Best of History Guy: Hats

An hour on hats with The History Guy? I'm in!

Great story telling! Never forget a Campaign Hat lifting the bill of my cap up and then poking my forehead rapidly whilst being yelled at for some unknown trivial reason. Memory lane, thanks

The "Overeas" cap in US use has a much more common nickname, which makes reference to a bit of female anaotomy.

Hats add character and style to an individual ..... Tip of the hat for a grand video sir.

The original airing of the campaign hat episode is what truly captured me as a History Guy fan.

The artwork is amazing. It's not every day I get to see old art from the far corners of the globe.

How can we discuss hats without the iconic baseball hat!?! Incredible history of just hats has been great fun! Very good sir. 👍

Love this montage about hats. I have lots of hats myself. My wife makes me keep most of them in storage. I wish I had a pressed fibre hat so I would be stylish in the garden. But I’m a bit surprised that Lance didn’t model all of the hats he talked about so we could see which ones looked best with the bow tie.

Good history of the NPS Stetson and its antecedents. One addition - it is the hat worn by all the cowboys in the paintings of Charlie Russell, who moved to Montana in the 1880s. He cowboyed, and he painted cowboys. Almost always the cowboys are wearing Montana Peak Stetsons almost identical to the NPS hats. The other sources are important, but since Russell's work was so well-known and so iconic that it is likely THE major source for the Ranger hat. (There is some apocryphal evidence that the hat is called the Montana Peak because there is a mountain on a ranch where Russell worked that may be the inspiration for the design.) As an NPS Ranger in Montana, I researched the Ranger's Montana Peak Stetson in depth and came to this conclusion. I have an NPS Montana Peak Stetson made by Stetson, which I appropriately wore on a detail to the Superintendent's office during the 1988 Yellowstone Fire. So that hat has been baptized by fire. It will be a family heirloom.

Well this is what I adore about the Internet, and YouTube on top of it. An hour long video on the history of hats.

in 2010 I was to Costumer that outfitted the two characters at the Houston Texas celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts and since it was focused on England, I contacted the Canadian Boy Scouts and bought one of their versions of the Montana peak which is distinctively different from the American. They also supply me with a knuckle of traditional design which is the slide that slips over the scarf you wear around your neck to hold it in place. They were really nice people up there and we're happy to hear from someone in Texas who admired what they do. Just a bit of trivia for you. And I still have that hat.

My father served as the Scoutmaster of my Boy Scout troop for over a decade. After he passed, I inherited his Baden Powell campaign hat. His hat doesn’t fit, and his shoes are too big for me to fill. God rest you, Dad. I’m 60 years old and you’re still my hero.

Always amazing in making connections between people and events,

Great information about the hats

'Which tree?' reminds me of a joke a friend once told about cars in sparsely populated north Dakota. Instead of the usual license plate, they just named the cars. 'Bob (the car) has been seen parked outside Betty's house, and we have to wonder '

The generous care with which you revere each of these hats, and by extension the people and the past connected to them, is unexpectedly moving. Thank you.

When I worked for the USDA Forest Service we used to call the campaign hat a "Gifford Pinchot". He famously sported the hat and helped to make it popular among foresters, besides all the other thing Mr. Pinchot was known for.

In the early 80’s I was in the US Navy on Diego Garcia. Our working uniform of the day was khaki shorts, t-shirt and a pith helmet along with our black boots. Fashionable eh?

For some reason, I assumed there would surely be some history of Stetson in here. In retrospect, there was probably too much packed into this episode to single out Stetson and add more. Thank you for the coverage.

I've heard American Bison were used to make felt and beaver was considered the premier fur for felt but it had to be in prime condition. My Grandfather's favorite had was the Boston. It is mine also, he used it for business and formal attire. He was a very dapper fellow when he was 20ish, in his fifties he looked like a tree farmer( which he was) grey slacks with a crease, tan leather suspenders, his grey old grey Boston and a medium briar to smoke, you can tell I was a child then as the first garments I identify are his slacks, he wore old black leather business shoes . I never once saw him wearing a bowler my brother bought one and used it in a school play.