The Straw Hat Riots Come to a Head

The low, flat-crowned straw hat of the 19^th century is a unique piece of men’s wear for several reasons.

First, it is one of few items introduced into men’s wardrobes from children’s wear.

The straw hat was originally developed for enlisted men in the British Navy, which is how it got the nick name of “boater” hat. It was later adapted for children when dressing youngsters as sailors became fashionable. In time, women adopted the straw hat, and by the 1880s, so had men.

Another unusual feature of the straw boater was its strictly observed season. On May 15, Straw Hat Day, men switched from hats of felt to straw. And September 15, was Felt Hat Day, when straw hats needed to be put away and the heavier hats brought out.

Which brings us to the third unusual feature of boaters: their friability. They were easily destroyed by fist or foot. In New York, on Felt Hat Day, stock brokers who came upon a coworker still wearing a straw hat would grab it and punch out the crown. It was all done in a spirit of fun until the custom was taken up by strangers. Men in the city would suddenly feel their straw hat yanked from their heads and destroyed by pranksters. What was tolerable from a coworker was an affront by a stranger. It was a prank that quickly got out of hand.

In 1910, a mob of men and boys came down Pittsburgh’s Penn Avenue the day after Felt Hat Day. They began pulling off straw hats and smashing them. They climbed onto trolley cars and destroyed straw hats there. They stopped cars to smash drivers’ straw hats. Fights began and spilled into the street. The police were summoned but didn’t respond effectively because they enjoyed watching the mayhem.

Two years later, the same thing happened in Bridgeton, New Jersey. Hats were destroyed and eyes were blackened as hat wearers fought back against the hat breakers. A street brawl began. Some men tried to get away and ran into stores but were pursued. The police tried stopping the fight but there weren’t enough of them. So, the fire department was called out and broke up the fights by turning fire hoses on the rioters.

The year 1919 was particularly bad for racial tensions in the cities. A riot began in New York’s Harlem after a white man’s straw hat was grabbed and destroyed. The matter turned deadly when a white, plain-clothes officer had his hat knocked off as he was descending the stairs to the subway. He tried to arrest the man, but an angry crowd surrounded him, shouting “lynch him, lynch him.” He fired his gun, killing the man he’d tried to arrest and wounding another. He was knocked to the ground and only saved through the intervention of a New York cop in uniform who was Black.

But the biggest straw hat riot took place in New York in 1922.

It began two nights before Felt Hat Night in lower Manhattan, when gangs of boys began knocking off and stomping the straw hats of garment workers leaving work. Some men who resisted were beaten up so badly they were hospitalized. There was fighting up and down Amsterdam Avenue, and the street was dotted with squashed hats.

But when the boys began knocking off the hats of dockworkers, the fights began. The brawl eventually stopped traffic on the Manhattan Bridge and police had to wade in, breaking up the brawl with their clubs.

The New York Tribune of September 16 reported that gangs of youths had begun a “straw hat smashing orgy” throughout the city.

Large groups of teenagers walked the streets carrying long sticks with nails hammered into the ends, which were used for knocking off hats.

Gangs patrolled Lexington, Park, and Third Avenue between 110erd and 125^th Street so zealously that few straw hats escaped.

Again, hat owners resisted and were beaten. Again, the police took action, but when they entered the fighting, they found their own uniform caps knocked to the ground.

Police at the East 104^th Street Station didn’t take the matter seriously until detectives and plain clothes officers had their own hats knocked off. Two patrolmen — without hats — brought in seven boys, none older than 15 years. They reported that these were the hooligans who’d knocked off and trampled their uniform caps.

Detective Rocco Brundizo had been enjoying the melee when a boy knocked off his hat and ran away. Det. Brundizo took off in pursuit for five blocks before losing the boy at 116^th Street.

Soon police stations began hauling in the rioters. Some were dragged in by pedestrians. Seven of the youngsters’ parents were summoned. When they arrived at the station and learned what had happened, they didn’t delay punishment until getting home. All seven were ostentatiously spanked by their parents at the station.

One surprising final note that shows how much men’s fashion norms have changed since 1922 is that after men found themselves hatless, their first action was to head directly to a hat store to get a replacement. New York’s hat stores stayed open well into the night to serve men who didn’t want to go home bareheaded.