thunderw21
I'll Lock Up
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Hope it's not a dupe. An interesting piece can be found here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kramer/kramer19.html
From the piece:
"But, according to Mr. Steinberg's account, "Inauguration morning at 8:55, John F. Kennedy walked out of his brick Georgetown home on his way to attend mass at Holy Trinity Church, two and a half blocks down N Street. He was wearing a light gray suit with a dark blue overcoat.
"Kennedy spied a cluster of waiting newsmen, attired in their Sunday best, some wearing homburgs.
"'Didn't you get the word?' Kennedy teased, as if he were back at Harvard. 'It's top hat time.'"
Indeed it was, so let's retire this myth and absolve President Kennedy: While it is true that he didn't like hats and often carried one, rather than wearing it (numerous photos exist of him as a senator, carrying his homburg), he did wear a silk top hat to his inauguration, continuing a nearly-unbroken tradition that Andrew Jackson began with his inauguration in 1829: see the Snopes account, which includes numerous photos...
Neither Kennedy – nor any one man – is responsible for the death of the top hat, or of hats in general. As Mr. Steinberg meticulously documents, top hats, which had debuted in the late-1700s, hadn't been everyday wear for anyone since the early-1900s, and had been on a decline even for highly formal functions since the 1930s. And sales of all men's hats peaked in the U.S. in the 1920s; it just took a couple of generations for the gradual decline to reach the tipping-point where non-hat wearers became the majority."
The author got the Kennedy part right.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kramer/kramer19.html
From the piece:
"But, according to Mr. Steinberg's account, "Inauguration morning at 8:55, John F. Kennedy walked out of his brick Georgetown home on his way to attend mass at Holy Trinity Church, two and a half blocks down N Street. He was wearing a light gray suit with a dark blue overcoat.
"Kennedy spied a cluster of waiting newsmen, attired in their Sunday best, some wearing homburgs.
"'Didn't you get the word?' Kennedy teased, as if he were back at Harvard. 'It's top hat time.'"
Indeed it was, so let's retire this myth and absolve President Kennedy: While it is true that he didn't like hats and often carried one, rather than wearing it (numerous photos exist of him as a senator, carrying his homburg), he did wear a silk top hat to his inauguration, continuing a nearly-unbroken tradition that Andrew Jackson began with his inauguration in 1829: see the Snopes account, which includes numerous photos...
Neither Kennedy – nor any one man – is responsible for the death of the top hat, or of hats in general. As Mr. Steinberg meticulously documents, top hats, which had debuted in the late-1700s, hadn't been everyday wear for anyone since the early-1900s, and had been on a decline even for highly formal functions since the 1930s. And sales of all men's hats peaked in the U.S. in the 1920s; it just took a couple of generations for the gradual decline to reach the tipping-point where non-hat wearers became the majority."
The author got the Kennedy part right.
