Working Men's Hats

[riccardo]

may help!

...i would like to post a picture, but i'm not able to do it...
anyone could help me?

Thanks.

Riccardo

 

[jamespowers]

Check this out, even the down-and-out dressed better than most folks do today:

http://www.nps.gov/ozar/Depression Food Line.JPG

The scary part is that even bums dressed better in those days.

 

[Johnnysan]

...i would like to post a picture, but i'm not able to do it...
anyone could help me?

Thanks.

Riccardo

Buon giorno, Ricardo...

Mr. Powers gave an excellent tutorial on this subject in an earlier thread that helped me post a photo to the Lounge last night. Follow the link below for additional information and look for JP's post dated 03-02-2005:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=2517&highlight=Levines

Complimenti!

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Yes, but did they smell better....?

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t029/T029196A.jpg

karol

 

[jamespowers]

Yes, but did they smell better....?

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t029/T029196A.jpg

karol

Better than some people I have been behind in the check out line.
This guy is a gourmet cook:

Regards to all,

J

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Is that a stove he has or a very large can of sterno?

Can't tell what he is cooking... Looks like a deformed pizza.

karol

 

[jamespowers]

Is that a stove he has or a very large can of sterno?

Can't tell what he is cooking... Looks like a deformed pizza.

karol

I have no idea and I think it is best we don't know---in deference to the possiblity that it could have been someone's pet.

Regards to all,


J

 

[Johnnysan]

Nice photo, Ricardo. My mother is from Verona. I still have family in Padua and Milan and was able to finally meet them five years ago. Italy is a beautiful country and her people are a treasure! I'm very glad that you found the Lounge and joined us! :cheers1:

 

[riccardo]

ppp

llllll

 

[Mojave Jack]

Back then fedoras were the everyday hat and were easy to get ahold of. If you didn't have a hat you weren't dressed.

And a tie (and most likely a suit, as mentioned above). Here's another picture of a soup kitchen during the depression, and all of the men in the line have on ties, too! In particular, note that the man at the front of the line has politely removed his hat while being served.

My wife and I were at the opera some time ago, and I marvelled that over half the men were not wearing ties. One kid was wearing cargo pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

 

[DanielJones]

Great photos Big Man! I can never get enough of the past. Especially seeing the 1930's & 1940's. I never leave the house with out my fedora or Gatsby cap. Seem to feel incomplete without one anymore, and a ball cap just doesnt cut it. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers!

Dan

 

[scotrace]

Raiding shorpy.com.

 

[TopGumby]

The scary part is that even bums dressed better in those days.

The really scary part is the bums weren't bums. I'm sure a lot of those men in the soup line were wearing the same clothes they wore at work before the jobs evaporated.

That's one thing I hope stays in the past.

 

[ET]

Topgumby wrote:

[The really scary part is the bums weren't bums. I'm sure a lot of those men in the soup line were wearing the same clothes they wore at work before the jobs evaporated. 

That's one thing I hope stays in the past./HTML]

Hear, Hear. Without getting political, I am praying that the various bailout initiatives and thought processes by our business and political leaders work the way they are supposed to.

 

[Pat_H]

Fedoras were indeed the everyman hat. A banker might have worn a homburg and a business tycoon might have worn a tophat but all of them wore a fedora at one time or another.
You have to remember that all of these hats originated as "work" hats. The bowler originated as a gamekeepers hat. He wore it when he was running after poachers and it protected his head from low lying branches and brush. The same is true for the tophat and homburg. The tophat was sort of a crash helmet of its time. One would use it because the common belief that they would rather crush their hat in a fall from a horse than their skull.
The tophat, bowler and Homburg were much stiffer at their inception. The first bowlers were ordered from the Locke brothers with the stipulation that an average sized man could stand on it without crushing it! Of course the average sized man then might have been about 120 pounds.
The fedora was always a soft felt hat from 1868 on. Its popularity rose and fell over the years but the first world war made it much more popular than it ever had been before. This was due to a shortage of the flakes used to make stiffener. In those days it was derived from a South American beetle. The shortage caused a shortage in the production of new stiff hats and the fedora took its place as the everyman hat.

Regards to all,

J

That's an interesting bit of history. I've often wondered about the early origins of the Fedora. The earliest examples of photos of the style I've been able to find date from around 1908 or so.

I've never seen the style tracked back as far as 1868. Is that correct? And I was unaware of the odd history of the stiffner, and how WWI gave rise to the style (amongst several other styles the war impacted). Very interesting.

 

[Brinybay]

One of the dive tenders is wearing a hard hat, but the rest appear to be wearing fedoras:

Here the dive tenders are all wearing newsboys:

 

[ebb]

Seemed alot of old moonshiners, and farmers wore fedoras with their overalls here in the mountains.

 

[Midwest Boater]

Seemed alot of old moonshiners, and farmers wore fedoras with their overalls here in the mountains.

Some folks still do even in the cold Michigan winters.

 

[Chinaski]

Looking good, Midwest Boater!

 

[Midwest Boater]

thank you Chinaski its my favorite hat a long haired Borso.