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Show us their hats!

Benzadmiral

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,815
Location
The Swamp
James Joyce (1882 - 1942)

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Joyce looks young and carefree in the first pic. In the second, though, he appears he's trying to remember whether he left the stove on back home.
 

Benzadmiral

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,815
Location
The Swamp
W Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

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There's a story about Dorothy Parker meeting him at a dinner party. Maugham asks her to write a poem for him. Dottie, who was never terribly fond of men of his, uh, "persuasion," whipped out a pen and wrote:

"Higgledy piggledy, my white hen,
"She lays eggs for gentlemen."

Maugham said, "Yes, I've always liked those lines." With a thin cool smile, the story goes, Dottie unhesitatingly penned:

"You cannot persuade her with gun or lariat
"To come across for the proletariat."

(Hat looks cool, though.)
 
Messages
12,384
Location
Albany Oregon
On the event of my 2000th Post, I present to my fellow loungers the Hon. Ben W. Olcott (1872-1952). I found an image of him while researching the Board of Regents for Oregon Agricultural College in 1912. As can be seen in the image below, the guy on the far right of the group of stodgy banker types is a real character. This prompted me to commission a custom hat to match his interesting homburg from Mike at NW Hats. It is only a week or two away from completion, pictures to follow. I will name this hat, "The Olcott"

He was an interesting guy. At the time of the photo, he was the Secretary of State for Oregon (1912-1919) and an ex-officio Regent for OAC. He was appointed Secretary of State by his once room mate, and then Governor Oswalt West. During his time in this office, the current Governor Withycombe (another OAC Grad) died in office and Olcott assumed office. He served until 1922 when he was defeated in a race against the candidate supported by the Oregon Ku Klux Klan. Yes, Oregon had a KKK supported Governor for a few years!!!

Olcott was also a gold prospector in the early century and worked as a gold teller in a bank in Alaska, after a 1000 mile dog sled trek!

After some archival sleuthing, I identified Olcott in the photos below. It turns out that my new hat belonged to a real character of early century Oregon. Mike is creating a reasonable replica of this interesting hat. Happy 2000 to me!

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OAC Regents c1915 Flashy guy.jpg
OAC Regents c1915 Flashy guy hat.jpg
 
Messages
19,465
Location
Funkytown, USA
In honor of Robert E. Lee's birthday today January 19th, 1807 this is Lee's slouch hat worn by him throughout the Civil War, & with his signature inside the sweat. It is on permanent display at the museum at Stratford Hall Plantation, his birthplace.

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Pardon my ignorance, but what makes a "slouch hat" a slouch hat? Is it the design or the bash? If you would show me that hat, and ask, I'd have said it was a campaign hat. This is an area I'm not good at.
 

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