Hey everyone,
I recently completed a story on a circa 1897 Wright & Ditson wool football sweater on
www.antiquefootball.com. I purchased the sweater last February. It was sold as a Bowdoin College football sweater. The team wore an identical style sweater in the late 1890's, but I couldn't identify any team photo in which a player had the same Gothic font "B". Bowdoin's track team used a Gothic B in the early 1900's, but it was a different font.
http://www.antiquefootball.com/aom/aom_nov18.htm
After additional searching, I came across photos of the 1897-1899 Boston Beaneaters on Net54. The "B" font is a very close match to the font on the sweater. My conclusion is that the sweater is likely period to the late 1890's (perhaps not Bowdoin) and that since it was manufactured by Wright & Ditson in Boston W&D used the same font used by the Beaneaters. My early W&D catalogs don't provide font examples like later catalogs do, so I don't know how to confirm this.
Another theory is that the sweater was purchased from W&D without the "B" and the team or the owner simply used the same font.
I'm curious if anyone on Net54 might know if Wright & Ditson manufactured the Beaneaters uniforms? Does anyone know whether or not logos like the Beaneaters "B" were provided by the manufacturer or if they were sourced from a third party? Any help would be appreciated!
Chris Hornung
AntiqueFootball.com