Gear: Chapter 3

The outdoors is no longer for macho men. In fact, now it's for babies. Images, links, and more information at articlesofinterest.substack.com https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/ Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  They say that in the army, the biscuits mighty fine. But one rode off the table and killed a friend of mine. Oh, Lord, I wanna go, but they won't let me go. Oh, oh, oh. Hey. Chapter three.

• 0:20Avery Trufelman?

  Italy was not going down without a fight. The Second World War was raging on, and the Americans and the Allies had taken Rome in June of 1944. Great. But the Germans were still clinging to their last stronghold in northern Italy, and they were not letting it go. By the winter of 1944, the Allied Fifth Army was getting tired. They'd spent months fighting their way through the Apennine Mountains, and it felt absolutely Sisyphean. As soon as they made their way up one massive ridge, they got to the base of another, and the Germans held the high ground, peering down, unafraid to shoot. As one American Army lieutenant wrote in a report, "There's about as much concealment as a goldfish would have in a bowl."

• 1:05Avery Trufelman?

  The mountain range was an ingenious natural defense. The Germans, after all, were masters of skiing and mountaineering culture. They felt safe in these mountains. But the Allies had a little trick up their sleeves. Because Americans know how to ski, too.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Many are world-famous skiers and mountain climbers. Many are amateurs, and many are greenhorns.

• 1:29Avery Trufelman?

  The 10th Mountain Division was the US military's fighting force on skis, which was admittedly unusual. In the 1940s, ski resorts were not really a widespread thing yet. An American with ski experience was a very particular kind of American. An American like Jerry Cunningham.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  He probably learned to ski before he was in high school. But when he was in high school, he would ski regularly.

• 1:55Avery Trufelman?

  This is Pete Cunningham, talking about his dad, Jerry Cunningham.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  He was born or raised in Utica, New York.

• 2:01Avery Trufelman?

  Utica is pretty close to Vermont. It's up there.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  And there were a few little ski places around there.

• 2:07Avery Trufelman?

  But this is before they had anything to help you get up the mountain.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  There weren't any toes or lifts or anything.

• 2:13Avery Trufelman?

  After Jerry skied down a hill, he'd have to take his skis off and walk back up. Or the other option is he could leave his skis on and just slowly, herringbone, walk his skis in a V shape all the way back up.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  It's faster than sidestepping. But it's Oh my god, not fast by any standard. No, not fast.

• 2:32Avery Trufelman?

  But when he was a teenager, Jerry heard that over in Europe, where ski culture was more robust, they had this nifty invention called ski climbers, which were simple. They just attached seal skin to the bottom of skis with the fur against the grain of the mountain.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  So they would slide forward, but the minute the ski started to move backwards, the hairs would all go out and grab the snow.

• 2:54Avery Trufelman?

  So you could just put these things on and walk up the hill.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Well, Dad had heard about that. I mean, he's in high school. He was like 16 years old or something like that. And he said, I'm gonna make a pair of those.

• 3:05Avery Trufelman?

  Teenage Jerry couldn't afford seal skin, but he found a local tanner who would give him a bunch of scraps of pony skin, even though pony hair does not work the same because it kind of sticks out in all directions.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  It swirls and things like that. So he cut up all these scraps and sewed them together with the hair all going the same direction.

• 3:24Avery Trufelman?

  Arduously, Jerry makes his own ski climbers. And immediately, he takes them to the slopes and they work. Jerry can walk uphill.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  He'd go up the hill past these other people who were herring, bolting their way up. He'd pass them and he'd say, hard work, isn't it?

• 3:39Avery Trufelman?

  Of course, this looked like magic to the skiers struggling behind Jerry.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  And they'd come up, they'd say, somebody do that. And he says, I just happen to have an extra pair here. And he sold them for about $8 a pair. He paid for all his skiing by Mountain Rose climbers.

• 3:56Avery Trufelman?

  Clearly, Jerry Cunningham had a knack for gear. He was good at learning about it, good at making it. He was handy, not only with a needle and thread, but just about any material he could get his hands on. He loved to improve his experience of being outdoors in any capacity beyond skiing. He loved to be outside in all kinds of ways.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Dad was also a rock climber when he was in high school. So he designed a climbing pack and made it and used it.

• 4:21Avery Trufelman?

  During his brief stint at college, Jerry paid his tuition by putting his climbing skills to work. He trimmed the massive trees on campus.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  And we're talking about 33 to 40 feet off the ground. We're not talking about just a few feet up.

• 4:35Avery Trufelman?

  And one day, Jerry climbed up to a high, high limb. And found there was already someone sitting up there.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  There's mother sitting on a limb.

• 4:44Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry met his future wife, Ann. Not only his spiritual match, but his physical and energetic match as well.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, she loved to climb trees. She was very much of a tomboy.

• 4:55Avery Trufelman?

  For their honeymoon, Jerry and Ann were dropped off at the Hudson River with little more than a tent and a canoe. This was their idea of bliss. Basically, just them and the elements. They needed nothing more.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  The river really flooded. I think a lot of their gear got swept away.

• 5:11Avery Trufelman?

  That didn't bother Jerry and Ann. What abruptly ended their honeymoon was when Jerry's dad came to find them.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Grandpa knew approximately where they were. He hiked through the forests and everything and found them.

• 5:23Avery Trufelman?

  There was mail for Jerry.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Dad's draft notice arrived saying, hey, you're drafted.

• 5:29Avery Trufelman?

  So this gives you an idea of the kind of guy who was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  He got assigned to the 10th Mountain Division because he was a skier and a climber. And the 10th Mountain Division was just filled with all these skiers and climbers.

• 5:44Avery Trufelman?

  By the way, alongside Jerry Cunningham and the 10th Mountain Division were some of the Von Trapp children, like the Von Trapp family singers who The Sound of Music is based on.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Both Warner and Rupert. Dad knew both of them. It's funny because everybody thinks that the oldest child because of the Sound of Music was a woman, but it wasn't. It was the two older brothers.

• 6:04Avery Trufelman?

  The Austrian Von Trapps had settled in Vermont, so you bet they knew how to ski. And all of these skiers and outdoorsmen from all over the United States were gathered together in Colorado.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  They got sent to Camp Neil in Colorado.

• 6:19Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry was not looking forward to combat at all. He was an extremely reluctant soldier. In fact, he specifically requested to be a medic in the division so that he wouldn't have to fight. However, as you might imagine, there was an element of the military that Jerry was looking forward to. The gear, of course. He was a lifelong gearhead. Jerry wanted to see what this military-grade outdoor equipment would be.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  He went into the 10th Mountain Division expecting the best of equipment, and it was awful.

• 6:54Avery Trufelman?

  The uniforms of the 10th Mountain Division were not top notch. Their field jackets were some of the clunky, mission-specific field jackets before the invention of the all-purpose M43.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  The tents were canvas, heavy canvas.

• 7:08Avery Trufelman?

  Mostly, it was just so heavy.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  They were pretty horrendous.

• 7:12Avery Trufelman?

  As Jerry said in an undated Oral History from the Outdoor Recreation Archive, "Well, God, when I got into the Army ski troops, we had rucksacks that were miserable. We had 90 pounds in those stupid things. Myself and a lot of the other guys who were in the early 10th Mountain Division, who had been climbers and skiers, were really pissed off at this junk we got. I know I used to develop techniques for avoiding field inspection because I would not take what we were required because I couldn't carry it, frankly." Jerry started to imagine what better stuff he could make. Not just how he could improve these heavy rucksacks and plastic-coated tents, but how he could entirely reimagine them. Scrap 'em all, start again from first principles.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  Dad says, "What's our goal? What's the purpose of this item? The purpose of the item is to give human beings a shelter from the wet, the cold, the wind, and so on."

• 8:07Avery Trufelman?

  This is Jerry's solace. This is how he spends, honestly, a lot of his time during his deployment in the Second World War. Jerry is constantly dreaming of new kinds of tents, new shapes of backpacks, new fits for jackets, all stuff he was mostly imagining for his life back at home as a civilian.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Dad thought, "When we get out of here, this is what I'm gonna do, is make these things and make camping and climbing better for other people."

• 8:33Avery Trufelman?

  But first, Jerry had to make it through his military service alive. He and the whole 10th Mountain Division were given a clear mission. They were to conquer this Apennine mountain ridge in Italy. They were to swoop in silently through a narrow pass and then climb up the sheer vertical face of Riva Ridge, which the Germans believed was unclimbable.

• 8:52Avery Trufelman?

  There's a lot of lore around this particular mission of the 10th Mountain Division. It's said that for weeks and weeks, the 10th Mountain Division secretly scouted routes, silently installed pitons and ropes and anchors on Riva Ridge, and that when night fell on February 18th, 1945, 700 soldiers swung into action, scurrying up the steep mountain, taking the Germans entirely by surprise. It's said that the 10th Mountain Division held off Nazi counterattacks for five whole days, ultimately helping to push them out of northern Italy once and for all. And that, by the way, after the war, the veterans of the 10th Mountain Division came home and started all the ski resorts and ski schools and ski camps that seeded the

• 9:35Avery Trufelman?

  modern American ski industry. But Jerry Cunningham would not have bragged about the heroism of the 10th Mountain Division.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Dad did not share a lot with us kids. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress from World War II.

• 9:51Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry was sent back to New York, where he was hospitalized.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  This hospital is one of the many for the care and treatment of the psychoneurotic soldier. Born and bred in peace, educated to hate war, they were overnight plunged into sudden and terrible situations.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  And he got released from a mental hospital, but he never recovered from it.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  These are the casualties of the spirit, the troubled in mind.

• 10:17Avery Trufelman?

  When Jerry got out of the hospital, he and Ann moved into his parents' attic back in Utica, New York. And there, Jerry remembered the visions that kept his spirits afloat in Italy. He remembered all the designs that he had dreamed up.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  He actually came up with a logo while he was in Italy, actually. Sketched it out.

• 10:35Avery Trufelman?

  He had imagined an image of a mountain, and over it, as though the mountain had already been conquered and claimed, floated his name, Jerry, spelled with a G. He told Ann, "This is what I want to do."

• 10:54Speaker 03

  They figured out what they were going to make, and they started producing some things.

• 10:59Avery Trufelman?

  And some of the things they produced are all around you, to this day. But I'll tell you about them after the break.

• 11:09Speaker 05

  Hey there, it's Robyn from PRX. If you're a longtime listener of Radiotopia, you may know that we had a podcast that ran from 2016 to 2020 discussing every episode of the show The West Wing. Well, I'm excited to tell you The West Wing Weekly is back. Joshua Molina, whose star on The West Wing is Will Bailey, and Rishikesh Hirway, creator and host of Song Exploder, have reunited to discuss the hit Netflix political thriller, The Diplomat. Just as they did in their original run, they're discussing each episode of the series in sequence, joined by special guests from the show and from the real world of diplomacy. Rishi and Josh will be wrapping up the first season with a special live taping at Union Chapel in London on November 14th. Subscribe now to The West Wing Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

• 11:55Avery Trufelman?

  I always thought that brands like Prada and Louis Vuitton and Tiffany were way beyond my pay grade, but they're actually not, because at The RealReal, you can get all of these name brands that you know and niche designers you don't get at up to 90% off retail. And The RealReal is so serious about authentication, you know that every single thing is guaranteed authentic. The RealReal is the most trusted name in authenticated luxury resale. With over 10,000 new arrivals daily, no one does resale like The RealReal. And now, get $25 off your first purchase when you go to therealreal.com/articles. That's therealreal.com/articles to get your $25 off. Start shopping now at

• 12:40Avery Trufelman?

  therealreal.com/articles. Even after the 10th Mountain Division had that heroic, legendary mission in Italy, it didn't look like that was gonna end World War II. It seemed like the war was gonna drag on and on and on. I mean, you and I, people of the future, know that the war is gonna end soon, but... At the time, they do not.

• 13:03Speaker 06

  We know now how World War II ends.

• 13:06Avery Trufelman?

  Journalist Charles McFarlane.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  With the droppings of the atomic bombs on Japan, but you know, no one was planning for that.

• 13:12Avery Trufelman?

  The Manhattan Project was, obviously, a secret. The vast majority of the United States military didn't know the atomic bomb was being developed, let alone that it was about to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

• 13:26Speaker 06

  So the government was still producing clothing for the idea of a war dragging well into 1946, if not 1947.

• 13:33Avery Trufelman?

  There was a huge ramp up of supplies and clothing in preparation for an invasion of Japan, which was expected to suck up a massive amount of lives and supplies.

• 13:43Speaker 07

  But a war's end cannot be anticipated while it's still being fought.

• 13:49Speaker 07

  The Quartermaster Corps is charged with assuring the successful operation of the Army of the United States by providing food, fuel, clothing, and equipment at home and abroad.

• 13:59Speaker 06

  You have basically 12 million Americans in uniform, and each of them is given clothing for all four seasons, from socks to underwear to boots to hats.

• 14:08Avery Trufelman?

  Not to mention all the M43 jackets and backpacks and tents and gear.

• 14:13Speaker 07

  So great is the extent of the Quartermaster operations that over 25% of the cotton textile industry is now producing for the Quartermaster Corps.

• 14:21Speaker 06

  These garments were all made through clothing companies in Brooklyn, in Philly, North Carolina, Massachusetts.

• 14:28Avery Trufelman?

  And these factories are all inspected and regulated by the Quartermaster Corps. We have come a long way from the shoddy uniforms of the Civil War.

• 14:35Speaker 06

  These clothes were designed to fit well, and they were made to a very high standard.

• 14:39Avery Trufelman?

  It's sturdy, hardy clothes and gear, even if real gear nuts like Jerry Cunningham would argue that this gear was too sturdy and heavy. But for the average American soldier who grew up in the Depression, this military-issue wardrobe was a massive windfall.

• 14:57Speaker 06

  For a lot of these people, they'd never had this much clothing before in their lives, and never had such well-designed and well-made clothing either. This really changed the way American men viewed their wardrobe.

• 15:07Avery Trufelman?

  Apparel Arts, a trade magazine for tailors, could see the writing on the wall. Again, no one thinks this war is ending anytime soon. And already, this magazine is talking about how the war is preparing their future customers.

• 15:19Speaker 06

  The title is "Meet G.I. Joe Civilian." And it's like, how are we going to prepare for this flood of new consumers who are going to be buying clothes for the first time, who have come to expect a very high quality of fit, fabric, and variety?

• 15:37Avery Trufelman?

  Every now and then, I think about this old film that I once saw of an atomic bomb test in Nevada, where engineers dropped an atomic bomb on a row of ponderosa pine trees. And the pine trees rock back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, really quickly and violently, like their trunks are made of rubber. And they're rocking back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And then suddenly, they calm down, erect again, and they gain their composure. Everything's completely tranquil. And then, boom. In a blink, they're obliterated, cut down, as though a massive laser rippled through them.

• 16:18Avery Trufelman?

  That's what the United States government dropped on cities full of people. In August of 1945, the nuclear era arrived. Japan surrendered, and the war, suddenly, ended.

• 16:32Speaker 07

  Yet it is to be remembered that practically all supplies procured by the quartermaster can be used in a world at peace. They will be available for various purposes.

• 16:40Avery Trufelman?

  But for what various purposes? There was so much stuff. It was all for a giant war that was supposed to go on for years and years. Even before the end of the war, the United States government claimed it had 16 million pounds of surplus clothing. Not to mention 7 million tubes of toothpaste, 25 million folding chairs, and 17,000 homing pigeons. A new agency called the War Assets Administration was put in charge of overseeing the sale of all surplus property. And this new agency was helmed by none other than former European theater chief quartermaster, Kerners nemesis, General Robert McGowan Littlejohn. And he had his work cut out for him.

• 17:22Avery Trufelman?

  To quote a 1947 article from the Quartermaster Review, "Imagine a warehouse capable of holding $1 million worth of property. It would take 34,000 such buildings to accommodate the War Assets Administration's total inventory."

• 17:40Speaker 08

  So, you know, what are you going to do with all this mountains of stuff? Apparently there are warehouses all over the place. Chock a block with gear.

• 17:48Avery Trufelman?

  This is menswear icon G. Bruce Boyer.

• 17:51Speaker 08

  I'm G. Bruce Boyer, a fashion journalist and author of several books on fashion.

• 17:58Avery Trufelman?

  Bruce has the most impeccable taste. I mean, he was the fashion editor for Town and Country and GQ and Esquire, for crying out loud. He is unafraid of a jaunty scarf or an ascot or a layered sport coat. And yet, Bruce is just a blue collar guy from central Pennsylvania.

• 18:14Speaker 08

  South Alentown.

• 18:15Avery Trufelman?

  It's not like he grew up surrounded by the fashion industry or getting bespoke suits. Bruce was just able to develop his own style from the time he was young.

• 18:23Speaker 08

  When I was a kid, I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. We all bought clothes at the Army Navy store. Everyone. It was cheap, you know?

• 18:31Avery Trufelman?

  Army surplus stores were rare oddities before World War II. After World War II, they explode. They are everywhere because it is so easy to buy up large amounts of cheap inventory. In just one month, according to a January 1946 Newsweek article, the War Assets Administration sold off 4 million pairs of cotton and wool socks, 1,895,000 pairs of work clothes, 10,000 khaki shirts, 884,000 Navy raincoats, 5,000 parkas. I could keep going. This was all in one month. It was all for a song. The War Assets Administration could not get rid of this stuff fast enough.

• 19:12Speaker 08

  I knew guys that bought socks and underwear and everything, everything there. I'm sure I bought a pea coat there.

• 19:18Avery Trufelman?

  So many Americans learned how to dress from military surplus. It helped foundationally create what we still, to this day, consider good, classic style.

• 19:31Speaker 08

  The stuff that I remember from the Army and Navy stores was absolutely first quality. The cotton that they used in coats, you don't even see it anymore today.

• 19:44Avery Trufelman?

  So it wasn't like you were dressing up like military. You were basically getting the essentials and then changing them.

• 19:49Speaker 08

  Yeah, exactly.

• 19:50Avery Trufelman?

  This was not about looking military-like. College students, whether or not they were on the GI Bill, were wearing khakis to class. Farm workers and auto shop mechanics were wearing M43 jackets as workwear. This was all about turning surplus clothing into normal, everyday, practical clothing.

• 20:07Speaker 08

  My uncles were all in the war. They didn't talk about it. It didn't have anything to do with the war. They didn't want to dress like that.

• 20:15Avery Trufelman?

  Bruce was a toddler when the war ended. It was really easy for him and for so many other Americans to take these garments away from their context, especially when so many elements of the surplus store were just mysteriously intriguing.

• 20:31Speaker 08

  They sold cup saucers, anything that an Army would use, knives, ammunition carryalls. I have a friend who swears, and he doesn't lie, so I believe him. He said his father went into an Army and Navy store and bought a flamethrower. They sold all kinds of military surplus there.

• 20:50Avery Trufelman?

  And this is where a lot of Americans would get their first tents, their first sleeping bags, their first affordable gear. How common were the military surplus shops?

• 21:02Speaker 08

  In Allentown, we had, I think, maybe three.

• 21:06Avery Trufelman?

  That's kind of a lot.

• 21:07Speaker 08

  They had just made so much of this stuff. They would take care of the draft for 15 years. I mean, they had tons and tons.

• 21:16Avery Trufelman?

  There was just so much stuff to get rid of. Initially, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, military veterans got priority access to surplus before anybody else.

• 21:27Speaker 09

  The post-World War II era, a lot of surplus resellers are families or couples who make use of veteran connections to gain access to military surplus goods.

• 21:37Avery Trufelman?

  Rachel S. Gross again, author of Shopping All the Way to the Woods. Basically, before World War II, only a few cities had outdoor specialty stores. They were quite rare. But after the war, returning veterans used their special privilege to buy up a ton of surplus and open up shops all over the US. And they stocked their shelves with M43 jackets and military packs and thick military tents. And before long, a number of these shop owners start making their own gear themselves.

• 22:07Speaker 09

  And then slowly grow single company stores based on that initial retail success. So this is the first round of technological improvements that I see.

• 22:16Avery Trufelman?

  Right after the war, still in the late 1940s and 1950s, there's this direct link between companies who are starting to sell military surplus and beginning to make their own gear alongside it. One great example is REI.

• 22:30Speaker 09

  REI, the Seattle-based outdoor company, also was a surplus reseller.

• 22:36Avery Trufelman?

  Although REI had already started in 1938, offering military surplus was a great way for this scrappy, young, outdoor company to very quickly expand their offerings. An early member of REI's co-op was a veteran, and this allowed them access to very cheap surplus tents and backpacks. So you might be thinking, ah, veteran and expert skier Jerry Cunningham must have followed a similar strategy for getting his dream gear business off the ground. But no, Jerry hated the military gear. He wanted nothing to do with military surplus.

• 23:09Speaker 09

  Some of the first improvements on military surplus come from people who were ski troopers in the 10th Mountain Division, Jerry Cunningham included, who saw the ineffectiveness of what they were being issued by the US military.

• 23:21Avery Trufelman?

  When Jerry Cunningham started his company, simply called Jerry, with a G, it was beyond scrappy. He had made his way out of Italy, out of the mental hospital, back to his parents' attic in Utica, New York, and he was still only 23 years old. He and Ann were eking out a living on Jerry's veteran adjustment allowance, but decided they would sew a batch of some of the climbing packs that Jerry had designed.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Are you familiar with a climbing pack?

• 23:47Avery Trufelman?

  That's Pete Cunningham again, Jerry's son. And believe it or not, you actually probably do know this backpack Jerry designed, or some version of it.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Not really triangle, but has a rounded zipper over the top.

• 23:57Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry designed the zippard backpack with the rounded top made of nylon. It's the archetype of the backpack you might have worn to school when you were a kid.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  And it has a separate bottom compartment, so that everything doesn't fall all the way down to the bottom.

• 24:12Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry took out an old tread sewing machine and rejiggered it with a motor, and he and Ann cranked out about 20 climbing packs, along with a number of rucksacks, backboards, duffel bags, and nylon rope. And then with their products in tow, they headed out west.

• 24:27Speaker 09

  In 1946, he goes to Boulder, Colorado with his wife Anne because he wants to become, what he says is the LL Bean of the US West.

• 24:37Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry and Anne originally were going to drive to California, but they never made it to their destination.

• 24:43Speaker 09

  Because Colorado is where he had done his training with the 10th Mountain Division at Camp Hale.

• 24:48Avery Trufelman?

  They stop to visit Jerry's old tent mate from the 10th Mountain Division, and they just fall in love with Colorado. They spend most of their savings on a rural plot of land outside of Boulder. And this just feels like fate.

• 25:00Speaker 10

  Because when they bought their land in Colorado, up in the mountains, right out the door, they could see a mountain that was shaped just like what he had imagined his logo to be.

• 25:14Avery Trufelman?

  This is Bruce Johnson, author of a number of books about the outdoor industry, including a few on Jerry Cunningham.

• 25:19Speaker 10

  I like history and I like gear. The gear historian label sounds just fine to me.

• 25:24Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry and Anne Cunningham get settled in the area around Boulder, Colorado. And very quickly, they come to rely on a couple named Roy and Alice Holubar.

• 25:34Speaker 10

  The Holubars helped Jerry build his house when they moved to Colorado. Jerry and his wife were interlopers, you might say.

• 25:42Avery Trufelman?

  So Roy was from Colorado?

• 25:44Speaker 10

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:45Avery Trufelman?

  But Alice wasn't?

• 25:46Speaker 10

  Alice Freidenberg. She was from Germany, although she'd lived there a long time, too.

• 25:52Avery Trufelman?

  Roy and Alice Holubar had known each other since high school.

• 25:55Speaker 10

  He was hiking up the Colorado Rockies and got sheep fever, which almost killed him. He couldn't go to school for most of a whole year, during which time Alice would come by his house and cheer him up and help him out with his studies. And so even though I think they were originally a year apart in school, they ended up graduating at the same time.

• 26:17Avery Trufelman?

  Roy graduated valedictorian. Alice was right behind him as salutatorian.

• 26:22Avery Trufelman?

  But all his life, Roy Holubar kept a souvenir of his childhood illness.

• 26:27Speaker 10

  He was bald because of it the rest of his life, so he liked to wear hats.

• 26:31Avery Trufelman?

  Roy Holubar preferred jaunty, feathered Tyrolean hats from his wife's native Germany.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  I knew the Holubars, and I napped the Holubars. They struck me as a child as very odd people.

• 26:43Avery Trufelman?

  Although Pete Cunningham will admit, everyone was a little odd here.

• 26:47Speaker 08

  I think my parents probably struck people as kind of odd, too.

• 26:50Speaker 10

  The couples were quite different dispositions. Jerry was kind of an introvert, whereas recreation for the Holubars was they'd have these big social nights, and they'd be doing a lot of dancing and singing, and that's what they loved. But Jerry and Ann were real different. They never did stuff like that. That wouldn't have been Jerry's scene at all.

• 27:13Avery Trufelman?

  Well, the funny thing, Jerry calls Holubar conservative.

• 27:17Speaker 10

  Jerry was very creative, very rebellious. He wanted things his way, and I can see the Holubars being conservative in that sense.

• 27:27Avery Trufelman?

  I mean, Roy Holubar made a living as a math professor, and Jerry was a college dropout. You don't get more diametrically opposed than that. But both couples shared a burning love of the outdoors. So Jerry heard that these curious neighbors of theirs, Roy and Alice Holubar, had a little side hustle selling Indian rugs and aluminum dishware and various imports from Europe out of their garage. And even though Jerry Cunningham was not one of those veterans who sold surplus to the public, he did see an interesting business opportunity to be a middleman. Jerry asked the Holubars if they would be interested in buying some military surplus stuff, and they were. In that oral history, Jerry remembered going to Denver to pick up a big shipment of military surplus ice axes. It was such

• 28:11Avery Trufelman?

  a big shipment, his dad came out to Colorado to help him pick it up. As Jerry remembered, his dad was shaking his head because he couldn't see who the hell would buy ice axes, you know? Of course, I took them all over to Holubar and he bought every single one of them.

• 28:25Speaker 10

  Jerry supplied surplus stuff to the Holubars.

• 28:29Avery Trufelman?

  In return, with the money he made from selling Holubar that initial run of surplus ice axes, Jerry bought a drill press. This allowed him to start getting into metalwork, experimenting with new shapes of pitons and carabiners. The two couples both started their businesses in 1946, and they each gave each other a kickstart, in a way, thanks to military surplus. Although, to be clear, neither business was planning to make a ton of money.

• 28:54Speaker 09

  There's a handful of people who do climbing and mountaineering. Maybe it's 10,000 people total, but that's it. And so it seemed rather foolish for Roy Holubar to quit his day job teaching math, and so it was a side project for a long time.

• 29:06Avery Trufelman?

  In the tiny, burgeoning outdoor industry around Boulder, Colorado, it was these two couples, Jerry and Anne Cunningham of Jerry, and Roy and Alice Holubar of Holubar.

• 29:15Speaker 10

  Interestingly, with the twin companies, Jerry Holubar--

• 29:19Avery Trufelman?

  We call them the twins.

• 29:20Speaker 10

  Well, yeah, in a way. They're not twins exactly, of course.

• 29:24Avery Trufelman?

  Fraternal twins.

• 29:26Speaker 10

  Yeah, they were a really fertile pairing. And although they made some of the same products, they specialized, you might say.

• 29:34Avery Trufelman?

  Holubar became known for its European-style down garments and down sleeping bags. I think they're really sleek and beautiful. And in their catalog, you could also still buy lederhosen and alpine hats and some of the Yodela Hihu stuff. Although I think the copy in one of the later Holubar catalogs will give you the best idea of their vibe.

• 29:53Speaker 11

  We are looking at a Holubar 1962, 1963 catalog.

• 29:58Avery Trufelman?

  This is Chase Anderson, one of the co-creators of the Outdoor Recreation Archive. This is the incredible library in Logan, Utah, that has almost all the catalogs of every outdoor company. This is a later Holubar catalog.

• 30:10Speaker 11

  And it says, "For this, our 15th annual catalog, we thought you'd bear no malice. If we should introduce ourselves, so here are Roy and Alice. We're just a family business, a mountain-loving couple, who want their friends and customers to keep their muscles supple, to climb friskily but unriskily, to camp dryly, walk spryly, to eat amply, sleep uncrampily."

• 30:37Avery Trufelman?

  I am sparing you the majority of the poem. It goes on and on, but you get it. It's cheesy.

• 30:41Speaker 11

  "So look through the book to find what you've suck. Then enjoy the mountains every cranny and nook."

• 30:51Speaker 11

  I feel like I read a little bit of Dr. Seuss today.

• 30:54Speaker 09

  Slash like a corny Christmas card.

• 30:57Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry's catalogs, in contrast, have these notes that are like terse intimate emails you'd get from your dad.

• 31:03Speaker 09

  There's like a weirdly personal note from Jerry each time. Like in this one on the cover of the 1958 winter catalog, it says, "Not much to say this time. The new page of ski touring equipment, while not complete, will bear witness to the fact that I've been working on it even though it's a full year late."

• 31:17Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry has this curmudgeonly mad scientist thing going on.

• 31:21Speaker 09

  We have our own laboratory facilities for quantitatively testing weight, porosity, tear strength, abrasion resistance, and water repellency of various fabrics.

• 31:29Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry's catalog has no cutesy rhymes and no military surplus.

• 31:35Speaker 09

  This is on the very first page in the 1955 Jerry catalog, and there's a table comparing Jerry products to Army products. Get a load of this. It says, "No more Army surplus."

• 31:49Avery Trufelman?

  Instead, Jerry Cunningham pioneers a bunch of gear that revolutionizes the outdoor industry. I'll try my best to give you just a few examples, but I honestly could have made a whole series about Jerry.

• 32:01Speaker 10

  1950, Jerry reconfigures the climbing carabiner to create the modern version.

• 32:09Avery Trufelman?

  And that modern carabiner is just like what we think carabiners look like, that sort of egg-like shape.

• 32:14Speaker 10

  Yes.

• 32:15Avery Trufelman?

  Bruce showed me an old carabiner, one in the shape before Jerry changed it.

• 32:20Speaker 10

  See, there you have your traditional carabiner shape.

• 32:23Avery Trufelman?

  Just the perfect oval. As Jerry himself said, "I had a good design, which is followed now. It puts most of the strain on the solid part and takes the load off the gate. I know I was the first one to come up with that idea. I made them on my drill press. I put probably about $5 into each one that I sold for $1.50." Now that's just like the shape of all carabiners. Ready for another Jerry innovation from the 1950s?

• 32:46Speaker 10

  1951, invents the drawstring clamp, later to be known as the cord lock.

• 32:54Avery Trufelman?

  It's what tightens the drawstring on your hood or your waistband. It's what allows for a really good adjustable fit.

• 33:00Speaker 10

  It's just basically a cord running through a spring-loaded space.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 10

  That you can release. It naturally clamps down, and you release it by pressing down.

• 33:11Avery Trufelman?

  I think it's on my raincoat that I was wearing today. That's just everywhere.

• 33:15Speaker 10

  They're everywhere. He never patented it.

• 33:17Avery Trufelman?

  But this is my personal favorite invention, and the one that I think is the most illustrative of the whole sea change that Jerry was creating.

• 33:25Speaker 10

  Family was very important to him. He had three kids. So he invented a better baby backpack.

• 33:31Avery Trufelman?

  The baby backpack, or as Jerry called it, the kiddy carrier. This one he did patent. Jerry really helped make it possible for you to bring your baby into the woods.

• 33:40Speaker 10

  Which introduced all sorts of people who grew up and remembered being out of doors in great places.

• 33:47Avery Trufelman?

  Yes, papooses and similar technology have been around for eons, but now he was a mass-produced version for the gear era, with padded nylon shoulders, adjustable seats, and storage underneath that had been tested to perfection on Jerry's own children.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  So I have a picture of Mother and Dad with one of each of us in the very, very earliest kiddy carriers. And we were probably less than a year old, anyway.

• 34:09Speaker 12

  Wilderness camping is no longer just for the strong and rugged. Jerry Cunningham has devoted his life to making it an enjoyable experience for the entire family.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  We had our own packs. I have another picture. We're about four years old. And we got backpacks, and ropes tied to our backpack, and Mother's folding one of each of our hands, and we're heading up the mountain.

• 34:31Avery Trufelman?

  Wow.

• 34:31Speaker 10

  One of the big revolutions that Jerry was an originator of was this whole move away from, it's a macho male thing. We need better gear so that people are comfortable and their families can be with them.

• 34:43Speaker 12

  Wilderness camping is a real vacation for Mother because there's no housework on a wilderness trip. Even husbands like to try their hand at cooking over an open campfire.

• 34:52Avery Trufelman?

  The end of the war ushers a boom time for the American family vacation. And Jerry, and to a degree Holubar, were creating new ways of looking at nature by creating new gear.

• 35:04Speaker 12

  Each member of the family carries only the barest necessities for comfort, and each takes care of his own needs.

• 35:10Avery Trufelman?

  It was about coming in gently and leaving gently with lightweight, minimal gear that made life comfortable and barely left a mark. Did your dad invent the phrase "leave no trace"?

• 35:22Speaker 09

  Yes, he did.

• 35:24Avery Trufelman?

  It was a new kind of camping, which eventually, after a long time, even the military would get the hang of. After the break. I first heard about The RealReal, I think, a decade ago. Suddenly, it was this place where you could get Prada pumps and Burberry jackets and Gucci handbags for a song. Like, I recently got this vintage 90s Yoji Yamamoto skirt that I wear constantly. The RealReal is adding thousands and thousands of items every single day. So it really does still feel like a treasure hunt, even though it has all the convenience of shopping online. And I periodically use it to clean out my closet. They make it so easy. The RealReal sends a representative to my tiny apartment to pick up my things

• 36:09Avery Trufelman?

  and assess them for me, and then it's done. Money just appears in my account. The RealReal is the most trusted name in authenticated luxury resale. With over 10,000 new arrivals daily, no one does resale like The RealReal. And now, get $25 off your first purchase when you go to the realreal.com articals. That's the realreal.com articals to get your $25 off. Start shopping now at the realreal.com articals.

• 36:42Avery Trufelman?

  The entire military orchestra is here, complete with a harp. Oh, they're about to play again. They actually sound great.

• 36:57Avery Trufelman?

  In a huge conference hall filled with easily thousands of people, there were representatives from over 90 countries and 21 chiefs of army from all around the world. South Koreans, Japanese airborne divisions. I was in the minority of people not in uniform. I can't believe they let me in here. This was the annual meeting of the AUSA Conference. To put it simply, the United States Army Conference and Trade Show.

• 37:24Speaker 13

  Welcome to the 70th, as the 70th seems unbelievable, 70th Annual Meeting. A strong army will deter our adversaries, and if they try to do our nation harm, they'll be defeated.

• 37:38Avery Trufelman?

  There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, and there was an inspirational rap by some soldiers in uniform. The rapper is asking people to raise their hands,

• 37:48Avery Trufelman?

  and no one is raising their hands. And then the whole ceremony briefly came grinding to a halt, while two protesters who held up anti-war signs were kicked out.

• 37:56Speaker 14

  Just hang in there for a minute. We'll get this situation under control.

• 38:02Avery Trufelman?

  And then there were a few updates about the state of the army.

• 38:05Speaker 14

  The army not only surpassed our goal to recruit 55,000 new soldiers this year, we also far exceeded our goal to send 5,000 into the delayed entry program.

• 38:17Avery Trufelman?

  And then we were all released onto the vast show floor.

• 38:20Speaker 14

  Welcome to AIC 2024. It took pause now.

• 38:24Avery Trufelman?

  There were exhibits and showcases by major brands you definitely know and use. Phone carriers, car companies, consulting firms, airlines, tire manufacturers, governments of countries, all showing off their defense capabilities. Tons of tanks, more tanks than I've ever seen. Bullets were arranged in vitrines like jewelry. There were demonstrations of drones and bomb-sniffing robots and remote missile commands that you could play with, like video game consoles.

• 38:52Speaker 10

  So I'm shooting a laser at the target.

• 38:55Avery Trufelman?

  So on the ground, the target sees a laser?

• 38:58Speaker 10

  I see, he doesn't see the laser.

• 38:59Avery Trufelman?

  Okay, okay. And among all the guns and prototypes for driverless tanks were clothes, displayed like any other cutting-edge technology. May I just ask about some of the capabilities of these pants?

• 39:12Speaker 10

  I know you're pulling my legs here. Is this a prank that you, no?

• 39:16Avery Trufelman?

  No, no, I'm really a fashion journalist. It's genuine. Other clothing vendors were more game-to-talk shop at the Military Trade Show.

• 39:22Speaker 15

  One of the items would be a three-in-one jacket, where they're having to pack less.

• 39:26Speaker 16

  So that's a poncho right here. And then you can make it as big or as small as you want. It's lightweight, we love it.

• 39:32Avery Trufelman?

  These are clothes that are lightweight, packable, and easy to carry. These are clothes that Jerry would have loved to have when he was in the 10th Mountain Division, but they had to come to the civilian world first.

• 39:43Speaker 17

  Today is climbing day. Jerry and Ann hope to climb the highest peak in the region. Ann skirts the slippery edge of the crevasse while Jerry prepares to jump.

• 39:52Avery Trufelman?

  This is a clip of a promotional video that Jerry Cunningham had made of him and Anne testing out gear together. Both Jerry and Anne were side by side, going peak for peak, often with their three kids in tow.

• 40:04Speaker 17

  Once across the snow bridge, Jerry belays Anne over to his side.

• 40:09Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry was convinced that everyone, even people who were unaccustomed to the outdoors, even parents of four-year-olds, would be able to get outdoors. And it would be possible by making everything extremely light.

• 40:23Speaker 10

  The whole lightweight, and I could slash in there, family backpacking.

• 40:28Avery Trufelman?

  Gear historian Bruce Johnson again.

• 40:30Speaker 10

  Because you have to be light enough to be able to go out in comfort backpacking. Nobody should have to carry more than 20 pounds to go on a weekend trip. So Jerry, he had tents and things that were for serious climbers. But his emphasis was really on lightweight, family, and he was a pioneer in that, really. Ultra-light pioneer.

• 40:53Speaker 12

  Would you believe these packs weigh 20 pounds for Jerry and about 12 pounds for the others? Even if you spend your workdays in an office, you can carry this much on a weekend without special conditioning.

• 41:03Avery Trufelman?

  Lightweight gear was Jerry's obsession. This was the reaction to what he'd experienced in the 10th Mountain Division, when he was forced to carry those clunky packs with 90 pounds of stuff in them. And after the war, Jerry realized that carrying super-heavy packs was part of what made recreational camping so inaccessible.

• 41:21Speaker 10

  In the US, camping was a thing that tough macho people did. My pack has no suspension, no nothing. You just cram 50 pounds in it, and it breaks your back, your kidneys, and that was good enough. So people like Jerry come along, and they start thinking, comfort, people need to enjoy doing this.

• 41:44Speaker 12

  While they rest, Jerry gets a drink and admires some of the scenery that is the reward of the wilderness traveler.

• 41:51Avery Trufelman?

  If the outdoors was going to be more appealing and easier to more people, they needed to have better, easier, lighter stuff. But let's be clear.

• 42:01Speaker 09

  A lot of the narratives I read, especially if they come from outdoor companies, like to suggest that new stuff is responsible for inspiring new activity.

• 42:10Avery Trufelman?

  Rachel Eschgroos again.

• 42:11Speaker 09

  And by the way I frame that, you can guess that I don't believe that that's true.

• 42:15Avery Trufelman?

  Sometimes you read these corporate histories that are like, ladies didn't use to hike till we made our lightweight pink ladies hiking boots.

• 42:20Speaker 09

  This narrative is especially pervasive when it comes to talking about the role of women in participation in outdoor sports. In other words, new lightweight stuff made it easier for women to participate. Therefore, they did. And I just don't buy it. I don't see any evidence to suggest that women were barring themselves for participation because backpacks were too heavy. And then once backpacks got lighter, then they're like, ah, now this sport is for me.

• 42:42Avery Trufelman?

  Alice Hollybar and Ann Cunningham and many, many other women were outdoor enthusiasts long before the lightweight revolution. Clunky gear hadn't really stopped anyone who really wanted to go outside. But lightweight gear was fantastic. And the Hollybars got into the lightweight game, introducing their jackets and sleeping bags made of Royalite. What is Royalite?

• 43:05Speaker 10

  Roy, Alice, lightweight.

• 43:07Avery Trufelman?

  And so did it mean any kind of material?

• 43:10Speaker 10

  No.

• 43:11Avery Trufelman?

  It was just, they just called their stuff Royalite.

• 43:13Speaker 10

  Uh huh.

• 43:16Speaker 10

  Those first lightweight down bags that she created were made initially out of parachute cloth from the military. Well, where did she get it? Well, from Jerry.

• 43:28Avery Trufelman?

  Ah. Alice Hollybar would prove to be a preternatural wizard with quilted down. She experimented with new shapes of jackets and sleeping bags and took them to new levels of lightness and comfort.

• 43:41Speaker 10

  Truly backpackable down sleeping bags. It wasn't too big. It wasn't too heavy. It was wonderful. You looked forward to crawling in, right?

• 43:50Avery Trufelman?

  And she also had designed them so they could zip together, right?

• 43:53Speaker 10

  Yes. For couples. Yes.

• 43:55Avery Trufelman?

  The gospel of lightweight comfort spread as Jerry and Holubar both grew bigger and bigger. Although both companies started their businesses as catalogs than as niche pilgrimage stores in Boulder, they became major brands over the course of the 1960s.

• 44:11Speaker 10

  Holubar had two stores, one in Boulder and one in Denver, whereas Jerry had two Boulder stores and a store in San Francisco. And then during the 70s, Holubar greatly expanded its network of stores.

• 44:25Avery Trufelman?

  And other brands beyond Jerry and Holubar take up the mission of ultralight, comfortable backpacking.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  There are many, many contributors to lightweight, convenient backpacking equipment and so on.

• 44:39Avery Trufelman?

  But Pete Cunningham is convinced, in his totally unbiased opinion, that so much of this ultimately comes from his dad.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  A lot of different companies had a founder who was to a certain extent trying to build on what dad did or imitate what dad did.

• 44:56Avery Trufelman?

  Because perhaps even more influential than Jerry's designs were his booklets.

• 45:01Speaker 10

  He was really committed to the idea. You don't just make gear and sell it. You educate people. Behind you here, you have some of his booklets that he wrote. Food packing, backpacking, how to enjoy. Oh, my God. How to camp and leave no trace.

• 45:17Avery Trufelman?

  Did he invent that, leave no trace?

• 45:19Speaker 10

  He invented the concept, for sure.

• 45:21Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry wrote that booklet in 1970, the year of the first Earth Day.

• 45:26Speaker 10

  If you read the booklet, he talks about how people need to leave behind this old ethic of go out to the woods, hack down a tree, leave a big campfire, bigger the better, pee all over the place, your tin cans, throw them in the brush. He had values. You got to have a whole set of rules here.

• 45:46Speaker 12

  A wilderness campsite should still look like wilderness after you leave it. Four people spent the night here, but they left no sign of their visit.

• 45:53Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry instructed on how to pack light.

• 45:55Speaker 10

  What we would nowadays call ultralight.

• 45:57Speaker 12

  Backpacking food should weigh less than two pounds per man per day.

• 46:01Avery Trufelman?

  In his 1967 book, How to Keep Warm- Jerry offered truisms like, "Cover your head when cold, avoid sweat, keep your torso warm."

• 46:09Speaker 12

  The outfit you see here will keep you warm when the temperatures drop below freezing and only weighs five pounds.

• 46:14Avery Trufelman?

  And where would he distribute these?

• 46:16Speaker 10

  Everywhere he could get to. They were free. So he had a big network of people who were selling his stuff nationwide. And he'd go around the US giving talks, distributing booklets.

• 46:29Avery Trufelman?

  And throughout his whole career, Jerry tried to get his word out directly to the US military.

• 46:34Speaker 10

  Jerry was a consultant for the Army Quartermaster Corps. The Quartermaster Corps had a strong interest in how much insulation does it take to keep our soldiers warm and dry, out of harm's way?

• 46:47Avery Trufelman?

  And in this way, Jerry did achieve his original dream of being the LL Bean of the West. He joined the long line of outdoorsmen who consulted with the Quartermaster Corps.

• 46:57Speaker 10

  Eventually, the Army put out contracts for bidding about a suit, not a sleeping bag, a suit, almost a suit you could wear. It was to be in all the airplanes.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  And some of the planes were now flying over the North Pole because this was during the Cold War and they wanted survival gear in their planes. It would help if they had to crash land on the Arctic ice that they'd be able to survive.

• 47:22Speaker 10

  And it had to be a certain small size. Jerry won with this thing you could put in a, I think it was a number 10 can, all mashed down.

• 47:32Avery Trufelman?

  As the military and civilians alike got more and more interested in lightweight, compact, outdoor wear, exciting new materials arrived.

• 47:40Speaker 09

  Wilbur Gore worked for DuPont in the Teflon Division, the nonstick panc coating. And he essentially saw Teflon as having a lot of promise that DuPont wasn't pursuing.

• 47:52Avery Trufelman?

  In 1958, Wilbur Gore left DuPont.

• 47:56Speaker 09

  And he started his own company, WL Gore and Associates, and he started to pursue new kinds of applications for polytetrafluorethylene, PTFE.

• 48:05Avery Trufelman?

  In 1970, Wilbur's son, Bob Gore, realized that when you take this material and stretch it out, or expand it-

• 48:13Speaker 09

  Expanded, EPTFE is what they call it, Expanded PTFE.

• 48:16Avery Trufelman?

  It became porous.

• 48:17Speaker 09

  Which meant that through testing, they found out that it kept out large water molecules, but allowed smaller sweat molecules to escape. In other words, it was waterproof and breathable at the same time.

• 48:29Avery Trufelman?

  This is the invention of Gore-Tex.

• 48:31Speaker 09

  Not exactly by accident, but it was a side project of the Gores, in part because they had a lot of interest in outdoor sports themselves. They were campers and hikers as well.

• 48:39Avery Trufelman?

  Although they weren't initially planning to become a fixture of the outdoor industry.

• 48:42Speaker 09

  In fact, one of the first places they turned to when they realized the potential of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene was the US military. And the military said, "No, thank you. We're not really interested in this product." And so they turned instead to outdoor companies because they thought that would be a fine next step.

• 48:58Avery Trufelman?

  A fine next step, in theory.

• 49:00Speaker 09

  Gore-Tex is not immediately embraced by all outdoors people, and that's because, like surplus before it, like so many other technologies, it's not perfect, and it actually leaks.

• 49:10Avery Trufelman?

  So it's not an immediate triumphant arrival story, but eventually Gore-Tex tinkers and improves, and by the 80s, it becomes a trusted fixture in the outdoor industry.

• 49:17Speaker 09

  Eventually, it became one of the most prominent and recognized waterproof brands.

• 49:24Avery Trufelman?

  It is a material brand, a brand within a brand. Just like its former parent company, DuPont, was once prominently featured on advertisements for the Buck's Gain jacket, Gore-Tex is prominently featured on the very product itself.

• 49:39Speaker 09

  The Gore-Tex embroidered logo on a particular jacket or tent became important to consumers.

• 49:46Avery Trufelman?

  Gore-Tex and the many ingredient brands that came after it became certificates, hallmarks of the sort of light, easy camping that Jerry had advocated for.

• 49:57Speaker 09

  People are attached to the idea of what Gore-Tex can do for them. It signals safety, it signals kind of extended, extreme environments that they now have access to.

• 50:09Avery Trufelman?

  Including the military.

• 50:12Avery Trufelman?

  Gore-Tex becomes widely incorporated into military gear in the 80s, and they were there at the AUSA Military Conference. Gore-Tex had a booth on the trade show floor.

• 50:21Speaker 18

  So Gore works with brands that will get a trademark license from Gore, and they build to our standards.

• 50:26Avery Trufelman?

  The Gore-Tex representative was talking about their military contracting brands in the same way they talk about their outdoor brands.

• 50:32Speaker 18

  So if they're building a Gore-Tex jacket, we test it for waterproofness and breathability and design and make sure it meets all our quality standards.

• 50:39Avery Trufelman?

  So it's all good quality Gore-Tex. Gore-Tex is Gore-Tex. And yet, the standard-issue military stuff is not as fancy as you might imagine.

• 50:48Speaker 19

  Gore-Tex is not a super-loved item in the Marine Corps. It will protect you from water, but it's not insulated.

• 50:54Avery Trufelman?

  Oh. This is Marine reservist Alex Dragone. Sure, he's issued some high-quality Gore-Tex stuff, but soldiers don't get, like, the most deluxe Gore-Tex jacket on the market. And they might not even use what they're issued.

• 51:09Speaker 19

  There's also Gore-Tex pants, which are probably one of the least-used items in the Marine Corps. Space is a premium. Weight is a premium. And even, you know, Gore-Tex doesn't weigh a lot. Ounces equal pounds, and pounds equals pain.

• 51:22Avery Trufelman?

  Even though extremely lightweight, high-tech, advanced gear exists, service members don't get all that stuff. And sure, some of the logic is that the American taxpayer pays for that, so a degree of frugality is good. But also, Alex says, some of the logic is that service members should be prepared to go without the nicest gear.

• 51:45Speaker 19

  If you can have guys ready to survive with the least, like, the lowest common denominator of material, I'd rather be trained on, like, how to use the least luxurious item.

• 51:59Avery Trufelman?

  Still, the lighter, nicer, more comfortable gear exists. Even if it's not being given to soldiers, they can still buy it. They can, in fact, Buy it right there on the military base. I was talking to Alex at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, and on that base, there is an exchange.

• 52:18Speaker 19

  So we're at an exchange right now, which is like a store?

• 52:21Avery Trufelman?

  A store that sells everything. There's like a whole North Face section. There's an Under Armour section.

• 52:27Speaker 19

  Walking by the tech section now.

• 52:29Avery Trufelman?

  Oh, you can buy bikes? You can buy alcohol?

• 52:32Speaker 19

  All right, let's see. So military clothing.

• 52:34Avery Trufelman?

  There's additional uniform materials, patches, fatigues, backpacks.

• 52:39Speaker 19

  But that's not the stuff you're issued. So that's just like extra that you might want in the field.

• 52:44Avery Trufelman?

  Any extra gear a soldier might want to buy.

• 52:46Speaker 19

  Sometimes I would buy boots. And I have one that's like a lightweight athletic boot. The lightweight ones, they're called Daner Reckonings.

• 52:53Avery Trufelman?

  But if Alex and his colleagues want to get gear, they don't only have to shop at the military base.

• 52:59Speaker 19

  Yeah, sometimes you'll either come to an exchange or you'll go to an REI and you'll get something special.

• 53:07Avery Trufelman?

  Either works. Yeah, then what happened to Jerry? Why don't we see Jerry around so much anymore?

• 53:13Speaker 10

  You don't. They just got in a financial bind at one point in the 60s, mid 60s. It got bought out.

• 53:22Avery Trufelman?

  There it says, copyright 1970 by Colorado Outdoor Sports Company, Division of Outdoor Sports Industries, Inc.

• 53:29Speaker 10

  They had essentially bought up Jerry.

• 53:32Avery Trufelman?

  Once the outdoor industry became popular enough and profitable enough, there was this sort of arms race.

• 53:39Speaker 10

  Big companies were just snapping up little companies right and left and not just in their original field of endeavor.

• 53:45Speaker 09

  A good example of this is that Gillette, Gillette the razor company, had been looking around for outdoor companies.

• 53:51Avery Trufelman?

  Gillette purchased a DIY make your own outdoor gear company called Frostline in 1978 for just under $6.5 million.

• 54:00Speaker 09

  Gillette wasn't just looking for an outdoor company. They were looking for one that was good at sending out catalogs and had a robust mailing list. Similarly, General Mills bought Eddie Bauer in the 1970s as well.

• 54:13Avery Trufelman?

  And SC Johnson, maker of floor wax and household cleaners, bought Holubar.

• 54:19Speaker 10

  Employees that I've spoken to basically say,

• 54:23Speaker 10

  They didn't understand the business that we were in. And so they failed. They failed to market it right. They failed in a lot of ways.

• 54:33Avery Trufelman?

  And then The North Face, which had started in 1966, buys Holubar from S.C. Johnson in 1981.

• 54:41Speaker 10

  North Face came in and bought it. And for a while, you'd have a label that said Holubar, and then it would also say North Face on it. Then North Face had it for years, just sitting in the basement.

• 54:53Avery Trufelman?

  The North Face starts phasing Holubar out. Until the early aughts, when The North Face sold Holubar to an Italian holding company. And then Patrick tried to revive it.

• 55:03Speaker 20

  I'm Patrick Nebiolo. I am the owner, as well as the sole administrator of Holubar.

• 55:10Avery Trufelman?

  Holubar was reborn as high-end chic outdoor wear.

• 55:13Speaker 20

  Outdoors in the US is completely different from outdoors in Italy. In Italy, it's very posh. Outdoors is like, not what it is here. It's a real lifestyle. And that's what Holubar has to be, in my opinion. And that's what I'm trying to do.

• 55:28Avery Trufelman?

  Although it was really hard for Patrick to do that.

• 55:29Speaker 20

  We opened a big flagship in New York. Unfortunately, that was literally December 24th, 2019. You know, a few weeks later, we had to shut down all the stores in New York.

• 55:40Avery Trufelman?

  And since I spoke to him, Patrick no longer owns Holubar. The brand has bounced along to its next owner, and its next life, and its next chance at revival. I wish them better luck. Bruce Johnson was really rooting for that Holubar comeback.

• 55:54Speaker 10

  I'll show you. Holubar from Italy.

• 55:57Avery Trufelman?

  I mean, that's a pretty cool jacket. And it's got the old Holubar logo.

• 56:02Speaker 10

  Holubar buttons.

• 56:03Avery Trufelman?

  It looks like you've worn this jacket.

• 56:05Speaker 10

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:05Avery Trufelman?

  So you like it?

• 56:06Speaker 10

  Yes. Is it truly a design that Alice would have had? No.

• 56:11Avery Trufelman?

  Wait, why not?

• 56:13Speaker 10

  Well.

• 56:15Speaker 10

  It's kinda campy.

• 56:18Avery Trufelman?

  How perfect. That particular duality of the word camp. Susan Sontag famously called camp "the love of the unnatural, of artifice and exaggeration." And so you can see what makes camp wear campy, right? When it's artificial and exaggerated. It's when it's trying too hard to look useful. And to Bruce, this Halybar revival jacket just had too many bits and bobs on it. What is this thing?

• 56:49Speaker 10

  I've always wondered.

• 56:51Avery Trufelman?

  That's just some gear-looking stuff.

• 56:56Speaker 10

  You can put your binocular strap in there. I think the purpose was supposedly something like that.

• 57:01Avery Trufelman?

  This, to Bruce, is a tragedy that befalls a lot of brands. When the going gets hard, they move from gear to fashion. Not actually innovating, just making clothes.

• 57:14Speaker 10

  What makes money? Apparel that wears out or goes out of style. Right? You buy a quality Halybar backpack. It's with you forever. One sale. You can't run a company. You make and sell one pack and you never see the customer again. If you look at the offerings of all the major companies, they're full of clothing and apparel.

• 57:43Avery Trufelman?

  You say this with disgust.

• 57:45Speaker 10

  Well, not entirely. But that's the major source of their income. It's not the tents, not the sleeping bags. It's stuff that people wear that goes out of style or wears out and then has to be replaced. It's just the way it is.

• 58:02Avery Trufelman?

  And that's what happened when Outdoor Sports Industries, Inc. swallowed up Jerry. This new parent company immediately gave up on gear.

• 58:11Speaker 10

  It all got dropped and they just shifted into your average down jackets and downhill ski jackets. And Jerry became known for that. Jerry lost control of his own company. They didn't seem to value his input anymore. Jerry told me about sitting around a conference room where nobody seemed interested in his concepts anymore. So he quit, which led to him just quitting the whole industry. And when he dropped out, that was it.

• 58:42Avery Trufelman?

  I mean, do you think he was a bit... Foolish for not patenting more of his inventions?

• 58:49Speaker 10

  You know, the patent process is super long and involved, and it's not sure of success each time you do it. So I respect it. I don't think money was a big motivator for Jerry.

• 59:05Avery Trufelman?

  Jerry moved to Arizona, where he lived a whole second life. He built a sailboat hardware business. He mapped out sailing routes along the Sea of Cortez. He and Ann built an off-the-grid dome. And Jerry continued to publish pamphlets about environmentalism for anyone who would read them. He died in 2010. It was, by any measure, a good life. It just saddens me that I knew nothing about it. His legacy was lost so quickly, even though his brand, Jerry with a G, is still around. It's out there in the world. It's been purchased a number of times. At one point, it was a brand best known for baby backpacks and cribs and baby accessories. And while I was reporting this, I tried to reach out to the company, and it changed hands again.

• 59:51Avery Trufelman?

  But I had a sighting only a few weeks ago on my fiance's sister's cargo shorts. There it was. Jerry with a G.

• 1:00:02Avery Trufelman?

  It was just hard to explain to her why I suddenly got so emotional over some cheap pants that she bought at Costco.

• 1:00:29Avery Trufelman?

  Articles of Interest is made by Avery Trufelman. The story editor on this season is Alison Behringer. The story consultant on this season is Charles McFarlane. And this episode in particular owes a massive debt to the extraordinary research that Charles did in his master's thesis. Thank you so much, Charles. The fact checker on gear is Yasmin Alsayad. And the engineer on gear is Jocelyn Gonzalez. The music on Articles of Interest always is by Ray Royal and Lullatone. And the theme songs are by Sasami. The distributor of Articles of Interest is Radiotopia. And special thanks, this particular episode, to the Outdoor Recreation Archive. What a wealth of resources. Thank you. Thank you also to Pete Cunningham.

• 1:01:12Avery Trufelman?

  It was an honor to get to know your father posthumously. Thank you to Drew Haupt for craft services and mental health provision. I mean it. And thank you for listening. For images of what I saw at the military conference, cheepers, creepers, go to articlesofinterest.substack.com.

• 1:01:34Speaker 14

  Radiotopia.

• 1:01:38Speaker 14

  From PRX.