Figure 1.--Here is a good cross section of the hats worn by the boys at this church event. Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, there is not name for these hats. Notice the boy in the lower left corner, unlike the other boys is not wearing his hat. We suspect that because it has such a wide brim he has been told to take it off, perhaps becuse it ,ight cover up his fce or obsure the chilren bhinf him. We see a few boys with wide-brimmed hats, but the narrow- or medium-brims are much more common.

We are not sure what these hats were called at the time. In catalogs we just see them being called hats which is of no help. We note some similarity to a preacher's hat. Catholics use the term padre hat or Capello romano. We have also seen the term planter's hat. We also see the name amish hats being used. These all have flat brims. And we see boys wearing these styles. But many of these hats worn by boys had upturned brims. We also see down-turned brims, but these were much less common. And the brims were mostly narrow or medium width. Wide brims existd, but were mostly worn by younger children n popular in the 18880s-90s. We see some beung wirn with Fauntleroy suits. But this was just a small fraction of the much larger number of narriw- and medium-brim hats. The crows wre generally rojunded or roundish, but we also see fltish crowns, but these were less common than thn the rounded crowns. Perhaps we will find a name for these hats as HBC develops. There should be a name as they were so widely wonn by so many boys for such a long period. We may invnt a name ecause it is a style of such importance.

Created: 3:24 PM 5/15/2016
Last updated: 3:24 PM 5/15/2016<