NPR: What Killed Men's Hats?

[jlee562]

I hope this isn't a re-post. Andrew Sullivan had this in his Daily Dish blog right now and it seemed like some here might find it interesting. I myself had never heard this particular hypothesis...it's usually the Kennedy one.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...ign=Feed:+psm-articles/feed+(Per+Square+Mile)

But I am the son of a hat designer. And my father, Allen S. Krulwich, had a different explanation. The president who de-hatted America, he thought, was Dwight Eisenhower.

Here's my dad's logic.

In the 1950s — and this was one of Ike's grand accomplishments — he built a vast highway system across America. Interstates went up everywhere. Cities extended roads, turnpikes, highways, and suburbs appeared around every major city. People, instead of taking a bus, a tram, a train to work, could hop into their new Chevy or Ford and drive.

Before Eisenhower, many more people used public transportation. After Eisenhower, they used a car. That, my father thinks, created the critical Head-To-Roof Difference.

A person of average height standing in a bus, tram or subway car has, roughly, three feet between the top of his head and the roof.

If he chooses to wear a hat, (which depending on the hat can extend his height 3 to 18 inches), there is still lots of room above him. So he keeps his hat on.

Now imagine the same person, sitting in the drivers' seat of his car. The Head-To-Roof distance is much narrower, so narrow that to stay comfortable, a man would feel it proper to remove his hat.

Until cars became the dominant mode of personal transport, there was no architectural reason to take your hat off between home and office. With Dwight Eisenhower's interstate highway system came cars, and cars made hats inconvenient, and for the first time men, crunched by the low ceilings in their automobiles, experimented with hat-removal, and got to like it.

Yes, there may have been other motivations; Kennedy had great hair; so did the Beatles, fashion was changing wildly at the time, but if we are looking for a president to blame — and my father, whose business suffered in the 1960s and 1970s — wanted to blame someone, I'm going to stand with him: I blame Ike, because Ike built the highways that created the cars that lowered the roofs that crushed the hats that changed the fashion that ruined the business that supported the Krulwiches.

 

[DeaconKC]

At 6' 3" I can certainly understand the logic behind that blog. My work hats, except when I am wearing a flat driving cap, go on and off as I am in and out of my car. My SUV has more headroom, but the headrest is an annoyance.

 

[Fletch]

It wasn't cars. Did cars all of a sudden materialize out of nowhere in 1956?

It might have been low-roofed cars.

 

[Dronak]

FWIW, I remember reading that the JFK hypothesis is false, because he did wear a top hat at his inauguration. A quick web search turned up snopes.com's JFK's Hat article, which debunks the myth and includes photos. The NPR article's position seems reasonable thought. As Fletch and the article say, if there wasn't enough room to wear a hat in a car or whatever comfortably because of the low roof, it could induce people to stop wearing hats regularly. I'm kind of glad that for my height and hats, I generally have sufficient room to keep my hat on in my car. It seems a bit close at times, but it fits.

 

[EggHead]

I know the reverse is true. Once I started using public transportation on a regular basis, I started to cover my head. A fedora is the ideal choice for me.

 

[Feraud]

We should keep in mind there is no one factor that killed off fedora wear. There has been discussion around here noting hat manufactuers fretting in the 1920s or 30s (am I remembering the correct decade?) about decreasing hat wear. The expansion of U.S. highways sound like just one more nail in the coffin.

 

[Fletch]

The NPR article's position seems reasonable thought.

Only if you accept a basically "big city" culture as baseline, with a sizable proportion of carless people. This might seem reasonable, because the largest cities commonly preserve more of past culture than smaller ones (and in fact we give them that privilege). But it doesn't really reflect things as they were.

 

[Blackthorn]

I hope this isn't a re-post. Andrew Sullivan had this in his Daily Dish blog right now and it seemed like some here might find it interesting. I myself had never heard this particular hypothesis...it's usually the Kennedy one.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2...ign=Feed:+psm-articles/feed+(Per+Square+Mile)

I think there's something to this, but I also think that central heating helped, as in folks didn't need hats to keep warm as much inside anymore.

I also think the discovery and labeling of "whiplash" contributed. Hats couldn't be worn as much any more with head rests hitting the back of the brim.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Not sure if this may be a small factor, but fashion changes all the time. Recall in the late 1960's everyone had to have bell bottom pants, or you were not in the fashion group...in the 1970's pants got to see "fashion designer pants" be the trend and even levi 501's were not selling as they did at one time. So I sort of think that younger people that did not care for wearing a hat, just got a lil bit older, did not want to buy a fedora and that may have ended things as towards a fedora being a popular part of a man's wardrobe. I think maybe many factors created less popular wearing of a fedora, but look at it now? It is coming back, being more popular and the conditions perhaps that someone may have based as a condition before, still exists. We have cars and highways and headrests....and for me, until I actually observed my very first real hat, a dunlap fedora, I never thought about wearing one or owning one. My Father owned fedora hats, but I was fairly young age of maybe 2 or 3 at the time. So they had no "impact" on me in my life until as a older adult and just seeing one and touching it, made me think, geez, that could look good on me, and well as others here know how that goes, you eventually can't own just one.....haha!

 

[HungaryTom]

1. What killed the Hats? I think it was the usual change of generations the dying out of the old one and the emerging of the new one -" the cultural matrix reloaded".
The 1960s marked the growth of a generation that was becoming teen After WW2.
And as usual they wanted to differentiate themselves from the previous one "the Golden Era" (Blues/Jazz/Swing) ones who had fedoras and suits&ties as their uniform.
Culturally many things originated form the US of America in the 20th century and were imitated globally.
Think of Rock'n Roll Rockabilly, Rock, Metal etc. Which one of them goes with suits???
In Hungary I can only refer to the photos of the Revolution of 1956 - the youngsters are all hatless although a CAR would have been mission impossible for almost everyone... people were dirt poor!!!
My dad told me that at the clinics compund only one or two professors had one car all the rest did walk and kids could easily play on the side streets because apart from trucks and busses there were virtually no vehicles.
But they heard Radio Luxemburg and Radio Free Europe listened to the Rock n Roll and as youngsters wore the rockabilly hairs which were impossible to match with hats.
Kennedy was a statesman of the new generation but it wasn't him that killed the hat neither was it the motorization (think of the T-Model, that was also designed by a Hungarian or so I heard) it was the spirit of the new generation.
It is just like the wide brimmed hats w. feathers disappeared after the 17th century, the three cornered hats went after the 18th the tophats after the 19th and fedoras+porkpies (+ the British coke killed by the British Beat movement) after the 1960s ... don't know when this happens with the baseball caps and what will be their substitutes. And it is definitely not the US president who was the matador to the headwear of the previous fashion wave - it was a King (Rex Elvis Primus - you never saw him in a fedora atop his trademark hair creations) Son now you have a new scapegoat instead of JFK.
Later Artist Icons use(d) the fedora once it died off as a mainstream item so now it is a character piece.

 

[Chuck Naill]

Free baseball caps to advertise surely contributed to not as many wearing brimmed and flat caps. I intend to launch a one man effort to turn back the clock...lol. I was introduced the the flat cap by my grandfather and wore his "big apple" to school and play.

BTW, I told my 11 year old grand daughter about Hatpeople caps. She loved them and so I placed an order for the red and purple tweed/deep cut that Carol said might be shipped out this week. My grand daughers have dozens of berets and newsboy/baker boys hat and use them all the time.

 

[Hal]

1. What killed the Hats?...In Hungary I can only refer to the photos of the Revolution of 1956 - the youngsters are all hatless although a CAR would have been mission impossible for almost everyone... people were dirt poor!!!

...fedoras+porkpies (+ the British coke killed by the British Beat movement) after the 1960s ...

The youngsters in Britain in 1956 would also have all been hatless; the British "coke" (bowler) had died long before the "British Beat" movement. Hats were declining in Britain from the middle 1930s.

 

[mayserwegener]

1. What killed the Hats? I think it was the usual change of generations the dying out of the old one and the emerging of the new one -" the cultural matrix reloaded".
The 1960s marked the growth of a generation that was becoming teen After WW2.
And as usual they wanted to differentiate themselves from the previous one "the Golden Era" (Blues/Jazz/Swing) ones who had fedoras and suits&ties as their uniform.
Culturally many things originated form the US of America in the 20th century and were imitated globally.
Think of Rock'n Roll Rockabilly, Rock, Metal etc. Which one of them goes with suits???
In Hungary I can only refer to the photos of the Revolution of 1956 - the youngsters are all hatless although a CAR would have been mission impossible for almost everyone... people were dirt poor!!!
My dad told me that at the clinics compund only one or two professors had one car all the rest did walk and kids could easily play on the side streets because apart from trucks and busses there were virtually no vehicles.
But they heard Radio Luxemburg and Radio Free Europe listened to the Rock n Roll and as youngsters wore the rockabilly hairs which were impossible to match with hats.
Kennedy was a statesman of the new generation but it wasn't him that killed the hat neither was it the motorization (think of the T-Model, that was also designed by a Hungarian or so I heard) it was the spirit of the new generation.
It is just like the wide brimmed hats w. feathers disappeared after the 17th century, the three cornered hats went after the 18th the tophats after the 19th and fedoras+porkpies (+ the British coke killed by the British Beat movement) after the 1960s ... don't know when this happens with the baseball caps and what will be their substitutes. And it is definitely not the US president who was the matador to the headwear of the previous fashion wave - it was a King (Rex Elvis Primus - you never saw him in a fedora atop his trademark hair creations) Son now you have a new scapegoat instead of JFK.
Later Artist Icons use(d) the fedora once it died off as a mainstream item so now it is a character piece.

I agree that it was mostly a generational thing (counterculture). I do think the auto had some impact in countries where they were more plentiful. The brims became more stingy and crowns lower in the 1960s which was a better fit for autos. By the way I think up to the 30s it was mostly Europe to USA regarding city hat fashion.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Economics of the one size fits all ball cap versus the fitted
Fedora is a big strike against it. Hat wearing is still popular with men it is just that today's society dress style is too far to the casual side of the scale Men don't see the need for a fedora. I get more comments from women saying they wish their husband or boyfriend would wear a nice hat instead of a ball cap. As usuall most men don't pick up on the hint.

 

[David Conwill]

think of the T-Model, that was also designed by a Hungarian or so I heard

Joe Galamb, one of Henry Ford's chief lieutenants in the early days.

Yes, the T started the push toward hatlessness, suburbanization, the death of traditional culture both urban and rural, etcetera, and the Great Depression an WWII put things on hold for a bit. The freeway system accelerated and exacerbated the trend incalculably.

It's an excellent premise.

 

[H Weinstein]

FWIW, I remember reading that the JFK hypothesis is false, because he did wear a top hat at his inauguration. A quick web search turned up snopes.com's JFK's Hat article, which debunks the myth and includes photos. The NPR article's position seems reasonable thought. As Fletch and the article say, if there wasn't enough room to wear a hat in a car or whatever comfortably because of the low roof, it could induce people to stop wearing hats regularly. I'm kind of glad that for my height and hats, I generally have sufficient room to keep my hat on in my car. It seems a bit close at times, but it fits.

And LBJ often wore his Stetson, post-JFK.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I think air conditioning is partly to blame. Thanks to that, you can stand to stay inside, in Alabama and Arizona in the middle of summer. You don't need the hat to shield your ears anymore. A second concept to blame is the hat-check girl. $0.25 a meal daily for a $10.00 hat gets pretty steep really fast.

After reading three of Robert Caro's books on LBJ, I hate to use him as an example for anything, BUTTTTT he did look good in the Open Road clones.

Later

 

[Atticus Finch]

My father and two of my three uncles, all quit wearing hats in the late forties. Family photos abound of them wearing hats before WWII, but not after. All three told me the reason they quit was because they were forced to wear hats or helmets constantly during the war. When they finally left the service, they never wanted to wear a hat again. This explanation always left me feeling a bit puzzled. I have to assume they wore pants and underwear constantly during the war, too.

AF

 

[Fletch]

Building on the ex-servicemen's issue, a hat might have become a marker for balding men, or men too old or unfit for service.

 

[Dan Allen]

If we baby boomers in our youth were at least partly responsible for the decline in hats, then perhaps the apparent comeback of the hat is partly the result of us "older, wiser" boomers. Let's hope that the circle is on it's way to being completed.