I blame these guys.
Posted on 05/13/2012 7:42:53 PM PDT by Eyes Unclouded
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So what happened? Why did guys stop wearing headgear in midcentury America?
The turning point, most people say, was John F. Kennedy's inauguration. Before Kennedy, all presidents wore top hats on their first day at work. Kennedy brought one, but hardly ever put it on. Fashionistas say Kennedy, one of our most charismatic presidents, made hats un-happen. And, chronologically speaking, after JFK, guys everywhere, even balding ones like astronaut John Glenn, went topless.
But I am the son of a hat designer. And my father, Allen S. Krulwich, had a different explanation. The president who de-hatted America, he thought, was Dwight Eisenhower.
Here's my dad's logic.
In the 1950s — and this was one of Ike's grand accomplishments — he built a vast highway system across America. Interstates went up everywhere. Cities extended roads, turnpikes, highways, and suburbs appeared around every major city. People, instead of taking a bus, a tram, a train to work, could hop into their new Chevy or Ford and drive.
Before Eisenhower, many more people used public transportation. After Eisenhower, they used a car. That, my father thinks, created the critical Head-To-Roof Difference.
A person of average height standing in a bus, tram or subway car has, roughly, three feet between the top of his head and the roof.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
JFK
I blame these guys.
I heard that it was because so many men served in the military during WWII. I still have nightmares where I can’t find my Cover.
Nonsense. The interstate highway system did little or nothing to change the number of people who drove cars and commuted to work.
It was JFK and the swooning Camelot tale spinners in the media.
Hoodies got em.
$400 haircuts?
$400 haircuts?
most pickup trucks have the requisite headroom
NPR idiot.
Lower than a obama supporter.
Look around doofus.
Formal hats have been replaced with more practical hats.
And why spend time on such an issue?
Yea, but not recliners. :)
This author needs to occasionly venture out into the real world.
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There ya’ go! And, by God, they better remove them at the National Anthem!
I get ticked at the little league field when they don’t. ;-)
The same conspiracy that got Men Without Hats were warmed up from killing off Toni Basil.
Good point!
I adore hats...I wear what’s left of women’s hats, and my husband sometimes does the boonie hat type thing, or his redneck straw “cowboy” hat or a baseball cap on backwards (gear-head style)...and those are just the warm season hats!
Wish they would come back for ladies like the good old days...they were works of art and so expressive.
So much nowadays is unisex. I don’t even like the word.
That’s a cap and not a hat.
People on TV and in the movies stopped wearing hats, and society followed.
Edward Bernays was a person who tried to get movies to always show someone smoking to sell cigarettes, and he’d rent famous diamond jewelry for women to wear in movies (he’s the origin of A Diamond is a Girl’s best Friend, I think).
If you constantly see something in the media, you are likely to see it as normal and perhaps wonder why you aren’t doing it too.
Really! lol
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