The forgotten age of the hat

Since discovering YouTube and other online video platforms in the past decade or so, early cinematography has become a guilty pleasure of mine. The early experimental kinetoscope recordings from Thomas Edison and W.K.L. Dickson in the early 1890s are, of course, fascinating technological achievements, but the real fun begins with the recordings of visitors walking through the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and, better yet, efforts by the Lumière brothers, pioneers of practical cinematography with their Cinématographe, in 1895 and 1896.

Those belong to a genre of films known as “actualities”—short, documentary-like motion pictures showing ordinary life: people leaving factories, crowds on streets, trains arriving, or bathers at the seaside. These were only 30–60 seconds long but were astonishing to audiences seeing motion pictures for the first time.

I find it fascinating to watch those people who were less likely to be literate, more likely to be riddled with parasites, managed to survive without antibiotics and were living on the cutting edge of exciting new technologies–electricity and indoor plumbing.

What amazes me is not how different they are, but how much they walk and behave like us. They are us, but with the noticeable exception that they were often well-dressed by today’s standards and always, always wore hats. Everyone wore a hat outdoors. Men, women, children—nearly 100 percent.

Part of the reason was simple practicality. People spent far more time outdoors than we do today, walking, riding horses or working in the open air. Streets were dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet weather and sunlight or cold could be constant companions. A hat protected the head from sun, rain and grime while also helping keep hair reasonably tidy at a time when daily bathing was less common.

Custom reinforced the habit. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, appearing outdoors bareheaded was often considered improper. A hat was essentially part of being fully dressed, much as shoes are today. An entire language of manners developed around them. A man removed his hat indoors, tipped it in greeting and sometimes offered only a brief touch of the brim as a polite acknowledgment. Those small non-verbal gestures carried subtle meaning, conveying respect–or not.

Most people did not own large numbers of hats. A working man often had a durable everyday hat for work and errands and a better one reserved for church or formal occasions. Women’s hats served practical purposes as well, but they were more closely tied to fashion. A single hat might be retrimmed with ribbons, flowers or other decorations so that it could appear new from season to season.

The habit began to fade in the mid-20th century. As automobiles became enclosed and climate-controlled, people spent less time exposed to the elements. Social customs relaxed after World War II, and by the 1960s, it was no longer expected that a man would wear a hat with a suit. The gradual abandonment of everyday hat-wearing even allowed automobile designers to adopt the lower, sleeker rooflines that became a hallmark of postwar styling.

By the late 1960s, hats had largely disappeared from everyday dress in the United States, surviving mainly in specialized roles—cowboy hats in the West (though oversold by Hollywood and less ubiquitous in reality), hard hats in construction, caps in sports and seasonal fashion for women.

Like many everyday habits, it disappeared so gradually that no one quite noticed at the time. Only when we watch those early films do we realize just how universal the hat once was.