Cover Page

Preface

Introduction

The Developing Years

Photofile

Bibliography

Notes

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

National Park Service Uniforms The Developing Years 1932-1970	Number 5
The Developing Years

Up until the 1930s, the National Park Service had been content to tinker with recognition symbols to be applied to the coat. These were added and removed as they endeavored to iron out the wrinkles and come up with a sensible, yet practical uniform. All the effort was concentrated on the basic uniform and consequently the rangers ended up with a very nice suit of clothes that worked well in most of the western parks during the spring, summer and fall seasons. The "officer and men" mentality that prevailed in those early years resulted in the "men" wearing a uniform of heavy grade material not really suited for the warmer eastern parks. This was corrected in 1928 when the rangers were authorized to wear uniforms of the same material as those of the officers.

A soft cap, based on the style worn by British army officers at that time, had been specified in 1928 for motorcycle patrol use, although this was later expanded to include warm weather parks, especially in the East. Other than the hatband authorized in 1930, the first documented addition to the ranger's wardrobe for servicewide use in this decade, was a raincoat.

The need for a raincoat had been suggested at the 1932 Conference, and in fact, an overcoat and raincoat had been specified in the 1932 Regulations when they were issued, but apparently no designs had been formulated for these items, leastwise the raincoat. For some reason, drawings were not made for this item until two years later. Owen A Tomlinson, superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park and chairman of the Uniform Committee submitted these drawings to the Director's office on June 5, 1934, where Director Arno B. Cammerer approved them on June 14. [1]

A raincoat was incorporated into the Uniform Regulations in 1932. However, it would appear that this wasn't finalized until this 1934 drawing was signed by Director Arno B. Cammerer approved this drawing on 6/14/34. NPSHC-HFC RG Y55

Because of the dearth of correspondence and documentation from the 1930s, it is very difficult to pinpoint when some uniform articles were introduced. Some articles credited to the 1932 and 1936 regulations may have been introduced earlier, or as in the case of the raincoat, later. Office Order 204 was published in 1930 and revised on June 7, 1932, but only the revised version has been found. What little official correspondence there is alludes to several office orders concerning uniforms being published between Office Order 204-revised and Office Order 324, published on April 13, 1936, but these have not come to light. The same is true between 1936 and 1940. We must therefore assume that any changes between these dates occurred on the latter, until one of these lost office orders proves otherwise.

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Last Modified: Wed, Feb 7 2001 11:30:00 pm PDT
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