Figure 1.--This unidentified Birmingham boy wears a classic wide-brimmed straw sailor hat. There appear to be double wide streamers at the back. He looks to be about 8 years old. The portrait was a CDV with a cabinet card style mount which we believe helps date the portrait to the 1880s. Note the badmitton shittlecock and what looks like a padle rather thn a racket. The studio was J. Bradney Cooper in Birmingham.

Many if not most sailor hats had streamers. This was of course because early sailor uniform hats had streamers. Most studio portraits were frontal shots with the boy facing the camera. From the front, however, we do not get see the streamers as most hung off the brim at the back, extensions of the silk ribbon hat bands. Thus the photographic records does not give aood idea of how common streamers were or details about them. The photograph on the previous page is a good example, athough sailor hats with upturned strongly brims often did not have long streamers. Streamers were most common on other sailor headwear and for some reason Scottish headwear. The streamers could be both single and double. The double streamers seem to hve been more common with actual sailor hats as the mariners could reinforce the chin straps to tie the hat on in windy weather. The vboy here is a good example of double streamers, although difficult to mke out. They also varied in width and length. They often had forked, notched endings. They were almost dark, black or perhaps navy blue, even with light colored hats. Streamers became common for girls' hats, presumbly because so mny were derivitives of sailor styles.

Created: 5:15 PM 5/20/2016
Last updated: 5:15 PM 5/20/2016