6. Yanking Hats Off Peoples’ Heads Used to be Quite Popular
The wearing of straw hats by men became popular in nineteenth-century America. The light and permeable headgear was typically worn during summer, often at sports outings. Most popular was the straw boater, originally worn at boating events. The era’s fashion police initially frowned upon the use of straw hats. However, they gradually won acceptance, and by the late nineteenth century, straw hats were standard summertime male headgear. There was a caveat, though: an unwritten rule developed, decreeing that straw hats were strictly summertime wear.
September 1st emerged as an arbitrary end date for straw hat season. It was later extended to September 15th, which came to be known as “Felt Hat Day“. A tradition emerged, whereby those wearing straw hats past the cutoff date had them snatched off their heads and destroyed by friends and acquaintances. It was all good fun at first. Then it morphed into widespread crime, when strangers began taking the liberty of snatching straw hats off the heads of people they did not know. That led to violence, unrest, and eventually, widespread rioting.
