New A-1 Lead

[33-1729]

Almost nothing has been documented on the A-1, but if you're in St Paul, Minn. now's your chance.

Guiterman Bros. (St Paul, Minn): Supplied three proposed A-1 jackets for government review (Sept 1927) and company purchase by Gordon & Ferguson Inc. in 1928/29.

Gordon & Ferguson, Inc. (St Paul, Minn.): Had A-1 jacket contract during 1928-1929 time-frame.

Records for both companies are held by the Minnesota Historical Society for research (link below).

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00723.xml

 

[mulceber]

It also could turn up some interesting information on their M-422A and AN-J-3A contracts. I hope someone pursues this lead!

 

[B-Man2]

Great job 33!
You’re filling in some blanks that have gone missing for years .

 

[gunnarthefeisty]

Almost nothing has been documented on the A-1, but if you're in St Paul, Minn. now's your chance.

Guiterman Bros. (St Paul, Minn): Supplied three proposed A-1 jackets for government review (Sept 1927) and company purchase by Gordon & Ferguson Inc. in 1928/29.

Gordon & Ferguson, Inc. (St Paul, Minn.): Had A-1 jacket contract during 1928-1929 time-frame.

Records for both companies are held by the Minnesota Historical Society for research (link below).

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00723.xml

Has anyone looked into this? If not, I will bite the bullet this summer and do some work.

 

[gunnarthefeisty]

Almost nothing has been documented on the A-1, but if you're in St Paul, Minn. now's your chance.

Guiterman Bros. (St Paul, Minn): Supplied three proposed A-1 jackets for government review (Sept 1927) and company purchase by Gordon & Ferguson Inc. in 1928/29.

Gordon & Ferguson, Inc. (St Paul, Minn.): Had A-1 jacket contract during 1928-1929 time-frame.

Records for both companies are held by the Minnesota Historical Society for research (link below).

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00723.xml

The boxes don't look promising for Guiterman. Gordon & Ferguson has a larger amount of information, though.

 

[mulceber]

Thanks for looking into this! If you can post photos of anything you find, that would be fantastic!

 

[33-1729]

The boxes don't look promising for Guiterman. Gordon & Ferguson has a larger amount of information, though.

Perspective is important here: 15 cubic feet or paper may be up to 50,000 pages and looking at each one for only a couple seconds each will take many, many hours. Plan a few days, maybe a week, if going through them all. When researching never skimp - having to do it again, just once, is a lesson best learned from others.

 

[mulceber]

Perspective is important here: 15 cubic feet or paper may be up to 50,000 pages and looking at each one for only a couple seconds each will take many, many hours. Plan a few days, maybe a week, if going through them all. When researching never skimp - having to do it again, just once, is a lesson best learned from others.

And that’s part of why I would suggest photographing everything even potentially relevant - other people might notice important details that you don’t, and you might notice more on repeated viewings.

 

[gunnarthefeisty]

And that’s part of why I would suggest photographing everything even potentially relevant - other people might notice important details that you don’t, and you might notice more on repeated viewings.

I appreciate the advice- I'm not a COMPLETE amateur when it comes to research, so I figured I would just take photos of anything that looked interesting and read it all later, like you said. I should be able to get a good 3-4 hours in per day at their library. I may get a start on it in about a month on spring break.

 

[33-1729]

At ~3-4 hours per day, plan on a couple weeks. Best to read in the library. Copies are best done dead last - after you know exactly what you've found - trying after the fact is best avoided.

 

[33-1729]

A few tidbits that might be helpful.

We know that jacket samples were sent to the US Army Air Corp based upon a 13-Sept-1927 letter. Specifically,

Gordan & Ferguson, Inc. supplied one (1) brown and one (1) light tan sample both in size 40. (We don't know what they were made of.)

Guiterman Bros. supplied one (1) sample in genuine calf-skin (size 42), one (1) sample in Domestic cape sheepskin (size 42) and one (1) sample in cape sheepskin (size unknown).

At the time, "cape" was a marketing term taken from the original (and expensive) goatskin from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. Letters referring to these jackets may use a wide variety of terms, including some we may not know (and probably not as an "A-1" given the timeline). At least we know they'll be referenced before 13-Sep-1927 in any company documents.

We know for a fact that Gordan & Ferguson made A-1 jackets based upon a 4-Feb-1929 letter saying they were currently in production at that time (Guiterman was absorbed into G&F by then). The military issued A-1 jackets may or may not be referred to as A-1 jackets (probably were).

The US Navy 37J1 was nearly identical to the A-1 (pocket placement being the key difference). Guiterman and/or G&F may have made a couple USN samples: OR maybe not - the US Navy and Army worked together and may have made only made samples for the Army given the pocket placement difference isn't a big change - don't know, so something to look for. G&F may have made USN 37J1 jackets too - don't know, something to look for. As of now, a USN 37J1 manufacturer has never been identified.

Pretty much anything found on the A-1 or 37J1 would be a new find.

Good luck!

 

[gunnarthefeisty]

A few tidbits that might be helpful.

We know that jacket samples were sent to the US Army Air Corp based upon a 13-Sept-1927 letter. Specifically,

Gordan & Ferguson, Inc. supplied one (1) brown and one (1) light tan sample both in size 40. (We don't know what they were made of.)

Guiterman Bros. supplied one (1) sample in genuine calf-skin (size 42), one (1) sample in Domestic cape sheepskin (size 42) and one (1) sample in cape sheepskin (size unknown).

At the time, "cape" was a marketing term taken from the original (and expensive) goatskin from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. Letters referring to these jackets may use a wide variety of terms, including some we may not know (and probably not as an "A-1" given the timeline). At least we know they'll be referenced before 13-Sep-1927 in any company documents.

We know for a fact that Gordan & Ferguson made A-1 jackets based upon a 4-Feb-1929 letter saying they were currently in production at that time (Guiterman was absorbed into G&F by then). The military issued A-1 jackets may or may not be referred to as A-1 jackets (probably were).

The US Navy 37J1 was nearly identical to the A-1 (pocket placement being the key difference). Guiterman and/or G&F may have made a couple USN samples: OR maybe not - the US Navy and Army worked together and may have made only made samples for the Army given the pocket placement difference isn't a big change - don't know, so something to look for. G&F may have made USN 37J1 jackets too - don't know, something to look for. As of now, a USN 37J1 manufacturer has never been identified.

Pretty much anything found on the A-1 or 37J1 would be a new find.

Good luck!

I actually just found someone with the second known surviving 37J1.