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Posted: 4/2/2020 7:32:17 PM EDT
Yesterday, I was looking at a photo from about 1954. There were six farmers in it, all wearing bib overalls and felt crusher or fedora style hats. The one truck driver was wearing Dickies-style uniform clothes, with a baseball hat.
By the 1990s, the baseball cap was pretty universal around here. My grandfathers would be 90 and 96 now, and I only ever remember them in baseball caps. But I remember a few “old men” in the 80s who still wore a wool hat. Seems like most died out 30 years or more ago. It seems like they would be really hot and uncomfortable. But those old men always seemed impervious to heat when I was a kid; they wore long sleeves even in the South in the summer. |
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There are still tons of farmers wearing felt cowboy hats, young and old.
Only the stereotypes wear fedoras, I have not been alive long enough to see fedoras as part of normal wear. |
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they wore long sleeves even in the South in the summer. View Quote I know several farmers who wear long sleeves, and if I had to be out all day in the Sun, so would I. I was born in 1956, and ball caps have been standard around here for as far back as I can remember except for the occasional straw hat and pith helmet. |
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JFK, didn't wear hats, killed the habadashery, that's why the Hatters Society had him killed.
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All the farmers around here that I have seen wear Western Hats (cowboy hats).
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When feed, seed, fertilizer, tractor and implement companies started giving away logoed baseball caps to their customers it spelled the end of farmers spending money to buy fedoras.
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My Great Grandfather always wore a pair of coveralls and a pith helmet. He was pretty dang cool
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My dad‘s dad was a sharecropper in southeast Georgia. He died in his 80s in the 1980s and all I ever remember him wearing was bib overalls and trucker style mesh baseball caps before they were cool. He also chewed the shit out of tobacco and probably kept the Bruton snuff company in business. Ironically my mom’s mom was the same way minus the overalls and cap
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Quoted: I know several farmers who wear long sleeves, and if I had to be out all day in the Sun, so would I. I was born in 1956, and ball caps have been standard around here for as far back as I can remember except for the occasional straw hat and pith helmet. View Quote Meant to add that to the OP: I’ve never seen a straw hat in use in real life. We had an ancient International Harvester pith-style hat that I only saw my grandfather wear one time, on a blazing hot summer day baling hay. |
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Quoted: they wore long sleeves even in the South in the summer. View Quote My wife had to have an outdoor wedding in July in the south. Everyone was miserable in the heat except 2 people - my 80 year old grandmother and my wife's 90+ year old old great great uncle. Both were wearing long sleeves including dress coats or jackets and the heat didn't seem to phase them. |
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Quoted: When feed, seed, fertilizer, tractor and implement companies started giving away logoed baseball caps to their customers it spelled the end of farmers spending money to buy fedoras. View Quote That makes more sense than anything in the world. Perfect reasoning. We have piles of them. |
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Used to be expected of men to wear a hat if you were a man that just what you did
My grandad wore ball caps most of the time he died in early 90s Now you never know what you will see cab tractors keep cool and out of the sun like a hat did years ago. |
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I knew several old farmers that wore straw wide brimmed sun hats. fedora's offer no protection from the Oklahoma/Texas sun. those dudes kept as much clothing on them as possible to prevent the sun from killing them. |
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Quoted: Used to be expected of men to wear a hat if you were a man that just what you did My grandad wore ball caps most of the time he died in early 90s Now you never know what you will see cab tractors keep cool and out of the sun like a hat did years ago. View Quote My grandfather would never be seen in public without a hat of some kind. |
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Quoted: My wife had to have an outdoor wedding in July in the south. Everyone was miserable in the heat except 2 people - my 80 year old grandmother and my wife's 90+ year old old great great uncle. Both were wearing long sleeves including dress coats or jackets and the heat didn't seem to phase them. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: they wore long sleeves even in the South in the summer. My wife had to have an outdoor wedding in July in the south. Everyone was miserable in the heat except 2 people - my 80 year old grandmother and my wife's 90+ year old old great great uncle. Both were wearing long sleeves including dress coats or jackets and the heat didn't seem to phase them. Older you get, the more likely you are to have a reduced sense of radiated heat (like from sunlight). Get a breeze going and they'd complain it was cold outside - well, if they complained about things at all. |
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Long sleeve shirts are much cooler than short sleeves in the summer.
I wear wrangler western khaki shirts or blue denim. Sometimes I wear FR shirts which are even thicker. I wear rain brim hard hats even when I don’t have too to stay cool. I have filson wool packer hats but they don’t have enough air flow for south Texas heat. |
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Around here, fedoras died out probably in the late 1950s.
My grandfather worked out of doors every day of his adult life, never owned a short sleeved shirt. Of course, he was born a mere 5 years after the Little Big Horn battle, so those were different times. |
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Quoted: Yesterday, I was looking at a photo from about 1954. There were six farmers in it, all wearing bib overalls and felt crusher or fedora style hats. The one truck driver was wearing Dickies-style uniform clothes, with a baseball hat. By the 1990s, the baseball cap was pretty universal around here. My grandfathers would be 90 and 96 now, and I only ever remember them in baseball caps. But I remember a few “old men” in the 80s who still wore a wool hat. Seems like most died out 30 years or more ago. It seems like they would be really hot and uncomfortable. But those old men always seemed impervious to heat when I was a kid; they wore long sleeves even in the South in the summer. View Quote Not long after your pic was taken. Bib overalls and fedora was standard for young adults in the 1920-1930 and dustbowl days. After they retired around 1965, it was straw hats, cowboy hats, and ball caps. |
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One of my grandpa's wore cork helmets in summertime.
That wasn't too unusual, but most wore cowboy hats or felt brimmed hats larger than a fedora. |
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Quoted: My wife had to have an outdoor wedding in July in the south. Everyone was miserable in the heat except 2 people - my 80 year old grandmother and my wife's 90+ year old old great great uncle. Both were wearing long sleeves including dress coats or jackets and the heat didn't seem to phase them. View Quote *faze |
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"Meaning of Life" - "People are not wearing enough hats" |
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60s/70s.
Attached File GGrandpa was a booze runner/strong arm during the day. Only pics I found digitally. Pith helmet FTW. Attached File |
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My one grandpa wasnt a farmer but when he was alive he always wore one of those flat caps or newsboy type hat when he was away from the house.
My other grandpa was more of a hay farmer and cattle. I only barely remember him before he passed. He always wore a trucker style ball cap outside if he was working and nothing when he was away from the house. |
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If you're in the sun everyday, you need to wear long sleeves and a hat. I'm not talking about the work softball game all day, I mean sun up to sun down from when you could walk to when you couldn't outside in the sun. Your skin won't last like that in the open. Not many people live like that anymore
I couldn't tell you when the wool hats went out specifically, but it seems like a generational thing to me. My grandpas wore ball caps like all my uncles cousins and brother. But I think my great grandpas wore the wool/fedora type. I can't really imagine one wearing the others hat, that would be weird. |
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Quoted: If you're in the sun everyday, you need to wear long sleeves and a hat. I'm not talking about the work softball game all day, I mean sun up to sun down from when you could walk to when you couldn't outside in the sun. Your skin won't last like that in the open. Not many people live like that anymore View Quote My grandfather was like cigar store Indian brown lol... No idea how he didn't die from skin cancer. |
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Quoted: Mine were too. I don't ever remember hearing about skin cancer from back then. Weird how that works. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: My grandfather was like cigar store Indian brown lol... No idea how he didn't die from skin cancer. Because lots of people died and nobody ever really knew why they died. |
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Quoted: https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/266262/old-man-1386234_640_jpg-1347527.JPG When men were men. View Quote Attached File |
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My genetically Irish ass steps outside in July in Kansas and instantly evaporates into a smelly mist. My dad and Gramps are all, "Wut? Come help us load these trees."
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Quoted: My father is 1/8 Shawnee and my grandfather was 1/4. I'm as white as Cool Whip but I'm adopted. They both acted like there was no sun, pissed me off to no end. View Quote My dad is a framer and is outside year round and is just as dark as my grandfather was, I go fishing for too long and I'm lobster red and miserable. We're all German/Irish/Scottish so like the palest of the Europeans. My friends used to ask if my dad was a Native American, and I was like "No, he's just really tan..." lol. |
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Quoted: https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/266262/old-man-1386234_640_jpg-1347527.JPG When men were men. View Quote That guys stuff is way too clean. |
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Quoted: I know several farmers who wear long sleeves, and if I had to be out all day in the Sun, so would I. I was born in 1956, and ball caps have been standard around here for as far back as I can remember except for the occasional straw hat and pith helmet. View Quote The part in red. This was from the days before they invented sunblock. |
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Most of the ranchers I know only where their cowboy hats while hating or going do social events.
It's usually ball caps on the warm days, Stormy Kromers on the cold ones. |
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Long before I got here. Many were baseball style hats. Some folks still wear cowboy hats.
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Quoted: On a farmer or ever? I have three straw hats that I wear regularly, but I'm not a farmer. View Quote Straw hat best hat for sun. Attached File |
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They followed the trends of the time no different then today. Most tractors have cabs so long sleeves arent really needed. Moving cows most everyone has long sleeves and cowboy to keep your skin protected.
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View Quote I know they're kinda hard to come by, but you probably oughta try to score some kind of mask if you're doing cleanup work inside that hoarder's place. LOL |
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My grandfather was a farmer and he has been dead for nearly 40 years. He wore a fedora whenever he was outdoors, and someplace in the family archives there is a photo of me as a 3 year old wearing his fedora.
He also wore long sleeves and didn't feel the heat or cold. I don't think he had an ounce of body fat, either. He was a tough man and a good farmer--he bought a farm during the Depression. |
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