A walking stick, with the top representing the iconic hat, was gifted to Benjamin Franklin during his visit to France.
An 1837 woodcut portrait of Davy Crockett, part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Smithsonian collection.