This isn't focused the american west, but I can give a broad stroke explanation as to why heavy clothes are preferable in hot, dry environments. Heavy clothing will protect you from blowing dust and sand, which can pierce lighter clothing and harm your body [1]. Clothing in deserts also tend to be loose, which reduces conduction to your skin and increases convection from your clothes to the air, which reduces temperature in a dry environment. [2] It also helps wick away sweat from your body, which leaves you feeling more comfortable.

[1] http://survive-prepare.com/2013/01/01/choosing-desert-survival-clothing/ [2] http://www.npr.org/2012/07/25/157302810/summer-science-clothes-keep-you-cool-more-or-less

I hope these sources will work for the mods. I usually work here and didn't want to give anecdote about my time working in a steel mill or arizona.

greetings all! so far, this post has attracted only anecdotes, which are not permitted in this subreddit:

Personal anecdotes are not acceptable answers in this subreddit. They are unreliable, unverifiable and of very little real interest. This is exhaustively explained by /u/American_Graffiti in this comment.

Just a reminder of which subreddit we're in here: it's /r/AskHistorians so any respondents should have expertise in the subject matter and answers should be in depth & based on acceptable source material. See the rules for answers here.

It's important to remember that "The Wild West" covered a massive amount of a very large country. A great example is a book like The Searchers where the story ranges from the baking Mexican desert to characters being buried in snow drifts. Even your example of The Wild West, Tombstone, has temperatures in February ranging from 75 F to 37 F.

While the most common image of the Wild West is of two gunslingers shooting it out under a blazing sun, fact is the Western frontier and the stories told about it range from Northern Mexico to Northern Montana.

I found this thread that asked a very similar question (namely, did they wear such heavy clothes, and how did they keep cool).

It may help you out!

I have plenty of anecdotes about beating the heat as a reenactor, but I'll leave those for another time.

I can tell you that wool was favored in the Victorian era for things like military uniforms because it's more durable than cotton. It'll wear longer, and that means replacing it less often.

As for actually dealing with the heat, one solution that was tried was the havelock, taken from conflicts in North Africa for use by troops in the American Civil War. You put that piece of canvas over your hat, let it down the back of your head, and carry on marching. It covers the back of your neck to help keep the sun off, but they didn't anticipate the changes it would make in the way sweat evaporates. They work best in dry climates, and in the American south they made things worse if anything. They prevent airflow to the area, so in the humidity of Virginia, you lose evaporative cooling on an area that's very important in heat regulation. They may have worked in parts of the Pacific Coast theater or the trans-mississippi theater, but as far as I know, they never really caught on.

One other solution that's quite enduring was seersucker. It's woven so that there are thicker stripes and thinner stripes in the fabric, which helps to make it much more breathable.

Add on question/inquiry: Female specific clothing. Specifically the layers and corsets involved with fashion from that time period. Any notable instances of women having problems in that climate with their clothing? OR just plain not adhearing to fashion standards of the time becasuse of the heat?

"Wild West" fell into some pretty interesting periods of clothing for women. A large part of that time period fell into what, going by the English monarchs, would be the Victorian era. Which in many many cases means "propper" undergarments for the women. Including of course, corsets.

As a person with some reenactment and historical costuming experience I know that while when propperly fitted a corset doesn't have to be uncomfortable - they also kinda suck, by modern standards. Did the required corsetry cause them exacerbated issues with things like breathing or the heat? I simply can't even imagine wearing that much clothing, that tightly fitted in the heat of the American West.

Are there any instances that are known where the women of the Wild West just plain stopped aspiring to the fashion standards of the time because of the restictions of their environment? Or did they really all go about their days in the many many layers required at the time?

I know about the virtues and wonders of natural fibers like wool and linen - and that even wool can be surprisingly cool. But I just can't wrap my head around the LAYERS required for most of the time period of the Wild West for women.