Hatless Future: Self-Fulfilled Prophecy?

[Sefton]

My father is one of those who didn't go for hats either back when. He's in his mid 70s now and I don't think I ever saw him wear any kind of hat in the 1970's or 1980's. He wears a ball cap now (still has all his hair--more than me!). He's also a lifelong Jazz fan although the stingy/porkpie look didn't appeal to him I guess. feltfan has a good point about the counter culture/hippies. I grew up in San Francisco in the 70's and the only people that I saw wearing fedoras were old men or young hippies. Now those old men are gone and the hippies are old. The fedora never dies!

 

[Feraud]

Just dropping a line in here to once again recommend the book Hatless Jack.

The peak of hat manufacture in the United States was, if I remember correctly, 1913. The decline curve was pretty much steady thereafter.
College footballer Studly Heartbreak types in the 1920's often went hatless and were copied.
The hat industry was in a very sorry state of panic before JFK arrived. He reflected the tastes of his generation by not usually going out in a fedora - he did not kill it (and he DID wear a top hat for his inaugural).
Hat wearing went from mandatory and rule-saturated to sparse and mostly without symbolism throught the 20th century. It reflected an overall trend toward casual attire and a slow shedding of the conformity of the past.

Yes!
Hatless Jack should be required reading for all Lounge members.

 

[Haversack]

Art Fawcett wrote: "Heck, our fathers were one of the first generations to rebel, not us boomers."

Although it is not much taught nowadays, but there were multiple instances right after the Second World War of returning GIs who had taken all the US propaganda about fighting for democracy to heart, and who confronted corrupt city and county governments across the South. In at least one instance, in Athens, Tennesse, they took up arms against the county sheriff to rescue the ballot boxes which had been removed from the polling places before voting was finished. Although requested, the state refused to send in the National Guard to support the sheriff and the county government because of fears that the NG would side with the veterans and they didn't want the revolt to spread to other counties.

As a much less significant example, but one with a relation to headgear, my mother, who was in college in the early 1950s, told me about how a lot of the university's traditions and pecking orders went by the wayside with all the WWII and Korean War veterans entering college on the GI Bill. One of these traditions was that all freshman males had to wear beanies. That one died a very quick death. Similarly, the fraternities revised many of their hazing practices when their pledges began to have places like Iwo Jima and Chosen Reservoir in their resumes. Of course, as the number of entering combat veterans decreased, many of these practices crept back in for another generation of veterans to remove.

Historically, pretty much all nations have problems or go through significant social change after a major war due to the returning ex-soldiers with their acquired skills and adjusted attitudes. In earlier years this would often take the form of increased bandit gang activity. Sometimes political movements are formed. Sometimes a shift in the arts and culture. Sometimes all of these and more. Both Beatniks and Bikers have their roots in WWII and Korean War veterans.

Haversack.