# When did hats stop being mandatory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2014, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712 "2014-02-07T01:23:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/41 "2014-02-10T14:56:55Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > In the 70s, Bob Newhart wore a hat on his daily commute between his Chicago condo and office. Mary Tyler Moore threw off a hat while crossing a Minneapolis street. Maybe they weren’t total anachronisms. However, for us Midwestern teenagers in the 70’s, during the era of mandatory shoulder-length hair, there was _no_ hat that would not make you look like a dork: Wool watch cap? “aw, did mommy bundle you up?” Baseball cap? Hell no: stoners and jocks were different species. Baseball “seed” cap? Ditto, per farm kids. Fedora, razor-bill flat cap or beret: risibly affectatious, reminiscent of the recently-passed hippie era from which we strove to distance ourselves. And, to avoid bed-head, you had to wash your hair in the morning, then walk to school in sub-zero weather bareheaded with wet hair. So you had to have a car, or a steady supply of weed so you’d be offered a ride. Generation Jones. We sucked ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/42 "2014-02-10T18:26:38Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Fedora, razor-bill flat cap or beret: risibly affectatious, reminiscent of the recently-passed hippie era from which we strove to distance ourselves. The fedora and newsboy were good enough for Tom Waits in the 70s and he wasn’t much of a hippy. Was this a midwest redneck thing? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/43 "2014-02-10T18:33:14Z")
I think the analog for women is pantyhose. That’s even more recent: it certainly happened in my lifetime, but I have trouble describing exactly how it happened. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/44 "2014-02-10T19:30:26Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Won’t someone spare a thought for the poor hatters? Can you _imagine_ just how many firms went bankrupt when the whole population stopped wearing hats? Hatters gotta hat. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/45 "2014-02-10T22:50:42Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > The fedora and newsboy were good enough for Tom Waits in the 70s and he wasn’t much of a hippy. Was this a midwest redneck thing? 😛 Let me check the full catalog in the orange crate: Rush, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath. Nope, no Tom Who? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/46 "2014-02-11T07:39:59Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > Mary Tyler Moore threw off a hat while crossing a Minneapolis street. Maybe they weren’t total anachronisms. Mary was in Minneapoli, Minnesota in the Fall. Hats were (and still are) mandatory in Minnesota for several months of the year. For practical, not fashion reasons. We have a name for fools who don’t wear hats in Minnesota winters: _pneumonia patient._ ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/47 "2014-02-11T08:00:03Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I think the analog for women is pantyhose. That’s even more recent: it certainly happened in my lifetime, but I have trouble describing exactly how it happened. I heard Princess Diana appearing at Royal Ascot in the early '80s without stockings was a watershed moment in that it was seen a signal they were no longer _de rigueur_. I’m not sure how true the story is though (the cultural impact part of it, specifically). ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/48 "2014-02-11T13:38:24Z")
I do miss garter belts on the ladies ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712/49 "2014-02-11T22:47:58Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > However, for us Midwestern teenagers in the 70’s, during the era of mandatory shoulder-length hair, there was _no_ hat that would not make you look like a dork: > Wool watch cap? “aw, did mommy bundle you up?” Baseball cap? Hell no: stoners and jocks were different species. Baseball “seed” cap? Ditto, per farm kids. Fedora, razor-bill flat cap or beret: risibly affectatious, reminiscent of the recently-passed hippie era from which we strove to distance ourselves. > > And, to avoid bed-head, you had to wash your hair in the morning, then walk to school in sub-zero weather bareheaded with wet hair. So you had to have a car, or a steady supply of weed so you’d be offered a ride. > > Generation Jones. We sucked Fellow Joneser here, and I agree when I consider the amount of superficiality there was about things like hair length. If you were a guy and you didn’t wear it long you were one of “them”, the conservative silent majority. You couldn’t be taken seriously. I wore my hair long and was certainly guilty of the same kinds of prejudiced thinking. By contrast, today, I see young guys wearing hair in all sorts of different styles and lengths and it seems to work for them. Like most youth in any era, we wanted to distance ourselves from our parents, but as you pointed out we also had to distance ourselves from the pre-Jones Boomers\*. In many ways the culture and music of the psychedelic era had been flamboyant, almost by definition, in the 1970s everything toned down visually and musically. IMHO music started to get really boring around then. \*Gen Jones: second half of the Boomer cohort, born about 1955 - 65. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-hats-stop-being-mandatory/680712.md?page=2)