Figure 1.-- Here we see a group of boys all dressed up, most with hats instead of caps. We think this is a church sunday school group, in part because they are wearing hats instead of caps. The snapshot is udated, but the hats suggest the 1910s. We think the boy on the bottom left is wearing a peaked cap, but it is a little difficult to tell.

Hats declined in popularity for boys in the 1910s. We see far fewer boys wearing hats than was common in the 19th century. That said we see more hats in the 1900s and 10s than we see subseur\tky uinthe 20th century after World War I. The flat cap in particular became very common for boys. We note wide-brimmed sailor hats with the brim turned down. This is a signature style of the 1910s. Younger boys still wearing hats often wore them with the brim or part of it bent up or dowm. A good example of the hats for youngr children are the Baumgartner children in summer white during 1911. Some hats like boaters had stiff brims that could not be folded down, but we see many hadts with brims that could be folded or bent in various ways. This is adestinctive style that was espcially common during the 1910s. Other hats had more flexible brims that could be worn in many different ways. This was largely a style for children from well-to-do families. And hats tended to be worn for more formal occassions such as going to church on Sunday. The American Boy Scouts adopted the broad-brimmed hat used by the British Scouts and most other Scouts around the world. There were no Scout caps in the 1910s as te Cubs had not yet been organized.

Created: 8:20 AM 10/30/2012
Last updated: 5:40 PM 10/30/2012