Hat Head

It’s silly to suggest that American men stopped wearing their hats just because JFK took his off during his 1960 inaugural address. In fact, he wore a silk top hat that whole day—and tails! Some people claim that he actually revived this tradition; Truman wore a topper for his inaugural, but Eisenhower wore a homburg. And both men—especially Ike—went around bareheaded all the time. I guess you could make the argument that they weren’t as young and handsome as JFK, and thus had less influence. Still, the hat was undoubtedly already in decline, as the 50s gave way to the more permissive 60s. It’s always been interesting to me that this myth persists. It’s obviously more about glorifying the memory and the martyrdom of JFK than it is about explaining why men just don’t wear hats anymore. And show me the Minnesotan who insists on going hatless through the winter, and I’ll show you a moron with frostbitten ears.

Noel Sims, Cambridge