Sunday, November 4, 2012

Sepia Saturday - 1880's Dashing Young Men with Bowler Hats

The theme for this weeks Sepia Saturday is "Men" and the picture prompt used shows a group of men most  wearing hats. Every Sunday (or almost every Sunday) I publish a post called "Women with Hats" so I had to laugh to myself when I decided to use this tintype of eight stylish young men posing with their bowler hats. Maybe I should start a new category called "Men with Hats?"  Nah.  

This group of fine looking young men most likely posed for this picture with an unknown photographer in the latter half of the 1880's.  The four in the front row and one in the back left are holding their hats, I am assuming that the other three are holding their hats behind their backs. I could not date the photo using just the bowler hats as a clue as they came into fashion when the hat was created in 1849 in England for Edward Coke, a soldier and politician who was the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester.  The hat was popular with the working class during the Victorian era and became the most popular hat in the American West even over the cowboy hat.   What really helped me to narrow down the date of this photo are the tie pins that several of the gentlemen are wearing. In the 1880's bow ties lost favor to the modern tie and a small tie pin stuck in the middle of the knot was the norm.

Hold on to your hat and hop over to Sepia Saturday for more great photos and stories!


22 comments:

  1. Great info on the ties. I would love to know your resource, if you would share! I am terrible with men's clothing. :-)

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    1. I have a terrible time dating men's clothing too! One of my favorite sources is PhotoTree.com. They published an ebook called "19th Century Paper Photographs, A Genealogist's Guide to Cartes de visite & Cabinet Cards" by Gary W. Clark which I refer to a lot. I have it on iBooks on my iPad. I also spend much time perusing the Internet researching my photos. It is always a challenge, but I am learning all the time!

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  2. They all look really serious. It's an interesting point about the ties and tie-pins. I'm not a great fan of modern ties but I do think they look smarter than the current trend to wear an open-neck shirt with a jacket even for more formal occasions. These gentlemen do at least look comfortabe with their smart outfits.

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  3. I wonder what the guy on the far right is sitting on. Evidently there was no room on the bench.

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  4. That's an interesting tidbit of information about the bowler hat. Apparently Edward Coke ordered low hats (instead of top hats) to protect his gamekeepers' heads from low-hanging branches. The London hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler fulfilled the order, hence the name.

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    1. Yes, those low hanging branches will do you in every time!

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  5. This is a very nice picture but I still prefer women with hats ;) The thing that strikes me in this picture is that two of the men are wearing a peculiar, striped necktie. Does that mean anything?

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    1. I don't think they ties meant anything except they were just popular an in style at the time.

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  6. I always thought it was interesting that bowler hats were worn by the Indians in Peru and Bolivia.
    This from Wikipedia....another fashion by accident:

    "Bowler hats have been worn by Quechua and Aymara women in Peru and Bolivia since the 1920s when a shipment of bowler hats was reportedly sent from Europe to Bolivia via Peru for use by Europeans working on the construction of the railroads. "

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  7. Interesting detective work on dating your photo by the use of tie pins!

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    1. Thanks, I remembered reading that in "19th Century Paper Photographs, A Genealogist's Guide to Cartes de visite & Cabinet Cards" by Gary W. Clark which is published by PhotoTree.com. I had to go back and find it to be sure!

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  8. A fun group photo. A few look to be brothers too. I see a subtle difference between these bowler hats and the basic bowler. These are another 2 gallons taller, almost stetson cowboy hats without the big brim.

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    1. Yes, I thought some looked like brothers too, the ones with the very long shaped faces. Your eyes are better than mine, the hats all look pretty much the same to me!

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  9. How interesting. I too posted a picture of young men in bowler hats (these were wearing the hats) recently - see http://imagesofthejacksonpurchasespast.blogspot.com/2012/08/mystery-monday-young-men-in-hats.html. That picture was found in Paducah where there was a large railhead and I wonder if my fellows in bowlers might not have been railroad workers.

    Beverly

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    1. Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Beverly. I also replied to you on your site on your post with the young men in hats.

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  10. They WERE quite dashing, weren't they? Reminds me of the lineup on an episode of "The Bachelor".

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  11. Just imagine in the long distant future all the photos that will be out there with which people will judge the past...us. Little decorum to be found. Does make you wonder how we will be perceived.

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    1. I know what you are saying. As someone who publishes photos of people from the past I often think about the fact they could never have imagined that their photos would be seen by so many, that strangers would even care and that possible they would be mortified if they knew this. We too should be scared that strangers some day will be judging us - our photos are not as elegant and refined as most of the ones I use in my blog.

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  12. Hmm, I didn't know bowler hats were more popular than cowboy hats in the American West! That's a fascinating fact.

    I wonder who these fellows are and what the occasion was for the photo.

    Great photo, by the way!

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  13. They look quite proud of themselves and how stylish they appear, don't they?

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  14. I'm always puzzling to date a photo or letter. If only people wrote it down!

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  15. I am intrigued why they are photographed together? Brothers, friends, working colleagues? I never could understand why the bowler got so popular. In my view it is such an ugly shape, also not very flattering when worn. In comparison to a stylish spanish hat or the cowboy hat with its male ego! Very interesting post.

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