Figure 1.--This family snapshot is undated. It coild be the late-1910s, but looks more like the early-1920s to us. We are not sure nit sure what the hat the first girl is called. The dealer calledit a daisy hat, bcause of the docrative daisy. Byt we are not sure that was the proper name. Nor are we sure about the headeerar of the second girl Could it be a dust cap? Hopefull readers will know more about these garments. The boy is wearing a flat cap which has many other names.

Headwear began to become plainer and less common, however, in the 20th century, especially after World War I in the 1920s. We still see more headwear in the 20s than is common today, especially when dressing up like the girls on the previous page dressed for church, but they headwear is much less elaborate than we see at the beginning of the century. Here the process of less elaborate headwear was only beginning. A complication here was religion. It was still proper for women to cover their hair in Church. We notice girls wearing a wide range of hats. The styles varied over time, but many styles were variation on sailor wide-brimmed hats. We see some destinctive styles. The most destinctive, virtually an icon of the decade, is the cloche hat--with a helmet look. We continue to see bonnets. We also notice a soft hat, but the brim was usually folded up. A reader refers to a daisy hat, but we do not think that was the actual name. We also notice girls wearing berets, usually called tams, in the first half of the 20th century. They appeared, but did not become especially pronounced until the 1920s. The berets were common earlier in Britain. Unlike France, only very young boys wore berets in America. Perhaps coincident with bobbed hair we sudendly see the helmet-like cloche cap. They were hats with small or non-exisent brims. Group pitures in the 1920s show women and girls wearing these hats and the boys wearing flat caps.

Created: 12:35 AM 6/1/20206
Last updated: 12:35 AM 6/1/2020