Courtesy Photo | An Oshkosh B’Gosh suspender clip, discovered at a Fort McCoy archaeological site, is...... read more read more
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When people think about archaeologists, there are quite a few things that are likely to come to mind: scenes from famous movies, digging for gold, dinosaurs.
Archaeologists leave the dinosaurs to paleontologists and instead focus their efforts on studying human activities of the past. It may not sound very exciting, but archaeologists spend a great deal of their time trying to figure out what they can learn about the people who lived in a given area by the items they left behind. The old adage that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure may be truer for archaeology than for any other profession.
For example, in 2014, archaeologists with Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) investigated an archaeological site that had been discovered a year earlier. They targeted a specific location within the site, hoping to find a lot of clues about the people who were active there.
When the site was first identified, there were artifacts on the ground surface that indicated that the site might be 100 years old or more. There was also a depression (a dip in the ground surface that can be either shallow or deep) in the middle of the site area. Depressions in the ground are common at Fort McCoy and can be the result of prior archaeological excavations, military training activities, or homesteaders digging a hole to bury their waste.
Archaeologists placed an excavation across part of the depression to find out what, if anything, it contained. Any artifact recovered from excavating in the depression might be able to tell researchers more about this location and the people that had used it in the past.
As it turned out, more than 1,800 individual artifacts were recovered from the excavation unit placed to test the depression, including pieces of old clothing, musical instruments, bottles, car parts, barrel hoops, nails, window fragments, fence staples, and old cow bones. Among all of these items was a suspender adjustment clip which could very clearly be identified as reading “Oshkosh B’Gosh.”
Simply reading the words Oshkosh B’Gosh will bring the image of overalls immediately to mind for many, but overalls themselves originated long before that company was founded. Overalls originated in the 1700s as protective garments for the working class, and were initially made out of tougher fabrics with all intent focused on durability, not comfort. Their purpose was to cover and protect the everyday clothing beneath from damage that might occur while performing arduous tasks.
Advertisements for overalls from the first half of the 20th century depict railroad workers and construction workers in action and imply that overalls are work equipment rather than work clothing. Another strong selling point was that they could be customized in a variety of colors and with different sized pockets and straps to more easily accommodate the toolkits of a wide variety of occupations.
Oshkosh B’Gosh overalls are well-known in Wisconsin and are familiar to people around the world. The company began in 1895 in Oshkosh, Wis., as the Grove Manufacturing Co., but became the Oshkosh Clothing and Manufacturing Co. a year later. The name of the company continued to change over the years, becoming the Oshkosh Overall Co. after the turn of the century, and it was during this time that the Oshkosh B’Gosh brand name was introduced. The brand was so successful that the company changed its name to Oshkosh B’Gosh Inc. in 1937.
During World War II, the company contributed by producing military garments. Although many of the children’s clothes produced under the label were eventually manufactured outside the city, Oshkosh B’Gosh continued operating out of Oshkosh, Wis., until 1997, when the production of men’s bib overalls was moved out of the country.
Most of the other artifacts recovered from the archaeological site that yielded the suspender clip indicated that the site dated to the first half of the 20th century, and it is very likely that the depression which contained more than 1,800 artifacts was used as a garbage dump by a number of families in the area. We may not know exactly who all threw out their garbage at this communal dump, but by gosh, we know that someone here wore out their Oshkosh B’Gosh bib overalls.
All archaeological work conducted at Fort McCoy was sponsored by the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
Visitors and employees are reminded they should not collect artifacts on Fort McCoy or other government lands and leave the digging to the professionals.
Any person who excavates, removes, damages, or otherwise alters or defaces any historic or prehistoric site, artifact, or object of antiquity on Fort McCoy is in violation of federal law.
The discovery of any archaeological artifact should be reported to the Directorate of Public Work Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch at 608-388-8214.
| Date Taken: | 09.27.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 09.27.2021 16:51 |
| Story ID: | 406133 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 86 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort McCoy ArtiFACT: Oshkosh B'Gosh suspender clip, by Aimee Malone, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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