Kings of the Dudes Part III - Western Dudes - J. Waldere Kirk and others

 

Kings of the Dudes - Introduction

Kings of the Dudes - Part I - Evander Berry Wall

Kings of the Dudes Part II - Heirs to the Throne - Onativia and Teall

 

J. Waldere Kirk

 

New York, March 28. . . . [J. Waldere] Kirk is Chicago’s idea of what a “King of the dudes” should be. He hails from Kansas City and has always had a good deal of stock-yard flavor.

Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 1899, page 2.

 

William H. Chambliss, Chambliss’ Diary; or, Society as it Really Is, New York, Chambliss & Co., 1895, page 369.

The first three “Kings of the Dudes” all made their reputations as “Dudes” in the financial, cultural and media center of New York City. But the United States was and had been expanding for decades. The major cities of the American Midwest and West were starting to flex their muscle. The Western media helped tilt the balance in one very small way by installing the next “King of the Dudes” and keeping him on the throne for several years.

In 1895, William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner declared a traveling cigar salesman named J. Waldere Kirk the new “King of the Dudes.” Kirk had frequent business dealings and made frequent stops in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and many points in between. Finally, readers across the West could more personally relate to a supposed “King of the Dudes,” have hometown bragging rights over the old guard in New York City and the East Coast, and maybe even catch a glimpse of him when he passed through their town.

Even New York City briefly bought into the J. Waldere Kirk mythos. He made a big splash there for a few days in 1897, “a sartorial sirocco” out of the West. But the New York press generally ignored him after he was seen wearing the same red tie two days in a row. The red-tie “controversy” may also have been fake news. The big city press may have simply turned their back on him because he was not one of them. Regional rivalry crops up in much of the reporting about his pretensions to the throne criticism of his claim to the title, “King of the Dudes.”

[T]he New York chappies turn up their noses in contempt of the western intruder and his innumerable carloads of clothing.

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania), June 4, 1897, page 4.

Unlike the other “Kings of the Dudes,” J. Waldere Kirk was a common working man who worked his way up from the bottom. He is said to have been born in New York City and left home at the age of 14 to make a life for himself out west. He eventually rose to the level of traveling cigar salesman, making homes for himself at various times in Detroit, Denver, and Chicago, and popping up regularly in St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He dabbled in real estate speculation and invested in a gold mining operation during the Yukon gold rush.

For several years, beginning in about 1889, Kirk’s name appears as a new arrival in various hotels throughout the West, frequently representing a cigar company based in Detroit.

Mr. James W. Kirk, general western agent of the cigar manufacturing firm of Brown Bros., Detroit, Michigan, is in the city to-day, having just returned from a trip through Oklahoma and the Indian Territory.

Wichita Star (Wichita, Kansas), June 6, 1889, page 1.

He was first identified as a swell dresser in about 1894, favorably compared to the passé Berry Wall.

James W. Kirk, the Apollo-like drummer of Gotham, is at the Hollenbeck. As a sonorous dresser they say that E. Berry Wall isn’t in it at all with James W.

Los Angeles Evening Express, February 7, 1894, page 8.

His first fashion coup appears to have been introducing the “Willie-boy” coat to San Francisco.

James W. Kirk, the young gentleman who first introduced the “Willie-boy” coat to San Francisco’s gilded youth, is at the Palace.

The San Francisco Call, February 13, 1894, page 6.

“Willie Boy” was a short-lived expression which was briefly used to describe a new kind of “Dude.” The characteristic dress of the “Willie Boy” appears to have included a long coat and rolled-up pant legs.ⁱ

 

 

 

The dude has had his day. His reign, which was a lengthy one, is o’er, and today, while you will see some to whom the term is appropriate, yet he is no longer the proper sort. His exit should occasion no great amount of sorrow, for he has been succeeded by a far more interesting type, and one which is not alone characteristic by dress, but by manner as well.

To a successful Willie boy more than a swell tailor is required. A study of ways, expressions, walks and laughs is absolutely necessary; so, for that reason, we are not liable to be overrun with them as we were with the dude.

In appearance he is totally different from his predecessors. He is not at all effeminate, though at times he may look so. In most cases he is smooth-faced, and instead of a bang his hair is parted in the middle and plastered down on both sides, giving the appearance of a tight-fitting hood. He is stoop-shouldered, or rather the back curves from the base of the spine, giving the top part of his body a very awkward pose. His expression is a perfect blank and never changes. He may be happy or may be extremely blue, but you can never tell it by his face.

 

Dress of the Latest Creation.

In dress he does not differ from the average well-dressed man, except in the way he wears his garments, and I am afraid this particular knack is going to keep many an aspiring Willie out of the ranks. His trousers are always creased, and when he turns them up he apparently does it with as little concern as the ordinary man, but the result, Oh, my, how different! Explain? I cannot. There may be just a bit of sock showing, or the arrangement of his shoe strings may give the effect. I don’t know. I’ve tried everything, but I cannot get it. His coat is, of course, the latest style, but he fixes the lapels in such a manner that you are led to believe that it is many seasons later than the latest.

Pittsburgh Dispatch, December 4, 1892, page 9.

In late-1893, even as the expression faded from use on the East Coast, it took hold on the West Coast, but primarily as the name of the coat associated with “Willie Boys.”

J. Waldere Kirk ultimately received the credit (or blame) for introducing the coat to the San Francisco swells and dudes, but when it first made headlines there his name was not mentioned. This early description of a “Willie Boy” coat details, however, how several people had purchased such coats, but no one had yet dared to venture out in public with them for extended periods of time, so perhaps it was Kirk who eventually helped break the ice.

 

 

 

“We have made them,” said a fashionable local tailor – “several of them, but none of our customers has yet dared to make a public appearance. It requires nerve and force, you know, to lead a style which is so noticeably different from the every-day wear of every-day men. Why these chaps become more notable in a day than a visiting Nawab. They have a greater following than a band-wagon. They are not what you might call ‘Willie Boys,’ but they seem to think and feel that they are just as soon as they become draped with so much unnecessary cloth.”

San Francisco Examiner, July 11, 1893, page 12.

Although the expression, “Willie Boy,” soon faded away as the name of a new kind of swell, the word “Dude” continued in use, as a generic title for any type of swell, no longer attached to a narrow range of 1880s fashion choices. And J. Waldere Kirk, who is said to have introduced the “Willie Boy” coat to San Francisco, was soon introduced to San Francisco as the new “King of the Dudes” in William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, a title that was copied and pasted by other news outlets throughout the region.

J. Waldere Kirk of New York, known since the days of Barry Wall as “King of the Dudes,” is at the Palace.

The San Francisco Examiner, December 1, 1894, page 14.

James Waldere Kirk, the “King of the New York Dudes,” arrived from the East yesterday after an absence of two months dressed in a new suit of clothes.

San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 1895, page 5.

J. Waldere Kirk of New York, known as the King of the Dudes, has returned here after several months in the East.

San Francisco Call, April 18, 1895, page 6.

J. Waldere Kirk, the cigar drummer who is known as the “King of the Dudes” on account of his attention to dress, came to town last night and spent the day in this city visiting the cigar stores and changing his attire.

The Evening Mail (Stockton), December 19, 1895, page 1.

As would be the case 60 years later when the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, the American West suddenly had bragging rights over the Big Apple with respect to something long associated with centers of media and culture in New York City; never mind that no New York City newspapers even mention his name until two years later. A newspaper in Glen Falls, New York mentioned him in January 1896, but only as second-hand news from San Francisco – not as any known fashion icon of New York City.ⁱⁱ

THE KING OF THE DUDES

James Kirk is Successor to Berry Wall

HIS WAR WITH GREENWAY

He Espoused the Cause of Chambliss and His Set

Decides with Him that White Cotton Globes are

Properly Worn at Evening Functions

James Kirk, the “King of the Dudes,” is in Los Angeles.

This is the title by which Mr. Kirk is known from one end of the land to the other. In New York, when he walks down Broadway, envious Willieboys gaze after him with jealous admiration. Larry Kip of New York, who is accounted one of the best dressed men in America, takes his hat off to Mr. Kirk, and the best authorities as to what is the proper thing agree that he is the undisputed successor of Barry Wall.

The Los Angeles Herald, April 3, 1895, page 7.

The references to “Greenway” and “Chambliss” hint at the East-West rivalry. Ned Greenway was the gatekeeper of “San Francisco’s 400.”  He ran San Francisco high society along the same lines that Ward McAllister acted as social leader of New York City’s “Four Hundred.” William H. Chambliss was a naval and merchant shipping officer, writer and journalist who spilled a lot of ink criticizing “Snob Hill” society for its aristocratic pretensions and preference for all things British and European over Americans. Kirk, a man primarily of the West, befriended Chambliss and sided with him on some questions of “proper” dress (the photograph of Kirk at the top of this section is from Chambliss’s book, Chambliss’ Diary; or, Society as it Really Is).

 

“My First Impressions of San Francisco.”

“The organization known as Mr. Greenway’s 400 is composed of the sons and daughters of just such citizens as you see here,’ said Charles Elsasser.”

William H. Chambliss, Chambliss’ Diary; or, Society as it Really Is, New York, Chambliss & Co., 1895, page 117.

 

Other cities out west, like Salt Lake City, picked up on the theme, announcing Kirk the undisputed “King of the Dudes,” heir to Wall, skipping several generations in the Dude-King lineage.

 

James Waldere Kirk, “king of the dudes,” the man after whom all the tribes of Fifth avenue and Broadway known as the genus dude take pattern in dress because of their own poverty of invention, is on a visit to Salt Lake. Mr. Kirk is supposed to be the one properly dressed man in all America – the one, because as soon as his apes adopt his newest fashion, he drops it and introduces another.

The title “king of the dudes” was conferred upon Mr. Kirk by common consent when Berry Wall became a benedict, it being the presumption that a married man cannot be a leader of fashion, and he was considered the most fitting successor to the old-time fashion plate of Newport and Long Branch.

Mr. Kirk will be in the city for a few days, so the fashionable young men of Zion’s 400 can have the benefit of his taste in matters of dress.

The latest innovation of the “king’s” is the pocketless overcoat. It was introduced by him in October last and recently made its appearance in the New York fashion plates of December.

Salt Lake City Herald, December 29, 1895, page 6.

 

“Duke of the Dudes, James W. Kirk, in His Pocketless Overcoat,” The San Francisco Call, December 3, 1895, page 7.

But not everyone worshipped the “King.” The editors of Josh (a humor magazine of the University of California at Berkeley – think West Coast Harvard Lampoon) skewered Kirk and his fashion pronouncements in a piece published in the Examiner.

 

Scene: Throne room in the King’s palace. The walls are frescoed with all the stupid designs that driveling idiocy and fashion could invent. The King of the Dudes sits on a soap box filled with clothes one week out of style, which he intends distributing among the San Francisco 400 upon his departure for the East, that the vulgar multitude on the Pacific Coast will know what the correct thing in dress is. About the King are collected a number of things, known as society nincompoops. They differ from driveling idiots only in being out of an asylum.

. . . I must off to New York, as the diary says the styles home have radically changed since I’ve been out here. Ta-ta. When I return I’ll have an overcoat with 406 pockets in it. It will beat the record.

The San Francisco Examiner, December 25, 1895, page 15.

The Bakersfield Californian was more blunt in expressing its contempt.

(Bakersfield Californian:)

James W. Kirk, the “king of dudes” in San Francisco, who spends $5000 a year on clothing his worthless carcass, says that the manner in which the average man dresses himself gives him a pain in his little tummy. Mr. Dude Kirk ought to be taken out on some ranch, dressed in a woolen shirt, overalls and jumper, and put to work cleaning out the barnyard. That’s all he and his kind are fit for, and it is even a question whether they are fit for that.

The Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1895, page 6.

Kirk’s next big fashion coup was purportedly designing and introducing the “Li Hung Chang overcoat,” modeled after the imperial yellow jacket worn by General Hongzhang, of China.ⁱⁱⁱ

 

The San Francisco Call, November 9, 1896, page 9.

He has Li Hung Chang Coat

The Latest Creation of the King of the Dudes Causes Applause.

“This coat is my latest creation,” said he last night at the Palace. “It is made of a beautiful seal-brown material, the cloth being a special color and finish. It is made to fit very loose, in fact so loose that it might be able to contain two or three men of my size. The shoulders are built out two inches wider than would be required for an ordinary coat. This is to carry the immense back or to produce the Li Hung chang effect, as it might be termed.”

Mr. Kirk is only lacking in the yellow jacket and three-eyed peacock feathers of the Chinese statesman and diplomat to make him bear a striking resemblance to him.

The San Francisco Call, November 5, 1896, page 3.

 

Vanity Fair, August 13, 1896, page 96.

On March 23, 1897, after years of being widely considered the “King of the Dudes” in Western newspapers and frequently referred to as the “King of the New York Dudes,” J. Waldere Kirk finally made his triumphal entrance into New York City and into the clutches of the less forgiving New York press.

The Philadephia papers primed the pump the day before his arrival, with talk of his “thirty-six trunks” packed with “fifty shirts, twenty suits of clothes and as many pairs of shoes, and eight hats of every variety of make.” They said that his “collection of neckties and scarfs rivals that of any man in America,”^iv that he was “possibly the best-dressed man in America” and was known as the “emperor of the dudes.”^v The expectations were impossibly high, and he didn’t fail to disappoint.

On March 23, 1897, nearly every major newspaper in New York City trumpeted his arrival, with William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Advertiser leading the way.

 

Very modestly he entered the Hotel Imperial yesterday and wrote on the register. “Jos. W. Kirk, Chicago.” Yet this guest is acknowledged to be the best dressed man that ever came across the Divide.

As a general thing he registers as J. Waldere Kirk, and why he failed to do so yesterday is a mystery. It was rumored that he did it because had he shortened his name to a simple “J” it might have given the young men of the Knickerbocker Club an inkling what to expect on Fifth avenue to-day where Mr. Kirk is scheduled to appear. ^vi

. . . Philadelphia, slow in some things, but quick to perceive the beautiful, discovered him last Friday, and today he is ours. That city paid him deserved homage, and like a wise young man, he came to New York seeking new fields of conquest.

New York Journal and Advertiser, May 23, 1897, page 35.

 

New York Times, May 23, 1897, page 5.

So far as the memory of man runs, nobody before Mr. Kirk ever came to New York with clothes made west of it and proclaimed himself to be the best dressed man in America. It takes a man of some nerve to do that, and no one will say that Mr. Kirk is a man without nerve, when it is known that he travels with thirty suits of clothes and no body servant. Mr. Kirk’s arrival had been heralded from Philadelphia and a crowd of several hundred persons loitered in and about the Imperial all yesterday afternoon and evening in the hope of getting a look at the man who claims the crown and scepter once held by E. Berry Wall. . . .

The New York Sun, May 23, 1897, page 4.

The New York Tribune treated his arrival with a more satirical spin.

 

KIRK’S CLOTHES ARE COMING.

He Himself is Here and is Going to

Show the Male Population of

the Effete East

How to Dress.

Mr. Kirk has struck the town. As a matter of record, it may be well to give his full name – J. Waldere Kirk. The progress of Mr. Kirk’s clothes has been bulletined day after day since he left San Francisco on his way to give New-York a treat. Mr. Kirk has acted as travelling companion for his clothes, of course, but it was the clothes and Mr. Kirk’s remarks about them that have excited the populace, and not Mr. Kirk himself.

Some clothes and Mr. Kirk arrived at the Imperial Hotel yesterday afternoon. At first suspicion spread that the clothes had been overestimated, for there was nothing especially remarkable about Mr. Kirk or the clothes he wore. He explained, however, that most of his wearing apparel is not coming from Chicago by a special freight train, heavily guarded by Pinkerton detectives.

Mr. Kirk comes to New-York with the double purpose of giving the girls an ocular treat and teaching the fashionables of the effete East a thing or two about dress. He comes to his own again, so to speak, for he left New-York fourteen years ago, when he was a boy fifteen years old. Since then, he says, he has made money, and it gives him great delight to expend a portion of his income in diffusing light in the places of New-York. Incidentally, he is interested in promoting the operations of the – well, a certain mining company, no matter what one. . . .

Mr. Kirk will gladden the city by his presence for several days. Then he goes abroad to appear before all the crowned heads and deadheads of Europe. He will probably appear in Fifth-ave. today and revolutionize the fashions of the East.

The New York Tribune, May 23, 1897, page 23.

The New York Tribune announced his fall from grace the next day. Completely disregarding their reporting of a day earlier that his trunks were still en route, they loudly declaimed Kirk for wearing (horrors!!!) the same red necktie two days in a row.

When he first burst upon the delighted gaze of the metropolis on Saturday afternoon Mr. Kirk wore, among other things, a red, red necktie. There was nothing remarkable about this. Lots of well-dressed men wear red neckties. But the dreadful thing is that when Mr. Kirk appeared at breakfast yesterday morning he wore – what do you think? – the very came identical red necktie. This was a sad blow to those who had listened to all the promising things that had been said about Mr. Kirk by Mr. Kirk. Small wonder that the negro elevator boy who brought Mr. Kirk down to breakfast turned a shade blacker (which is the way negro boys grow pale) and murmured between his clinched teeth, “Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!”

But this was only the beginning of a day of disappointments. It had been expected that Mr. Kirk would don his bobtailed frock coat and his other Sunday morning finery and give the girls a treat on the avenue, but after that first horrifying affair of the red necktie nothing came like a shock to the waiting thousands. There was consequently not much surprise expressed as the morning wore on (the morning did not wear a red necktie on) and Mr. Kirk did not leave the hotel. When at last he made a sally some time after noon he wore, not the bobtailed frock coat, famed afar, but a plain business suit of blue, and, “hevings above!” that same red necktie.

It is plain that New-York must revise its opinion of Mr. Kirk as based upon Mr. Kirk’s own manifestoes. This shocking affair of the incessant necktie makes it imperative. Neither Mr. Kirk’s tales of his bobtailed from coat nor his romances about his Li Hung Chang overcoat, nor his views upon what he calls “vests,” nor yet his remarks upon his velvet-faced dress coat will suffice to restore him to the eminence from which the affair of the incessant necktie has dragged him. At the present writing it seems to be another case of misplaced confidence. Mr. Kirk must certainly explain.

New-York Tribune, May 24, 1897, page 7.

Out West, the treatment of his arrival in New York was generally more positive. He received the hometown treatment in San Francisco and Chicago where many of his clothes had been made.

 

This esthete who claims the somewhat doubtful honor of being the king of the dudes, is just now creating a big impression in New York because of the style and cut of his clothes, some of which he had made in San Francisco during his visit here a few months since. When a plain ordinary knight of the grip, J. Waldere was called simply “Jimmy” Kirk. He drifted out West, and became interested in mines in Colorado and California. He made a pile and proceeded to spend some of it in clothes.

The San Francisco Chronicle, May 30, 1897, page 20.

OUT OF THE WEST.

Thence Comes the Latest King of the Dudes.

From the Chicago Times-Herald.

J. Waldere Kirk, the “king of the dudes,” is known as an impressionist in Chicago, because he has made himself felt and heard many times during his visits here. He is just now creating a big impression in New-York because of the style and cut of the clothes he has had made in this city and San Francisco. He has always cut a figure in the hotel rotundas of Chicago – or, rather, his tailor in Wabash Avenue has cut it for him and he has worn it. He has always been ahead of the fashion-plates, and rejoices in the wonderful suits the Chicago tailors have carved out for him at his suggestion.

. . . [H]e jumped into fame in San Francisco by introducing the “Willy Boy” coat. He was taunted and jeered at by the hoodlums in the streets, but the “king of the dudes” reveled in the sensation he caused wherever he went.

When he thought he had become notorious enough he began to part his name in the middle and became J. Waldere Kirk. He started to regulate fashion and to say what should and what should not be worn. E. Berry Wall got tired of ruling the fashions and Kirk took his place, going the New-York man one better whenever he had a suit of clothes made for him. He had only fifteen suits in San Francisco, but he has more than double the number this year, and now carries with him 34 sartorial startlers. . . .

Kirk always gets his clothes made in the West. He held many conferences with his Chicago tailor who had been chosen to finish his wardrobe before he started for Europe. While staying here, however, he managed to make some money, for J. Waldere Kirk only indulges his fad for clothes of bewildering and startling fashion when the cares of money-making are off his mind. . . .

One would say when looking at the dazzling array of suits which J. Waldere Kirk has had made in Chicago and San Francisco that the “king of the dudes” has more clothes than he knows what to do with. But Kirk thinks otherwise. Each suit has its special duty in the life of the man who wears them.

Buffalo Weekly Express, May 27, 1897, page 7 (reprinted from the Chicago Times-Herald).

Following the affair of the incessant red necktie, the Eastern press paid little attention to him in his role as “King of the Dudes.” When he was spotted in the presence of E. Berry Wall at the racetrack a week later, he was considered merely the man who “would be” King.

And there were E. Berry Wall and J. Waldere Kirk, representing the East and the West. It was the first time they came in conjunction, the man who was a real “king of the dudes” and the man who would be.

The New York World, June 1, 1897, page 2.

Kirk addressed the various satirical accounts in an open letter to the press – he was not a “Dude,” he just liked nice clothes.

New York, May 26. – J. Waldere Kirk wrote a letter to the newspapers today in the line of self-defense against some of the comments made upon him and his clothes. In the first place, he wanted it understood that he was not a dude.

“I am fond of good clothes,” he said, “and like people to know that I am not ignorant of what is good form in the way of dressing. But the clothes are far from being the only topic that absorbs my mind. I have been actively engaged in business for many years, and have, I flatter myself, by dint of something more than mere chance succeeded tolerably well. I am, therefore, a trifle annoyed by the many remarkable stories that have been circulated about me, as if I were nothing but a sort of clothes horse, and with an ill-assorted lot of clothing hanging about me at that.

“However, as I have been so much heralded as a connoisseur of clothes, and my opinion has been asked on the subject, I do not hesitate to say that, in comparison with the numbers between the eastern and western gentlemen, I think I can safely assert that the westerners are, as a rule, better dressed than the people living east. The westerner seems to get at the idea of good dressing more intuitively than the eastern man.”

The Chicago Chronicle, May 27, 1897, page 1.

The society reporter for Randolph Hearst’s New York newspaper, the New York Journal, who wrote under the pen-name Cholly Knickerbocker, gave Kirk a full-page spread, in which Kirk supposedly shared his fashion advice and provided a running commentary of his critique of the clothes worn by the New York Dudes at the track. 

 

“Always Turn Up Your Pants When You Go to Breakfast.”

“A Quiet Natural Lambs’ Wool Suit with Lovely Big Splashes of Magenta.”

“How Does This Strike You as a Sunrise Surprise.”

New York Journal, May 30, 1897, page 27.

Kirk was unimpressed with the New York fashions, as measured in style or volume.

“Here is a valuable suggestion to you Eastern men of fashion: Never have all of your available wardrobe with you. When I travel I carry three trunks with me, and have five others come after me at such intervals as will prevent me from ever being without ten suits of clothes. Western tailors are way ahead of the Fifth avenue fellows – way ahead.”

Cholly Knickerbocker also noted that selling cigars was first on his mind, even as he dissed some of New York’s wealthiest men. Whether he actually met them or not is an open question.

 

Indeed, it is a matter worthy of note that throughout the few minutes that I conversed with Mr. J. Waldere Kirk, his judgment of clothing seemed continually biased by his business interest in tobacco.

It was for this reason probably that he took kindly to Mr. August Belmont, the president of the Jockey Club. He admitted that in the windy fashion of the West Mr. Belmont’s togs would not be able to create a zephyr, but he said he liked the shape of the man, and he thought that with a fair chance a Chicago tailor might make him presentable. . . .

At this moment who should appear but Willie K. Vanderbilt. The moment heard the magic name of Vanderbilt he lost all interest in everything else. . . . “I wonder what brand of cigars he smokes.” And yet again he turned and looked, and so I left him, hanging on the fence and gazing at Vanderbilt, forgetful of clothes, and fashion and everything else, save that he was in the presence of a man who could buy more cigars than Kirk could sell in all his lifetime, even if he should live to be as old as Methuselah.

“The Dude from the West Inspects the Dudes of the East, J. Waldere Kirk, from Denver, Inspector of Dudes,” New York Journal, May 30, 1897, page 27.

 

A reporter for one of the papers in one of Kirk’s hometowns gave a more tempered account of his first week in the metropolis.

KIRK’S SPLURGE IN NEW YORK

HOW HE AND THE HEAVY SWELLS REGARD EACH OTHER.

Mr. Kirk Abhors the Pink Shirt and Blue Serge Habit of New Yorkers, and They Can Not Endure His Use of Such Provincial Words as “Pants” and “Vests.”

New York, June 4. – Mr. J. Waldere Kirk of Kansas City, Denver and Chicago has invaded New York with his eight Saratoga trunk-loads of wearing apparel and seems to be the pulsating attraction of the hour.

New Yorkers who dress correctly scornfully resent the proposition that “Mr. Kirk, showman,” as they dub him, can cut any ice in this metropolis of superbly arrayed masculinity.

However, this Western young man, owner of unnumbered shoes, hats, pajamas, etc., who sells cigars, and incidentally changes his costume six times daily, has been getting columns, even pages, of newspaper notice, and his achievement as “a sartorial sirocco,” whatever that may be, has been exploited in verse as well as prose.

One day Mr. Kirk visited the Westchester race course at Morris park, where all such towering swells as August Belmont, Craig Wadsworth, Frank Beard, Tommy Hitchcock, Royal Phelps Carrol and Willie Vanderbilt congregate. The apostle of dress made an inspection of a large number of New York dudes, and bravely declared that they all had the pink-shirt-blue-serge-double-breasted-sack habit, and were therefore quite impossible as real exponents of correct dress.

. . . Mr. Kirk sometimes employs the words “pants” and “vest,” which are known in Greater New York as “trousers” and “waistcoat.” This linguistic contretemps brought down withering vials of sarcastic contumely upon J. Waldere’s well-shaped head.

“Is that him?” asked Mr. K. as Willie K. Vanderbilt came in sight.

“We will let that pass,” generously agreed the Morris park brigade – “but ‘pants, Ugh!” and they gasped – “vests! Bah!”

It is scarcely probably that the gentleman from Missouri, Colorado, etc., would excite any especial comment on Broadway or Fifth avenue, even if he did exhibit the freakish combination of colors which are charged to him, and which he doesn’t wear. The man who walked from the Knickerbocker theater, followed by a small white frizzly dog, around whose neck was a ribbon precisely matching the band on his straw hat, passed almost unnoticed in this town of tailless horse and horseless cabs.

The Kansas City Times, June 6, 1897, page 17.

The New York press paid attention to Kirk again several months later when “the Chicago Dude” shot an angry husband in his room at the Gerard House on Forty-Fourth Street.

 

Philadelphia Inquirer, November 15, 1897, page 1.

Kirk wore a red tie to his arraignment, which may have come to no surprise to the fashion police who had condemned him during his first few days in New York. He also wore a bandage on his head which, like the rest of his wardrobe, may have been just for show.

First in the line of prisoners at the bar of the West Fifty-fourth Street Court yesterday was J. Waldere Kirk, a man with a great many suits of clothes, cigar drummer, and automatic advertising agent. He was charged with felonious assault upon Richard R. Mandelbaum, in that two out of five shots fired by Kirk on Saturday night in protecting the privacy of his apartments at the Hotel Gerard had penetrated the person of Mr. Mandelbaum. Kirk was as gorgeous as the window of a Third avenue furniture store a week before Christmas. At a prouder and more festive moment of his career he had said that a man’s necktie must be symbolical of his state of being. It was fair to surmise that the tie he wore yesterday signified gore. It was of a glaring bull-maddening red. . . .

A wide bandage a la Bellevue was wrapped about the prisoner’s brow. The magistrate looked at it inquiringly. Capt. Schmittberger answered the unspoken question.

“That’s a big bluff,” he said, “that’s all. He hasn’t a pin scratch on his head.”

The New York Sun, November 15, 1897, page 3.

Richard R. Mandelbaum, thirty-two years old, was shot in the groin and over the heart in the Gerard House, No. 123 West Forty-fourth-st., at 12:10 o’clock this morning, by James Waldere Kirk, who is known as the “Chicago dude,” and is a guest of the house. Kirk is locked up in the West Forty-seventh-st. police station, and Mandelbaum was believed early this morning to be dying.

The New York Tribune, November 14, 1897, page 1.

Closer to home, the story received a slightly different treatment.

The Kansas City habit gets strong after a time if allowed to go unchecked and it frequently leads to embarrassment. Take the case of J. Waldere Kirk, the Kansas City dude who went east. He shot a man in New York and is in jail. He must have thought he was in Kansas City.

Lawrence Daily World (Lawrence, Kansas), November 15, 1897, page 2.

Like Kirk, Mandelbaum was a cigar salesman who had once lived in San Francisco, and the two had been friendly for a time in New York City. Kirk and Mrs. Mandelbaum had apparently struck up a friendly relationship, however, which caused a rift in the men’s relationship. Mandelbaum had forgiven his wife for her apparent infidelity, and even moved into the same building as Kirk, a few floors up. Kirk’s rooms were apparently across the hall from a close friend of Mrs. Mandelbaum’s, whom she visited regularly.

On the night in question, Mandelbaum was reportedly looking for his wife sometime after midnight, and went to Kirk’s floor to see if she was across the hall at her friend’s apartments. He knocked on Kirk’s door, was forbidden admittance, and proceeded to break it down. Kirk took five shots – two hit their mark in precisely those places that would cause the most harm in a romantic struggle – in the groin and near the heart. Mandelbaum’s wife was seen leaving Kirk’s bedroom after the shooting.

Mandelbaum didn’t die and wouldn’t testify. Mandelbaum left town, and Kirk was freed. Divorce proceedings were underway before the end of the year.^vii

 

 

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 15, 1897, page 3.

Mandelbaum has begun a suit against his wife for an absolute divorce. In his affidavit he names Kirk as the correspondent, and alleges that the act of infidelity occurred on the very night on which the Western dude shot the plaintiff.

The Brooklyn Citizen, December 21, 1897, page 3 .

A few months later, the New York papers closed their book on Kirk as “King of the Western Dudes,” with an account of a supposed incident in which he is said to have lost his title in Kansas City and fled town in disgrace.

Chant the dirge softly, J. Waldere Kirk has fallen from grace. The king of the Western dudes, the Berry Wall of Kansas City, the most exquisitely dressed man west of the Wabash, the pride of Chicago and the envy of New York, has been deposed, kicked out, “trun down,” and is a king no longer.

The crime for which Mr. Kirk is deposed by the unanimous vote of every cigarette smoker in this place was a shocking one. The types hesitate to mention it. But history is history, and needs must. He was seen one night in the lobby of the Coates House actually wearing a morning costume.

There were many witnesses. The word went forth, and hundreds, thousands flocked to see the horror. For an hour or two the clubs of Kansas City were empty.

Kirk brazened it out. He acted as if he did not know anything unusual was in the wind. It is possible that, like other potentates who have fallen, he though his position so secure it did not matter how much he broke the laws of his principality. If he did, he has found he was mistaken.

When called to account he tried to dodge the issue by saying as he had just got up it was not evening to him. . . .

Kirk could not face his own disgrace. He took a train eastward last night, and his present whereabouts is unknown.

The New York World, March 15, 1898, page 9.

J. Waldere Kirk may actually have been in danger of losing his title, but not for the reasons given. At about the same time, he was spotted in St. Louis, Missouri with a young woman from “one of the richest families in Southern California,” causing some to question his status as “King of the Dudes.”

WALDERE KIRK MAY MARRY.

St. Louis, Mo., March 3. – It is said here to-night that J. Waldere Kirk, the famous “King of the Dudes,” will be married in a few days to Miss Marley of Los Angeles.

The New York Times, March 4, 1898, page 1.

THREATENED WITH MATRIMONY.

J. Waldere Kirk, the King of the Dudes, of New York City, is in imminent danger of becoming a benedict. All signs indicate that he is liable to “pop” the question any day.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 13, 1898, 48.

  

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 13, 1898, page 48.

 

EX-KING OF DUDES.

J. Waldere Kirk, Who Fooled New Yorkers, Will Take a Wife.

J. Waldere Kirk, the Chicago cigar salesman who for a time bulldozed New Yorkers into calling him “King of the Dudes,” is reported as engaged to a wealthy California girl and once more claims the public eye.

It was less than two years ago that he succeeded in attracting national attention by perpetrating on a gullible New York public one of the most audacious and gigantic bluffs on record. For seven months Kirk was a prominent figure. Columns were devoted to him, his ideas – such as they were – his clothes and his adventures. He was credited with the possession of fabulous sums of money; he was accused of being a common, penniless adventurer and one of the greatest fools on record, but through it all Kirk maintained a serene countenance and enjoyed himself royally.

The Marion Star (Marion, Ohio), March 17, 1898, page 3.

Six months later, the rumors still persisted, causing some to call Kirk the “ex-King of the Dudes.”

The rumors turned out to be untrue. The two had apparently run into one another, however, on a train heading east toward St. Louis – he from stops in Kansas City, St. Joseph and Topeka (it’s easy to trace his steps, as his arrival was reported in many of the towns he visited) and she from Los Angeles with her mother, who was in the process of getting a divorce from her husband who stayed behind in Los Angeles.

Kirk had been friendly acquaintances with her father in St. Louis a decade earlier, when her father had been a real estate developer and builder in that city, with a home at Whittemore Place, near Lafayette Park. She reportedly recognized Kirk on the train and familiarly called him “Jimmie.” They stayed in the same hotel in St. Louis (The Planters’) and the three of them had been seen in each other’s company on several occasions. It’s unknown whether there was an actual romance or not. In any case, it does not appear to have lasted.

Lenni Leoti Marley may have enjoyed Kirk’s company, but she was not in a position where she would have needed to latch onto him for his supposed riches. She was financially well off in her own right. In Los Angeles, she and her parents developed, built and sold “hundreds of homes” in Los Angeles, including most, if not all, of the historic Bonnie Brae tract, between 10^th Street (now Olympic Boulevard) and 11^th Streets on South Bonnie Brae Street. It’s not clear how much control she had over the business at the age of about twenty-one, but many of the lots were purchased and sold under her name personally, so she may have profited personally. She took control of her family fortune (estimated at between $75,000 and $100,000) a few years later following her father’s untimely death in 1900.

He may have dodged a bullet this time, but J. Waldere Kirk was in the crosshairs again a year later, when rumors swirled about a recent marriage. The rumors turned out to be untrue, but he had no one but himself to blame – he and his girlfriend had been registering in hotels as husband and wife. The object of his affections was a woman who affected her own faux-aristocratic title, the “Baroness” Blanc.

Baroness Blanc has been married to J. Waldere Kirk, known as the king of the dudes. This is one of the occasions when it seems appropriate to extend sympathy to both. Chicago Post.

Buffalo Evening News, April 5, 1899, page 3.

The “Baroness” was not an aristocrat, but had once been married to a man named Frederick Blanc, who was referred to as “Baron” as a courtesy because he was the “son of Baron Blanc, who has a villa at Geneva, Switzerland.”^viii

Kirk and Blanc were never actually married, but she was no stranger to marriage – he would have been her man-beau number five.

 

The San Francisco Call, May 15, 1899, page 6.

 Butterflies Mated.

Wedding of Baroness Blanc and J. Waldere Kirk.

King of the Dude’s Choice.

Elizabeth Nicholson-Rigl-Blanc-Onderdonk-Waters has just made a new notch in the stock of the matrimonial weapon with which she bags human hearts and lays men low at her feet. You will probably not recognize the lady of so many names in all her hyphenated dignity, but you’ll recall her readily enough as “The Baroness Blanc.”

The man to whose fortunes she joined her own, and whose name she had just annexed, is, according to telegrams received Wednesday morning, none other than that skillful poseur and irresistible cigar drummer, James Waldere Kirk, whose outré combination of ultra styles has gained him the commercially valuable but somewhat socially damning sobriquet of “King of the Dudes.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 29, 1899, page 1.

She was also no stranger to notorious “Dudes.” She was a friend of E. Berry Wall, who is said to have introduced her second husband, the Baron Blanc. And her husband was apparently a cousin of Lily Langtry’s longtime consort, Freddie Gebhard, which may explain why she was in his box when he famously insulted the wife of erstwhile “King of the Dudes,” Bob Hilliard.

Baroness Blanc at Long Branch.

One of the interesting spectacles in the West End ballroom last night was the appearance of the Baroness Blanc, nee Mrs. Riegel of Philadelphia, among the crowd of waltzers, tripping lightly and gracefully with Berry Wall to the tempting strains of a Strauss melody. It was a sight that drew the attention of every one of the hundreds of people on the veranda, and every step they took was eagerly noted and criticized by the throng. The baroness wore a handsome loose fitting Swiss dress, loped up with white satin ribbons and clasped about the waist by a silver belt. Her hair was arranged a la Langtry, just as she used to wear it when she sang in “The Mystic Isle” at the Temple theater on Chestnut street. The baroness danced a second waltz with the king of the dudes sometime afterward, but spent the rest of the evening promenading on the veranda on her new found husband’s arm.

The Kansas City Times, July 24, 1887, page 10.

Trouble in Mrs. Langtry’s Company caused by Freddie Gebhard.

Last Monday evening Mrs. Robert C. Hilliard, wife of Mrs. Langtry’s leading actor, and Mrs. Henry E. Dixey, occupied a box in the theatre Comique, Harlem, to witness a performance of “A Wife’s Peril,” in which Mrs Langtry is playing now at that house. The two ladies were alone. Fred Gebhard and a party of friends occupied an adjoining box, the two being separated by a curtain. Gebhard’s party consisted of Baron Blanc and Baroness Blanc, formerly Mrs. Riegel of Philadelphia.

Chicago Tribune, November 17, 1887, page 5.

Elizabeth Nicholson was born into a prominent Philadelphia family and married a respectable Philadelphia businessman named Alfred Riegel. He filed divorce proceedings because she insisted in pursuing a stage career, and accelerated the process after she met and started seeing “Baron” Frederick Blanc. He left her after she started seeing Fred Yuengling, an heir to the Yuengling brewing family.^ix She continued using the title and her married name professionally, even after her subsequent marriages, lead to repeated efforts by her ex to stop her from using the name – he usually won the case, and she generally ignored the orders.

She later married a man named Shirley Onderdonk, the son of a millionaire contractor in Chicago, whom she left because he beat her. She quickly remarried, to a man named Leeds Vaughn Waters, who was fifteen years her junior (he was twenty, she was thirty-five), the son of a New York piano manufacturer. During the honeymoon in Paris, he snatched jewels from her ears and she threw him down the stairs. It wasn’t a great start, and it didn’t last long. The problems had started during the crossing to Europe, when he caught her behind closed doors with two men in her stateroom. The same two men were present during the jewelry-grabbing/stairway-throwing incident.

Before her pretend marriage to Kirk, the “Baroness” had been performing regularly on stage in Chicago, a town he visited regularly. When the rumors of their marriage started circulating, they had been seen together at various hotels across the West. The rumors persisted for nearly a year, because they would never confirm or deny them.

The details of their arrangement came out in testimony in litigation over unpaid hotel bills – she said her husband would pay; he refused to pay on the grounds that she wasn’t his wife. They had stayed together for about two weeks in a hotel in Kansas City, where they had registered as husband and wife. He left town before she did, paid up to the day of his departure, and she stayed over after his departure. The hotel kicked her out for unpaid bills, but confiscated her luggage as security. She went to a second hotel in Kansas City, where she stayed for a few days without paying her bills. This second hotel brought the suit for recovery of the debt.

When she left the hotel, she told management that she was J. Waldere Kirk’s wife, and that he would take care of the bill. He was well known in the town, and a frequent visitor, so they agreed. But when he returned, he refused to pay the bill. He testified that they were not married and never had been married, so he was not responsible for her individual debts. It came out in court that the two had registered at the other hotel as husband and wife. The case bounced around the courts for years. In 1904, a special referee “made a report to” the judge in the case, “in which he found Kirk responsible for her debt.” It’s not clear whether the debt was ever paid.

 

Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. Baroness Blanc Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-f65c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

 

The “Baroness” apparently had difficulty paying her rent on more than one occasion. In 1902, she was arrested in Chicago for not paying rent at her boarding house. She moved from one hotel into a second hotel without paying her rent. She was caught because she did not realize the two hotels were under common ownership.^x

Throughout the first decade of the 1900s, she appeared regularly on stage in small vaudeville or burlesque houses. Sometime around 1909, however, she left the stage for the screen – well, technically behind the screen. She became a pioneer as “one of the very first”^xi women to own a movie theater, and also pioneered talking pictures, not with a soundtrack, but with a company of actors who spoke words from behind a curtain to accompany otherwise silent films.

Baroness Blanc, Who Once Cut Big Figure in Press,

Now Runs Moving Picture Show.

Behind the billboard title, “Elizabeth Blanc’s Talking Picture Show, in Sixty-fifth street, just west of Broadway is the erstwhile Baroness Blanc, whose caprices and admirers and divorces kept her in the public eye here in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and abroad for the final dozen years of the last century. Now a quiet businesslike woman, past 40, and with no apparent ambition to conceal it, she owns and manages a 5 cent moving picture theatre. She has been there seven months, and for three years previously conducted a similar enterprise in small towns of Pennsylvania.

Guthrie Daily Leader (Guthrie, Oklahoma), March 12, 1911, page 1.

She was thoughtful about her productions, sharing her techniques and advantages of film over the stage with a film-trade magazine.

 

The Baroness Blanc Talks About Talking Pictures.

For three years I have studied the art of talking to pictures, noting each detail, and seeking to cultivate that particular vocal method combining flexibility and adaptability, which is essential, in order to make the figures on the screen absolutely true to life.

The Talking Picture Play, correctly portrayed, is the most realistic form of the drama in existence. When the Hero saves the Heroine he doesn’t jump two or three feet into a net, while a super at fifty-cents-a-night throws up a handful of sawdust to represent a splash. In the up-to-date moving picture drama the young man dives into real water, becomes thoroughly immersed, and the young woman is for the time being generally beneath the waves. Can you wonder then that the masses prefer to pay only five cents to see the actual reproduction of the real thing on the moving picture screen instead of parting with a quarter to witness the make-believe on the melodramatic stage?

Bear in mind that the utterances of the actor behind the screen must be limited to the lip movements of the figure on the sheet. If the “talker” should be too loquaciaous, he or she is liable to be “left” a scene behind. For example, he may be repeating a marriage service, and delay too long, and find that the picture has jumped to “twenty years after.”

Moving Picture World, 1911, Volume 8, Number 4, January 28, 1911, page 186.

She took the act on the road in the mid-1910s with (according to her ads), “100 Weeks continuous run on Broadway, 20 weeks continuous run in Cleveland, 20 weeks continuous run in Buffalo, 15 weeks continuous run in Pittsburgh, 10 weeks continuous run in Philadelphia.”^xii

 

Altoona Tribune (Altoona, Pennsylvania), May 22, 1916, page 7.

J. Waldere Kirk’s frequent appearances in the newspapers does not seem to have been completely organic. Testimony elicited in the hotel debt case involving Baroness Blanc showed how Kirk manipulated his image to increase his public profile for business purposes.

Kirk swore that he lived at the Elks Home, and that he was a citizen of Kansas City. He stated that his reasons for not registering from Kansas City were because he could get more trade by being from New York and other large places, and that he had other private reasons.

Chicago Inter-Ocean, December 2, 1900, page 7.

Between marriage scares in 1897 and 1899, Kirk took time to manipulate his public image even more, posing for some fashion photos to accompany a not-altogether-flattering “expose” of him in the San Francisco Examiner.

 

Carlyle’s primitive gentleman stands or sits at one end of the sartorial scale of evolution, Mr. J. Waldere Kirk of New York, now visiting San Francisco, appears at the other end. He is reputed to be the finest thing in clothes that the law allows, or at least a thing in the finest clothes.

San Francisco Examiner, August 28, 1898, page 14.

It was also during this period in which a Kansas City newspaper revived the old battle-of-the-dudes format, with reports about a supposed battle for dude-supremacy that played out in the lobby of a Kansas City hotel over the course of several days. J. Waldere Kirk is said to have lost the title to a challenger from Boston named Frank Jones. Frank Jones then supposedly lost the title to a local Kansas City man named J. John Roddy, a name affecting an initial initial in the manner of E. Berry Wall, T. Luis Onativia and J. Waldere Kirk.

Roddy, it turns out, was likely based on the name of the foreman of the pressroom of the Kansas City Journal, John M. Roddy, who may have written the story or had someone use his name as an inside joke.^xiii The early reports about Frank Jones winning the title made the national (or at least regional, Midwestern news), giving him some attention as the new “King of the Dudes.” The later reports about J. John Roddy taking the title never made it outside of Kansas City, so he never became a widely known name. Months after the fact, an anonymous reporter admitted that it had all been a hoax.

In early-December, 1898, a well-dressed man said to be from Boston strutted through the Coates Hotel, setting the stage for an epic confrontation.

Since J. Waldere Kirk, the prince of dudes, has been dazzling the Coates House with the gorgeousness of his raiment and setting the pace for all the chappies of the West, there have been occasionally some startling colors displayed there as the latest style, but Kirk and all those who ape his eccentricities had to take a back seat last evening when the man from Boston stalked across the lobby with the very latest from the beaneating center. It was the most startling display of colors and combinations that “ever came over.”

Kansas City Journal, December 4, 1898, page 2.

His name was Jones. He wore a red vest. But who would prevail?

KIRK’S STAR IN DESCENDANT.

As One Twinkler Outshines Another

So Does Jones of Boston Outdazzle

the Beau Brummell of Broadway

It is not the comedy of “What Happened to Jones,” but the newer comedy of “What Jones Did to Kirk” that is furnishing the guests of the Coates House with an abundance of fun now. At the end of the first act it looks as if many of the honors were on the side of Jones.

Jones, be it known, is the man from Boston, who landed all unheralded and unsung at the Coates House a few days ago and startled the guests with the brilliant red vest he wore and the tall standing collar with the upper half blue, that encircled his neck.

For weeks J. Waldere Kirk, prince of dudes, the man who is authority on fashion and referee for all questions regarding correct attire for men, has been dazzling the guests with the gorgeous raiment he possesses in such lavish abundance, in which there have been so many starting combinations of colors and unusual styles. It is a wide swath he has been cutting all by himself and he had ceased to fear competition, almost, when Jones of Boston came with a raiment like an August sunset, all unheralded and unsung, and by the color of his raiment disputed the correctness of the style Kirk had proclaimed as proper.

It was a shocking surprise. The guests had never seen Mr. Kirk expose a vest with even a shade of red, and no collar, half white and half blue, had ever been seen about his neck. Had Mr. Kirk deceived the chappies who had smiled at him or had Boston set up its independent judgment, in opposition to the Kirk idea?

Kansas City Journal, December 5, 1898, page 3.

Crown the new “King,” Frank E. Jones.

ALAS AND ALACK!

KING KIRK IS KING: LONG LIVE KING JONES OF BOSTON.

CHAPPIES DESERT WALDERE

As Sunflowers Turn to the Sun, So Do

Dude Worshipers Turn to the

New Apostle of the Fin de

Siecle in Wearing

Apparel.

Jones – Frank E. Jones – is now the acknowledged monarch of the Coates House lobby and the deity at whose well clad feet the chappies of the town bow in adoration.

J. Waldere Kirk, the erstwhile fashion plate, who drove the one time triumphant king of the dudes, Berry Wall, first into seclusion and eventually to dealing in hard drink, is under an eclipse. His sway in Kansas City has ended. His reign as the arbiter of fashion is over. His dethronement has already been told in The Journal. Like a prairie dog he has hunted his hole before the Roosevelt-like supremacy of Jones. He knows it. So does Jones.

It was with stately tread and serious mien that Jones emerged from the Coates House elevator yesterday morning, and calmly indulged in his usual review promenade. He was faultlessly dressed – according to the Jonesesque mode. A derby, from the latest block, jauntily surmounted his scented ringlets. A storm overcoat almost enveloped his form – only a few inches of his trousers being exposed above his shapely feet – and chocolate tinted gloves protected his hands from the biting blasts which occasionally creep into the lobby through the storm doors.

The chappie idolatry contingent was there, also. They stood in groups and, with practiced eyes, noted the appearance of the Boston conqueror. His return gaze was supercilious. The curled ends of his mustache assumed a pitying position and his shoulders seemed to shrug derisively.

The chappies were awed. They stood speechless, but their eyes sparkled with the gleam of rapturous delight. Twice did Jones pass in review. Then he made his way to the cigar stand and called for his favorite weed. Slowly he ungloved his hands, then the storm coat was loosened and the same operation performed on his natty undercoat. The gloves were deftly folded into a ball and placed away. A tilt was given his derby and it assumed a rakish position. The cigar was selected, inspected and lighted. Then the idol of the chappies gracefully revolved and faced them. He assumed an air of negligee as he leaned against the counter, emitted a volume of smoke in graceful curves from between his lips, slowly raised his right hand until it grasped the lapels of both storm coat and undercoat and, with a quick motion, threw them back. Then he smiled. It was a smile of triumph.

“Oh!” “Ah!” Bah Jove!” “Mah Gawd!” and “The darling!” were a few of the ejaculations that came in a jumbled murmur from the chappie contingent. “Magnificent!” cried out one conspicuous member of the guild. “Waldy in his palmist days never equaled it!”

And thus was J. Waldere dethroned, cast out and labeled a “has been.”

 

“Knockout pose, by Jones, of Boston.” “J. Waldere Kirk (badly winded and seeking seclusion) – “Oh, for something new; send for Lumpkin.” [(The name Lumpkin is a plug for a local, Kansas City Tailor, John F. Lumpkin, the manager of the “Nicoll, the Tailor” shop at 917 Main Street.^xiv)]

J. Waldere was forgotten by all but one. A bellboy carried him the news. The boy’s energetic knock was responded to by a timid opening of the door leading to the ex-king’s boudoir. A face, surmounted by disheveled hair, and with eyes red from sleeplessness and swollen from unshed tears, peered out of the aperture.

“Id he gone?” asked trembling lips.

“Naw,” feelingly responded the boy, “de Bostin guy is stronger dan ever! He’s got ‘em dis time fer keeps.”

“Has he – has he, oh, tell me! Has he got his red vest on?”

“Yep.”

“And that collar?”

“Yep.”

“Leave me, boy! Leave me!” wailed the unfortunate. “It is more than I can bear!” The door came to with a bang as loud as Jones’ attire. But later on a chambermaid heard sounds emanating from the chamber of despair which convinced her that the heretofore invincible wardrobe was being subjected to a thorough overhauling. She also heard a wail which said to her untutored ears:

“Why did I do it? What is the Convention hall to me? Oh, my mascot, come back to me! My Monte Carlo suit! My hundred and a quarter baby! I have not had a minute’s luck since I gave you as a gift prize to the Convention hall lottery!”

Sobs cut short the monologue and a few seconds later a heavy thud denoted that Waldy had retired to his couch and was again holding communion with its tear-stained pillow.” . . .

Late in the afternoon J. Waldere made his appearance in the lobby. The old happy, self-satisfied smile was gone. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. His head was bowed until his chin almost touched his breast. His hat was pulled down until his eyes were hidden from view. His overcoat was tightly buttoned. And, horrors! His hands were gloveless! He paced to and fro like a caged animal. He gave no thought to his mail, and passed the telegraph girl twice before he asked if she had a message for him.

“What name, please?” she inquired.

The dethroned king started as though struck by a Mauser bullet. He pulled himself together, smiled in a sad, sweet way, and slowly answered, “J. Waldere Kirk.”

“Oh!” was her only response. Then she nodded her head negatively.

He passed on an out of the lobby and when last seen was gazing wistfully at the setting sun. It reminded him of Jones’ vest.”

Kansas City Journal, December 6, 1898, page 1.

 

“The Reign of King Jones, of Boston, Continues.” “Likewise the Deep Humiliation and Melancholy of J. Waldere Kirk.” Kansas City Journal, December 7, 1898, page 1.

 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 11, 1898, Sunday Magazine, page 4.

News of Kirk’s demise quickly made it into the pages of other papers throughout the Midwest. Frank Jones even achieved a small amount of notoriety, with the occasional mention in random newspapers over the following few years.

 

This is Frank Elsinore Jones, who has lately been dubbed “King of the Dudes.” Mr. Jones, who is passing the holiday season in Chicago, is in reality a pushing, progressive business man who wears good clothes merely as an object lesson in displaying his wares. He laughs at the wide publicity he has obtained as the deposer of J. Waldere Kirk, in connection with which he says:

“The whole thing originated in a joke. Mr. Kirk and others who take pride in that sort of thing, may keep their laurels undisturbed so far as I am concerned. If I put on anything unusual or obtrusive in the way of dress, it is not from a liking for it, but merely that I may show mu customers how it looks. If I am a dude, it is a case of dudeism for business solely.”

The Chicago Inter-Ocean, January 1, 1899, page 30.

 

“Frank Elsinore Jones and His New ‘Bonnet.’”

Chicago Inter-Ocean, March 23, 1902, The Inter-Ocean Sunday Magazine, page 5.

What never made it out of Kansas City, however, was news the following day that Frank Jones had been deposed, and the crown taken by a local Kansas City “Dude,” J. John Roddy. Reports of Roddy’s ascent to the throne included plugs for local talent, and his name appeared in an advertisement for a local shoe store a few days later. Readers must have known the article was “true” – the headline says so.

A HOME PRODUCT DEFEATS JONES INTO OBLIVION

NAME PLAIN J. JOHN RODDY

HIS FIN DE SIECLE ATTIRE CAPTURES THE CHAPPIES

A veracious Account of How Jones of Boston and His Red Vest Met

Their Waterloo and How

J. Waldere Kirk Was

Avenged.

The dude show is over. No more will the mosaic lobby of the Coates echo to the tread of fin de siècle devotees. J. Waldere Kirk, shrouded in tears and black raiment, has taken his departure, and before the vesper bells announce the coming of the eve, Jones – Frank E. Jones of Boston – and his red vest will be speeding in the direction of the Windy city.

Jones’ glory was short-lived. He was monarch of the dudes for a day – one brief, fitting day. Wednesday night and yesterday morning he spent in retirement. The Coates House knew him not. A swell suit he awaited from Chicago. He had summoned it by telegraph. He realized that his red vest, his carmine tipped collar and his storm coat that had enraptured the chappies were getting passé. He wanted a change. Last night he got it. A new star arouse out of the city that is known the world over as “a good city to live in.” A home product – one entitled to wear a badge inscribed: “made in Kansas City, U. S. A.” – appeared in the cakewalk and won the prize hands down.

His name is J. John Roddy. Plain John! Plain Roddy! But he’s a peach! He’s a pennant winner! Why shouldn’t he be? He was born and reared in the giant of the West, Kansas City.

Kansas City Journal, December 8, 1898, page 1.

 

Kansas City Journal, December 8, 1898, page 1.

The article describes the scene in minute detail. The tailor Lumpkin makes an appearance – “Colonel ‘Tony’ Lumpkin, the haberdasher was there, arrayed in a costume suggestive of a stage duelist.” “Hundreds of men thronged the lobbies,” scores “flattened their noses against the outside panes of the view windows” to see the show. “Numerous members of the fair sex” viewed the scene from the corridor on the second floor.

Roddy arrived as a “perfect fin de siècle fashion plate.” His doeskin trousers “revealed in all their exquisite beauty the well-rounded curves of his calves.” He had the “features of an Apollo.” He spoke to the clerk in “tones so sweet and melodious as those of a fretful flute.”

He asked to see “Mr. Jones – Frank E. Jones, of Boston.” He handed the clerk his card and asked to have it brought up to Mr. Jones to announce his presence. “Mechanically he called a bellboy, handed him the pasteboard, and then collapsed.”

While waiting for Jones to come down, he promenaded about the lobby. When he “threw back the folds of his gorgeous overcoat,” a “murmur was heard to emanate” from the wide open lips of the assembled chappies.

It increased slowly as their eyes drank in its beauties. It became a roar that almost swelled into an enthusiastic cheer, when the Adonis halted, turned full front and exposed all of its glories.

“Sublime!” “Glorious!” “Delightful!” explained the imitation fashion plates.

And so it was. Full double-breasted, of a material whose hue was as sheeny as the foam of a wave’s crest, and which was dotted here and there with black silken dots, its triumph was complete.

It made its owner the master of the situation. Jones and Kirk were forgotten. The red vest became a reminiscence. Jones’ reign was over and J. Waldere Kirk was avenged.

J. John Roddy, the czar of Petticoat lane henceforth and forever, smiled sweetly but patronizingly upon his slaves. His eyes flashed with the light of a conqueror. Then he resumed his promenade.

Kansas City Journal, December 8, 1898, page 1.

Jones came downstairs, unaware of the fate that awaited him. He approached the desk and hautily demanded to know who Roddy was.

“There he stands!” was the reply stiffly given.

Jones turned and at once his eyes became riveted on the newly-arisen king. He nervously buttoned his overcoat, and mechanically reached down and pressed a crease in his trousers out with his fingers, all the time gazing in astonishment at the cynosure of all eyes. Then he sidled nearer the clerk and whispered: “Is that Roddy?”

“It is,” came the reply, as cold as an Arctic glacier.

A muttered ejaculation came from under his heavy mustache.

. . . From a quiet niche J. Waldere Kirk surveyed the scene. No longer were his eyes rimmed with darkness; they actually sparkled with delight. “He’s skinned him! He’s skinned him Now I can depart in peace!” he cried.

His revengeful meditation was interrupted by Colonel “Tony” Lumpkin, who had espied him.

“Jimmy, my boy,” he exclaimed, effusively. “I was sorry! Now I am glad again. I, even I, was not in it! You were not in it Jones was in; now he’s out, and Roddy wears the ribbon.”

“Skinned!” replied the dethroned king. “He’s skinned him to a frazzle.!”

. . . “Skinned! Ha! Ha! Skinned! Ha! Ha! Skinned by a ‘Made in Kansas City, U. S. A.’”

Kansas City Journal, December 8, 1898, page 1.

The gloating did not stop there. The next issue of the Journal reported the formal coronation of J. John Roddy at a meeting of the newly formed “Bouquet Club,” with membership restricted to Roddy and the two fallen “Dudes.” Like the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, they were all given nicknames thematically in keeping with the club’s name; Roddy was the “Orchid,” Kirk the “Pansy,” and Jones was dubbed the “Ivy,” because of his “clinging nature.” After the coronation, they then went to the theater and later down to a banquet.

There was a feast of small talk and a flow of booze until press time. Before adjournment the Orchid was crowned czar of Petticoat lane and king of the dudes. J. Harris Woolf performed the operation and tried to make a speech.

Words failed him, but he managed to say, “I am with you, J. Roddy!”

“Yes,” replied the czar, “but we’re in Missouri, an’ you’ve got to show me!”

Kansas City Journal, December 9, 1898, page 1.

 

“J. John Roddy, King of Dudes, Chased J. Waldere Kirk from the city and made J. Elsinore Jones look like a tramp by comparison. J. John Roddy wore one of our celebrated $2.50 hats. Kaufman’s Hat Store, 25 East 11^th St. (Petticoat Lane.).”

Kansas City Journal, December 11, 1898, page 2.

The editors maintained the fiction for several months. In January, Roddy issued fashion decrees, recommending a velvet cuff on a man’s overcoat, “not more than two and one-half inches in depth,” reminding readers that he “has recently been wearing” stripes, and warning the chappies who “are partial to swell check and plaid suitings” that they “will have to adopt the stripe.”^xv

In February, Roddy had jury duty. “He wore a new suit every day, and it is said that he startled the court so much that every case was adjourned.”^xvi

It’s not clear who wrote the series of “Dude” articles for the Kansas City Journal, or whether J. John Roddy was an actual person, alter ego or nom de plume. There was, however, an actual person named John M. Roddy who worked for the Journal at the time, so it all appears to be an inside job.^xvii The real Roddy worked in the printing department, not as a reporter, but he may have been called on to write an occasional piece, like Don Knotts as Luther Heggs in “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.” Or perhaps his son, John J. Roddy, had worked for the paper at the time. It’s also possible that a reporter borrowed the name of their long-time printer, or the printer’s son, as an inside joke.

And if it was not obvious enough, six months later, an anonymous reporter, supposedly on his death bed, confessed that it had all been a joke. He claimed that he wrote up Frank Jones as “King of the Dudes” as revenge for a prank Jones had pulled on the reporter.

CONFESSES CROWNING A KING.

Kansas City Newspaper Man Eases His Mind of a Great Load.

A newspaper man in a local hospital has made a confession, or, as he puts it: “I want the thing off my mind, so I must tell it to somebody.” Here is his story:

“I am responsible for the supremacy of Frank Jones over J. Waldere Kirk and others as ‘King of the Dudes.’ I was engaged in drifting around the country, when I struck this town. An hour later I struck a city editor. The force had just been given its daily grind when it was discovered that J. Waldere Kirk was in the town.

“’You know him. He’s the “King of the Dudes.” Get a talk out of him – say a column or so,’ was my assignment.

“I did not know J. Waldere Kirk, but I sauntered over to the Coates house, and standing on the corner, I saw a tall young man. He was dressed stylishly, wore a silk hat, a flaring red vest, a Prince Albert coat, light-colored trousers, and patent-leather shoes. His linen was immaculate and his appearance genteel. I balked on the red vest, but approached him, and said:

“’How do you do, Mr. Kirk?’ He replied, ‘I am very well, thank you, but you have the advantage.’ I told him I represented the Kansas City -----. He asked me to be seated, excused himself for a minute, and left me – jubilant over landing thus early.

“When he returned I asked him for an interview on ‘correct styles for men.’ He said: ‘Certainly, come to my room at 8 o’clock tonight.’

“At 8 o’clock I was there, so was my friend. In his room I saw thirty-seven pairs of trousers – clothes for morning, afternoon, evening, dinner, reception, ball, or any other old time or function. I noted everything, left him, went to the office, and wrote the story about J. Waldere Kirk.

“After turning in my copy I went to the hotel and stood near the talkative clerk. The latter said to a friend: ‘Say, you know Frank Jones. He fooled a newspaper man this afternoon by pretending to be J. Waldere Kirk.’ That was enough for me. I saw my column of space dumped in the basket right then and there.

“But, just in the next minute I had a bright thought. It was this: I’ll make the story good by placing Frank Jones’ name in the article as the new ‘King of the Dudes.’ And it was done.

“I am glad I told you this, for I hear Jones has threatened to kill me on sight, and I don’t want to quit this joint and be killed by a man by the name of Jones.”

___

Frank Jones is a well-known Chicago man, and represents an Eastern house. He is a well-dressed, well-groomed individual, and thought it a good joke when he discovered that he was mistaken for Kirk to impersonate the latter. At the time there were a few friends at the Coates house, and he borrowed the wardrobe of each of them. These were carefully displayed in his room when the reporter called.

Since the tables were thus neatly turned on Jones his life has been made a burden. Everywhere he goes he hears, “There’s Frank Jones, J. Waldere Kirk’s successor as the King of the Dudes.”

The firm he worked for threatened to discharge him, saying they did not approve of such advertising methods. A young lady to whom he was paying attention said, “Pardon me, but I find I was mistaken in you.” His friends joked him, and even furnished copies of his photographs to the papers.

And that is why this modest young man, who likes a practical joke, desires the heart blood of a newspaper man who is dying, and has confessed his share in the crowning of a new king of fashion.

The Chicago Inter-Ocean, July 17, 1899, page 3.

This “confession” may be a hoax as well – how likely is it that Frank Jones wanted to kill a reporter? But even if untrue as far as the perceived danger or seriousness of the reporter’s supposed illness may have been, the underlying story of a traveling salesman pulling a prank on a reporter asking questions about one of the world’s silliest topics seems plausible.

Although he was reportedly down in late-1898, J. Waldere Kirk was not out as the reputed “King of the Dudes.” His name continued to crop up in the news regularly for several years afterward.

In 1901, the Philadelphia Inquirer even pitted J. Waldere Kirk against E. Berry Wall in another “Battle of the Dudes.” The two were said to have registered at the same hotel in Atlantic City on the same day. That may or may not have been true, but the rest of the story was played for laughs.

 

 

Atlantic City, July 16. – By an unusual coincidence, which the gods of fate undoubtedly used their choicest irony in fomenting, J. Waldere Kirk, of San Francisco, the “King of Dudes,” who holds all the world’s records for up-to-date style and dressing, and E. Berry Wall, who was formerly the champion of the world tailor-made man, are registered at the Dunlop.

The former champion dude and the up-to-date champion registered within a few hours of each other yesterday. E. Berry Wall, who registered from Butte, Mont., was the first to write his name on the register. He got in at about 3 o’clock and the news of his arrival spread like a plague of mosquitoes in a New Jersey pine forest.

Men, women and children were still excitedly discussing Mr. Wall’s arrival and the possibilities attached to it when J. Waldere Kirk, of New York, walked into the hotel and wrote his name in the register.

The attaches, particularly the porters and clerks, who realized what the true import of the visits of these two celebrated guests really meant, looked worried.

Mr. Wall . . . deposited several little mountains of brass baggage checks on the clerk’s desk and said significantly, “Fetch my things.”

Kirk entered, accompanied by a valet, carrying dressing cases. Hastily writing his name in the register, Mr. Kirk called to a uniformed telegraph messenger boy, who traveled in the wake of the valet, bearing a weighty canvas bag, under which he freely perspired, and ordered him to the checks for his traps [(luggage)] with the clerk.

The latter, who had not yet finished with the E. Berry Wall collection of brasses, gasped for breath and staggered as the messenger boy caught hold of the bottom of the canvas bag and dumped upon his desk a pile of brass checks which dwarfed into insignificance the E. Berry Wall collection.

What was the clerk to do with but two express wagons within hailing distance and J. Walter Kirk, of New York, and E. Berry Wall, of Butte, Mont., with a small part of their baggage on his hands at the same time?

An hour or so later the procession of wagons with their accompanying drivers and porters appeared at the side entrance of the Dunlop. Each wagon bore a huge pile of bundles.

Several hours later, when Mr. Kirk reentered the hotel, and in an off-hand manner asked if any of his baggage had arrived, the clerk recovered sufficiently after a pause to say, “Yes, a little bit of it has come.”

Thereupon Mr. Kirk summoned a valet, and, depositing another huge pile of railroad baggage checks on the desk, said: “I wish you’d send for the rest of my wardrobe in the morning.”

A short while later Mr. Wall entered, looked disdainfully at the pile of baggage checks and said, ominously, “Wait and see; I’ll knock that silly.” Then he retired to his suite.

There was many a head outside of the Dunlop that ached from sleeplessness this morning.

At breakfast time not a few of the guests at the Dunlop were so wrought up that when the waiters asked them what they would have some said, “Oh, give me a whisky,” while others absent-mindedly ordered seltzer.

In fact, not a soul at the Dunlop ate much breakfast this morning. Their appetites had been completely destroyed.

Mr. Kirk was the first to appear in the dining room, and thereby relieve the intense suspense. He was attired in a suit of cream-colored flannel, white negligee shirt, white stock, bow tie, Panama straw hat, lavender-colored stockings and patent leather shoes.

A few minutes after Mr. Wall followed in a cream-colored suit of flannel, white leather belt, white flowing tie, pink negligee shirt, soft red-colored stockings with white dots, “Charlie” straw hat and patent leathers.

Messrs. Kirk and Wall recognized each other in the dining room and bowed stiffly.

. . . In view of the rivalry and close contests that have existed between Mr. Wall and Mr. Kirk for years, Atlantic City is holding its breath in expectation.

It will be remembered that several years ago Mr. Kirk journeyed from Denver to New York, and by his lavish expenditures to merchant tailors and men’s furnishers vanquished Mr. Wall in a dude contest lasting many months, thereby winning the title of “King of the Dudes.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17, 1901, page 14.

As though the original reports were not ridiculous enough, the story became even more bizarre out West.

 

Feminine society was thrown into a state of excitement that almost resulted in a general prostration at the shore today by the arrival of J. Waldere Kirk, “king of the dudes.” With him was his valet and ten large Saratoga trunks, containing over 100 suits, twelve different bathing suits of varied hues and several hundred neckties. His immaculate linen includes collars and cuffs too numerous to count, while it is said he also carries twenty-five different pair of shoes and fifteen hats. Shirts of all colors he has by the score and dozens of suits of underwear. He changes his dress six times a day.

The Kansas Weekly Capital (Topeka), July 19, 1901, page 6.

But not everyone played along. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle threw cold water on the story with an analysis that could have been applied to nearly every “Dude” rivalry or battle over the previous two decades.

The Recrudescence of BERRY WALL.

The silly season is full upon us and it explains much that is printed in these days. Nothing else could explain why the Atlantic City correspondent of the Philadelphia Inquirer should devote half a column to a description of the arrival of E. Berry Wall and J. Waldere Kirk at a hotel in that town and to a discussion of the clothing which they wore. Yet it all reminds one of the stuff which the New York papers used to print about Wall in the days when he was spending his father’s fortune here. . . .

After reading all this one is seized with the horrible suspicion that Kirk keeps a press agent, a thing which Beau Brummell would have scorned to do. Brummell’s wit, which survives even in his adversity and made it possible for him to snub the prince by asking “Who’s your fat friend?” is what made the fame of the old time fop. But the later ones seem to have forgotten this, if they ever knew it.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 21, 1901, third section, page 11.

In August of the same year, Joseph Pulitzer’s notoriously sensational New York Sunday World made one last attempt to crown a new “King of the Dudes.”

 

New York World, August 17, 1901, page 3 (advertising article scheduled to appear in the Sunday World the following day).

 

New York, Aug. 19 – The renowned E. Berry Wall and J. Waldere Kirk, erstwhile leaders of New York fashion, may have flattered themselves that they knew a thing or two about the sartorial art, but when placed in contrast with Henry B. Clifford, a westerner now in this city, they bear a close resemblance to the famous dollar bill from which 70 cents had been extracted.

Although claiming Arizona as his home, because of the fact that his myriad of business interests are located there, Mr. Clifford spends most of his time at the Waldorf-Astoria, where he lives with his wife in an elegant suite of rooms on the sixth floor.

In gathering together a flashy and elaborate wardrobe, Mr. Clifford had not thought of rising to that high and lofty altitude formerly occupied by the two dethroned kings. The word “dude” does not appeal to this western millionaire, and it is only necessary to mention it within his hearing to incur his displeasure.

The Boston Globe, August 20, 1901, page 4.^xviii

 

 

New York, Aug. 21. – There is a new king of dudes in town, and he’s a millionaire. His name is Henry B. Clifford, and he hails from that section of country described by effete easterners as the “Wild and Wolley West.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 21, 1901, page 9.

As measured in reprints or later mentions of the story, the Clifford story does not seem to have generated the interest earlier efforts to crown new “Kings of the Dudes” had. Nearly all of the later references to the Clifford story are reprints of the original (sometimes with minor changes) appearing within weeks of the original. The Chicago Inter-Ocean, however, took the opportunity to put in a plug for its hometown favorite, the clothing salesman Frank Elsinore Jones, and to perpetuate the regional rivalry with a few digs at Eastern “Dudes.”

Frank Elsinore Jones, E. Berry Wall, and J. Waldere Kirk are said to be simply “out of the running” when it comes to gorgeousness of apparel and a comparison with Mr. Clifford, although Frank Elsinore Jones, it is understood, has not been idle this summer, and is prepared to spring some new ideas in wear for men that will far eclipse anything he has heretofore evolved.

In New York they said Mr. Clifford as the new king of the dudes, but that is a title he disclaims. This new arbiter of fashion is a Western man, and wears the kind of clothes he does because he likes them, not because he wants to draw attention to himself. “Damn a dude,” is his breezy Western way of referring to those gentlemen.

The Chicago Inter-Ocean, September 1, 1901, page 29.

A year later, a widely circulated news item sounded the death knell for the naming of “Kings of the Dudes.”

For the first time in a number of years New York has no “king of the dudes” this season. This doubtful distinction, once held by Berry Wall, J. Waldere Kirke, Archie Bell and others, is not claimed by or credited to any particular dandy this year. Doubtless the title, with all its bizarre glory, has passed away for good, for nowadays a dead level of excellence in sartorial matters makes it almost impossible for anyone to shine conspicuously in this respect.

News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), November 8, 1902, page 4.

 

“The Last of the Dudes”?

J. Waldere Kirk was the last of the widely acknowledged “Kings of the Dude.” One New York observer even thought his reign marked the end of the word “Dude.” If “Dudes” and “Dude” fashions were only still alive out West, they didn’t really count.

The Last of the Dudes.

J. Waldere Kirk’s descent on New York with an assortment of trunks filled with “pants” and “vests” and other Chicago-made clothes suggests the almost unnoticed death of the word “dude,” which has been revived for Mr. Kirk’s special benefit and as a mark of appreciation for his sartorial display.

The word came into the English language about the time that some of the disciples of aestheticism in England were carrying out their theories in their clothes, and in a few months every New York man who dressed well according to the fashions of the day was a “dude.” These fashions were extreme. They dictated trousers that were uncomfortably tight and shoes that faded away to a sharp point. Even men who wanted to dress well and were known to be able to dress as they chose strove for eccentricities. Had Mr. Kirk arrived in New York eight or nine years ago he might not have been conspicuous. He came out of the West just that number of years too late if he is really honest in his expressed purpose of showing New Yorkers how they should dress.

The “dude” now is a thing of the stage, the past or the West, so far as New York is concerned. The best-dressed men in town are those whose clothes are the least conspicuous, and Mr. Kirk will find little sympathy with his eccentricities in “pants” and “vests.” As an agitator of public interest, however, he has bravely downed the man who invented milk baths for actresses, and it would be manifestly unfair to rank him with the balloonists of yellow journalism. – New York Sun.

Washington Times (District of Columbia), June 6, 1897, page 18 (reprint from the New York Sun).

The editors of The Sun may have had a point, as far as current fashion trends went, but he missed the boat when it came to limiting the word “Dude” to its original, narrow meaning. They never anticipated, or had already missed, the transition of the word from a New York Anglophile a la 1883, to a more fluid meaning applicable to any comically fashion-forward person in any place, at any time, and with respect to any particular sub-group or sub-culture. And they were writing too early to experience later shades of meaning including the neutral “fellow or chap,” the “approving designation” applicable to any man, as a “vocative, or term of address,” and ultimately as a ubiquitous, “general exclamation.”^xix

The word “Dude” abides, in all of its variations, thanks in part to “Kings of the Dudes,” like E. Berry Wall, T. Luis Onativia, Oliver Teal and J. Waldere Kirk, who collectively, over several decades, were each for a time the living embodiment of the “Dude,” keeping the notion of the “Dude” alive in the minds of the public.

 

Kings of the Dudes - Introduction

Kings of the Dudes - Part I - Evander Berry Wall

Kings of the Dudes Part II - Heirs to the Throne - Onativia and Teall

 

---

ⁱ  In a humorous anecdote about a young man who had his pay reduced for being a “Willie Boy,” the man is described alternately as a “Dude” or “Willie Boy,” and is described as having a “box coat . . . big enough for a man twice his size” and wearing “trousers . . . rolled half way to his knees.” The Buffalo Enquirer, March 15, 1893, page 3.

ⁱⁱ  The Post-Star (Glen Falls, New York), January 29, 1896, page 7.

ⁱⁱⁱ  General Li Hongzhang was then frequently mentioned in the news for diplomatic efforts in relation to the Russo-Japanese War.

^iv  The Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1897, page 2 (by special dispatch from Philadelphia).

^v  The Times Picayune (New Orleans), May 25, 1897, page 4 (citing The Philadelphia Press).

^vi  The reference to “J” is a pun on the word, “jay,” which refers to a backward “rube” or “rustic.”

^vii  The Brooklyn Citizen, December 21, 1897, page 3 .

^viii  “Baroness Blanc on Stage,” Rutland Daily Herald, May 15, 1897, page 3.

^ix  Founded in 1829, Yuengling is the oldest brewery operating in the United States. https://www.yuengling.com/our-brewery/

^x  “’Baroness’ Blanc in Court, Charged with Not Paying Her Board at a Chicago Hotel,” The New York Times, March 27, 1902, page 3.

^xi  In an article in a film-trade magazine, about a woman who owned a movie theater in Los Angeles, the author asked, “but what has become of the Baroness Blanc, who was one of the very first ?” The Moving Picture World, Volume 31, Number 4, January 27, 1917, page 512.

^xii  The Indiana Progress (Indiana, Pennsylvania), August 30, 1916, page 5.

^xiii  A news item about a traffic death in 1909 identifies the driver of a car that killed a young boy in the street as “John J. Roddy, foreman of the pressroom of the Kansas City Journal.” The Kansas City Star, August 21, 1909, page 1.

^xiv  Advertisement, The Kansas City Star, June 2, 1901, page 8.

^xv  Kansas City Journal, January 15, 1899, page 14.

^xvi  Kansas City Journal, February 12, 1899, page 14.

^xvii  When a John M. Roddy died in 1919, he was described as having worked as the “foreman in the mechanical department of the Kansas City Journal” for twenty-five years, which would mean he worked there beginning in about 1894. Roddy, who had been working as a printer since 1867, was survived by a son, John J. Roddy, of Geneva, Illinois. The Kansas City Times, June 27, 1919, page 3.

^xviii  The article appearing in the Boston Globe is presumably a reprint of the article advertised to appear in the previous Sunday’s New York World.

^xix  “Mailbag Friday: ‘Dude,’” Ben Zimmer, Wordroutes, Exploring the Pathways of our Lexicon, VisualThesaurus.com, September 19, 2008. https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/mailbag-friday-dude/