Evolution of the Cowboy hat

The ''' Boss of the plains ''' was the first lightweight all weather hat designed for the demands of the American west. It was durable, waterproof and elegant. Just as the Winchester became synonymous with rifles, and Colt with pistols, the inventor John B. Stetson’s name became interchangeable with the then unnamed cowboy hat.

Apache wearing Boss of the plains hat.

==Beginning==

Necessity and fashion, are the reason people wear hats. The first manufactured hats were nothing more than a round piece of leather. By cutting a ring of holes about the size of a head. A string woven through those holes, pulled tight held the hat snugly to the head. The hatband separated the crown from the brim.

The wide floppy brim was tied up with a ribbon, to keep it out of one’s eyes. Some times when the ribbon was off they would see that the brim stayed curled by itself. This led to the hand-curled brim.

Brims were bound with ribbon to keep them from fraying after being trimmed with the knife. Although advancements in materials have eliminated the need for binding the brim, or pinning it up, the custom remains, we must keep our brims curled up because long ago hatters did not know how to stiffen a brim.

When men went off to do battle it was customary to wear a feather from there loved one. Because men were mostly right handed they lead when sword fighting with the right side. At first they would stick the feather in the adjusting hatband. Unless they wanted to fight blind, surviving duelers moved the feather and knot, to the left side of the hat. Where it remains today. As time went on, they would wrap a ribbon around the crown to hold the feather and hide the tie string knot.

When leather turned to velvet some protection was needed to keep the soft fabric from falling on people’s hair, this is where the lining came from. Even though modern hats are stiff enough not to collapse, the custom remains. Individual sizing eliminated the need for the tie string, but the bow remains at the back of the hat, serving as a memorial to bygone hatters.

Geronimo

Now you know a little about hats. We have shown you where the hat comes from, why it has a hat band, why the edges were bound with ribbon, and why the brim curls up. You know why the knot is on the left side, why it has a lining, and why there is a bow in the back of the sweatband.

==Boss of the plains==

Boss of the Plains.

The Boss had a high crown to provide insulation on the top of the head where most body heat is lost. It had a wide stiff brim to provide shelter from the sun, rain and snow on your face, neck and shoulders. The Boss was waterproof so that they could carry water. And they were made durable and extremely lightweight, because you were going to carry it on your head for a long, long time. And as you know it had a simple band, a liner, and a bow on its sweatband for no real reason at all. Except to make it the most elegant hat in the West.

Gunfighter's wearing Boss of the Plains.

You could water your horse with the crown, take a drink with the brim, roll it up as a pillow when you slept. You could fan a fire, or herd animals. Use it as a decoy when you were being shot at. You would look successful at the local dance when you strode in wearing a Stetson.

==Hat that won the West==

These lightweight hats were natural in color with four-inch crowns and brims; a plain strap was used for the band. The straight sided, round cornered, flat brimmed Boss, reigned king for about twenty years. Then through use and abuse they stared to take on another shape. From handling, the crown would become dented. The first popular modification was a long dent sloping from the high back, down towards the front. This was called the Carlsbad crease after Carlsbad New Mexico.

Montana Peak

The pointed top of the Mexican sombrero worked its way north with the Montana peak. Which had four dents from being handled on top with four fingers.

Tom Mix and his Stetson

Buffalo Bill had custom super wide brim hats made for his wild west shows by the John B. Stetson Company, that eventually led to the extravagant Tom Mix style “ten-gallon hats used in Western films.

Nana's “Boss of plains,” with up turned brim

Rodeo and 4H clubs adopted cowboy hats almost as a uniform. Politicians, celebrities and law enforcement of all kinds gained good will by being associated with the West, by adopting descendants of the Boss of the plains cowboy hat. The cowboy hat is truly an example of form following function. Today’s cowboy hat has remained basically unchanged in construction and design since the first one created in 1865.

Cowboy Hat Tantra

Cowboy hats can be used in foreplay. The Tantric game before meeting. In Tantra you are laying the groundwork for uniting energy fields between spectators and performer.

The use of a cowboy hat depends on time and movement, psychology, humor, illusion, disguise and natural choreography in bringing about a magical effect.

Choreograph your actions so that all spectators are likely to look where you want them to. More importantly, they do not look where you do not wish them to look.

You do this with ordinary, natural and completely innocent gestures, changes in hat position and body posture.

Boss of the Plains

The cowboy hat is a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat best known as the defining piece of attire for the American cowboy. Cowboy hats have been worn by kings and ranch hands, by celebrities, political figures and businessmen alike.[1] If you wear a cowboy hat on your head, you’ll be called a cowboy.[2] It is an item of apparel that can be worn in any corner of the world, and receive immediate recognition as part of American cowboy culture. [3]

They were essential tools for anyone working in the intense heat or stinging cold of the open range in the American West.[4] [5]

Stetson’s first western model was the open crowned "Boss of the Plains," style hat.

After that came the front creased “Carlsbad,” destined to become “the” cowboy style. [6] The high crowned, wide brimmed, soft felt western hats that followed are intimately associated with the cowboy image. [7]

==Design==
Basic hat style has changed little in the past five hundred years. There are only two essential hat styles, brimmed and unbrimmed, which come in two basic forms, hats and caps. These are most often produced in one or two materials, felt or straw. [8] Stetson built a wide brimmed felt hat, with an open crown and a simple band.

Modern cowboy hats are made of fur-based felt, straw or, less often, leather. They have a simple sweat band on the inside to stabilize the fit of the hat, and usually a small decorative hat band on the outside of the crown.

Hats are customized by creasing the crown and rolling the brim. and adding another hatband. For some uses, "stampede strings," may also be attached.[9]

Beginning in the 1940s, pastel colors were often used by movie cowboys and rodeo riders, along with the original black and natural shades. [8] Stetson's "Boss of the Plains" is still the foundation for most of the cowboy hats produced today.[10]

==History==
The concept of a broad-brimmed hat with a high crown worn by a rider on horseback can be seen as far back as the Mongolian horsemen of the 13th century[11] A tall crown provided insulation, the wide brim, shade.

The Spanish developed a flat-topped sombrero, which they brought to Mexico., which was modified by the vaquero into the round-crowed "Mexican" sombrero.

Cowboy hats go back to almost the inception of the cowboy himself.[12] However, It is not clear when the cowboy's hat got it's name. Westerners originally had no standard head wear. People moving west wore many styles of hat, including top hats, derbies, remains of Civil War headgear, sailor hats and everything else.[13][14] Cowboy's wore wide-brimmed, high-crowned hats long before the invention of the cowboy hat.[15]

==First Cowboy Hat==
The original "“Boss of the Plains," manufactured by John Batterson Stetson in 1865, was flat-brimmed, had a straight sided crown, with rounded corners. [8] These light-weight, waterproof hats, were natural in color, with four inch crowns and brims.[8] A plain hatband was fitted to adjust head size.[16] The sweatband bore Stetson’s name. [13] While only making one style of hat, they came in different qualities ranging from one-grade material at five dollars apiece to pure beaver felt hats for thirty dollars each. [8]

A large brimmed felt hat, designed for plantation workers in the West Indies was supposedly, previously produced by Christy's hat factory in Park Lane, Bristol, England. [17][18]But J.B. Stetson was the first to market the "Boss of the plains," to Cowboys, where it has remained a universal image of the American West.[19]

"The Cowboy hat is recognized around the world as part of Old West cowboy lore. The shape of a cowboy hat's crown and brim are often modified by the wearer for fashion and to protect against weather.

The modern cowboy hat has remained basically unchanged in construction and underlying design since the Stetson creation.[20]

The cowboy hat quickly developed the capability, even in the early years, to identify its wearer as someone associated with the West.[21] "Within a decade the name John B. Stetson became synonymous with the word "hat," in every corner and culture west of the Mississippi." [22] The shape of the hat's crown and brim were often modified by the wearer for fashion and to protect against weather. Because of the ease of personalization, it was often possible for people to tell where a cowboy hat was from, right down to which ranch, simply by looking at the crease in the crown.[23]
==Entertainment==
As the mystique of the "Wild West" was popularized by entertainers such as Buffalo Bill Cody and later by Western movies starring actors such as Tom Mix, the Cowboy hat came to symbolize the American West.[24] John Wayne christened them "the hat that won the West."[8] The Boss of the Plains design influenced various wide-brimmed hats worn by farmers and stockmen all over the United States.

Designs were customized for law enforcement, U.S. Cavalry soldiers, and motion picture stars. The first American law-enforcement agency to adopt Stetson’s western hat as part of their uniform was the Texas Rangers. [8]A Stetson-based design is also part of the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. [25] Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson wore cowboy hats manufactured by Stetson. [8]

==Footnotes==
^ Reynolds, William and Rich Rand (1995) The Cowboy Hat book. Pg7 ISBN 0-87905-656-8
^ Bender, Texan Bix. (1994) Hats & the cowboys who wear them. Pg25 ISBN 1-58685-191-8
^ Reynolds, William and Rich Rand (1995) The Cowboy Hat book. Pg 8 ISBN 0-87905-656-8
^ Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970 1997 pg5 ISBN 0-7643-0211-6
^ Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970 1997 pg6 ISBN 0-7643-0211-6
^ Foster-Harris, William (2007) The Look of the Old West: A Fully Illustrated Guide pg106 ISBN 160239024X
^ Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970 1997 pg5 ISBN 0-7643-0211-6
^ a b c d e f g h i j Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970 ISBN 0-7643-0211-6 pg10
^ Christian, Mary Blount. (1992) Hats off to John Stetson 1992 ISBN 0-02-718465-X
^ http://www.hitching-post.net/history2.php
^ Bender
^ http://mycacties.com/blog/country-western-style/123/cowboy-hat-history
^ a b Carlson, Laurie. (1998) Boss of the Plains, the hat that won the West. ISBN 0-7894-2479-7
^ http://www.cowboyhathistory.org/
^ Bender, pg.11
^ Bender, p. 54
^ http://www.gertlushonline.co.uk/west-country-cowboy-hats.html
^ http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Stetson
^ The Cowboy Hat book, William Reynolds & Rich Rand 1995 pg.17 ISBN 0-87905-656-8
^ Reynolds and Rand, pg.8
^ Reynolds & Rand, pg.10
^ Bender, pg,12
^ Reynolds & Rand, pg.17
^ Reynolds & Rand, pg.15
^ http://www.hitching-post.net/history2.php

#1 Quality Boss

Adventurers returning East helped create a mystique of the West when they returned home wearing a "Boss of the plains," Stetson Cowboy hat.

#1 Quality was the highest grade available in Stetson hats at the time. Probably a blend of beaver, muskrat and coypu. This trademark was used from the 19th century up until the mid-twentieth century.

Footnotes
1. ^ Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970 Pg 5, 9, 29, 34, 35, 49, 73 ISBN 0-7643-0211-6

The hat that won the West

Boss of the Plains
What we have here is a master Hatter who goes prospecting in the Wild West. Like Levi Straus he made a garment out of tent material, in this case a hat. We do not know the details on that particular hat. He prospected for gold for a year after selling that hat. He opened a hat shop in Philadelphia. A year later he invented the "Boss of the plains," Stetson hat.
Wyatt Earp
The model that won the west and established a legend, later to be called a cowboy hat, looked pretty much like a flying saucer. Flat brimmed, with a straight sided rounded crown and a simple band.Buffalo Bill
These hats were sold to just about everyone from over 2800 locations all around the world. When people returned East for whatever reason. If they wanted to look the part of a successful Westerner they came home in a Stetson. This was a visual image and the allure of the west.Tom Mix

Who wears Cowboy Hats

==Who==
Cowboy hats have been worn by kings and ranch hands, by celebrities, political figures and businessmen alike.[1] If you wear a cowboy hat on your head, you’ll be called a cowboy.[2] While proportions, decorations, and scale change with the whims of fashion, basic hat style has changed little in the past five hundred years.

==Styles==
There are only two essential hat styles, brimmed and unbrimmed, which come in two basic forms, hats and caps. These are most often produced in one or two materials, felt or straw. [3] The original cowboy hat was a wide brimmed felt hat, with an open crown and a simple band. In recent years, however, the cloth baseball cap seems to have become the most common form of cowboy headwear. [4]

Footnotes
1. ^ Reynolds, William and Rich Rand (1995) The Cowboy Hat book. Pg7 ISBN 0-87905-656-8
2. ^ Bender, Texan Bix. (1994) Hats & the cowboys who wear them. Pg25 ISBN 1-58685-191-8
3. ^ Snyder, Jeffrey B. (1997) Stetson Hats and the John B. Stetson Company 1865-1970 Pg10 ISBN 0-7643-0211-6
4. ^ McDowell, Colin (1992) Hats, Status, Style, and Glamour Pg7 ISBN-10: 0500279446