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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

1. An NYPD Lieutenant Made Parents Spank Their Delinquent Kids in the Precinct as a Condition For Releasing Them

Headline about the Straw Hat Riots. New York Times

Police were helpless, and the rioting went on for days, spreading from the East Side to the rest of Manhattan. The Upper West Side became particularly dangerous for the straw-lidded, as witnesses reported a mob of more than 1000 snatching straw hats on Amsterdam Avenue. The city’s days-long 1922 Straw Hat Riot was accompanied by many injuries and many arrests. However, since many culprits were underage, they did not stay behind bars for long, before they were released to their parents.

In the East 104^th Street Precinct, the police lieutenant in charge insisted that the parents spank their kids then and there, as a condition for their release. The straw hat-smashing tradition continued. Although there was no recurrence of widespread rioting on the scale of 1922’s mayhem, the end of straw hat season continued to be attended by unrest and violence. In 1924, for example, one man was murdered for wearing a straw hat after September 15^th. The violent tradition finally came to an end when straw hats went out of fashion during the Great Depression.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Alexander, John T. – Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: The Imperial Russian Government and Pugachev’s Revolt, 1773-1775 (1969)

Bainton, Roland H. - Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1978)

Blickle, Peter – The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants War From a New Perspective (1981)

Cliff, Nigel – The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America (2007)

Cracked – The 5 Most Embarrassing Things Angry Mobs Have Rioted Over

Davis, Susan G., American Quarterly, Volume 34.2 (Summer 1982) – Making the Night Hideous: Christmas Revelry and Public Order in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia

Digital History – Holidays and the Invention of Tradition

Dunn, Alastair – The Great Rising of 1381: The Peasants’ Revolt and England’s Failed Revolution (2002)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Hussite Wars

Encyclopedia Britannica – Jacquerie

Encyclopedia Britannica – Sumptuary Law

New York Times, September 16^th, 1922 – City Has Wild Night of Straw Hat Riots

New York Tribune, September 16^th, 1922 – Straw Hat Smashing Orgy Bares Heads From Battery to Bronx

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – Cade, John [Jack] (died 1450), Rebel Leader

Pittsburgh Press, September 16^th, 1910 – Straw Hat Riot

Runciman, Steven – The Sicilian Vespers (1958)

Slate – The 1922 Straw Hat Riot Was One of the Weirdest Crime Sprees in American History

Vallance, Edward – A Radical History of Britain (2009)

Wikipedia – Astor Place Riot

Wikipedia – Jack Cade’s Rebellion

Wikipedia – Straw Hat Riot

Zagorin, Perez – Rebels and Rulers, 1500-1660 (1984)

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.