Men's Hats, A Thing of the Past?

It has been said that men's hats are a thing of the past, something from a different era, something we'll probably never see again in our lifetimes. Or are they?

Well, you would never know it by looking around today, but until recently all men wore hats in public (women did too but that's for a different article). Check out those 1930s and 1940s baseball games. Not only were the men decked out in stylish men's hats and golfing caps, but they were wearing full suits and ties too.

When's the last time you saw a man in a suit at a ball game? It's been awhile, hasn't it? Look at how far we've fallen in public decorum! Can we not get any more creative than a baseball cap turned backwards, or worse, sideways?

Now consider this, back sixty or seventy years ago, was there an obsession with baldness like there is today? Hint: to find that information you only need to watch a few black and white movies of that era. I've watched a fair number, and I don't recall any comments about a man being or becoming bald. It just wasn't discussed in the movies.

Whether or not it was discussed in public is open for light debate. And yet you know that things haven't changed that drastically.

Again, you see in the movies that when the men take off their hats, a significant number of them were bald or balding. What does that say about our society in general?

So either the men wore hats to hide their baldness, for which there's no indication that it was a bad thing to be, or there were other reasons. I suspect it was to cover over their baldness, to adorn their heads, and to not stand out in a crowd (since everyone else would be wearing one).

For practical reasons, in the winter the men wore the so-called "men's hats" to keep their heads warm. Scientists and doctors tell us that 80% of body heat is lost through the head. Wearing a hat in the winter, while it wouldn't protect the ears, it would keep the body heat from going out the top. Then when summer came men just never removed the hats. But that's a discussion for another day.

In the next article, I'll discuss the various types of men's hats. And still to come is how to buy, care for, and wear men's hats.


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