Figure 1.--This cabinet car shows two boys, presumably brothers, wear boaters. One boy wears ringlet curls with a sailor suit. His ilder brother wears a Norfolk suit. Both boys wear knee pants and long stockings. The photographer is Wm. Nims in Fort Edward, New York. Tghe portrait is not dated, but we would guess wa taken in the 1880s.

We are not sure about the chronology of the boater in America. It was a hat style developed in Britain durung the early-19th century. It was a straw hat and the popularity of straw hats increasred in Ameruica after the California gold rush. The 49ers encountered high-quality straw hats in Panama. They became known as Panama hats although many were woven in Ecuador. We do not see many examples of boatersd in America until after the Civil War (1861-65). We have archived many portraits of boys wearing boaters, but unfortunalry, most are not dated. We have not yet noted the boater in the 1860s, but suspect that this was when the hat first appeared in America. We begin to notice boaters in the photigraphic record in the 1870s. A good example is an unidentified Indiana boy. The portrait is undated, but looks like the 1870s to us. And we notice a Minnesota boy not yet breeched in 1879. We also notice portraits from the 1880s. We see an unidentified Philadelphia boy with a boater in the 1890s. We note boys wearing them at the turn of the 20th century. The 1900s-10s seems to have been the peak of popularity for the boater as a whole. We are less sure about boys. We also notice them in the 1920s, but do not see many boys wearing them by the 20s.

Created: 6:59 AM 2/20/2011
Last updated: 9:37 AM 9/2/2013