Figure 1.--This American boy wears a fedora, probably about 1905. This is an oval portrait, vertical format with a large greenish-grey frame, which along with the albumen print help to date it. All we know for sure is that the portrait was taken by Stegel Cooper of Chicago. The boy looks about 12-13 years old. He wears a dark suit with knee pants with dark stockings and dark high-top shoes. The homberg was not a common hat for boys, but we do see a number wearing them with suits. He is wearing a knee pants suit. It was much more common at the time for boys to wear flat caps, even with suits.

The fedora is a soft felt hat with a relatively narrow brim. It is less formal than the top hat and homberg which it resembles. The crown is creased lengthwise and pinched in the front on both sides--the center dent. The pinch is the major destinguishing feature separaring fedoras and hombergs. There were various styles of fdora, noemally involving variayions in the width of the brim and how it was worn and the height and pincing of the crown. Similar hats with a C-crown (with an indentation for the head in the top of the crown) are occasionally called fedoras. The term fedora began to be used in the 1890s, although few boys wore them at the time. The fedora came into use as an upper-class clothing accessory. Hats that resemble the soft felt version are often called fedoras even if they are made of straw or twill. We note some boys in the first half of the 20th century. They seem especilly common during the 1940s and 50s. They were a formal style and boys normally wore them when dressing up in suits. Hats were still commonly worn at the time. Today we tend to see those hats as rather old fashioned and worn only by men. But at the time teenagers and even occassionlly pre-teens wore them. They were more common than hombergs. These portraits look a little strange to us as boys in the first half of the 20th century tended to wear juvnile styles that set them off from adults while the fedora was seen as an adult-style.

Created: 4:37 AM 1/12/2008
Last updated: 7:31 PM 3/9/2008