I have been watching the Turner Classic Movie channel quite a bit lately. I found a mystery series based in the 1920s that piqued my interest in that era. The Great War was over. Veterans were trying to adapt to civilian life. Gone were the hobble skirts and ostrich- feathered ladies hats. It sort of reminds me of the aftermath of World War ll. We were in a time of transition then, too.

The draftee's jobs were frozen for them to return to after hostilities ceased. Those of us working in what were previously considered men's jobs were told we would soon be leaving the workplace. But it was like after the Great War, things never return to what they once were. I was working at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant, fabricating tubes for white sidewall tires. I had been there three years. There were many good jobs opening up so my job was secure. However, it became obsolete when tubeless tires came into style.

What does that have to do with hats? Not much, I guess, except to understand how times change. Felt hats were no longer the vogue for everyday wear. Even my dad had worn an old felt hat working in the fields. Straw hats were around, but some thought it made them look like a hick or hayseed. Straw boaters were still popular for summer casual wear. I never met a man wearing a top hat. The only black bowlers I saw were in the movies, except for my Abnormal Psych instructor in college. He was a strange duck, to say the least.

Times had changed for women, too. I remember when stylish ladies wore a veiled hat and white gloves even to go grocery shopping. No longer. The late forties and early fifties became a more casual time. If poor me wore anything at all on my head, it was a casual scarf tied under my chin.

Even photos of the Great Depression displayed felt hats among the down-and-outers on the street corners waiting for someone to hire them for the day. I would say that it was amazing how long a felt hat could be worn. From a well -creased gentleman's hat to that of a crumpled topper for a bum on the street, it was still serviceable. Even a team of horses in the field could be shaded with a felt hat, only having the ear holes cut out for a better fit.

When you research men's haberdashery styles back through the ages, men of quality always had appropriate headgear. Nowadays, a baseball cap is standard everyday wear for most everyone. It would have been out of place back in the twenties, except for maybe Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb.