Flipped brim hats?

[Capt Billy]

Delmonico,
Fear not, I ain't throwin' out my old tea kettle anytime soon...but wasn't this thread started as a question about the brim flips being period correct?
Through many or your pictures on the "wire", I don't really see that many flipped brims, and would wonder how one would keep the rain or sun off of your face?
By the way, I AM one who always appreciate and enjoy your posts wherever I see them.
Your pard in cast iron,
Cap'n Billy
RGA 241

[1961MJS]

Hi

I hope I"m not too Doctor Frankenstein-like in resurrecting the dead, but was the flipped hat thing a nod to the photographer or an actual style?  Most of the pictures of a bunch of cowboys standing around show the brims flipped up.  I haven't seen any real "action" shots that I KNOW are action shots.  For one reason, the high speed film hadn't been developed yet.  If a guy is paying to get his picture taken, I'm sure that the photographer would have it so you could see his face.  I wear all of my hats down to protect my eyes from the sun and from glare, I would assume (I know the acronym  ) that real cowboys do the same thing since they lived outside.

In the interests of continuity, I've steamed hats for a few years and it works.  I just started spraying them down with distilled water and that works.  My local hat shop, Hatman Jack's in Wichita uses steam freehand and a steam iron on the blocks (sometimes).

Later y'all

Mike
Wichita KS

[James Hunt]

Since the original question posed - was it authentic. I have never read any primary source material that said "we always flipped our brim up" much less "we steamed our hats such that the brim was up". Conjecture for sure but all of the studio images with the brims flipped up I am convinced were done so that the face could be seen, that no shadow was cast over the face.

Check out the fella in the avatar here. The photographer who took that image flipped my hat up after looking thru the lens, it came back down once it was done so that it could be functional once again.

Regarding cowboys or horseman, I suppose if you rode for the pony express and you just put in your 20 miles at a decent lope and occasional run, and you did it day in and day out, your hat might assume the brim in the flipped up position but there is a paucity of images showing horsemen like that. My hat has never assumed that position regardless of how fast or far I run my pony. So I think that the flipped up brim that is not associated with picture taking was pretty much from the John Ford school of authenticity.

Paintings of a cowboy or cavalry trooper of the period with his hat flipped up, and I can think of several, were perhaps the artists creation to show movement or speed, or because it looked good.

Nothing wrong with it, looks cool, but I suspect the look either didn't exist during the period or was very, very rare.

[1961MJS]

Thanks James

I was pretty sure that the flipped up brim was for the photographer.  I've been wearing various hats since about 2003 when the back of my ears peeled off at a baseball game.  The lower they are over your eyes, the less the sun bothers you.

Thanks again

Mike
Wichita KS

[Durango Flinthart]

Just a note from personal experience. When you've kicked you pony in the slats and the critter is up to speed, if your hat has a down tilt to the brim you're blinded, with the brim flipped up it usually flattens against the crown.

Watch your topknot 

[Hangtown Frye]

Just a note from personal experience. When you've kicked you pony in the slats and the critter is up to speed, if your hat has a down tilt to the brim you're blinded, with the brim flipped up it usually flattens against the crown.

Watch your topknot 

This has been my experience exactly.  This is especially true when you have an old, floppy hat which has had the stiffening taken out of it by wearing it in the rain too many times.  They get floppy, and any decent breeze with put the brim up (which beats heck out of the breeze flopping it down into your eyes, let me tell you!)  You have to crease the hat a brim up a bit to ensure that it does go up rather than down, too.  I suspect that this is where the whole "style" came from.

I have also heard a postulation from some that fellows shooting with a Vernier tang sight would flip up the brim.  You sure as heck can't sight on one with a stiff brim in the way, and if you just push back your hat, it blows away in the (near constant) prairie breeze.  I've experienced both reasons for flipping my brim up, and I believe both explanations are valid.

Cheers!

Gordon

[Russ McCrae]

Steamed hats wont hold the new shape as long or as well. It's treats the outer fibers quickly,,but fails to do good in the center...as it doesn't get consistently as 'wet nor as warm'. all the way thur. Soon,,you have to reshape again. .....I've done it both ways,,hot water is best. Period. Wet thur and thur, drys slowly but consistently.  Holds shape MUCH longer.

Steam is the 'quickie' way to satisfy an unknowing customer by 'setting' the outer fibers quickly.

Your ego in winning an argument won't change the facts one bit, Del.

MD

If your hat ain't holding a crease from steaming your doing it wrong. When you steam, you need to do it like iron work, keep the temp even and all the way thru. Just a couple of passes under steam won't do it. When you pour hot/warm/whatever water on a hat you run the risk of staining it.

Each his own, but that's how I was taught to crease hats and mine hold a shape wonderfully 

[James Hunt]

Gordon: Your reputation proceeds you and I greatly respect your primary source knowledge. But I still maintain that I am unaware of any period image that would suggest to me that a "walking around brim up" appearance would have been anything but rare if it existed at all. While we clearly see the brim bent up it is almost always a studio shot, or a posed image where to have the brim down would have either covered the subjects face or cast a shadow on it. Conjecture says that for a singular purpose the brim might have been bent up, and I guess to accommodate a vernier tang sight might be one (although the hide hunters tang sight was shorter than the tall Soule sight we think of today). But I am unaware of any image or comments that suggest to me that the brim up was something seen in the historical west.



I am sure the above was done only for the photo - other wise the hat loses half of its function.



Note the hats shoved back on the head, surely to expose the fact and does not suggest that they were worn like that.

With the exposure times necessary it is hard to find period images showing guys running their horse. But note the image below, that horse is on a dead run and my hat is about as soft as it can get without flopping down over my eyes, it doesn't look like it but it is. Yet using a "bonnet string" it remains on my head and because I am looking straight ahead it the brim  appears flat. I just have never had a need to bend my hat up. I am more inclined to believe that the brim might adopt some shape from being grabbed when taking it off. I have had that occur to hats I have owned.



I am very skeptical of any common appearance of a hat brim bent in the up position during our period. I think it was adopted by Hollywood as they looked at period studio images.

[Hangtown Frye]

Mr. Hunt;

Thank you for your kind words!  You have me at a disadvantage, however.    Thank you as well for the photographs.  I am particularly enamoured of the first one, showing the fellow on his horse with his hat tilted back, but it also looks as though it has blown back even more from the breeze. No mater what though, a nice shot, which shows one think that is seldom seen at all in period photographs, and that is sleeves pushed up.  (A case in reverse, of something that may well have been commonplace but not seen in photo's, as it wasn't "for showing off to the home-folks" in a photograph.)

Back to hats, I am by no means wedded to a position that people as a general rule wore their hats kicked back on the back of their heads; in fact I am of the opinion that indeed they were commonly put there for reasons of light for the photographer.  So in this I agree completely with you.  However, I do posit that it was not uncommon for a hat to be worn, at least in it's terminal stages, with the brim itself pushed up and back to keep it out of one's eyes. (Should we call this the "Sidekick Look"?)

For this I would point to many of the period (and almost period) artistic renderings, such as those of Frederick Remington and Charles M. Russell.  I fully realize the dangers of using artwork as a primary source, since the artist is telling a story and is under no obligation to actually stick with the facts in order to uncover the "truth" as he sees it. However, I would suggest that the trend came from somewhere, not simply the photo's they saw (especially in the case of Remington and Russell, who actually witnessed at least the end of the era). But an artist can also show what a photograph of the period could not, and that is action. (I would point out that Russell hardly ever shows this look though, so I may be shooting myself in the foot here.) Be that as it may, again I'm not arguing at all for a general "Western Look" in which everyone had their hat tilted back, but only that when a hat lost it's "oomph", the brim would be flipped back.  Thus it is period, though not standard.

Moving slightly off the original topic, one of the things that has always fascinated me (well, not always, but since I was 3 or so) was the odd fashion of stringing rawhide around the edge of the brim on "cowboy" hats.  The Colt advertisement painting of the cow-poke on his horse "Patches" comes to mind (an my apologies for not remembering the full name of the painting!)  It's turn-of-the-century, but certainly evokes an earlier age.  The subject definitely has his hat pushed back, which I take to be an acknowledgement of the prevailing trend in photo's to do this, but the use of rawhide to keep the brim from flopping in his face is of interest.  (I recall my red cowboy hat from when I was 3 or 4 had a nice white plastic strip laced around the edge of the brim in similar fashion, thus my unseemly interest in the matter!)  At any rate, old hats do flop, and various means are used to keep them from flopping in one's face, even if they require the hat-brim to look more like a funnel than a proper hat should.

(Per the "John Ford School" of Western Wear, he did a great job of showing the field uniforms of the Army in the Philippines in ca. 1900, but not so great for showing what was worn in the field in the American West 20 years before that.  )

Again, I fully agree with the position that in photographs, hats, especially new ones, were tipped to the back of the head purely to allow more light on the face of the subject.  But I also strongly suggest that at least occasionally (especially with old, very soft hats) fellows commonly would "kick" the brims up to keep them out of their faces for the Sidekick Look. 

I look forward to reading your views!

Cheers!

Gordon

[GunClick Rick]

Flip It.bum bum bum bum bum,flip it good,bumbumbumbumbumbum,come on now flip it,you must flip it~~~~

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbt30UnzRWw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbt30UnzRWw</a>

[1961MJS]

Flip It.bum bum bum bum bum,flip it good,bumbumbumbumbumbum,come on now flip it,you must flip it~~~~

And them boys are period correct.


Just not for the 1880's...   
Mike
Wichita KS

[GunClick Rick]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7koigiUq7GE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7koigiUq7GE</a>

[HogDoc Olliday]

Was there a practical reason why they were turned up in the front. Seems to me it would shield the sun from eyes better it left down.

[ChuckBurrows]

Just a quick note re: period action pics - there are in fact several period action shots, all I know of are by Montana Photogrpher L. A. Huffman who began his career in 1879 - despite the limitations of the period equipment he in fact was able to overcome it - there is one series of a bronc buster (from 1904) and several others from even earlier.
His Saddling the Wild Horse is just one still from the bronc buster series http://azusapublishing.com/store/show/612

and some more from the same series
http://vintagecowboyboots.blogspot.com/2009/03/rodeo-roots-saddle-bronc-riding.html

This one is from 1890
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__yL4yCa_9sY/SbMZESIukwI/AAAAAAAABmo/B7K3fzAKKqM/s400/huffman6.jpg

and several pages of Huffman prints
http://milescity.com/gallery/index.asp?gid=1

a book about Huffman
'Before Barbed Wire, L.A. Huffman, Photographer on Horseback', (p) 1956, Mark H. Brown and W.R. Felton.

[GunClick Rick]

Usually the hat would get so worn that it eventually got floppy,that's when they would put the lacing around the brim.1 soldie 1 hat,i pair shoes,etc. sorta like sheep gut,you can only use ot so long afer it gets limp.

[Yeso Bill]

I have wore hats on the range and seen other's hats that were so soft from use or age age that a good lope would turn the brim up or down.  A flip of the brim would get it out of your eyes and the wind will hold it there.  A good friend who worked for the El Yeso findly pinned his up and was teased about sunburning his nose.     An old remedy to restore stiffness was soaking the hat in sugar water but that really doesn't last too long.

No doubt hats were thrown back on the head for lighting for the photographs and I think the "side kick look" is pure Hollywood.  (I'd rather have my picture took wearing a new hat than a rag.)   

Bill

[HogDoc Olliday]

Yeso,
What's the "side kick look"?

[St. George]

The 'less than prosperous' look affected by every sidekick of the hero since the dawn of the Silver Screen.

Think 'Andy Devine' - paired up with just about everyone else.

Scouts Out!

[Delmonico]

Those Huffman pictures with the action are not wet plate (glass plate) negatives but the newer dry plate type that were invented in the 1870's.  Both methods existed side by side for many years.  The glass plates made by the photographer cost less and gave many believe, better detail, but the more costly dry plates allowed them to stop action.  Both plates could be used in the same camera in most cases. 

[J.D. Yellowhammer]

I think a word of caution is needed here. I tried steaming my hat, but I burnt the hell outta my ears. And it was almost impossible to lean in under the exhaust hood on the stove.

[Delmonico]

I think a word of caution is needed here. I tried steaming my hat, but I burnt the hell outta my ears. And it was almost impossible to lean in under the exhaust hood on the stove.

JD sometimes you worry me, now be sure not to soak it in sugar water or the ants and bees will carry you off.

[J.D. Yellowhammer]

 

[GunClick Rick]

BY GOD THAT DOES IT! Shhhow "em" how RRRRoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OisMaRcdQI

[Yeso Bill]

J.D.
    Don't say that.  Hat boxes are about the only thing left in the U.S. without a cautionary note or instructions.   

Bill
   

[J.D. Yellowhammer]

Good point. I'm tempted to remove my post so I don't give any politicians any ideas.  But I'll leave it as a warning to any other steamers here in CAS City.   

J.D.
    Don't say that.  Hat boxes are about the only thing left in the U.S. without a cautionary note or instructions.   

Bill