Calico Dresses and Buffalo Robes: American West Fashions from the 1840s to the 1890s

Native Americans made clothing from rabbit fur, deerskins, buffalo hides, and plant fibers.

Farm women wore calico dresses, cotton aprons, and wide-brimmed prairie bonnets. Some farm women sheared sheep, spun wool, and sewed clothing for their whole families.

White fur trappers and frontiersmen often dressed like Native Americans, in deerskins, moccasins, and buffalo robes. They also wore thick woolen shirts and trousers.

Gold miners needed strong, sturdy clothing, like the tough denim jeans made by Levi Strauss and Company.

Cowboy gear included leather chaps, boots, and bandanas. Cowboys used their tall, wide-brimmed hats for protection from sun and rain and sometimes to carry water.

Women of the Southwest put on lacy head coverings called mantillas and wore embroidered mantas, of shawls.

Children often went barefoot in the West, because shoes were expensive. Some westerners made their own shoes and moccasins out of animal skins.