# What is this hat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2007, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433 "2007-12-10T00:19:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/1 "2007-12-10T00:19:54Z")
I’m watching some film about the Alamo, and a few of the characters are wearing a hat that looks like a combination of a top hat and a fedora; tall straight flat-topped middle, with a very wide brim. Does this kind of hat have a name? ---
**Author:** ![A.R.Cane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/2 "2007-12-10T00:46:42Z")
Maybe like this?: [White Oak - Companies and Organizations](http://www.whiteoak.org/learning/furhat.htm) You have to remember that the clothing is the product of a Hollywood costume supplier and may not be historically accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/3 "2007-12-10T01:45:10Z")
[Mountain Man’s hat](http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?products_id=10050) [Hardee hat](http://www.fcsutler.com/phardeeenlisted.gif) (aka ‘Jeff Davis’ hat) ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/4 "2007-12-10T02:05:57Z")
Ah, the ones **Johnny L.A.** links to look like it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/5 "2007-12-10T02:15:34Z")
Which one? Just guessing, but I’d think the ‘Mountain Man’ hat would not be out of place at the Alamo. The Hardee hat was also known as the [Model 1858 Dress Hat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardee_hat). Being adopted in 1858, I don’t think it would have been at the Alamo. But in a film, anything goes. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/6 "2007-12-10T04:15:13Z")
I would say the first more than the second, but I can’t see all that much of a difference besides the band to be honest. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/7 "2007-12-10T04:48:34Z")
The Hardee is flatter on top, and appears to be a little taller. I’ve been poking around a little bit (a very little bit) trying to find an actual name for the ‘Mountain Man Hat’ style. I thought it might be a _sombrero_, which just means a hat with a brim (from _sombra_, ‘shade’ or ‘shadow’). But then I thought that the mountain men are usually associated with contacts with the _voyageurs_ rather than the Spanish (for the most part). A type of slouch hat? That would imply a turning down of the front and possibly back. Of course 50 or 60 years before the mountain man era people wore tricorns. Simplify a tricorn and don’t pin it up, and you have a basic hat with a round brim. So no need for a Spanish connection there. People wore hats. (And I’m doing my bit to bring them back! 😉 😃 ) The hats you’re asking about may have just been a modification of hats of the day that were favoured by those who went west. I don’t know if they had a ‘name’. If you’re looking for a style name, that’s an interesting question. If you’re looking for a hat to buy, then Dixie’s Mountain Man hat might do. Incidentally, I mentioned ‘a type of slouch hat’. To many people a ‘slouch hat’ is an Australian military hat with a side that can be pinned up, and they assume that it’s an Australian invention. According to the Wiki page on slouch hats, ‘This style of hat did not originate in Australia, being introduced there around 1885 and was sometimes described as a ‘Tyrolean’ import.’ [This page](http://www.hathistory.org/western/index.html) has a photo of a Confederate soldier wearing a hat pinned up in the ‘Aussie style’. (And of course the Hardee was commonly worn pinned up.) ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/8 "2007-12-10T06:28:53Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] [This page](http://www.hathistory.org/western/index.html) has a photo of a Confederate soldier wearing a hat pinned up in the ‘Aussie style’. (And of course the Hardee was commonly worn pinned up.) [/QUOTE] If one side of a hat is pinned up, it is usually the right so it doesn’t get knocked off when slinging a rifle over the shoulder…but then maybe the soldier in the photo is left handed. Any way to tell if that photo has been mirrored? Which way did CA coats button from? That is also backward from current practice. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/9 "2007-12-10T06:52:20Z")
I just can’t imagine David Crockett or Sam Houston in the Hardee somehow. I checked to see what longhunters wore. One costume hat site has a wool hat with a peasant feather, but the photo is nondescript. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/10 "2007-12-10T11:39:16Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] I just can’t imagine David Crockett or Sam Houston in the Hardee somehow. I checked to see what longhunters wore. One costume hat site has a wool hat with a peasant feather, but the photo is nondescript. [/QUOTE] If I understood who was who right, the only main character wearing that kind of hat was William Travis. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/11 "2007-12-10T13:34:06Z")
[QUOTE=Kevbo] If one side of a hat is pinned up, it is usually the right so it doesn’t get knocked off when slinging a rifle over the shoulder…but then maybe the soldier in the photo is left handed. Any way to tell if that photo has been mirrored? Which way did CA coats button from? That is also backward from current practice. [/QUOTE] [Australian slouch hats](http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/slouch_hat.htm). As you can see on this page, it is the left side that is invariably put up on the Australian slouch hat. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardee_hat) has a photo of a Hardee hat that has both sides up. A google search of images shows some Hardees with the right brim pinned, but most show the left. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/12 "2007-12-10T13:57:30Z")
[Teddy Roosevelt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TR_LtCol_1898.jpg) wearing a hat pinned up on the left. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/13 "2007-12-10T14:37:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by \* \*\*Johnny L.A. \*\* : > [Australian slouch hats](http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/slouch_hat.htm). As you can see on this page, it is the left side that is invariably put up on the Australian slouch hat. Wiki has a photo of a Hardee hat that has both sides up. A google search of images shows some Hardees with the right brim pinned, but most show the left. If you go about a third of the way down that page you will see that when originally introduced the turn up was on the right! ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2007, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-hat/429433/14 "2007-12-10T15:37:23Z")
[QUOTE=MarcusF] If you go about a third of the way down that page you will see that when originally introduced the turn up was on the right! [/QUOTE] Strangely, I can’t open the page now.