Musings: Hats Off to Brown County

~by Mark Blackwell

The weather here in God’s Country (or maybe it should just be God’s County) Indiana is taking a decidedly chilly turn. And for some of us, who suffer from a loss of natural scalp insulation, our thoughts turn to headwear—that is hats and caps. Hats are utilitarian, a fashion statement, and even status symbols; sometimes all three at the same time.

The origin of hats is lost in the mists of history, but I have seen photographs of chimpanzees using large plant leaves for shelter from rain. So, maybe humans were already wearing head gear on our migration out of Africa. And since prehistoric humans spent a lot of time outdoors, a big palm leaf hat would serve to keep the sun off, as well.

Early examples of hat wearing include “Otzi” the 5,000 year old fellow that was discovered in the Austrian Alps in 1991, when the glacier that preserved his body melted. He was found wearing a bearskin hat, which would have been an appropriate choice for hiking in the mountains.

At some point on the timeline of history, somebody decided to distinguish their hat from anybody else’s, so they adorned it with a special crease, hatband, or feather. It got noticed by other folks, who then modified their hats, and that was the beginning of fashion. Humans have used particular styles of hats to identify with the people of their tribe or village or country.

Even in modern times we identify the beret, which is a felted wool or knit flat cap, with the French. However, it probably originated with the Basque people of northern Spain. The sombrero is a practical sunshade and symbol of Mexico. The ubiquitous conical straw hats, like the non la of Viet Nam, are representative of south Asia. And if you want to be singled out as an American, put on a baseball cap.

Men’s hat fashion in this country started with the tricorn of colonial days. Both the military and civilians made use of it but in the back country, folks like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were sporting a different style of headwear: the coonskin hat. But in a few years, and with the introduction of John B. Stetson’s invention of the cowboy hat, the coonskin fell out of favor.

However, in the year 1954, America was reintroduced to Davy Crockett by way of Walt Disney on the new medium of television. This led to a resurgence in the popularity of the coonskin hat. Every kid in the country had to have one. I know I did. I wonder if that was responsible for the decimation of the raccoon population during the mid-1950s.

Until baseball hats became ultra-popular, the cowboy hat was emblematic of the American male. Men in the eastern part of the country were still wearing top hats but I imagine they fell out of favor when hoards of young hooligans made them targets for snowballs. While I can’t say for a fact that this ushered in the popularity of the lower and rounded crown derby hat, I will stick to that theory.

Derby hats were popular from the mid-19th century into the 1930s in this country, and are still seen in England, where they originated as bowlers. In the late 1920s, a new style of hat, one with a lower, creased crown and wider brim, made of softer felt, supplanted the derby. It was called a fedora.

The fedora was originally the title of a play written in 1892 and starred the actress Sarah Bernhardt. She played a character named Princess Fedora and wore a soft, brimmed hat with a creased crown. The play came to the US in 1889 and the style became a hit with women and a symbol of the early women’s rights movement.

In England, Edward, Prince of Wales, started sporting a fedora making it fashionable for men to wear. It became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic due to its ability to shade sun and shed rain, all the while being stylish and comfortable. Most men in the 1930s through the 1950s wore fedoras.

Then in 1960, a young trendsetter, named John F. Kennedy, was seen bare-headed, on national television, being sworn in as president. And that made wearing a hat old hat. The 1980s saw a brief revival of the fedora with the introduction of a movie titled Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the protagonist of the story was a swash-buckling, fedora sporting archaeologist named Indiana Jones.

I have to confess that I am a connoisseur of the fedora, but my first hat was inspired not by an archaeologist, but by a folksinger. Back in 1967 a song came out called “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie. Later in 1969, a movie was made about the song and starred Arlo Guthrie playing himself. He sported a fedora in the movie and I thought it was a great fashion statement. I went down town to a haberdashery and invested five dollars in a preowned fedora, and never looked back .

So, if you find yourself in Brown County wearing a hat, then good for you, and we’re glad you came. If you’re in Nashville and need a hat, we’ve got some dandy hat shops and they’ll be glad you came.