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Riots and Civil Unrest that Shook History

Khalid Elhassan January 13, 2021 33 min

Astor Opera House - Astor Place Riot — Authorities putting down the Shakespeare rioters. New York Public Library

3. Youth Gangs Led the Straw Hats Unrest By Appointing Themselves Fashion Police

A New York City policeman with some children in 1908. Internet Archive Book Images

Violent youth gangs causing unrest by roaming city streets and assaulting hapless passersby have probably been around since cities first came into existence. However, it has probably been a long time since such youthful gang violence was driven by an intense dislike of the victims’ fashion choices. Once America’s youth got it into their heads that, come every September 15^th, they were entitled to yank straw hats off of people’s heads and destroy them, it was tough to put that genie back in the bottle.

New Yorkers in straw hats in 1912. Library of Congress

As many newspapers reporting on Pittsburgh’s 1910 straw hat disturbances noted, things were bound to get worse. They were right. Bad as Pittsburgh’s 1910 straw hat unrest and rioting had been, it was eclipsed by New York’s 1922 Straw Hat Riot, which put that of the Steel City to shame. It began in Manhattan’s Mulberry Bend, when some urchins decided to ignore the September 15^th cutoff. Instead, they decided to get a head start on their annual crime spree, and began snatching and destroying straw hats on September 13^th.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.