Figure 1.--This unidntified boy wears straw broad-brimmed hat with a medium length brim. The portrait look to have been taken in the 1870s. The studio was Loomis in Fredonia, Kansas. Fredonia wa only laid out a few year earlier, but already hd a photograpohic sudio.

We see these broad-brimmed hats in the late-19th through the early-20th centuries. We have just begun to work on the chronological trends. They seem to have appeared in the 1870s, but were not very common. We do not see the really wide-brimmed styles in the 70s. And this needs to be confirmed. We mostly see broad-brimmed hats in the 1880s and 90s. Catalogs are harder to use for hats, but the phoographic record clearly hows these hats as being worn in the 1880s and 90s. The example on the previous page looks to be from the 1880s. Broad-brimmed hats were worn of the most popular dressy styles for younger boys during these two decades. We continue to see them in the early-1900s, but to a lesser extent and fter 1910 with more narrow brims.

The 1850s

Gold was dicovered in California (1848). Large numbers of Americans immediately headed for California. There was not yet a rail connection. The fastes route was by sea. There were two routes, one around the Horn and another across the Istmus of Pananam. It was here that amy Americans came in contact with high-quality straw hats. As this was primarily in Panama, they became known as Panama hats even though they were made in Ecuador. Really wuse brimmed hats were not possible in felt, but they were in straw. We don't see boys wearing the wide-brimmed hats, however, until the 1870s.

The 1870s

Broad-brimmed hats seem to have appeared in the 1870s, but were not very common. We do not see the really wide-brimmed styles in the 70s. And this needs to be confirmed. The boy here is a good example (figure 1).

The 1880s

We mostly see broad-brimmed hats beggining in the 1880s. Catalogs are harder to use for hats, but the phoographic record clearly hows these hats as being worn in the 1880s. The example on the previous page looks to be from the 1880s. Broad-brimmed hats were worn of the most popular dressy styles for younger boys during the 1880s and 90s. There were so many styles worn, they were far from universak, but se see quite a number of them. They are often associated with the popular new Fauntleroy style, but they were worn with other outfits and actully even with Fauntleroy suits many other styles of headwear were worn.

The 1890s

Boys clothing in the 1890s was very similar to the late-1880s. The two decades are often difficult to distinguish. The only major cahnge we notice is that by the late-1890s, fewer boys were wearing skirted garments except for tunics. The popularity and conventioins for wide-brimmed hats seem very similar. A good example is 3 1/2 year old Virginia boy, Dudley McDaniels Diggs in 1890. He has a flat-topped broad brimmed hat with streamers.

The 1900s

We continue to see broad-brimmed hats in the 1900s, especaiily the early-1900s. They were less prevalent especially by the mid-1900s and we see increasingly younger boys wearing them. They were worn wih Fauntleroy suits and sailor suits. The Fauntldroy suits were going out of style, but sailor suits were stil very popular. And they were also worn with tunic suits that became very popular at the turn-of the 20th century. It became part of the Buster Broen suit style. There were other suit styles, but we mostly see broad brimmed hats with sailor suits and Buster Brown outfits--meaning tunic suits. This was the case throughout the decade. This meant boys up to about 8 years of age. This was the last decade in which boys commonly wore broad-brimmed hats when dressing up. After the 1900s, caps became increasingly important for both young and older boys. Social class was a factor here. Thus was not a style worn by working-class boys, but boys from if not necesarily well-to-do familes, those in ciomfortable circumstances.

The 1910s

We see broad brimmed hats to a much lesser extent after 1910, but we still some. Often paired wuith tunic suits that were still popular during the decade. And the ones we see have more narrow brims. We also see some woth partially up-turned brims, but this seems more common in Europe than America.

Created: 2:29 AM 1/17/2014
Last updated: 7:03 PM 9/7/2019