Okay the summary posted in this image does NOT do the WILDNESS of this occurrence justice so I will give some more detail.
All right, so straw boater and Panama hats became trendy in the U.S. in the late 19th century, but it was considered “bad form” for men in cities to wear them. It later became more “acceptable” for men to wear these specific hats ONLY during summer. By the early 20th century, there was like an unwritten “rule” that they had to stop wearing straw hats and start wearing felt or other types of hats on September 15. This is already kind of weirdly specific, but, y’know, etiquette rules surrounding attire are known to BE weirdly specific, so fine. But here’s where it gets full on wacky.
According to Wikipedia, it became a Thing in North American cities for teens to literally accost any man wearing a straw hat on or after September 15, knock his hat off, and stomp on it to destroy it. It was also “socially acceptable” for stockbrokers (i.e. grown-ass adults) to destroy each other’s straw hats, but NOT acceptable for any other adult strangers to do it to each other. It became so much of a tradition that newspapers would print warnings close to the date reminding people to switch hats. Basically men wearing straw hats after the designated date would at minimum risk ridicule, but might also have their head smacked and their property destroyed by Youths. And this “hat bashing” was apparently fine and dandy from both legal and social perspectives so long as it happened after September 15.
On September 13, 1922, a group of teens in New York City decided to begin their shenanigans two days early, and knocked off and stomped the hats of some factory workers. When they moved on, and tried this with a group of dock workers, however, the “more innocuous stomping” turned into a “brawl” because these men weren’t having any of this nonsense and fought back. More people were pulled into the fighting, which eventually blocked traffic on a nearby bridge and had to be broken up by police.
But that was not the end of it! It seems that events “escalated” and continued into the following day! On the evening of September 14, “teenagers prowled the streets wielding large sticks, sometimes with a nail driven through the top, looking for pedestrians wearing straw hats and beating those who resisted.” THIS IS A REAL THING THAT HAPPENED. Men wearing straw hats still within the completely arbitrary acceptability period were getting beaten up by roving gangs of children with clubs. Several people were hospitalized. According to one man who had his hat stolen on Amsterdam Avenue, there were upwards of 1,000 kids there stealing and destroying boaters and Panamas. Police eventually started making arrests (some teens even attacked cops and stomped their hats).
Most of the youths who got arrested were punished with fines, but at least one kid was sentenced to three days in jail by the circumstantially-hilariously-named Magistrate Peter A. Hatting. Some boys younger than fifteen had their parents called in and were “spanked ignominiously” at a police station at a cop’s order.
Anyway the Hat Stomping Tradition continued for a few more years and in 1924 a guy got straight up murdered for wearing a straw hat past September 15. But then straw boater hats fell out of fashion especially after the Great Depression hit, Panama straw hats got even more popular so it was less acceptable to hate on them, and the whole thing died out.
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