The Non Shorpy Web All Stars.

[The Wiser Hatter]

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

McAlester, Oklahoma. This guy has been sheriff for 30 years. The picture was taken in 1936.

 

[RBH]

Knowleton Plantation, Peerthshire Mississippi 1939
FSA, Photo taken by Marion Post Wolcott

Proprietor of restaurant, Shellpile, New Jersey;
photo by Resettlement Administration staff photographer
Arthur Rothstein in October 1938.

 

[TheDane]

McAlester, Oklahoma. This guy has been sheriff for 30 years. The picture was taken in 1936.

When Tom Joad is reunioned with his family before going to California in Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath", he had just been released from McAlester penitentiary in Oklahoma. Maybe the two were "pals"

 

[g.durand]

McAlester, Oklahoma. This guy has been sheriff for 30 years. The picture was taken in 1936.

The hat is impressive, but the trousers with the extreme rise steal the show.

Ole--my father was raised in north Texas near the Oklahoma state line during the depression. When I was a child we made many visits to see relatives in that part of the world. I saw and listened to conversations between many men who dressed and looked like the sheriff in the photo. If he and Tom Joad were "pals", I can almost imagine the conversations between them, their accents, and their choice of words.

 

[TheDane]

If he and Tom Joad were "pals", I can almost imagine the conversations between them, their accents, and their choice of words.

I bet you can! I've had the pleasure of reading Woody Guthrie's autobiography several times. Most conversations are written more or less phonetic, which gives you a very good notion of mood, ethnicity, etc. of the persons in the dialogue. First time I was around 16 years old and it was a tough job - but my listening to old Moe Ash and John and Alan Lomax wire recordings helped quite a bit! As you know, I have no literary Nobel Price coming soon, but luckily I understand English a lot better than my writing indicates

So many places I have read, sung and played about since I was a kid, that I would love to go and see and experience for my self. Both "down there" and in The Appalachians. Maybe some day, when I get old and rich lol

 

[g.durand]

Ole--a cross-country American road trip by automobile would be the way to go. Take some CDs of those Lomax recordings, also some by Chuck Berry, B.B King, Hank Williams, Bill Monroe and Bob Wills, wear your Stratoliner or Open Road, and you would have the ingredients for a fine journey. For a writer who captures the speech patterns of the residents of American southwest, read the Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain) by Cormac McCarthy.

When I get old and rich I will visit my friends in Oslo, with a side trip to Copenhagen.

 

[fedoracentric]

The hat is impressive, but the trousers with the extreme rise steal the show.

Of course, the reason for that is summed up in one word: suspenders.

Right around the 1900s or so, pants started having belt loops more often and with belts, pant waists started falling to where we wear them today. But in the old days, before belt loops became pervasive, people kept pants up with suspenders and your natural waist is around your belly button, not you lower hips. Suspenders don't work well if they have to go all the way down to your hips. They work best with pant waists that come up much higher because if they are lower they pull too much when you sit and pop buttons or become unclipped if they aren't button-style. So, this guy was likely born in the 1870s or 80s or so and would have lived his formative years when people get their "fashion" sense in the days before many people used belts on pants. Hence the high waist and suspenders.

 

[TheDane]

g.durand: Along with some other bluegrass and old time playing Danes my oldest and closest friend went on such a trip back in the early 80s ... bought a bus in one end and sold it in the other. He met a sweet girl in Nashville and has lived there ever since - now running a small embossing and hot foil stamping company there

I did a fast check, and Cormac McCarthy is now on top of my to-do list. Very interesting, thanks!

When we in a far off future get old and rich, we should get in touch and coordinate. I'd love to show you around Copenhagen. I know lots of great little places (as in "bars"), where Waldorf & Statler and their matching Cadet Blue Strats would be heavily applauded

 

[g.durand]

When we in a far off future get old and rich, we should get in touch and coordinate. I'd love to show you around Copenhagen. I know lots of great little places (as in "bars"), where Waldorf & Statler and their matching Cadet Blue Strats would be heavily applauded

That sounds like fine plan.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

 

[TheDane]

Great and impressive hat. You'd better behave in his town! :eeek:

 

[RBH]

Distributing surplus commodities, St. Johns, Arizona (October 1940)

1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike, Shelton Dick

 

[TheDane]

Luton police force wearing their summer straw helmets at the 1911 by election with Cecil Harmsworth, left of centre, the new Liberal MP.

 

[RBH]

Clyde Barrow and sister Marie, 1933

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Luton police force wearing their summer straw helmets at the 1911 by election with Cecil Harmsworth, left of centre, the new Liberal MP.

Luton's finest sporting straw helmets is fitting in that Luton was, and still is, the centre of Britain's hatmaking industry, particularly straw hats. Also one of my neighbours is from Luton. The view appears to be the junction of George Street and New Bedford Road near the Town Hall looking north. Much of George Street where the photo was taken is now a pedestrian mall.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Now and Then news pictures.
Feb 16th 1958 fire at 137 Wooster street Manhattan.
http://www.marchermann.com/dnthenandnow/

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Jack Lord Hat Store Display Louisville,Ky. 11/25/1944

 

[TheDane]

Luton was, and still is, the centre of Britain's hatmaking industry, particularly straw hats.

Exactly! I didn't realize the industry was that enormous, but found out last night. I came across this - probably abandonned - site on the subject. This quote really surprised me:

"Hat making reached its peak in Luton in the 1870s. The 1871 census shows that out of a total population of 17,316 living in the township of Luton, 5615 men women and children were employed in plaiting, hat making and allied trades".

This one tells the same history, but has an amusing twist:

"A petition presented to parliament in 1689, against a bill which would require people to wear woollen headwear, claimed that over 14,000 people living in and around Luton and Dunstable, earned their living from the making of straw hats".

The 1922 Straw Hat Riot in NY was obviously not the first time people fought over felt contra straw

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Some of the bobbies seen in the image would no doubt do battle on that very street a few years later in the Peace Day Riots of July 1919 when war veterans rioted over joblessness and other grievances. The old Luton Town Hall, built in 1846 and also seen in the pic, was burned down during the riot.