Figure 1.--Here we see a group of unidentyified British children pn a ship. It looks to be some kind of merchsbt vessel carrying a few passangers. The boys are wearing floppy sun hats. The photogtaph is undated but looks like the 1950s to us. We suspect that they are headed to or from a tropical country.

We are not entirely sure about the chronology. We aee still working on this. Adults began weraring bucket hats looking like the floppy sun hat about the turn-of-the 20th century. We do not see boys wearing them until after World War I in the inter-War era. The examples we gave found of English boys weraring them come primarily from a narrow period, the Wprld War I decade, the inter-war era, and after World War II (1910s-50s). This is just a guess ar this point. The firstexamples we see are boys wearing eraly versioins of these hats with suits, done in matching fabric. In the unterwar era, we see these hats being worn more informally andf often dome in whute. Many of the umages we have archived are difficult to date precisely. The image here of the children in the ship looks like the 1950s to us, but we are not at all sure. British merchnt vessels often had a few cabins for fee paying passengers. The passage cost a lot less than a berth on passanger liners. Our archive is still fairly limited wuth only a few images of these floppy sun hats and not all are dated. We are not yet sure about the 1960s.

Created: 12:04 PM 3/9/2019
Last updated: 7:36 PM 5/25/2021