Gentlemen & Their Hats

An interesting history of the History of Straw hats & Felt hats. The history of the hat obviously goes back centuries ago. The site starts with the history of the Straw hats & Felt where it introduces the Derby hat. It tells us that the felt apparently was first used by the nomadic tribes of Asia who made tents and clothing from it. The Romans were early users of this material for a hat called "Petatsus" which was a skull caps. The slaves were given to the slaves when they acquired freedom. The fur felt was very common by 1600 eventually paving a way for the tail beaver hats. Eventually the Derby hat was invented (It doesn't give the year, but I found out that it was invented in 1850).

The Hat History presents us the other hats: the dress hat, gangster fedoras, panama, western, borsalino, dobbs, Indiana Jones, stetson, and golf. Regarding the man above, I believe he is Bartholomew "Bat" Masterson, the famous pal of Wyatt Earp.

Hat History
http://www.hathistory.org/index.html