Thermometers may lie or tell the truth. Why should anybody care? Compared with the poor devils in the stoke room, you are as ice to fire…. A man without a coat on has no business in hotels or restaurants or offices other than his own…. A man in a shirt-waist can’t be anything else than a “slouch.” He will be punished by copious perspirations…. It was the coat that bound him to civilization.
The New York Sun, June 1st, 1901 on the subject of men doffing their suit coats on a hot day in Kansas City (as quoted in Cuff Links, by Jonas and Nissenson)