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A hundred years ago, everyone wore hats. In 1960, they suddenly stopped. Here's why.

Old footage from the '50s shows men, women, and children wearing hats everywhere they go.

via Warmbru Curiosity/YouTube

When did everyone stop wearing hats?

It was everywhere. Men, women, and even children did it every time they left the house. If you see old newsreel footage of men in the office or on commuter trains from the advent of the motion picture camera to the early ‘60s, nearly everyone is wearing a hat. Hats were just as common for women in that era. For a woman to go out without a hat in the first half of the 20th century was akin to going out without clothes.

The funny thing is that everyone’s headgear is so similar in the old-timey footage that it makes previous generations look like big-time conformists. Then, in the early ‘60s, everything changed, and men and women started to go out in public with their hair exposed. Why did such a big aspect of fashion seem to change overnight?

Warmbru Curiosity investigated the question recently in a popular YouTube video. Warmbru’s channel is a lighthearted look at some of the more unusual people and events from our history and how they have influenced the world in which we live.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Why did people stop wearing hats?

Warmbru says fashion changed dramatically after World War II, when people in developed countries began to care less about expressing their social status. “This was especially true among the younger generation the rise of youth culture in the 1950s and 1960s emphasized rebellion against traditional norms, including formal dress codes,” the YouTuber says.

Mad Men, Don Draper, Jon Hamm, hats, mens fashion, men's hats, 1950s Don Draper from AMC's "Mad Men" Image via "Mad Men" AMC

Another big reason for the change in fashion was technology. Cars became the preferred mode of transportation for many after World War II and indoor environments became more hospitable. “People spent far less time exposed to the elements as people increasingly moved to urban areas and started using cars,” Warmbru says. “The practicality of wearing hats diminishes. Hats can be cumbersome in cars and on public transport, improvements in heating and air conditioning reduce the need for hats to provide warmth.”

Warmbru adds that President John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960, rarely wore a hat and his decision to go bareheaded became associated with modernity. Further, in 1963, the mop-topped Beatles proudly flaunted their hatless heads as they shook them while singing, “Wooooo.” Hat-wearing among women began to decline around the same time as the restrictive and complex headgear clashed with the burgeoning women’s liberation movement.

Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, hats, men, men's fashion, 1960's, 1950's John F. Kennedy with his family Image via Wikicommons

The decline in hat purchases meant that manufacturers closed and the headgear became harder to come by. This reduced availability further contributed to the decline in hat-wearing. As fewer people wore hats, there became a greater demand for high-quality hair products and services. “Why spend a fortune at the hairdressers or the barbers just to cover the end result with a hat?” Warmbru asks.

Ultimately, there were many reasons why people stopped wearing hats. It appears that it was a combination of technology, influential people such as Kennedy and The Beatles, and the overwhelming mood of change that swept most of the Western world in the 1960s. But if one thing is true about fashion, it goes in cycles. So, it seems that hats may be ready for their big comeback.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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John Lennon’s confrontation with a reporter over peace protests is something you never see

via James Black/YouTube

John Lennon and Gloria Emerson.

John Lennon of the Beatles was a uniquely gifted musician, writer, actor, visual artist and performer whose talents made him one of the most beloved people on the planet. However, his unique approach to activism in the ’60s and ’70s was mocked in its time but today seems just as visionary as his other talents.

Lennon’s first big political statement was the 1968 hit “Revolution,” which challenged those who want to “change the world” through institutions to “free your mind instead.” In 1969, he created one of the most enduring anti-war anthems, with “Give Peace a Chance.”

The easy-to-sing chorus was designed to be chanted by large groups of people and was a major refrain in the massive Vietnam Moratorium march in Washington in the fall of 1969.

As a member of the most popular pop group of all time, Lennon knew the power of the media and how to craft messages that caught the world’s attention.


After Lennon wed artist Yoko Ono on March 20, 1969, the couple knew it would be a major media event. So they decided to take the attention and use it as an advertisement for peace by staging a two-week-long bed-in at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.

The couple invited the international press into their hotel beds, and many thought there would be something salacious happening, only to find Lennon and Ono making the case for peace.

Seven months later, the couple was challenged for their anti-war activities by celebrated war correspondent Gloria Emerson, who had just returned from the frontlines in Vietnam. Emerson, a serious journalist who saw the bloodshed firsthand, thought that Yoko and Lennon’s activism was silly self-promotion.

The exchange between the three is engaging because they all want peace but have zero agreement on how it can be accomplished.

John Lennon interviewed by Gloria Emerson

"You've made yourself ridiculous!" Emerson insists.

"I don't care," Lennon replied, "if it saves lives."

"My dear boy," she said, "you're living in a nether-nether land. . . . You don't think you've saved a single life!" Emerson says.

"You tell me what they were singing at the Moratorium," Lennon shot back.

"Which one?" Emerson asks.

"The recent big one," Lennon explained. "They were singing ‘Give Peace a Chance’ … and it was written specifically for them."

"So they sang one of your songs," she said with some irritation. "Is that all you can say?"

"They were singing a happy-go-lucky song, which happens to be one I wrote. I'm glad they sang it. And when I get there, I'll sing it with them," Lennon responds.

Throughout the back and forth Lennon calls Emerson a "snob" and she responds by calling him a "fake." Lennon tries to explain that he's doing an "advertisement campaign for peace." To which she cleverly responds, "Are you advertising John Lennon or peace?"

The argument is a wonderful example of a bygone era when celebrities were challenged by reporters. In 1969, Lennon was one of the most well-known and beloved people on planet Earth and Emerson has no problem challenging him. Can you imagine a reporter confronting someone of that status on the topic of activism in 2021?

The exchange is also refreshing because Lennon has no qualms about protecting his public image. He doesn’t care if he’s seen as a clown as long as he makes his point to as many people as possible. It's a lot different than the type of celebrity "slacktivism" we see today where all they do is send out a tweet or reply to a hashtag.

There’s no real way to quantify whether Lennon’s songs and activism helped change the tide of the war, but there’s no argument over whether he was successful at presenting his message of peace to the world.

In the interview, Emerson accuses Lennon of being a half-hearted activist who lacks commitment but, in the coming years, the former Beatle and Ono would continue to engage in anti-war activism.

The couple’s political activism would cool off by the mid-’70s after being threatened by the Nixon administration with deportation.

John Lennon was murdered in New York City on December 8, 1980, 41 years ago to the day this article was written.

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Her sick baby brother was treated cruelly — here's what the experience taught her.

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March of Dimes

When my mom, Sandra Haggberg, was 8 years old, she was told that she was going to have a baby brother.

The news was exciting — she already had two little sisters, so a little brother was bound to be different. She couldn't wait to meet him.

‌My mother, Sandra, with her mother, Virginia, at a farm in Minnesota. Image from the Haggberg family, used with permission. ‌

But when Mark was born on Sept. 17, 1957, the doctors knew right away that something was wrong. His ear was folded over onto itself and his head was out of proportion with the rest of his body.

A specialist was called in to examine him, X-rays were performed, and it was revealed that Mark was born with only one kidney, and it was abnormally small — about the size of peanut. His pituitary gland was also barely functioning and he had congenital hydrocephalus, a condition that causes an accumulation of fluid in the brain.

Mark was immediately transferred to the University of Minnesota hospital for treatment, before the rest of the family could meet him. He stayed there for about six months, until his father, Merlyn — tired of seeing his son in pain — asked if all the blood draws, transfusions, and medical tests were really helping.

They weren't. There was no cure for Mark. So Merlyn took him home.

‌Merlyn holding his son, Mark. The family didn't take many photos of Mark because he was so sick. Image from the Haggberg family, used with permission. ‌

That was the first time Sandra got to meet Mark, and her new little brother didn’t look like what she expected.

Despite being six months old at that point, only his head had really grown and it was misshapen, and he had long, skinny arms and legs. The problems with his pituitary gland stunted his growth. “During his entire life, he never grew beyond the size of a three-month-old baby,” Sandra remembers.

Mark lived almost five years — far longer than anyone had expected. But as he grew older, he never learned to talk, he cried a lot from pain, and he rarely smiled.

“I remember that I could make him laugh though," says Sandra. "I would bound towards him, making barking noises — like a dog — and he would laugh and laugh,” she says. “I was kind of proud of myself that I could do that.”

Because Mark was so sick, he didn’t leave home all that often. When he did, people’s treatment of him was … unkind, to put it mildly.

“People in the neighborhood were afraid of him," says Sandra. "He looked different, he cried — they didn’t know how to help. We were treated differently. We were ‘the family with the monster baby,’ and so, we just kept to ourselves. It was too personal and private to talk about or share with others.”

‌One of the few photos of Mark.  Image from the Haggberg family, used with permission. ‌

Even family members kept their distance.

“When Mark was getting blood transfusions, we needed donors — Dad couldn’t donate blood as often as Mark needed them,” Sandra says. “Family members would promise to donate, but then fail to show up.”

At school, Sandra’s friends were curious about her brother, so she invited them over. “I had them come to our house. I went inside, picked Mark up, and brought him to the screen door but as soon as they saw him, they all screamed and ran away.” She wasn’t allowed to bring more friends over after that.

“Mom was a very private person. She didn’t want the noise, the mess, and the exposure,” Sandra says. “It was different back then. There was a lot of shame. So we just kept him to ourselves. It was like he was part of the house.”

“He was our secret,” she adds. And it remained that way until Mark’s death on March 6, 1962.

After that, the family didn’t talk much about Mark.

‌

‌Sandra with her two little sisters.  Image from the Haggberg family, used with permission.

Sandra’s mom put his blanket and baby clothes in a cedar chest and kept it until she died of cancer 17 years ago. Merlyn talked about him a few times with Sandra over the years, but not much — and today, he doesn’t remember due to dementia. The three sisters never talked about him much either.

Growing up with Mark, and losing him, had an impact on Sandra for the rest of her life. But what stuck with her the most was not wanting Mark and others like him to feel invisible.

“Secrets can hurt and cause shame,” she says.

I don’t remember the first time that my mom told me about Mark, but I do know that I was in elementary school — so maybe I was 7 or 8. She didn’t keep Mark a secret from me or from my dad. Though we didn’t talk about him often, we were there to listen to her, without judgment, when she wanted to talk about him.

‌My mother holding me after my baptism in 1988. Image from the Scully family, used with permission. ‌

"It [also] taught me the importance of family and friends,” Sandra says.

She remembers how one aunt — her mom’s sister — wasn’t afraid of Mark and she would take care of him for one week every year so that the Haggbergs could take a camping trip as a family. “She wasn’t afraid and that meant a lot to our family,” Sandra says. “It meant that Mom got to sleep in. We got to spend more time with her. We got to laugh and make s’mores by the campfire — we got to be a ‘normal’ family for a little while, without worrying about Mark. It meant so, so much to us.”

“It taught me how, with help, you can survive anything," she adds.

‌My mother and father in December 2015. Photo from the Scully family, used with permission. ‌

Fortunately, we’ve come a long way in how we treat birth defects and disabilities since the 1950s.

Not only have medical advancements enabled us to better understand birth abnormalities and what causes them, but we have also, as a society, begun to change how we treat disability. People with birth defects, and their families, have been in the public eye now more than ever, challenging prejudices and shining a spotlight on the issues that affect them. And as a society, we're learning how to be more empathetic toward the families of a child born with birth defects and disabilities so that they don’t feel ostracized, shamed, or like they have to hide.

There's a long way to go, and we need to continue this positive trend so that every family gets the care, compassion, and support they need.

“I would ask people to be kind, to try to understand just a little bit — not to intrude, not to ask too many questions, and not to offer advice when none is asked for,” Sandra says. “But just to be kind.”

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