Men wearing boaters, Times Square, July 1921.
The Straw Hat Riot broke out in New York City when youths in Manhattan began removing and stomping on straw hats worn by factory workers in the area. This developed into a brawl when they tried to do the same with longshoremen, which was phenomenally stupid on their part. By that evening, the matter was a full-blown riot that would go on for eight days.
In an era in which hat wearing was considered necessary for men, this was a fairly serious matter. September 15 was the unofficial cutoff date in society for the cessation of the wearing of straw hats, after which men switched to felt hats. The tradition of destroying straw hats had actually begun with stockbrokers who would good naturedly destroy colleagues straw boaters for violating the unwritten date, which itself moved. It had once been September 11.
Boaters (sometimes called sailors) were by far the most popular urban summertime straw hat. The type had acquired that name as sailors did in fact wear them at one time, in a version that had a somewhat larger volume in the crown. They were so popular, however, that they saw use far outside of what we'd expect. For instance, many of Custer's men at Little Big Horn were actually wearing boaters, rather than their issue felt hat, as they had just purchased them from a vendor on the Yellowstone.
Contrary to common recollection, they remained in fairly widespread use up into the 1950s, when they started to suffer the same decline, but more steeply, than other men's hats.
Boaters weren't the only straw hat in urban use, of course. Panama Hats also saw use at this time, but much less. Indeed, early on wearing a Panama Hat had been regarded as improper.
More on hats and standards of dress appears here:
Caps, Hats, Fashion and Perceptions of Decency and being Dressed.
The USGS crew put in for lunch at Church Rock.
Putting in for lunch at Church Rock.
Turkish troops set fire to the Basmane neighborhood of Smyrna resulting in the deaths of 10,000 people in the wind fanned conflagration.
An agreement was reached on the nationwide US railroad strike.
France and Poland entered into a ten-year self-defense pact.
Pershing was photographed on his birthday.
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