Best of History Guy: Hats

foreign requests I get here at the history guys to talk more about the history guys hats that are in the back of these episodes yes this is my office and that is my hat collection now many of my YouTube fans know that I also have a page on patreon and each month I provide a piece of exclusive content on patreon and since May that has been a monthly series on the history guys hats and over the course of the next two weeks we're going to be repackaging some of those episodes for the YouTube audience if you enjoyed the episode please consider becoming a subscriber this is a pressed fiber Sun helmet made by the international Hat Company in 1944 the Press fiber Sun helmet has been in constant U.S service since 1934 making it the longest use helmet design of the United States military and the history that the Press fiber Sun helmet represents is history that deserves to be remembered officially designated the helmet Sun rigid fiber the Press fiber helmet is not a ballistic helmet it's not designed to protect your head from fragnol but from Sun and rain it is distinctive for the Simplicity of its design being stamped from a single piece making it both easier to make waterproof and simple to manufacture the resin impregnated fibers covered with cloth maintain their rigid shape and the helmet is not prone to warping and the origins of the design come from a 20th century military Adventure that Americans seem to have largely forgotten in 1915 there was an uprising in Haiti that led to the execution of President Wilburn Guillaume Sam Sam was president during a turbulent time in Haiti that had seen five different presidents in five years as a result of cm's execution President Woodrow Wilson ordered American troops to seize the capital Wilson Justified the action as a move to restore order although he was crassly protecting U.S business interests Wilson was also concerned with preventing Germany from exploiting the chaos to establish a foothold in the Americas the troops sent were Marines from the USS Connecticut led by one of the most decorated Marines in U.S history Smedley Butler who earned the second of his two Medals of Honor for assaulting a fortification in that action Butler would later publish words highly critical of U.S actions in Haiti and elsewhere arguing that war is a racket What followed was an 18-year highly criticized U.S occupation of Haiti that largely served U.S commercial interests and included two significant uprisings called the Caicos Wars the period has been called America's black Vietnam over the course of the occupation the United States Marine Corps Not only was busy fighting Rebels but also reorganizing the Haitian military it was in this tropical service that the U.S marine officers started adopting the use of british-made pith helmets which unlike the standard U.S campaign hat maintained their shape in tropical conditions the U.S had no comparable headgear for tropical climates and the United States Marine Corps was looking for something that would be similar but less expensive than the relatively expensive British pet helmet the Press fiber helmet was invented by Jesse Barnum Hawley who owned the Holly Products company and patented a number of inventions using pressed fibers although the Marines were using a version of the helmet as early as 1934 Holly did not patent his design which uses a die to stamp the helmet from a single piece until 1935. the Hat was also marketed to civilians notably the Boy Scouts while some people might call this a pith helmet it's not a pith helmet is literally made from tree pith usually cork with sections pieced together that allows a helmet that is lightweight but retains its rigid shape the Press fiber helmet includes no pip and it's made from a single piece not pieced together like a pith helmet but is clearly designed to look like a pith helmet these lines here are purely decorative but they represent where the pieces of a pith helmet would go together this knob on the top represents what would be the vent on a pith helmet in the Press fiber helmet even has a fake pogery that's this thing here which would have been a scarf that was originally tied around a pith helmet so that the back of the scarf could protect the back of the wearer's neck and you can tell whether a press fiber helmet was made by the Holley company or whether it was made by the international hat company based on the number of fake folds in the fake puggery hundreds of thousands of press fiber helmets were made by the two companies during the second World War the Press fiber helmet has another unique connection to history this time during the Cold War in March of 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put on trial for violations of the Espionage Act Julius Rosenberg was purportedly the leader of a Soviet spy ring that had provided the Soviet Union with classified material regarding the U.S nuclear program they were convicted and sentenced to death executed by electric chair in 1953. the trial was one of the most controversial in U.S history with criticism of the trial both in the U.S and abroad Pope Pius XII personally appealed to U.S president Dwight Eisenhower for clemency the rosenbergs were the only two American civilians to be executed for Espionage related activity during the Cold War one of the members of the prosecution team in the Rosenberg trial was Miles Lane who was at the time the chief assistant U.S attorney for the southern district of New York Lane had a rather lengthy legal career as a private attorney U.S attorney and judge he was a tireless crime fighter who was a U.S attorney brought tax evasion charges against notorious Crime Boss Frank Costello as a member of a New York investigative committee he investigated narcotics problems School building safety Hospital abuses underworld issues and a scandal involving bid rigging for the New York City purchase of rock salt he eventually served on the New York Supreme Court where he wrote a famous opinion arguing that rampant crime Justified the keeping of dogs Even If a landlord prohibited that became known as the dog case but miles Lane was known for more than his legal career he was a famous professional Sportsman he had been a player on the 1929 Boston Bruins hockey team that had won the Stanley Cup in fact he owed his law career to football because he paid for law school by working as a football coach including a year as the head coach at Boston University that was something he was able to do because he himself had been an All-American football player at Dartmouth University between 1925 and 1928 he led the nation in scoring his freshman year at Dartmouth University the Dartmouth Indians were undefeated and outscored their Rivals by a whopping 340-29 all part of their use of the new and still controversial practice of the forward pass it was all part of a wide open offense that their head coach had developed when he was previously head coach at the University of Iowa that head coach of the PowerHouse Dartmouth Indians who had a stretch between 1923 and 1926 of a stunning 22 games without a loss was a Dartmouth alumnus and also a businessman and inventor his name Jesse Hawley also of course the inventor of the Pressed fiber son helmet the Press fiber somehow but went into service in the 1930s even earlier than the iconic M1 helmet but what is most startling is that the Press fiber Sun helmet has been in continuous service ever since still in use today nearly 80 years after it was first accepted in this service it was made in the hundreds of thousands during the second world war has been used by every branch of the military and is still an active service today where it is worn by instructors on Marine Corps Rifle rages the Press fiber Sun helmet is a window into history [Music] one of the reasons that I love being the history guy is that we have some really great fans and sometimes those fans will send us stuff in the mail that's really spectacular interesting pieces of history in a couple of months ago some fans sent us a hat collection that had belonged to their late father and we very much appreciate when people send us in things like that for us to take care of it shows that you have a lot of faith in us the history guy to take care of family artifacts like that and this collection included quite a number of interesting hats including some Navy hats but it also included this box here and I was very excited when I saw this box because I knew exactly what was in here and I really wanted to see it because each one of these is always just interesting and spectacular because this is of course a lodge hat now an American we might think of these hats as sort of silly we associate these kind of hats with fraternal lodges and this particular hat would come from the Shriners International and to tell you the truth and it's a very spectacular hat indeed it's probably intended to be a bit silly in that the Shriners International is a fraternal organization that is dedicated to fun and fellowship and I think the hats are really intended to emphasize the fun part of that but you might be surprised to find out that this hat which is used in such a way in the United States actually has quite an interesting and important history a history that deserves to be remembered this type of hack can generally be described as a peakless cylinder with a flat top and a tassel well there's been some variance in shape size and length and some disagreement over whether several similar designs are the same type of hat let's start with the name which you probably know as Fez most likely although not completely certain the name comes from the city of Fez Morocco Morocco's second largest city was the capital the kingdom of Morocco from its foundation in the 8th or 9th century until 1927. the name Fez is actually derived from the Arabic word for pickaxe as the founder of the city Idris the first of Morocco was supposed to have drawn the lines of the city with a silver and gold pickaxe but the hats association with the city purportedly comes from berries the story is that Crimson colored berries from Fez were used to make the dye to dye the hats red and that so Associated the Hat with the city that the Hat took the city's name that being said a fez does not have to be red and they do come in different colors the traditional name of the hat is tarbush which is derived from ancient Persian and roughly means head cover the original origin of the hat is unclear possibly because the design is so simple it might have originated in Morocco but other theories include ancient Greece or the Balkans it possibly originated as a head covering over which a turban would be wrapped there are many similar types of head coverings used throughout the world for that purpose and as the foundation of a turbine this type of hat has largely though obviously not exclusively been associated with Islam but for Muslims the tarbush has an advantage in that not only can it be the basis for a wrapped turban but with no peak or brim it covers the head but allows the person to lower their head to the ground during prayers it's partly the basis of the popularity and political history of the Hat starting in the 19th century with an important connection with the influential 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Mahmoud II Mahmoud II came to the throne in a turbulent time for the ottoman Dynasty which had been founded in 1299. the Ottomans had lost significant territory to Russia in the 1768-1774 russo-turkish war on the laws that underlined the need for the Empire to reform with many arguing that the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia had given the Russians an edge in their long rivalry Central to the issue was the question of military reform and Military reform was tied to the janissary corps which had existed since the 14th century the janissary word elite corps of household troops originally composed of slaves who had been taken as young boys raised and trained together the janissaries were paid and like other slaves and followed strict rules including being forbidden to marry until the age of 40. because of the system the genicary units maintained exceptional discipline and ordered were known for absolute loyalty to the Sultan in the 16th and 17th centuries there were effective and fearsome troops and the size of the force went from around 8 000 at the end of the 15th century to nearly 70 000 at the end of the 17th century but the nature of the janissary corps changed over the centuries and what started as an elite fighting course only became a privileged class that dominated government military modernization meant training and equipping Mass troops in the janissary saw that as a threat to their privileged status in 1797 Celine III raised an infantry Corps that was to be trained and equipped by modern European standards the corps was officered and trained by Europeans and provided modern weapons the janissary subtle reform is a threat to their privileged status and Independence and found allies in a political Elite who saw the forces being too European in character in 1807 the janissaries revolted and deposed and imprisoned Celine III in a coup installing saleem's cousin Mustafa IV who promised to protect the status of the janissaries but the empire was torn between conservatives and reformers and Mustafa ordered both Saleem and his own half-brother Mahmoud killed in order to remove threats to his throne Saleem was assassinated but the 23 year old Mahmoud escaped when a pro reform General took the capital he brought Mama to the throne in yet another coup Mahmoud II continued celine's reforms although he did not have the power yet to take on the janissaries the solely Consolidated power in 1826 he announced the creation of a new Army formed along European lines predictably and some saying intentionally that led to another genissary Revolt but this time the janissaries were quickly defeated and Mahmoud executed their leaders disbanded the core and confiscated their property in what came to be called the auspicious incident in The Fez ended up being an important symbol of this military reform and a great shift in the centuries-old Empire that has led historians to refer to II as the Ottomans Peter the Great the military use of The Fez in the Empire started with a naval commander who adopted The Fez for his Marines his Marines needed to be nimble and light and The Fez was more practical than a turbine when Muhammad II viewed these troops he saw the hat is not just practical but as a symbol of modernity and adopted it throughout the ottoman military partly as a specific contrast to the traditional turbans of the jamisaries The Fez became a liberal symbol of the modernization of the ottman military but more than that Mahmoud II wanted to have to represent the modernization of the entire Empire in 1829 he ordered non-military officials to wear a plane Fez and banned the wearing of turbans his clothing reforms intended to create a uniform look for the entire ottoman population that included The Fez to be worn by all men this was however more than just fashion the goal was to break down the traditional structures that resisted reform and challenged the power of the sultan by Banning turbans Mohammed was eliminating symbols that distinguished traditional classes and eliminating Sanctuary laws intended to reinforce class status it was a radical egalitarian reform intended to bring a medieval empire into the Modern Age The Fez was essentially a required Universal male head covering literally intended to be the definition and symbol of what it meant to be ottoman the care of The Fez was very important and it would have to be frequently brushed children could make pennies in the street combing the tassels a poor person might cut off the edge that was discolored or frayed making their Fez grow progressively shorter part of the nature of the reforms was to emancipate non-muslim subjects of the Empire granting them more civil liberties inequality of Rights and as such The Fez although its origin might have been tied to the Muslim religion was equally embraced by non-muslims of the Empire became a particular symbol of Ottoman Jews seen here being worn by David Ben-Gurion considered to be the founder of the state of Israel in ottoman Palestine in 1914. The Fez became so important to the Empire that much of Fez production moved from Tunisia to Constantinople but as synthetic dyes were developed production suddenly moved outside the Empire seeing Economic Opportunity associated with the demand of the large ottoman population Progressive Jews from the austro-hungarian Empire started to manufacture the Hat by the turn of the 20th century as much as a third of the world's Fez production was in Austria where The Fez once again became embroiled in world events in 1908 Austria took advantage of its weakened neighbor and annexed the Balkan states of Bosnia and Herzegovina the political and cultural underpinnings of what came to be called the Bosnian crisis of 1908 or long and complex but the action had far-reaching impacts challenging European alliances imbalances power and creating mistrust and it seems one of the events that laid the groundwork for the first World War but it also affected headwear as the ACT led to an ottoman boycott of Austrian Goods as ottoman production could not make up for the loss of Austrian fezzes the Bosnia crisis spelled the end of the almost Universal use of The Fez in the Ottoman Empire it also spread a new fat of white pheases made in France a symbol of the boycott The Fez declined in turkey and The Fez production was devastated in Austria although the Hat remained popular in the Balkans it is also ironic that the connection between The Fez and the modernization in the Ottoman Empire led to its eventual demise the Ottoman Empire was partitioned after the first world war on the sultan had abolished in 1922 ending the reign of the 36th Sultan may have the sixth ottoman rule in Turkey was replaced by the Republic of Turkey in a secular State under Kamal Ataturk who is seen as the founder of the Republic in a new wave of modernization in 1925 Ataturk banned the wearing of The Fez under penalty of death the once symbol of modernity had become a symbol of the past which attitude described as a symbol of ignorance neglect fanaticism and hatred of progress and civilization while The Fez continued to be popular in parts of the former Empire over time nationalist movements have come to associate it with ottoman imperialism and the hat is reviled in many places today where it was once popular as a simple foreign oppression for example The Fez remained popular in Egypt until the British Alliance kingdom was overthrown in the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and president Gamal Abdel Nasser banned the Hat in 1958. the major exception is the home of the Hat's namesake Morocco Morocco had resisted the Ottomans and the hat never came to be associated with them as oppressors rather the Pez became a symbol of nationalist resistance to European dominance and French rule in Morocco as well as of the Moroccan royal family today the king of Morocco Muhammad of the sixth still Embraces The Fez for court business although it has fallen out of fashion in the nation as somewhat archaic and formal and this little scene outside the court The Fez also maintained popularity in Southeast Asia where the hat that some saw is a symbol of foreign oppression under the Ottomans was seen by others as a symbol of Muslim opposition to European rule The Fez played its own role as part of military tradition it was used by the ottoman Army into the 20th century and was a common headdress for locally raised native soldiers that were part of colonial armies such as the king's African rifles into the 1940s The Fez is part of the traditional uniform of Greek EV zones Elite light infantry whose dress was derived from clothes worn by anti-automan partisans as zones are today part of the Greek presidential guard the Hat was also sometimes worn by units of zwaves 19th century light infantry that was linked to French North Africa and were adopted in other countries including a unit of papleswaves and American units during the Civil War although Americans was tended to wear a capy The Fez was still a popular off-duty hat The Fez was also worn by the 13th Bosnian Mountain division of the SS a unit of Bosnian Muslims recruited to fight for the Germans during the second World War but of course as this example shows The Fez lives on is a ceremonial hat for various fraternal orders Americans largely connect a hat with the Shriners International whose hat represents the alcia Bay Lodge in Waldport Oregon the Shriners were formed in 1870s a fraternity for Freemasons that stressed fun and fellowship the Shriners International webpage explains that the Hat represented the Arabian theme the fraternity was founded on it also serves an outward symbol of one's membership in the fraternity but the Fez is also used by a number of Eternal orders in different colors and was used as a symbol of fraternal organizations in the 1933 Laurel and Hardy film sons of the desert part of the U.S national film registry for being culturally historically or aesthetically significant according to the Library of Congress and of course the Fez has had cultural impact beyond the Shriners this became the favored hat of the 11th Doctor Who my daughter recognized The Fez as the head of Grunkle Stan in the Disney children's show Gravity Falls But realize that for Millions this hat is a cultural Touchstone was literally the symbol of a great Empire so culturally significant that it sometimes it was required and at other times it was banned that's a hat that deserves to be remembered and a reason that I'm proud to have this hat in my collection [Music] this is a kind of hat that's called a KP which literally just means a cap this particular KP with the straight flat sides and the oval shape is is representative of a French KP but kp's come in different shapes and sizes this particular KP is one from the French police national but more on that later the KP is a fairly generic term and it means generally a hat with a round top and a small brimper what the French call a back to Canard or Ducks bill the KP holds a particular spot on the development of military hats in brief after gunpowder made heavy steel helmets obsolete militaries largely moved to a simple practical broad-brimmed hat and so the same hat almost universally used by laborers the Hat was good for what hats do protecting the head from the Sun and Rain however the brim could get in the way of loading and aiming a musket especially if a unit was doing say drill loading shouldering and marching the brim of the Hat could therefore be bent up and tied or stitched over time the crown of the Hat changed might have been larger or smaller but the general idea was the same by the 18th century the Hat was being pinned up on three sides commonly called a cocked hat today you might know it is a tricorum but that name was not actually used at the time the tricorn could be rather simple but it also could be quite fancy the similar bicorn was pinned up on two sides but around the turn of the 19th century the cocked hat fell out of favor and was largely placed by the Shaco the Shaco was developed from a Cavalry hat worn by hussars like Cavalry it was a tall cylindrical hat with a small brim usually including an ornamental cupcake at the front the shackle held its shape better than the cocked hat and its stiffness added some protection from a saber blow but its greatest Advantage was that it added to the Soldier's height it was a hat for a period when units marched and fired an order and helped address ranks that were supposed to be intimidating in their form while there were a number of types of hats and Cavalry helmets used during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars including the similar Busby essentially a Chaco made out of animal fur but the Shaco was the type of hat used by the vast majority of soldiers of the era it was also used in North America the shacko was the hat worn by the Mexican infantry during the Texas Revolution this perhaps best recognized in the United States because shackos were very popular hats used by marching bands still popular even today over time the shackle became larger and more ornamented and as it did it became increasingly less practical being heavy uncomfortable and hard to carry because it was uncomfortable many armies adopted a simpler soft cap that would be used for normal Duty say when a soldier wasn't on Parade or in combat those caps used a number of designs but were generally called forage caps tended to follow a general pattern of some sort of soft crown with a visor to protect the eyes from the Sun another version called a bonnet the police by the French was foldable with straight sides but didn't include a visor Scottish soldiers wore a similar hat called a Glengarry modern versions are still commonly used by militaries they're only called a side cap or an overseas cap the Russian military uses a version commonly called a Palatka and the U.S Air Force calls the design a flight cap at the same time some armies were experimenting with simpler designs for the Shaco while Wars on the continent tended to be more formal and the general idea was that a soldier would fight a battle in their parade dress uniform formalde was less important on the frontiers of colonial Nations one of those Nations was France in the 1830s French had troops fighting in French Algeria where the hot climate made Chacos impractical there they developed a duty hat they eventually called the casket De Freak or Africa cap they had had similarities with the Shaco but was smaller and lighter stiffness was added using light weight cane they had had similarities with both the Shaco and the Bonnet de police and was almost a hybrid of the two finally in 1851 the French evolved the casket death freak one more time removing the stiffening altogether and shortening the hat to be more fitted the Hat was officially commonly called the Bonnet de police of isaire or police cap with a visor but it is commonly known as the KP the evolution could be seen in the American Army as well during the 1845 war with Mexico the standard uniform hat was a shockoe but troops preferred the simpler soft model 1840 forage cap in 1858 the Army redesigned its hats the model 1858 dress hat commonly called a hearty hat was essentially a Shaka with a wide Brim the model 1840 forage cap had used a usually the Mexican war had a rounded top about the model 1858 forage cap also called a bummer cap was in essence a shockoe without stiffening the Army did however retain Chacos as well as seen as the model 1864 light artillery hat and the model 1872 full dress cap while it was designed to be practical the Hardy hat was generally unpopular and the forage cap was the Hat most commonly used by the troops that head is generally associated with the Civil War and although it looks very like a KP a civil war buff will tell you that it is not the kpe which was used by both sides in the Civil War and in the federal army was often called a McClelland hat if the brim was flat and a McDowell hat if the brim was curved the bummer cap is more shapeless it's less fitting the circle at the top is not fixed which most shows as the cloth Rim rises above the circle on the KP but not on the forage cap while the KP was often embellished with braids for officers the emblem was usually worn on the top of a forage cap but on the front of a KP the four inch cap or bomber cap was typically worn by federal troops in the East but was worn much less commonly by the Confederates whose hat design was officially the French design KP this particular KP which was made for reenactment is made out of rough cloth with a simple leather brim and it's typical the type of KP that a common confederate soldier would have had while the Civil War is most associated with the KP in fact many of the troops were wearing the forage cap but the difference is really a quibble though while there is a distinction in the design between a forage cap and a KP which shows in the difference between the model 1858 forage cap the bumper cap and the model 1872 forage cap which was used during the Indian Wars in reality both were soft caps that were used for light duty and thus a KP is a type of forage hat and both were soft cylindrical caps with a brim and thus the model 1858 would still meet the general description of a KP the model 1895 forage cap was more squared but would still be called a KP similar designs based on the military hat were used for all kinds of purposes they were used by police departments they were used by marching bands they were used by fire departments they were used by train conductors and streetcar conductors this one's a civilian hat that was used by a Masonic organization this one represents the United States Lighthouse establishment the Ridgeway cap used during the Cold War is also fairly described as a KP as are some Modern Patrol caps the KP was used all over the world for example being the most common hat used on both sides during the 1864 to 1870 paraguayan war and by Chilean troops in the 1879 to 1884 war in the Pacific when the French army went to war with Prussia in 1870 they were still issuing shockos but they were uncomfortable and most troops simply threw them away instead choosing to wear the KP the French army was still using the 1886 model at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. while the KP was replaced with the Adrian helmet officers continued to wear it behind the lines generally using the stiffer and more ornamented version continuing its use through the second world war where it is iconically linked to General Charles de Gaulle the KP was still around in other places as well for example as part of the uniform of Hitler's sa perhaps its most famous use is with the French Foreign Legion which originally wore a blue KP with a red top but later switched to the iconic White the KP has now returned to Service as part of the French army dress uniform which brings us back to this particular hat in 1818 the French for an organization called shurate or security it was a group of plain clothes undercovered detectives that was said to inspire both the formation of Scotland Yard and the FBI by 1962 shurate had become a general policing force and they're combined with the French Metropolitan Police to form Security National or national security and in 1966 they reformed for the final time to become the police national or the National Police in their 1966 uniform included the blue KP with the silver piping and the badge of the French national police and this hat became almost as emblematic of a French police officer as a custodian helmet is of a British police officer but in 1982 the French national police stopped using the KP because while this design is smart and distinctive it simply sits too tall for officers who are sitting in an automobile and so this had has become just another piece of History [Music] today I'm going to talk about a hat that became famous in England where it was created but had a huge impact across the pond and icon of entertainment culture and a British gentleman if you enjoy the episode please consider becoming a patron on Patriot you know my collection is mostly military hats I think that's what I'm known for but it's not the only kind of hat that I collect and today I'm going to talk about a hat that's really a fashion hat in fact a hat that has been in fashion for a surprisingly long time and used in a surprising number of situations this is the kind of hat that's called a bowler hat or in the United States it's sometimes referred to as a derby hat it's more associated with the United Kingdom but it was also very popular in the United States played an important role in American history and in fact this particular hat is made by an American company the Mallory company which purports to be the oldest hat maker in the United States and is more known for inventing another style of hat called the fedora I don't really know how old this hat is my guess is sometimes early in the last century at least prior to the 1940s when the Maori company was acquired by the Stetson Company according to the label it was made for the Russell clothing store which is in Byron Ohio which doesn't appear to be in business anymore and unfortunately for me this wonderful clean collectible hat too small for my head the bowler is an incredibly well-known half design worn by for example future presidents and future Prime Ministers the history of the bowler goes back to 1849 and Thomas William Cook the second Earl of Leicester cook owned a large estate in Norfolk called Holcomb and had gamekeepers taking care of the game on the largest state the gamekeepers had been wearing top hats as part of their uniform but riding in top hats was problematic as they were knocked off by branches and wind and were prone to bend or crumple when they fell the arrow was tired of having to buy new hats Cook's younger brother Edward went to James lock and Company of Saint James Street in London which is still in business today and builds itself as the world's oldest hat shop Edward cook asked the company to make a hat that was tight fitting to the head would stay on the wearer's head and would provide some protection the protection was from branches but also the idea might have been to provide some protection of the Earl's gamekeepers should they run into poachers lock and Company engaged two London hat makers Thomas and William bowler to build the custom hat design now a bowler hat is made out of felt and felt is an unwoven fabric what that means is that felt takes fibers in the case of a bowler hat usually wool fibers it soaks them in chemicals until the fibers flatten out and can be squeezed together to make a cloth that then can be pressed into several different kinds of forms and one of the chemicals that is typically used in the making of felt is Mercury and constantly breathing those Mercury fumes is what led to both the phenomena and the phrase mad as a hacker felt is then using a combination of heat moisture and pressure shaped on a hat form and the bowler Brothers added something else for their new half design they added animal fat although the exact formula is still a mystery the fat formed a sort of glue that would combine with the bowl shaped design made the Hat very hard according to Legend when Edward cook returned to get the Hat he first dropped it in the street and stomped on it twice and seeing that it stood up to the punishment was satisfied with its strength and paid 12 Shillings for it this is his brother the Earl wearing the famous hat designed for him and these are his game Keepers resting in their bowler hats the head is still sometimes referred to as a billy or Bob hat in honor of Sir William gamekeepers at Holcomb still wear Billy Cox but it was the bowler brothers who started mass producing the design and thus the name the bowler hat the bowler actually had several variations but it is basically described as having a bowl shaped top with a small slightly upturned Brim the bolt can be relatively high or low although the Hat was originally designed to conform tightly to the Head they are made of many colors but most often made of black wool felt one interesting thing about the bowlers that was a originally very much a working class hat the same characteristics that Sir William had desired made it useful for minors and Railway and Factory workers it was close fitting provided protection from elements and some against injury was inexpensive and it stayed on your head in fact traditionally the way that a railway worker knew that a bowler hat fit correctly was to stick their head out of the window of a moving train and if the Hat stayed on then it was a correct fit the Hat came to the United States in an interesting way in 1778 Edward Smith Stanley the 12th Earl of Derby held a sweepstakes horse race on his estate called The Oaks the race was called the oak Stakes but starting the following year became known as the Derby Stakes the term Derby has become a general turn traditionally used strictly to refer to races restricted to three-year-olds which of course a current example being the Kentucky Derby the bowler was a particularly good hat for horse racing fans because of its characteristic of not blowing off while say riding a horse and so America's introduction to the bowler hat was as the hat that was worn at a derby literally a derby hat and so in America I had designed for one English Earl is named after another English Earl who died before that hat was even invented one of the many ways in which Hollywood has misrepresented the wild west is in its fashion to believe Tom Mix the West Was one with men in 10 gallon hats in actuality while the traditionally wide brim cowboy hat was used the Derby was much more practical it was in fact literally designed to not fall off while riding a horse the Derby rather than the sombrero or cowboy hat was the most popular hat in the wild west so much so that author and historian Lucius Beeb described it as the hat that won the West the Hat was used by some of the most famous characters of the West notorious Outlaw Butch Cassidy and his gang the Wild Bunch famous Lawman and later sports writer Bat Masterson and Stagecoach Robert Charles Bowles better known as black Bart in fact one notorious robber named Marion hedgepath a higher gun often described as one of the fastest guns in the wild west was so fond of the hat that he was known as the Derby kid the bowler have has become a cultural icon in many ways it was the signature style for comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello it was a defining part of the costume of Charlie Chaplin's character the consider one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry the Hat was so iconic that the bowler hat and Kane that chaplain used in the 1915 film The Little sold at auction for 62 500 in 2012. the characters in Samuel Beckett's 1953 play Waiting for Godot voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a British poll in 1990 are usually portrayed wearing bowler hats Alex delarge the chilling main character in Stanley Kubrick's influential 1971 dystopian film A Clockwork Orange wears a bowler hat as did dapper spy John Steed in the 1960s stylish Espionage climb drama series The Avengers bowler wearing Jay Wellington wimpy will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today the bowler is so ubiquitous that famous people from heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson to movie star Al Jolson to inventors Orville and Wilbur Wright to world-renowned Explorer rolled amundsen to Enrico Caruso one of the most famous operatic Tenors of all time have all been famously photographed in a bowler hat in an odd twist in the early 20th century the hat that was designed for utility for the working class became associated with the banking class the classic stereotype of the London City jet included a bowler and an umbrella with business attire was popular into the 1970s although it declined there after as Styles became less formal the British Bank Bradford and Bingley so Associated its brand with the bowler hat that they had more than a hundred separate trademarks using bowler hats when the bank broke up in 2008 one of the significant points of contention was which entity would keep the trademarks one of the most famous portrayals of the city Ghent Banker was actor David Tomlinson's Mr Banks in the 1964 film Mary Poppins because of its association with the English the hat is often used by loyalist fraternities such as the Orange Order in Northern Ireland and Scotland in the 1920s railroad workers from England brought the hat to Bolivia where it was adopted by the native population now Bowlers called a bone bean in Spanish are considered part of the traditional dress by quechua and imara women retired Cavalry officers in the British army wear bowler hats for their annual parade in Hyde Park on what is known as Cavalry Sunday in May and officers are still expected to wear their City gent attire whenever they are in London on duty since 1849 The Humble bowler has decorated the heads of kings and queens and clowns and criminals and the day of the bowler has not passed for example Bowlers figured prominently in the fashion of the steampunk subculture in 2016 the venerable Locking Company reported a spike in the sale of bowler hats the hat that was designed 170 years ago for game keepers still represents what they call effortless Style [Music] thank you this hat was sent to me by a viewer who said it was given to him by a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S army quartermaster Corps it's a lovely felt example of the type of hat that's called a campaign hat which is described as a broad flat brimmed hat with a tall crown that has been pinched symmetrically on its four corners and I'm very grateful that the viewer sent me this hat not only because this hat itself has a really interesting history and not only because the campaign had as a design as an interesting history but because campaign hats very personal meaning to me my father George Henry Geiger served in the US Army as an artillery officer but spent much of his life working in the United States forest service now by the time my father became a forest ranger the campaign hat was no longer a part of their uniform and I don't recall him ever wearing a campaign hat and yet I grew up seeing this hat everywhere and it's because of this guy Smokey Bear is an interesting story himself and many don't realize that he was a product of war the United States Forest Service got its start in 1876 with creation of the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the state of the forests in the United States in 1881 the office was expanded into the division of Forestry which later became the Bureau of Forestry and eventually the forest service the purpose of the services to manage Federal lands initially for the purpose of stream float protection despite its name the forest service manages Federal grasslands as well as forests my father sir for years as the district Ranger for a grassland with so few trees that when there was a fire he could legitimately ask which tree while the Forest Service was not created for the purpose of fighting forest fires that is part of forest management and members of the service certainly fought fires prior to the second world war their service was particularly noted for fighting The Great Fire of 1910 that burned some 3 million Acres but prior to the war firefighting and prevention were not urgent matters for the service nor was there any national strategy for educating the public on forced fire prevention the second world war changed that in two important ways first significant numbers of the able-bodied men who normally fought fires went into the service and now firefighting would mean diverting Manpower resources from the war effort and second the Empire of Japan saw forest fires as a war strategy that strategy included an attempt to start fires using a plane launch from a submarine as well as using paper balloons carried by the jet stream called fugo balloons that are the subject of another the history Guy episode but suffice to say during the war the now reduced forest service on increased need to educate the public on preventing forest fires the program started in 1942 and was called The Cooperative forest fire prevention program or the cffp and the forest service had a great animated animal to headline the program no not Smokey Bear but Bambi released in 1942 part of the climax of the animated film includes a forest fire started by a campfire and Bambi seemed the perfect way to kick off the campaign Disney allowed the forest service to use the characters from the movie in the campaign but only loaned Bambi for a year leaving the forest service in need of a new spokes animal in 1944 the service settled on using a black bear bear was named Smokey after a New York firefighter who had suffered Burns during a rescue and in his first poster released in October 1944 Smokey was depicted wearing blue jeans and a campaign hat and that outfit stuck the slogan only you can prevent forest fires was not coined until 1947. now if you were under the impression that Smokey Bear was based on a real bear that's understandable there was a black bear found injured as a cub in the 1950 Capitan Gap fire in New Mexico the Cub was named Smokey and was eventually placed in the National Zoo the forest service did use this real bear in its campaign but the fictional Smokey Bear actually predated the real Smokey Bear was actually named after the forest service symbol this is my great uncle we called him Uncle Pino he happened to have been one of the firefighters on the Capitan Gap fire when I was growing up my house was full of pins and posters and notepads and pencils and comic books and anything that could have a picture of Smokey Bear on it always wearing a hat very like this hat once a year my dad would get the Region's Smokey Bear costume which included a huge rubber Smokey Bear head that had a huge rubber campaign hat on top of it and he would March in the 4th of July parade campaign hats are an important part of my childhood memories and even more poignant now that my father is no longer with us but that raises the question why was Smokey Bear wearing that particular kind of hat and that answer goes back as far as the 1840s for much of the 19th century the US Army had a simple undress hat called a forage cap we talked about these in another episode but the key Point here is that the various forage caps had relatively small brims or Peaks and out on The Plains of the Wild West they were simply not sufficient to protect a soldier from the burning Sun not only were uniform regulations relatively less strictly adhered to at the time but they were even less so in the west and as early as the 1840s soldiers serving on the frontier started to adopt the larger brimmed Sombrero worn by Mexican Vaqueros slowly the hat which had a high crown and a wide flat brim was modified to be more practical and based on the individual style of where soldiers chose to place creases in the crown some started to look very likely modern campaign hat many of these were a distinctive hat made by the Stetson Company called the boss of the planes hat designed to be lightweight and waterproof the Hat was very common in the west and it's looked really dependent upon the style of the wearer but dimpled on four sides with the brim kept flat was essentially a campaign hat the same hat could be creased in the middle and pinned up on one side like a slouch hat an exaggerated version was worn in early Western movies and called the 10 gallon hat these unofficial hats do not become official for the US Army until 1872 when a black felt wide brim hat was reserved for use while on campaign and thus the name of the campaign hat this hat however was not the same that we see today in fact it was designed to be able to fold under the arm and was rather shapeless some of these are worn with campaign cords like popular scene on cavalry hats in John Wayne movies the campaign had changed over time getting a smaller brim and changing from black to drab and getting vents in the sides but even then it was more common to have a crease in the middle rather than the distinctive four dimples of the modern campaign hat but notably Cavalry units started wearing and dimpling the hat in the four dimpled campaign style that was called a Montana Peak by at least the middle 1880s notable among these was the famed 9th and 10th Cavalry formed in September 1886. the 10th were the first all-black Regiment of the US Army formed in peacetime there have been black regiments during the Civil War the 10th served in the West in the Indian War so were given the name Buffalo Soldiers by the Native Americans they fought and the term came to be applied to four U.S black regiments formed during the period the 9th and 10th Cavalry in the 24th and 25th Infantry the Buffalo Soldiers fought with distinction in the Indian Wars with 19 officers and Men of the four regiments earning Medals of Honor between 1885 and 1898. the 10th also fought in the Spanish-American war in the first division of the first brigade which also included the first United States volunteer Cavalry also known as the Rough Riders some of whom also dimpled their hats in the campaign hat Style starting in August 1886 members of the US Army were deployed in national parks to discourage poachers defend the forest and stop rampant Stagecoach robbery these included Buffalo Soldiers of the ninth Cavalry and 24th Infantry who served in Yosemite Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks between 1899 and 1904. in 1911 the department of the Interior started hiring civilian Scouts and established a uniform for them that retained the flat hat with the Montana Peak that endured by the soldiers that had previously guarded the national parks when the United States National Park Service was established in 1916 the Hat continued with the uniform and has been retained in the National Park Service dress uniform to this day have is also worn by some other state park services as well as Rangers with the Army Corps of Engineers which is yet another reason that I'm attached to the campaign hat I worked for the National Park Service seasonally for five summers in the 1980s while attending college being summer seasonal I wore the straw version in 1896 gold was discovered at the Klondike region of the Yukon in Northwest Canada tens of thousands of Prospectors many of them Americans Trek to Canada in Hope of striking it rich trying to manage the onrush and the resulting lawlessness Canada deployed the Northwest Mounted Police a force that had been created in 1873 to maintain order in the Northwest Territories the official uniform of the Northwest Mounted Police included either a brimless pillbox hat or a white pith helmet neither of which was particularly practical in the Klondike the Northwest police therefore started wearing the Stetson boss of the planes hat it's not clear if this was just the most practical hat or if the nwmp were inspired by the many American Prospectors who wore the hat but the Northwest Mounted Police in the Klondike region began wearing the hat with four dimples except that while the American soldiers generally wore the Hat with the dimples offset so there was a front to hold a badge the Northwest Mounted Police were the hat with a dimple facing the front it may be apocryphal but the use of the Stetson has been largely attributed to Samuel Benfield Steele who served with the Northwest Mount of police in the Klondike and led the force there starting in 1898. being more practical than the uniform pith helmet the campaign hat came to be adopted by most of the Northwest Mounted Police in 1920 the Northwest Mounted Police became the Royal Northwest Mount of police and the hat pinched symmetrically at the Four Corners became official it was of course retained when in 1920 they became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the mounties still wear famously the hat with their dress uniform today as former members of the Northwest Mount of police including Sam Steele made up much of the second contingent of Canadian volunteers to go fight in the second Boer War in South Africa in 1900 Canadian units with the exception of the very first contingent of the service Battalion of the Royal Canadian regiment wore the campaign hat the style with the four dimples apparently impressed New Zealand regiments during the Boer War some of whom adopted the style instead of the one side pinned up slouch hat new zealanders colloquially called the style the lemon squeezer the Hat was officially adopted by some New Zealand regimences or at least 1911 but at the outset of the Great War was not officially part of the uniform in 1916 after the Gallipoli campaign the territorial Force revised its uniform and the lemon squeezer although officially called the Pelt hat with a peaked Crown was made an official part of the uniform partly because some seem to think the design looked more military than a slouch tap the Hat distinguished the New Zealand soldiers from Australian and other Commonwealth Soldiers the style was retained by the New Zealand Army through the second world war was discontinued in 1960 it was reintroduced for ceremonial dress in 1977 and today is still used by Honor guards on special formal occasions but the Hat may have been adopted to New Zealand via another route Frederick Russell Burnham was the son of a missionary born on a Sioux Indian reservation in Minnesota in 1861. he learned the profession of scouting from the Sioux as a youth and from Frontiersman in the American West he served as an Indian Scout during the Apache Wars where he picked up the campaign hat from U.S Cavalry including Buffalo Soldiers he fought in the rain Feud called the Pleasant Valley war was a prize fighter in Tombstone Arizona but as the American West seemed settled and there was no longer need for Scouts in 1893 he packed off with his wife and son to South Africa in South Africa he became chief of Scouts for the British South Africa company fighting in the first and second marabelli wars in the 1890s there he met an English officer and fellow Scout named Robert baden-powell they became friends and badenpal both learned quite a lot of the Woodcraft that Burnham had learned from his youth with the Sioux and started wearing the Stetson hat in the Ford dimple campaign style that Burnham wore Baden Powell would eventually become so associated with the hat that is often called a bait and pal hat it was while the two worked as Scouts during the modern belly war that they discussed the concept of creating a broad training program in Woodcraft for young men after both men served during the second anglo-bore war they took the idea and the hat and started the worldwide scouting movement Baden Powell described the Hat as good protection from Sun and rain that was part of both the early Boy and Girl Scout uniforms and although largely replaced by simpler and cheaper hats such as Berets and ball caps is still a uniform option for the Boy Scouts of America Scouts were well established in New Zealand in 1916 when the country was designing its new uniform and the hat was in the discussion often called a Baden pal hat so it's unclear if the New Zealand archetypal campaign hat was inspired by Sam Steele's boar war war Canadians Robert baden-powell's Boy Scouts and so I have another affinity for the campaign had having been a Boy Scout of the 1970s when Scout leaders still pretty commonly were seen wearing the Baden pal hat the US Army did not make official the campaign had to be worn with the Montana Peak until the pattern 1911 service had the Hat was worn by Army units during the 1916-17 punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa and was worn by both Marines and soldiers during the series of interventions in Central America between 1898 and 1934 called the banana Wars the Hat was a general issue to troops during the first world war these were worn by company h of the fifth Missouri infantry in 1917. that takes us back to this guy some men returning from war then served with the forest service and they preferred to where the campaign hat that they'd used in the army the first forest service uniform had a uniform jacket but had no hat at the time that was officially changed in the 1920s to a western Sombrero but the new hat was unpopular and many forest rangers continued to wear the campaign hat into the 1930s but then it was so well recognized that it was chosen as the Chateau for Smokey the Bear when he was created in 1944. so a hat retained from World War One became the hat for a bear in 1944 that represents the forest service even though the forest service official uniform never actually included the campaign hat the hat is worn today by some State Police and various other police departments in the U.S and given its connection to the bear such officers have come to be called Smokies the head is also worn as part of the dress uniform for officers of the United States Customs and Border Protection in the United States border patrol the U.S army retained the campaign hat until 1942 although some members notably General Joseph Stilwell continued to wear the campaign hat throughout the Second World War the Marine Corps adopted the Hat again in 1956 for Marine drill instructors and various others in training and recruiting roles arguing they convey a level of responsibility and Authority that resides with drill instructors the Army similarly adopted the hat for its male drill instructors in 1964 where the Army says the drill sergeants wear the campaign hat as a testament of their demonstrated professionalism commitment to the mission and proven leadership the Hat further symbolizes the lineage of the past present and future of the US Army the style in different colors is also worn by drill instructors of the United States Air Force and United States Coast Guard all four Services wear a batch on the front with the Marine Corps using the subdued or black painted version of their eagle globe and anchor device which takes us back to this particular hat from the start U.S army campaign hats could be worn with cords and if you were enlisted man then these chords would represent your area of service so if you're in the Cavalry it would be yellow if you're the Infantry it would be blue if you're in the artillery would be red there were other colors to represent other areas as well but for officers it was pretty simple if you were a general officer then the chord would be gold but if you're anything other than a general remember this was owned by Lieutenant Colonel it would be this gold and black on the cord this hat and I have another thing in common and that its owner grew up in South Dakota just like I did he served in the Army for 22 years and retired in 1954 and passed away in 1967. now he might have had this hat before the Army discontinued the use of the campaign hat in 1942 but it also might have been given to him sometimes they were given his Awards Maybe Upon retirement I'm told that the badge is original and that badge is an enamel badge that represents the US Army war college at Fort Leavenworth Kansas and yes the hat is a bona fide Stetson in 1957 Lieutenant Colonel gave this hat to his nine-year-old neighbor and last February that neighbor sent the hat to me where I will do my best to display protect and preserve this piece of History that deserves to be remembered I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short Snippets of Forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that Thumbs Up Button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 92,655

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: 0vOAEQlb7v0

Length: 56min 31sec (3391 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 01 2023