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Hatless Jack
Boaters, derbies, fedoras: until just a generation or two ago, a man's social status, if not his very masculinity, was defined by his hat. For centuries, men owned hats for all seasons and occasions. But in the 1960s, the male hat became obsolete. Just as women shed their white gloves for the sexual revolution, men cast aside centuries of tradition and stopped wearing hats.
The hat's demise has over time been credited to President Kennedy, or "Hatless Jack," due to his reluctance to be photographed wearing a hat for fear it made him look old. But one president alone did not make or break a trend. In this quirky social history, Neil Steinberg traces the evolution of the hat over centuries, as a costly but necessary investment, as a symbol of social status, and masculinity, and as a global industry.
342 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Neil Steinberg
17 books27 followersNeil Steinberg is a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he has been on staff since 1987.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 8, 2010
Very good, but slightly frustrating. Steinberg has written a great book about the death of hat wearing in American society, but gets very confused on the reasons for it.
Overall, this was a very entertaining book! It's well paced, easy to follow, light (but still informative) and enjoyable. Steinberg paints a vivid picture of the social expectations men used to be under regarding their attire and seasonal hat choices. He branches off to discuss related topics like the advent of hat-check girls, the marketing efforts of the hat industry, mid-20th century advertising culture (yes, like Mad Men but without the soap opera) etc., and ties it all in together well.
Here's the problem: Steinberg goes into it all fired up to tell you that many people blame President Kennedy and his aversion to wearing hats for the end of Men's hats in America and these people are TOTALLY WRONG! But he never clearly argues a counter theory. In fact, he goes on to tell several stories that would seem to support the Kennedy theory, all the while telling us just how far off that theory is.
This keeps happening throughout the book. In fact, in the introduction there's a passage where Steinberg relates the Kennedy explanation as well as two others that seem entirely plausible, and interesting enough to deserve their own chapters, and then proceeds to shrug the other two theories off without explanation as simply being "wrong." He goes into some vague discussion about personal choice and individualism as the cause of hat style changes, but never really proves it.
Seriously, It's like having a debate with someone who states an opinion, tells you he's going to prove he's right but instead just re-states his opinion, then gives you a patronizing smile when you question him and acts like you're too dumb to understand what's clearly obvious.
This book actually made me wonder what my middle school English teachers would say. I wanted to sit Neil Steinberg down in front of a blackboard and diagram how one makes an arguement in essay writing or debate. "Tell them what you're going to prove, then provide proofs in each chapter, then sum up by telling people what you just proved!" But the thing is he's having so much fun just talking about the history of American men's fashion, and he does it so entertainingly, that you enjoy the book anyway and don't really mind that nothing concrete has been settled!
Overall, this was a very entertaining book! It's well paced, easy to follow, light (but still informative) and enjoyable. Steinberg paints a vivid picture of the social expectations men used to be under regarding their attire and seasonal hat choices. He branches off to discuss related topics like the advent of hat-check girls, the marketing efforts of the hat industry, mid-20th century advertising culture (yes, like Mad Men but without the soap opera) etc., and ties it all in together well.
Here's the problem: Steinberg goes into it all fired up to tell you that many people blame President Kennedy and his aversion to wearing hats for the end of Men's hats in America and these people are TOTALLY WRONG! But he never clearly argues a counter theory. In fact, he goes on to tell several stories that would seem to support the Kennedy theory, all the while telling us just how far off that theory is.
This keeps happening throughout the book. In fact, in the introduction there's a passage where Steinberg relates the Kennedy explanation as well as two others that seem entirely plausible, and interesting enough to deserve their own chapters, and then proceeds to shrug the other two theories off without explanation as simply being "wrong." He goes into some vague discussion about personal choice and individualism as the cause of hat style changes, but never really proves it.
Seriously, It's like having a debate with someone who states an opinion, tells you he's going to prove he's right but instead just re-states his opinion, then gives you a patronizing smile when you question him and acts like you're too dumb to understand what's clearly obvious.
This book actually made me wonder what my middle school English teachers would say. I wanted to sit Neil Steinberg down in front of a blackboard and diagram how one makes an arguement in essay writing or debate. "Tell them what you're going to prove, then provide proofs in each chapter, then sum up by telling people what you just proved!" But the thing is he's having so much fun just talking about the history of American men's fashion, and he does it so entertainingly, that you enjoy the book anyway and don't really mind that nothing concrete has been settled!
July 29, 2013
Steinberg uses JFK's legendary distaste for hats (though he wore them more than people credit him with) as the linchpin for a look at hats as metaphor, symbol (there was a time that someone rushing out without a hat clearly implied he was not together), tool (some rich men kept all their property deeds in the hat) and agent of social pressure (men were sometimes assaulted for not wearing hates). Contrary to myth, hats were withering from popular use for years before JFK went without one; Steinberg's conclusion is that as social standards loosened up, men who didn't want to wear hats felt free to do so, so Kennedy was merely typical of his generation. Entertaining and interesting.
July 16, 2020
Who would have thought I would love a book about hats? Or to put it more correctly not wearing hats. Well researched and laid out in a very entertaining way.
April 5, 2008
John F. Kennedy was a president without precedent: the youngest man ever elected to the Oval Office, the first to be born in the twentieth century, and the first president-elect to become a father. Right from the start it was clear this was going to be a very different presidency.
And, for the most part, it was a bareheaded one. In striking contrast to his predecessors, JFK was rarely seen in any kind of headwear. It’s perhaps for this reason that Kennedy has been blamed for ending America’s longstanding love affair with the hat. But in Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora, and the History of American Style, author and Chicago Sun-Times journalist Neil Steinberg has gone to extraordinary lengths to nail that myth.
From our viewpoint, it’s almost impossible to imagine a time when a man could not appear in public without a hat. Yet Steinberg shows that hats were once regarded not merely as accessories, but as indispensable components of a man’s wardrobe. In George Gissing’s 1888 novel, A Life’s Morning, the loss of the protagonist’s hat impels him to steal from his employer to replace it. The theft has catastrophic consequences, but he is quite prepared to risk all rather than lose public respect. Such extreme cases, says Steinberg, may have been rare, but the very existence of the story and the fact that it could never have been written in our own times, is one measure of how society has changed in little over a century.
Similarly incredible is Steinberg’s account of how civil disorder on the streets of New York was provoked merely by the sight of straw hats. What had started as a publicity stunt by the hat trade turned into a widely observed canon that straw hats could only be worn between May and mid-September. President Calvin Coolidge actually made the front page of the New York Times just because he’d taken an autumn stroll in a straw boater. For those not accompanied by the secret service, the consequences of breaking with this sartorial custom would prove more serious. Steinberg describes how riots broke out in 1922 when mobs of boys roamed the streets of New York City, attacking any man daring enough to wear a straw hat.
Demonstrating the vulnerability of hats to fickle tastes, Steinberg devotes an entire chapter to the rise and fall of the top hat. Surprisingly, it emerged from the French Revolution as a substitute for the aristocracy’s cocked hat. But within a century and a half, the topper had become quite literally old hat, a symbol of wealth and avarice, confined to weddings and state occasions. By the middle of the twentieth century, the top hat was falling out of favour even at presidential inaugurations. Franklin Roosevelt dispensed with any type of headwear for his 1945 inauguration, and although Harry Truman briefly resurrected the topper, Dwight Eisenhower came to power wearing a fedora. More surprising still, as Steinberg points out, the last president to wear a top hat at his inauguration was none other than John F. Kennedy. He may have been hatless during his famous “Ask not...” speech, but for the rest of the day a top hat was planted firmly on the presidential head.
That he chose to wear a hat at all was largely due to pressure from America’s hat makers. During the entire Kennedy presidency, they used every opportunity to badger him into wearing a hat, and the more often he appeared bareheaded, the madder the hatters became. While visiting Texas, he was presented with a Stetson, and after photographers pleaded with him to put it on, the president promised to wear it at the White House the following Monday. As things turned out, it was a Monday he was destined not to see.
In the years since his death, the myth has endured that JFK’s decision not to wear hats explains why so few men wear them today. But Kennedy wasn’t the only suspect. Steinberg reels off a list of potential culprits that include almost everything, from the movies to the motor car. And if all else failed, the finger could always be pointed at an easy target that’s been blamed for so much else - women. Once women started going hatless at the theatre and cinema, it was claimed, it was only a matter of time before men followed suit.
But, according to Steinberg, the decisive factor in the demise of the hat lies with the young generation. A hatless trend can be seen in motion as early as the 1920s when undergraduate men began to abandon the regimented fashions of their fathers. The fact that one of those college boys was John F. Kennedy adds weight to Steinberg’s assertion that, far from being a sartorial trailblazer, JFK was a dedicated follower of fashion.
Steinberg’s book is an absorbing read, full of enjoyable diversions through the highways and by-ways of hat history. A potentially pedestrian subject is rescued by a lively storytelling style and a constellation of famous names, from William Tell to William Shakespeare. There is, perhaps, too much for the reader to digest, but every one of the facts and footnotes bears witness to the author’s attention to detail. Countless hours of research are evident, not only in the body of the text but in the thirty pages of acknowledgements, notes, and bibliography.
The book’s only gaping omission is photographic proof that JFK ever wore a hat. The absence of such pictures is all the more frustrating because of Steinberg’s frequent references to their existence.
Almost half a century on, controversy still surrounds the case of the murdered president. But in the case of the disappearing hat, Neil Steinberg has finally got JFK off the hook.
And, for the most part, it was a bareheaded one. In striking contrast to his predecessors, JFK was rarely seen in any kind of headwear. It’s perhaps for this reason that Kennedy has been blamed for ending America’s longstanding love affair with the hat. But in Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora, and the History of American Style, author and Chicago Sun-Times journalist Neil Steinberg has gone to extraordinary lengths to nail that myth.
From our viewpoint, it’s almost impossible to imagine a time when a man could not appear in public without a hat. Yet Steinberg shows that hats were once regarded not merely as accessories, but as indispensable components of a man’s wardrobe. In George Gissing’s 1888 novel, A Life’s Morning, the loss of the protagonist’s hat impels him to steal from his employer to replace it. The theft has catastrophic consequences, but he is quite prepared to risk all rather than lose public respect. Such extreme cases, says Steinberg, may have been rare, but the very existence of the story and the fact that it could never have been written in our own times, is one measure of how society has changed in little over a century.
Similarly incredible is Steinberg’s account of how civil disorder on the streets of New York was provoked merely by the sight of straw hats. What had started as a publicity stunt by the hat trade turned into a widely observed canon that straw hats could only be worn between May and mid-September. President Calvin Coolidge actually made the front page of the New York Times just because he’d taken an autumn stroll in a straw boater. For those not accompanied by the secret service, the consequences of breaking with this sartorial custom would prove more serious. Steinberg describes how riots broke out in 1922 when mobs of boys roamed the streets of New York City, attacking any man daring enough to wear a straw hat.
Demonstrating the vulnerability of hats to fickle tastes, Steinberg devotes an entire chapter to the rise and fall of the top hat. Surprisingly, it emerged from the French Revolution as a substitute for the aristocracy’s cocked hat. But within a century and a half, the topper had become quite literally old hat, a symbol of wealth and avarice, confined to weddings and state occasions. By the middle of the twentieth century, the top hat was falling out of favour even at presidential inaugurations. Franklin Roosevelt dispensed with any type of headwear for his 1945 inauguration, and although Harry Truman briefly resurrected the topper, Dwight Eisenhower came to power wearing a fedora. More surprising still, as Steinberg points out, the last president to wear a top hat at his inauguration was none other than John F. Kennedy. He may have been hatless during his famous “Ask not...” speech, but for the rest of the day a top hat was planted firmly on the presidential head.
That he chose to wear a hat at all was largely due to pressure from America’s hat makers. During the entire Kennedy presidency, they used every opportunity to badger him into wearing a hat, and the more often he appeared bareheaded, the madder the hatters became. While visiting Texas, he was presented with a Stetson, and after photographers pleaded with him to put it on, the president promised to wear it at the White House the following Monday. As things turned out, it was a Monday he was destined not to see.
In the years since his death, the myth has endured that JFK’s decision not to wear hats explains why so few men wear them today. But Kennedy wasn’t the only suspect. Steinberg reels off a list of potential culprits that include almost everything, from the movies to the motor car. And if all else failed, the finger could always be pointed at an easy target that’s been blamed for so much else - women. Once women started going hatless at the theatre and cinema, it was claimed, it was only a matter of time before men followed suit.
But, according to Steinberg, the decisive factor in the demise of the hat lies with the young generation. A hatless trend can be seen in motion as early as the 1920s when undergraduate men began to abandon the regimented fashions of their fathers. The fact that one of those college boys was John F. Kennedy adds weight to Steinberg’s assertion that, far from being a sartorial trailblazer, JFK was a dedicated follower of fashion.
Steinberg’s book is an absorbing read, full of enjoyable diversions through the highways and by-ways of hat history. A potentially pedestrian subject is rescued by a lively storytelling style and a constellation of famous names, from William Tell to William Shakespeare. There is, perhaps, too much for the reader to digest, but every one of the facts and footnotes bears witness to the author’s attention to detail. Countless hours of research are evident, not only in the body of the text but in the thirty pages of acknowledgements, notes, and bibliography.
The book’s only gaping omission is photographic proof that JFK ever wore a hat. The absence of such pictures is all the more frustrating because of Steinberg’s frequent references to their existence.
Almost half a century on, controversy still surrounds the case of the murdered president. But in the case of the disappearing hat, Neil Steinberg has finally got JFK off the hook.
November 12, 2016
I had no idea the demise of the formal hat was blamed on Kennedy. Even though the trend toward hatlessness had been taking place for decades prior. I guess the tradition of blaming presidents for most of our societal ills has always been the case. Interesting historical read on fashion and the presidency.
October 6, 2025
Marvellous and fun book that demolishes the link between Kennedy and the demise of the wearing of hats. But of course that link was always spurious as a moments thought reveals - how often did you see James Dean wear a hat? The wearing of hats was already in terminal decline not simply in the USA but everywhere. Did anyone seriously think that if Kennedy had kept his top hat on throughout, rather than occasionally, during the inauguration that hat sales in general would have increased? Also men do wear hats, baseball caps, they just don't wear hats like fedoras any more.
Mr. Steinberg is on weaker ground when he discusses the reasons hat wearing declined/disappeared but there are deep rooted, and not necessarily purely American trends at work in this, and Mr. Steinberg is completely unwilling, or unaware that the rest of the world can act independent of America or, heaven forbid!, actually influence Americans.
A fun book, but not a well written or argued book.
Mr. Steinberg is on weaker ground when he discusses the reasons hat wearing declined/disappeared but there are deep rooted, and not necessarily purely American trends at work in this, and Mr. Steinberg is completely unwilling, or unaware that the rest of the world can act independent of America or, heaven forbid!, actually influence Americans.
A fun book, but not a well written or argued book.
May 30, 2014
Hatless Jack is an almost comical eulogy to the hat - walking through the this history of the hat and the shifts of fashion that left the hat behind. Once a mandatory feature of men's dress no matter the class or wealth of the wearer, a man without a hat was more than hatless, he was the object of derision. And while JFK is said to be the nexus of the decline of the hat, the hat was long passé before JFK. Fezzes, top hats, hat check girls and more than you'd ever believe, all about the hat. The Hat Corporation of America, the Hat Union, the Hat Institute and everyone invested in the hat cried and wept and moaned as hat sales declined, blindly seeking to reverse the human tide of fashion and cultural evolution.
A good read whether or not you wear a hat.
--Ashland Mystery
A good read whether or not you wear a hat.
--Ashland Mystery
February 2, 2009
This is quite a trip through the past century or more of men's hat wearing. Steinberg has done an admiral job tracking down references to the ubiquitous hat, something that is not easy. (When something is everywhere, no one ever thinks to mention it. I learned this when researching the history of the card catalog.) His argument starts to get a little muddy towards the end, but he does manage to argue well that hats died off as a consequence of the cultural changes that made individualism the norm.
The irony, of course, is that now when I wear my brown fedora, I'm expressing the same cultural tendencies that made wearing a fedora unpleasant.
The irony, of course, is that now when I wear my brown fedora, I'm expressing the same cultural tendencies that made wearing a fedora unpleasant.
December 26, 2009
I read this several years ago - it's an interesting look at the changes in society that went along with men no longer wearing hats. Perhaps "thought provoking" is too strong but the writing is engaging and the anecdotes and examples flow well. Kennedy is at the center but it isn't much about Kennedy, really, but post-WW II America.
August 25, 2014
I'd long been piqued by why and when men had stopped wearing hats as an essential part of their daily attire. This book goes a long way to explaining it. While I enjoyed it and learned a lot I do feel the author could have injected more humour into the history of hats. He also over-emphasizes the role JFK plays in the story but all in all, a good read.
June 19, 2015
This was just OK. All about hats and their role in American style. Also tries to tie in Kennedy's contribution to the decline of hat wearing. Interesting if you're really into hats, but probably not interesting to the average reader
February 11, 2012
Light reading for the beach, this book studies the 20th century history of men's hats. It looks into the question, is it myth or fiction that Kennedy's not wearing a hat at his inauguration made them unfashionable? Yet he DID wear an inaugural hat. Hmmm...
December 22, 2008
An excellent read for you fashionistas. It looks at the slow but clear way trends (particularly fashion) develop and change, with the decline of male headgear as the main focus.
September 7, 2011
Interesting, but somewhat unfocused and repetitive.
February 6, 2013
Unfocused but full of great anecdotes and (sourced!) quotes.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews