Figure 1.---The 'San Framcisco Chronicle' July 3, 1926 carried a photo of Babe Ruth posing for a fan with a box camera. Can you imagine a modern-day sports hero doing this. The Babe led a wild life, but he loved kids. Notice the boy's flat cap.

We see American boys wearing both caps and hats in the 1920s, but caps were clearly dominant. And one style dominated. Boys wore a variety of caps during the 1920s. The flat cap, however, became a universally popular style for boys in the 1910s and this continued after World War I (1914-18) in the 1920s. The snapshot on the previous page is a good indicator of just how popular flat caps were in the 20s. The photograph here is another good example (figure 1). We have noticed a number of different names (newsboy, golf, motoring, and other caps). We note them being worn both casually for play, to school, and for dressy occassions with suits. There were many different stylistic variations to the flat cap. While there were several different cap styles, none were even approached the popularity of the flat cap. While not universal, the flat cap was by far the dominant cap style. Flat caps were more commonly worn with knickers, but we see some older boys wearing long pants, espepecially by the end of the decade. We also see peaked caps like the British school cap. But the peaked cap did not have a school association in America. Another cap style worn was the beanie. After Lindberg solo flight across the Atlantic (1927), aviator-style caps called hemets became popular. And we see berets, but were not very common for boys.

Created: 12:56 AM 10/28/2017
Last updated: 12:56 AM 10/28/2017