Fashion, the mode in which we dress, can offer important clues about not just who we are, but who we once were. The prevailing customs and styles of a people tell us where they came from, what they valued, and how they lived from day to day. For upper-class American men, the banyan conveyed values of education, intelligence, and ambition, along with a reverence for high social status. Its exotic materials and global influences denoted the multi-cultural heritage and desire for cosmopolitanism that shaped much of America. And most of all, it represented a luxury that few Americans—especially those of the lower classes—could grasp: leisure. By examining the banyan, where it originated, and how it affected the lives of those who owned it, we can learn a great deal about everyday Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Banyan

The banyan is sewn in an A-line shape—the robe gradually widens from the waist to the hem, creating a cone of fabric that would have hung down to the wearer’s knees. The wide, loose sleeves end in a once-rolled cuff sewn in place, with a split at the very end of the cuff that forms a triangular winged shape when rolled back. This fabric, on the exterior of the robe, is a wool challis—a lightweight, finely-woven wool originating in England. Challis, derived from the Anglo-Indian word shalee, meaning soft, is firm, resilient to stains and tearing, and breathable, making it an ideal fabric for leisure wear (Boyer). The challis is printed with a vibrant floral pattern of pumpkin orange, golden yellow, peacock and cornflower blue, and hints of white, all set against contrasting orange and black stripes. The bold coloring and distinctive shapes resembling leaves, flowers, and grasses are reminiscent of an autumn landscape, such as one might see in India, where the dyes used to create this spectacular array of colors would have likely been produced (Bhardwaj & Jain).

The dominating reds and oranges of the robe’s exterior may have been derived from madder, a crimson vegetable dye, or from cochineal, a deep red dye extracted with the use of hot water from the eggs or bodies of female cochineal beetles (“Pigments From Animals and Plants”). The choice to use so much red conveys the status and wealth of the banyan’s wearer, as red was a rare, and thus more expensive, pigment to obtain (“Pigments from Animals and Plants”). The various blues were created using indigo, a dye extracted from the leaves of the Indigofera tinctoria, or indigo plant (Bhardwaj & Jain). Lac, another dye derived from the bodies of insects, could have been the source of the yellows and subtle browns within the pattern of the challis (“Pigments from Animals and Plants”). These dyes were fixed to the fibers of the wool by first cleaning the wool yarn, then applying mordant solution, created from a mixture of salt, lime, lemon juice, iron, and other elements, then applying the dye (Bhardwaj & Jain). Mordant solutions were also used to produce different shades of a certain dye, as with adapting the cochineal from red to orange (Bhardwaj & Jain). Laborers would have most likely hand block printed the wool—a “terribly laborious, precise, and time-consuming practice” that involved pressing a wooden block onto the fabric and pounding a mallet (Boyer). Sometimes, the blocks “had to be dyed, set, and pounded dozens and dozens of times to produce a single color on a single length of cloth” (Boyer).

The neck of the robe is adorned with a large shawl collar. There is a deep, angled side pocket on the left breast—so deep, in fact, that the wearer could fit almost half of his arm inside. There is only one buttonhole on the entire garment, located where the inner corners of the collar meet; the rest of the robe hangs open. The fabric used to cover this single button matches that of the flap on the pocket and of the collar—all three are a deep lilac cotton twill overlapped by an ivory diamond pattern. Unlike the plain weave, which creates a checkerboard pattern, the twill weave forms a diagonal pattern consisting of distinct parallel ribbings called wales (“Weaving and Common Weaves Information”). This interlacing of fabric creates a sturdy material that resists tearing and recovers from wrinkles better than plain weave fabrics, in addition to hiding stains well, thus allowing the wearer to sip drinks with less worry about whether or not he will soil his collar (“Cotton Twill Fabric Information”).

On the inner lining of the robe, the fabric that would have brushed against the wearer’s skin is a cotton calico, a plain-woven fabric made of 100 percent cotton that originated in Calicut, India (“Calico”). The interior is furbished with an entirely different pattern than that of the exterior, or of the collar—it is an alternating striped pattern of wide red and tan stripes, with abstract geometric shapes within the tan and Paisley in the red. Though it is derived from the Scottish town of the same name, Paisley has its roots in the oriental patterns of India, which wool manufacturers had first seen on cashmere shawls imported from the country and incorporated into their own clothing in Scotland (Boyer). The pattern is taken from the ancient Aryan boteh motif—boteh is a Persian word meaning bush, shrub, thicket, bramble, or herb (Eduljee). The word is also used to denote a palm leaf, cluster of leaves, or flower bud (Eduljee). Due to the magnitude and popularity of the imitation shawls, Paisley became synonymous with the boteh motif (Eduljee). Slivers of cornflower blue are embedded within the palette of white, tan, orange, and red, and even subtler hints of black fleck the design. This same fabric and pattern is seen when lifting up the flap of the chest pocket, though the exterior of the flap is cotton twill, tying in all of the separate elements of the banyan in a cohesive and aesthetically pleasing fashion. It is clear that as much thought was put into making the banyan a beautiful and splendid garment as was making it comfortable and luxurious to wear.

It is believed that the banyan originated with the Dutch. During the seventeenth century, the Japanese would present a kimono to “the most favored representative” of the Dutch East India Company, and the garment soon became a much sought-after commodity among all European traders (Kane). Those who acquired these kimonos and brought them back to their homelands sparked a great deal of attention for these exotic and beautiful gifts, which became a mark of distinction and a symbol of high status. Thus, the most wealthy and powerful men in Europe soon became eager to possess a kimono of their own (Kane). However, the Japanese were unwilling to export their national garment on such a large scale, and European traders began to look elsewhere for similar garments in order to satisfy the high demand.

The word banyan is derived from the plural of the Sanskrit term for a Hindu merchant or trader of western India—vaniyan (Kane). By the sixteenth century, these traders became known as banyn, and eventually, Europeans began using the term banyan to refer to any Hindu from western India (Kane). When the European traders looking for an alternative to the kimono realized that the banyans were wearing similarly shaped, loose-fitting robes, and that India was a large producer of fine silks and cotton fabrics, the “banyan” as a garment was born (Kane). These robes were made of equally exotic and luxurious materials as the Japanese kimonos and imitated their form. Thus, the banyan became an equally desirable and distinguishable fashion after the Dutch—and soon all European traders—promptly began shipping them back to Europe in large numbers (Kane). The fabrics came in a wide variety of colors and patterns, and European tailors began making turbans out of the same fabrics to be worn with the banyan. The matching turbans quickly became popular in places like England, which has a colder climate, for men had something to keep their bare heads warm when they were not wearing their wigs (Kane).

The banyan became a symbol of luxury, not only because of the ease and comfort of the garment and the fact that it was mainly worn during leisure, but because it was an extremely expensive item of clothing. Thus, only men of the upper class were able to afford such a robe, lending to the reputation of the banyan as a high-status garment first established by its exoticism and rarity. The banyan was especially popular among intellectual men with an academic or scientific bent, partly because of its resemblance to academic robes, and partly because it was believed that its loose structure contributed to the “easy and vigorous exercise of the faculties of the mind” (Kane). Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Pope, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Hogarth were all famous banyan wearers, each eager to have his portrait painted while wearing a banyan (Kane). “The banyan was popular for private portraits from as early as the mid-seventeenth century, when such undress communicated elite worldliness . . . Indeed, being portrayed in a banyan had unmistakable cultural connotations of gentility, creativity, and intellectual pursuits” (Peck 265).

Though the banyan was initially worn in public—especially to men’s club meetings or gambling houses—as a replacement for more heavy, formal dress coats, by the mid-eighteenth century the robe was restricted to at-home day wear (Peck 265, Kane). It would still be worn over the shirt and breeches in place of a more formal jacket, but only when spending time with family or friends in the comfort of one’s home (Kane). Peck writes that while stiff, well-tailored suits became the masculine way to display luxury in public, “in private, sartorial comfort was found in the ease and comfort of unstructured attire” (256). Whether worn in public or at home, the banyan continued to symbolize the wealth, status, and intellectual pursuits of upper class men in America. With its exotic aesthetic, it evoked the highly-desired image of a cosmopolitan, sophisticated gentleman who was well-traveled and urbane.

Albert Fremont Barfoot was born into a family of eight on August 18, 1862, one year after the outbreak of the Civil War in the U.S. His mother and father, Jane Dougherty Barfoot and Benjamin Taylor Barfoot, each in their early thirties, lived with Albert’s five older siblings—Andrew, John, Louisa, Cyrus, and Enos—in the small city of Decorah, Iowa. Benjamin and Jane, both natives of Ohio, made their living the way that many Midwestern Americans did at the time—by farming. While Benjamin farmed, Jane ran the household and took care of their five children, whose ages ranged from her one-year-old son Enos to her 10-year-old son Andrew. Albert’s birth marked her sixth child. Later on, in 1869, Jane would give birth to her seventh and final child—a daughter named Annetta Mary, sometimes referred to as Mary, and at other times called Nettie.

At the time of Albert’s birth, around 1,920 people lived in Decorah (United States Census Bureau). The first American settlers to move to Iowa arrived in 1833, just thirty years earlier, so the Barfoots were among the earliest citizens of the state (Schwieder). Situated in Winneshiek County on Iowa’s northernmost border, the city of Decorah rests atop an underground crater nearly four miles in diameter, the result of a meteorite crash approximately 470 million years before Albert’s birth (Love). However, no one yet knew of this giant crater that lay beneath the city—it was not discovered until about 2007, and there is little physical evidence on the surface. Instead, the physical features that marked the city of Decorah at the time were the Upper Iowa River that flowed right through the city and the unassuming architectural structures of the town surrounded on all sides by rugged hills and “fertile prairies” characteristic of northeastern Iowa (Alexander 56). Iowa had achieved the name “The Beautiful Land” due to its first inhabitants’ belief in its “superiority of climate, soil, and location” (Alexander 1). This land, and its soil, provided the Barfoots with their humble but steady living. 

Because of the fertility of the land and its diverse natural resources, a considerable percentage of Iowa’s population was made up of farmers; “by the 1870s, farms and small towns blanketed the entire state” (Schweider). Grant Wood’s famous 1930 painting American Gothic, pictured on the right, was set in Wood’s native Iowa and was meant to encapsulate the rural American values of the Midwestern state—for instance, the hard work and dedication of its farmers (Art Institute of Chicago). Though we cannot know exactly what crops Benjamin grew on his farm, we do know that it was typical of farmers in Iowa to grow wheat, which was the “principle product” of Winneshiek County, before and during the Civil War (Alexander 220). After the war, however, farmers were urged “to diversify their production, raise corn rather than wheat, and convert that corn into pork, beef, and wool whenever possible” (Schweider).

Iowa was also known for its large population of immigrants, mainly European (Schweider). Albert’s own family embodied a blend of cultural heritage: Benjamin’s father was from Ireland and his mother from Scotland, and the name “Barfoot” itself is a Scottish variant of the German origin, “Barfuss” (“Barfoot Name Meaning”). The Barfoots’ religion was listed as Episcopalian, an Anglican religion rooted in the Church of England. The political stance of the entire family is not known, though in a 1916 Iowa newspaper, Albert is referred to as an “amiable Republican,” the dominant political party in Iowa (Cresco plain dealer, Secretary of State). During the Civil War, Iowa’s Republicans occupied themselves with “advancing the Union cause,” meaning that the party was anti-slavery (Secretary of State).

All of the Barfoots were able to read and write. This would have been typical of white Iowa citizens at the time, as by the time Iowa became a state in 1846 there were 400 organized school districts and schools were “open and free for every class of white citizens between the ages of five and twenty-one years” (Alexander 101-102). Albert later wrote in an Iowa state census questionnaire that his education consisted of common school and college. It is possible that the Barfoot children attended their early schooling in a log schoolhouse, the prevailing educational structure for the first twenty years of Iowa’s history (Alexander 101). However, by the time that Albert was seven years old, the number of log schoolhouses in Iowa had dwindled to 336, making it likely that Albert studied his later lessons in a more modern building (Alexander 101).

An 1880 census lists Barfoot’s occupation as simply “laborer,” most likely meaning that he worked on his father’s farm with his brothers, though we cannot know for sure. What we do know is that on August 27, 1891, at 28, Albert got married. His new wife, the Canadian-born Rebecca Holmes, was one year older than Albert and had become a schoolteacher when she was just seventeen years old, a profession she held for seven years. As Rebecca also received her education in Decorah’s public schools, it is likely that she and Albert were classmates. Rebecca was also a member of the Episcopal Church, and was “exceptionally active” in church work, such as Sunday school and Ladies’ Aid. According to a local newspaper, she was “a woman possessed of high ideals and was always interested in the betterment of the community . . . Her high qualities of mind and character gained for her an extensive circle of friends who held her in the highest esteem.” Once married, the couple moved out of their parents’ homes, but stayed in Decorah, where they had their first daughter, Dorothy, in 1896. A few years later, around 1900, Albert left farming behind and, perhaps because of the influence of his intellectual spouse, became a physician.

In the early twentieth century, most physicians did not have their own offices, or even a separate building to work in. Instead, physicians during Barfoot’s time “typically operated out of the front room or parlor of their home” (“Doctor’s and Dentist’s Offices”). However, as unglamorous as his work may have been, it certainly added glamour to his life outside of his work—while the average yearly income for a farmer around the beginning of the twentieth century was just over $285, physicians could earn anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 or more a year (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 59, Rothstein 95). Albert would have enjoyed not only a large increase in wealth, but an increase in esteem as well; physicians were considered part of an elite class due to the degree of education they received (Heit). It is around this time that Barfoot obtained a banyan—a garb that emphasized not only his social and economic class, but also his intelligence and education. The banyan also solidified Albert’s own personal upward mobility, achieving the prestige of an upper-class career in medicine after being raised by middle-class farmers.

In 1916, sixteen years after Albert started his profession, he was thrown a curve ball in his career: Iowa instituted state-wide prohibition laws, four years before national prohibition (Hanson). Iowa was one of the three most strongly pro-prohibition states in the union and the home of several of the movement’s leaders (Hanson). The state’s ban on alcohol would have hindered Albert’s ability to freely prescribe alcohol as treatment for his patients, which was a popular practice among physicians at the time (Spooner 159). While it was still possible for physicians to prescribe alcohol for “medicinal purposes,” pharmacies no longer remained stocked with alcohol, and obtaining it became a more difficult process (Spooner 159). That very same year, alcohol’s “supposed medicinal properties” were declared to be “entirely unsupported by research,” and its use in therapeutics had “no scientific basis,” according to the American Medical Association (Gage). In fact, some claimed that alcoholic stimulants as medicine were “worse than useless” (Spooner 421). Eventually, the nation-wide debate over alcohol prompted Congress to pass a bill in 1921, one year after national prohibition had been put in place, limiting wine and liquor prescriptions to not more than a half pint in ten days, and banning beer altogether (Gage). Thus, Barfoot, a fairly seasoned physician, would have had to learn to adapt his old practices and routine to fit the changing beliefs and laws of a nation immersed in prohibition. 

The First World War brought changes, also. Though Albert did not serve in the war, nor did his siblings, they surely would have felt the overwhelming absence and loss of fellow Iowans: 114,242 Iowa men and women left the state to serve in the armed forces, and an estimated 3,576 died (Horton and Morain). Though the economy boomed during the war due to increased exports to Europe, at the end of the war in 1918 Iowa’s economy was in crisis (Stromquist 20). Failing industries led to the dissolve of unions, bitter strikes, and unemployment for many workers (Stromquist 20). The agricultural economy also suffered post-war, as “the loss of farms, the breakup of families, the extreme poverty, and the struggle for subsistence had become commonplace in rural Iowa” (Stromquist 20). It is not known whether or not Barfoot or his family members were directly affected by the poor economic conditions in Iowa, and the country as a whole, but surely they would have been rattled by the destitution and melancholy that had taken hold of their hometown.

Despite having moved on to separate places, professions, and marriages, records show that the seven Barfoot siblings continued to keep in touch and visit each other often. When Cyrus Barfoot and his wife moved back to Decorah in 1915, they were greeted with a “surprise party” from family and friends, which, according to the local newspaper, Enos Barfoot and his wife came from Cresco, Iowa, to attend (Cresco plain dealer). The same newspaper shows that Enos and his wife “returned Wednesday from a visit at the Dr. [Albert] Barfoot home at Decorah” (Twice-a-week plain dealer).

Even without his siblings, Albert maintained a full house. About one year after he began his medical profession, Rebecca gave birth to another daughter, whom they named Marjory. Around that time, the family lived with a single, 26-year old woman named Nellie M. Slayton, who boarded with them for a few years. Then, in 1920, Rebecca’s mother Mary Holmes, an immigrant from Durham, England, and a now 74-year-old widow, came to live with the Barfoots in their home in Decorah. Mary continued to live with her daughter and son-in-law even after Dorothy and Marjory had moved out of the house in 1930 and were living on their own, leaving the 67-year-old Albert, still working as a physician, to provide for his wife and mother-in-law.

Rebecca died on February 11, 1934, and was buried in Phelps cemetery, the same cemetery in which Albert’s parents had been buried. Her funeral was held in the Episcopal Church, the church she had remained loyal to throughout her years in Decorah. However, Albert was not left totally alone—her mother, Mary, kept him company for several more years before passing away on May 12, 1937. She, too, was buried in Phelps cemetery. In his final years, one can suppose that Albert was frequently visited by his daughters and siblings, before finally being laid to rest in Phelps cemetery on November 20, 1939, at 86 years old. There is no information on the cause of death—we only know that his tombstone read “Father.”

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