Figure 1.--Both boys here wear straw boaters. Notice the hat bands. While the boys are dressed alike, the younger boy still has ringlet curls. The portrait is undated, but was probably taken iabout 1890.

We note American boys wearing many different styles of caps and hats. The basic difference is the brim. A hat has a full brim while a cap has only a partial brim. We do not have much information on 18th century styles, but we have a good bit of information about 19th and 20th century styles. We notice boys wearing sailor hats, but no other hat style was especially common for boys. Several hat styles were worn over time. Some boys wore rather adult styles like vowlers while others wore the more juvenile sailor hats. No hat style was nearly as common as the different cap styles. Hats seem some what more common for upper class families, but this destinction does not seem as prominant as is the case for adults. American boys wore the same hat styles as worn in Europe. The one destinctive style was the cowboy hat.

Boaters

A boater is a summer hat normally made in straw. They are also called bashers and skimmers. I am not entirely sure of its origins, but may have been originally a Royal Navy style. This explains the name. There is a definite association with sailing and boating. The boater is a hat with a medium width brim and flat crown. It can be worn with a colorful ribbon band. In England boys wore it as a school cap and the hat band would be done in the school ci=olors. This was less common in Anerica. We see American boys wearing straw boaters. It was not a major style for American boys, but we do see some wearing them. I am assuming it wasa style imported from England, but am not yet positive about this. We are not sure about the chronology. We note straw boaters in the 1870s, but they may have appeared earlier. We note boys wearing them at the turn of the 20th century. The 1900s-10s seems to have been the peak of popularity. We also notice them in the 1920s, but do not see many boys wearing them by the 20s.

Bowlers

The origins of some hats is difficult to ascertain with any surity. The origin of the bowler or derby, however, is well established. The bowler is a hard felt hat with a pronounced rounded crown--roughly half of a circle. It was created for Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester in 1850. It was a kind of early helmet, although different therories exist as for its purpose. Some suggest it was to protect horsenack riders from low hanging tree branches. Other believe it was to protect game keepers being attacked by poachers. The term bowler came into use because of the name of the hatmakers who got the first contract (Thomas and William Bowler). They called it the "iron hat", but bowler caught on. In Britain it became identified with butlers and male personal servants as well as professional men (bankers and civil servants). It was more widely worn in America. It was a hat style that seemed to stand between the formality of the top hat (commonly associated with the wealthy) and casual nature flat caps of the the working classes. It was primarily an adult style. Some boys in the late 19th century wore rather adult styles like bowlers. We note some boys after about age 10 wearing bowlers. Families varied. Most chose more juvenile styles for boys, but we see some fairly young boys wearing adult-looking bowlers. It seems rsather strange today, but apprently was quite accepted at the time. We are not entirely sure about the social-class conventions involved.

Figure 2.--This boy sporting a cowbot hat, probably in the 1920s or early 1930 is riding his tricycle in his suburban community.

Cowboy Hats

American boys wore the same hat styles as worn in Europe. The one destinctive style was the cowboy hat. The cowboy hat as we know it today seems to have appeared in the 1860s. This is the same time as the Civil War and may have evolved out of the uniforms of calvary units. The classic cowboy hat was made by the Stetson company. This American classic is now rarely seen except in some of the Western states. American boys now only want to wear baseball caps.

Derby

The bowler hat in both England and America is sometimes called a derby. As far as we know this is the different term for the same hat.

Fedora

The fedora is a soft felt hat with a relatively narrow brim. The crown is creased lengthwise and pinched in the front on both sides. The pinch is the major difference between the fedora and homberg. There were various styles of fdora, noemally involving variayions in the width of the brim and how it was worn and the height and pincing of the crown. Similar hats with a C-crown (with an indentation for the head in the top of the crown) are occasionally called fedoras. The term fedora began to be used in the 1890s, although few boys wore them at the time. The fedora came into use as an upper-class clothing accessory. Hats that resemble the soft felt version are often called fedoras even if they are made of straw or twill. We note some boys in the first half of the 20th century. They seem especilly common during the 1940s and 50s. They were a formal style and boys normally wore them when dressing up in suits. Hats were still commonly worn at the time. Today we tend to see those hats as rather old fashioned and worn only by men. But at the time teenagers and even occassionlly pre-teens wore them.

High-side Hats

This us another hat style that we do not know the proper name for. We can only describe and the main feature and add more detailed information as our archive expands. Hopefully HNC readers sill knoiw more. The major feature is the high stiff, vertical sides. It was not a high-top hat that were worn by men in the 1850s-70s, but there are destinctive vertical sides, quite destinct from the much more popular rounded-crown hats. We do not know how popular this hat was, but we have not not notice it very commnly in the photographic record. We also do not know the chronology of these hats, but notice one boy holding an exanple in 1865. Nor do we know the age conventions. The boy holding the example us about 10 years old.

Homberg

The homberg is a formal, stiff felt dress hat, only slightly less formal than a top hat. The homberg can be done in fur. The basic feature of the homburg is a crease running down the full length of the crown--the center dent. The hats varied, both th crown and brim. The crowns varied in height. The brims varied in size and some were sharply curled and bownd. The slightly turned up brim all the way around is a another feature that can distunguish the homberg from the fedora. heir commonly was a leather sweat band. The homberg is similar to the fedora, but lacks the pinces commonly associated with the fedora. Yje homberg origibated in Germany. The homberg was popularized in the 19th Century when the future Edward VII when he brought the hat back to England after a visit from Bad Homburg in Hessen (Germany). The homberg can be done in various colors, especially black, grey, and brown. Some Americans see the homberg as gangter hat--the Godfather hat. These hats tend to have an especially wide brim with the brim more sharply turned up at the sides. This may be more of a Hollywood style than an actual gangster hat. This is not a style we very often see boys wearing. We do notice a few examples of boys wearing himbergs, mostly upper-class boys.

Figure 3.-- We notice many American boys in the mid-19th century wearing a rounded crown hat with relatively narrow brims. There were many variations. In this case the crown is only semi-rounded. This tin-type looks to have been taken in the 1860s.

Rounded Crown Hat

We notice many American boys in the mid-19th century wearing a rounded crown hat with relatively narrow brims. We are not sure just what we should cll these hats. Period catalogs generally just refer to hats without any specific names. They were made in many different varitions. The two basic types of rounded-crown hats are hard and soft crown hats. The soft rounded-crown hats look rather like caps, but as they have brims all around they are actually hats. The crown could be arched to vary extents. Some were almost flat. Most were clearly rounded. The brims varied in size, but were mostly quite narrow. I think the origins of the hats may have been sailior hats, in part because they appeared at about the same time the sailor style began to be worn by boys. I don't think they were preceived at the time as a sailor hat, although we have been able to find very little written information about these hats. We notice many boys with these hats in studio portraits. They were also commonly worn to school. Various mterials are used for these caps and this varied depending on the type.

Figure 4.--This boy wears a wide-brimmed sailor hat in the early 20th century. Notice the teddy and velvet collar trim.

Sailor Hats

While the wide-brimmed sailor hat may have originated in England and appeared later in America, it was enormously popular in the 1880s-1900s. We notice many American boys wearing sailor hats. It was a hat style specifically for children. Both boys and girls wore them. No other hat style was especially common for younger boys. There were many cap styles specifically for boys, but hat styles wee somewhay less common. Several hat styles were worn over time, but the most common was a wide-brimmed style mostly worn by younger boys. There were variations in styles of these sailor hats, both the brim and the crown. Some of the brims were very large. For some reason the younger boys seem to have had the hats with the largest brims. They were commonly made with chin straps abnd streamers. They were often worn with sailor suits, but were also worn with mny other juvenile styles.

Soft Hats

We have seen a number of boys wearing these hats. We are not entirely sure about the name "soft hats". But it seems a general category that should be mentioned. There may have been others terms used. These are hats without a shaped crown, but rather has a rather crumpled look. This gives them a rather informal appearance that does not look quite right with a suit, at least to ourvmodern eyes. We are nor sure about the chronology here. We have not yet found examples from the19th century. We do note them in the early 20th century. Boys wearing knicker suits are commonly seen with flat caps. Soft hats were much less common, but we do see them. So far we have noted them in the 1900s-20, but do not se them in the 1930s.

Straw Hats

Straw is a material of course rather than a style. We see them being done in various styles. Two of the most important are boaters and bro-brimmed sailor hats. We note styles like rounded crown and fklat-top hats. All of these styles are essentially versions of sailor inspired hats. We are entirely sure when straw hats first became widely worm in America. Wecsuspect it was in the 1850s after the Califotrnia Gold Rush. Many Americans traveled to California through Panama. Some straw hats were called Pamamas. (Actually the hats mostly came from Ecuador and Peru.) We do not have mamny images from the 50s and 60s of straw hats, but we notice them in the 1870s. A good example is an unidentified boy.

Sun Hats

This is one of several hats that we are not entirely sure what to call. For now we will call them sun hats. Perhaps a HBC reader will have some idea of the correct name for these hats. They were made in different materials, but not staw. We note both both soft hats that could be folded off as well as hats with stiffer crowns. We see boys wearing them with both the brims down and up. We are mot entirely sure about the chronology of these hats, but seem to see them in America mostly in the early 20th century. They were usually light-colored hats, but se see a few dark hats as well. We see boys wearing these hats mostly during the summer which is one reason we call them sun hats, but we note a few photographs of boys wearing them with cats as well.

Created: 3:53 PM 12/1/2006
Last updated: 2:07 AM 10/5/2008