As it was two weeks ago, the subject of this week’s installment of Trivial Things will be on a riot over what was seemingly quite a mundane cause. And just like the Astor Place Riots mentioned two weeks ago, this riot happened in New York City, although no deaths happened this time. However, in the Astor Place Riots, there were at least issues of national pride at stake. This riot in 1922, however, was over styles of men’s hats. It wasn’t even a reflection of bigger social issues, as far as I can tell. It was just some pranksters who wished to take advantage of customs regarding the seasonality of hats.
Before the middle of the 20th century, most men (and often women too) would rarely leave home without a hat. While the kind of hat varied depending on what you could afford, some kind of covering was a necessity. Silk or felt hats were likely the most fashionable, but they would get rather hot during the summer, so many would substitute straw hats instead. While these hats, often called “boaters” for their use during summer boating activities, were initially only worn for informal events, around the turn of the 20th century they became acceptable wear for all summer activities.
However, a convention soon developed that straw hats were only to be worn during the summer without exception. Like the currently better-known tradition of not wearing white after Labor Day, it likely originated as a way of forcing people to be fashionable unless it was far too inconvenient. As hats were easily removable, though, their traditions could be more easily enforced, as hooligans would often make a game of knocking the hats off of anyone who was caught with a straw hat after the cut-off date (which varied from September 1st to the 15th.) Some mischief makers would get impatient and start knocking off hats before the generally-accepted end of straw hat season, though this would typically get them in more trouble. Personally, I wonder if these events were part of a general tradition in which young mischief makers were given certain days to go wild, such as the traditional “Mischief Night” or “Devil’s Night” before Halloween and (to a lesser extent) April Fool’s Day.
For whatever reason, in 1922 the straw hat hooligans were especially intense. It seems to have started when one group decided to stomp on the hats of some dock workers two days before the straw hat season was supposed to end. The dock workers did not take this well, and started a brawl which apparently blocked traffic on the Manhattan Bridge. The next day, the rioting just got worse, as gangs would prowl the streets with nails on boards to use for stripping people of their hats. Streets in affected areas were said to be littered with straw hats, The police eventually had to get involved, especially after plain clothes officers started to get their hats yanked as well.
While this chaos did not kill the tradition of straw hat season, it did not last much longer. In 1925 President Calvin Coolidge wore a straw hat after September 15th, and in the years afterwards the tradition was enforced less and less. Boater hats also fell out of fashion, especially after the Great Depression. By the 1950s and 60s, men’s hats in general became more of a novelty, although the reasons why are likely quite complicated.
(For further information on the straw hat riots, and on New York City history in general, the Bowery Boys podcast on NYC history released an episode on the riots recently, from which I derived much of the information in this post.)