Figure 1.--Here a boy wears a straw hat made rather like a cowboy hat. The boy is Christopher Randolph, East Hampton, New York, 1952. We know nothing more about him.

Straws hats have been fone in many different styles which means thatvthere is an iverlap with the hat style pages. There is also a very extensive chronology. Straw has been used for headwear simnce ancient times, although we know little about it. We notice Greeks wearing straw hats. We do not notice boys straw hats until (18th century). We nelieve that women wore staw hats (18th centrury), but we do not yet have any evidence of boys wearing straw hats at that time. We are not sure where 18th century straw hats came from. Straw is a material that is used to make hats in several different styles. Straw was used to make hats, but rarely caps. We are not ebntirely sure why. We are not sure when they first appeared, but believe they were largely a 19th century hat. We begin to see younger English boys wearing them after the Napoleonic wars. This coincuded with the independence of South American republics, maeaning they could more freely trade with countries besides Soain and Portugal. We see younger English boys wearing high-quality staw hats. This almost certainly mean that they were comimg from Ecuador (1820s). Examples are the Bean boy (1829) and Henry Elton (1831). We notice American boys wearing straw hats, very basic ones. Large numbers of Americans began sailing arond the Horn and crossing Istmus to get to the Califirnia gold fioelds (1848). This wiuld have brought them in contact with Ecuador and Panama. Thi is when we begin to see the high-qualkity staw hats in Aerica. We note them in the photographic record during the mid-19th century. A early American example is a Daguerreotype of Charles Gatlick which we believe was taken in the late-1840s or early-50s. His straw hat is on the table. We assume that the straw hats worn by American boys were at first made in America. We are not sure when Latin American straw hats first reached America. Gold was discovered in California (1848). We know that Americans were exposed to the hats at this time. Thousands of Americans and Europeans reached California by crossing the Istmus at Panama. As a result, straw hats found their became very popular. They became known as Panama hats even though most were made in Ecuador. Straw hat in the United States became known as Panama hats, in partbecausethe 49ers headed to California encountered them there. We note an unidntified American younger teenager in the 1840s. We notice another unidentified boy about the same time. Another early example is an unidentified Amnerican boy about 1850. A later example is Minnie Tamn, an American boy we believe in the 1870s. We notice several different types of straw hats. They were made with crowns in different shapes and sizes and brims in different wifths. Wide-brimmed sailor hats were commonly made of straw. Boaters weere also made of straw. We notice straw hats done in a variety of other styles as well. One style we have noted is a kind of hat similar to a cowboy hat. These straw cowboy hats were a popular boys' play hat in the 1950s.

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Created: 12:46 AM 9/13/2004
Last updated: 12:40 AM 1/17/2014