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| Posted By : Jack Windsword - 5/19/2008 1:16 PM | | I've tried to figure this one out, and it may be the answer I'm seeking doesn't exist, but I'll ask lest I look like a fool when I write it.
Is there an actual name for cowboy hats? I don't want to write "cowboy hat" if it has another name. Nor do I want to write "broad-rimmed, high-crowned hat" either. I might be able to get away with calling it cowboy hat in narration, but I can't have the characters call it that, because the character that possesses the hat is the only one in this universe that has it. It must have a name. Any one know about this one? Thanks. |
| Posted By : RHFay - 5/19/2008 1:27 PM | Stetson? Yes, it appears that John B. Stetson invented the hat, so "Stetson hat" is a good alternative:
Cowboy Hat History
History of the Cowboy Hat
Stetson History
Stetson - Wikipedia entry
Even though the Wiki entry says Stetson refers to a brand and not a type of hat, I think I've heard cowboy hats called Stetsons. I would say that Stetson is possibly the most famous brand of cowboy hat, dating back to the 1860s.
(It's amazing what you can find on the net.)
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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| Posted By : RHFay - 5/19/2008 1:47 PM | | If Stetson doesn't work, there's always "Hat of the West" or "Boss of the Plains". And there's always the "Ten Gallon Hat":
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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| Posted By : Hermit - 5/19/2008 1:54 PM | Stetson is likely the most recognized.
My favorite is a Charlie Onehorse that's up in my closet. Aqua tinted snakeskin band with a big damn turquoise ornament up front with pheasant and other feathers.
Depends on what tone you want to set. Stetson is a Texas hat goes back a long way. Charlie Onehorse is not as old, and I think they be out of Chicago. Boy, we're going way back with this one . . . 1988? That hat's antique now. Holy poot!
I like the Charlie Onehorse hats because they're all custom jobs - or were, anyway. And it's fun to make up a story about why they're called that . . .
There's also the whole ten-gallon hat, etc. variations.
"The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight." --Joseph Campbell
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| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 5/19/2008 1:59 PM | Cowboy hat is perfectly acceptable. There is tremedous lore about them, BTW, with all sorts of meaning to be taken in how it is rolled, worn, and how wide the brim is.
Stetson makes a nice hat, but in some areas, like where I grew up in eastern Oregon, (home of the Pendleton Roundup, one of the biggest rodeoes in the country) Bailey was the hat of choice.
Early days, they used the word sombrero, or cowboy sombrero. Most cowboy terms are corrupted spanish, stolen from the vaqueros. Lariet, remuda, corral, etc.
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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 5/19/2008 3:20 PM | Ain't never heard 'em called nuttin' else 'round these here parts.
Ten-gallon hat works too, if it's a large version.
Sombrero only works if you are wearing the right type. I had one, they're neat :) But they're not what you see Cowboy's wearing on the range in the USA.
You can also call them western hats.
Here's the home page of the Jackson Hole Hat company:
http://www.jhhatco.com/
They make cowboy hats.
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| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 5/19/2008 7:32 PM | |
Up until the late 1890's most cowboys called them sombrero.
Deadwood Dick
The Prince Of The Road;
or,
The Black Rider of the Black Hills.
BY EDWARD L. WHEELER. (1877)A broad sombrero was set jauntily upon the left side of his head, the hair of which had been cut close down to the scalp. His face—a pleasant, handsome, youthful face—was devoid of hirsute covering, he having evidently been recently handled by the barber.
Ned Buntline, when he described a cowboy's hat called it slouched. Now I would call old Ned the authority, but lets look at some others:
Ben Blair
The Story of a Plainsman
by
Will Lillibridge (1905)
Ben shifted half around in the saddle and folded back the rim of his big sombrero.
and
What he saw was a tall slim young man, in chaparejos and sombrero, the inevitable "repeater" at his hip, solitarily engaged in the process of breaking a bronco. (Count the Spanish borrow words in this one!)
And here is Ben hisself in the attachment below:
From the same author, in "Where the Trail Divides."
This done,
notwithstanding the fact that the sun still beat scorchingly hot
thereon, he returned to the doorstep, lit his pipe, drew his
weather-stained sombrero low over his face, through half-closed eyes
inspected the lower lands all about, impassively silent awaited the
coming of the inevitable.
Contemporary newspapers and accounts all used the word sombrero--- we didn't start calling all western male figures cowboys until the 1920's, after huge indoctrination by the Wild West Shows and silent movies. Before then, a cowboy was either literally someone who handled cattle (a horse herder was a wrangler) or an outlaw.
Wild Bill Hickock, Jesse James, Dallas Stoudemire, Ben Thompson, or Dallas Rudebaugh would have probably formed a large, lead-tinged smoking hole in your forehead had you insulted them with such a name.
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"Night of Shadows, Night of Knives" Magic and Mechanica, Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
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"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" They Are Not What They Seem, Janrae Frank, ed., TBA
"The First Trial of Jermaish the King" Flashing Swords #10, May 2008
Still in print!
"The Stars by Law Forbidden" Unparalleled Journeys II, Journey Books, 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, Tenoka Press, 2007
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| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 5/19/2008 8:04 PM | Yeah, it got out of hand. The question was early names for the western hat, and I don't think they were called cowboy hats until the 1920's. As above (now modified for readability) the contemporary name was sombrero.
I read an enormous amount of this stuff in college, not just the dime western stuff but a lot of the memoirs of folks like Libby Custer and Bat Masterson, the latter, BTW ended up as a sports writer.
Click here to buy my book!
The Servant of the Manthycore from DEP
Illustrated by Rachel Marks, with an introduction by Michael Moorcock
Read me in 2008!
"Without Napier" Every Day Fiction, April 9
"Night of Shadows, Night of Knives" Magic and Mechanica, Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
"To Destroy All Flesh" Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, Spring 2008
"Only His Name" Every Day Fiction, March 30
"An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" They Are Not What They Seem, Janrae Frank, ed., TBA
"The First Trial of Jermaish the King" Flashing Swords #10, May 2008
Still in print!
"The Stars by Law Forbidden" Unparalleled Journeys II, Journey Books, 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, Tenoka Press, 2007
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| Posted By : Rob Mancebo - 5/21/2008 3:16 AM |
Jack Windsword said...
Is there an actual name for cowboy hats? I don't want to write "cowboy hat" if it has another name. Nor do I want to write "broad-rimmed, high-crowned hat" either. I might be able to get away with calling it cowboy hat in narration, but I can't have the characters call it that, because the character that possesses the hat is the only one in this universe that has it. It must have a name. Any one know about this one? Thanks.
- Time & place?
- The US is a very large area. Folks have called those hats by a variety of names throughout history.
- Cowboys in Montana or the Dakotas might call it by one name while cowboys in Texas might call it something else. One thing's for sure, cowboys moved around. So you can take your choice of which area's preference you use.
- In 'I see by your outfit', Lindmier & Mount quote old cowboys. Those old boys talk about a 'Stetson' like a modern person would talk about his Lexus. But those were specifically Dakota cowboys from up North. Folks close to the southern border would naturally use 'somberero'.
- There were earlier hats that were similar, like the 'Slouch hats' of the American civil war. But the 'Stetson' name really stuck. Like a 'Crescent wrench', or a 'Kleenex', or a 'Kotex', if you use the brand name, you never have to explain what it is.
- I think you'll find that in a lot of areas, a 'Stetson' just meant a wide-brimmed hat of any brand. Like a 'Colt' generically meant a pistol and a 'Winchester' generically meant a rifle. Even today in the South a "Coke" means a sodapop of any brand or flavor (don't try correcting someone from South Carolina that there's no such thing as an orange "Coke"!)
The Wastelander
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| Posted By : Rob Mancebo - 5/21/2008 3:41 AM |
MichaelEhart said...
Contemporary newspapers and accounts all used the word sombrero--- we didn't start calling all western male figures cowboys until the 1920's, after huge indoctrination by the Wild West Shows and silent movies. Before then, a cowboy was either literally someone who handled cattle (a horse herder was a wrangler) or an outlaw.
- Worse than that, a 'cowboy' was a part-time day laborer. He only worked part of the year and only got paid a pittance for that. As they got older--more broken up--they'd retire into a better job.(the camp cook for one, made as much as the foreman--or more.)
- However, even then, the cowboy was a 'legend in his own mind'. As early as 1870 magazines, dime novels, and wild west shows were glorifying 'cowboys'. Lots of PR went into the way they acted.
Wild Bill Hickock, Jesse James, Dallas Stoudemire, Ben Thompson, or Dallas Rudebaugh would have probably formed a large, lead-tinged smoking hole in your forehead had you insulted them with such a name.
- I think they would've laughed at you for being an idiot 'dude'. And, of course gunmen like Billy the Kid and John W. Hardin were cowboys, at least off & on.
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| Posted By : RHFay - 5/22/2008 6:28 PM | I think one thing you have to keep in mind is you want to use a term that would be recognised by the greatest number of readers. A general term like cowboy hat, or Stetson, or ten gallon hat may work better than a more regional or historically correct term.
Being a New Yorker and Anglophile with only a passing interest in Western history and lore, I don't think "cowboy hat" when someone says "sombrero". I think the large Mexican hat, often made out of straw. Perhaps "sombrero" has a historical connection to "cowboy hat", but it may cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the historic details.
I have no idea what a Bailey or a Charlie Onehorse is. I have no clue how they differ from a Stetson (a brand I have actually heard of).
I had heard the term "ten gallon hat", but only recently learned about its possible origins and how it differed from other "cowboy hats" (it had to do with the braiding).
Perception may be as important as historical or regional truth, if you know what I mean.
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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| Posted By : Rob Mancebo - 5/23/2008 2:47 AM |
RHFay said...
I think one thing you have to keep in mind is you want to use a term that would be recognised by the greatest number of readers. A general term like cowboy hat, or Stetson, or ten gallon hat may work better than a more regional or historically correct term.
Being a New Yorker and Anglophile with only a passing interest in Western history and lore, I don't think "cowboy hat" when someone says "sombrero". I think the large Mexican hat, often made out of straw. Perhaps "sombrero" has a historical connection to "cowboy hat", but it may cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the historic details.
- A very good point. We don't want to dumb-down to the 'lowest common denominator', but we don't want to confuse the majority of the readers either.
I had heard the term "ten gallon hat", but only recently learned about its possible origins and how it differed from other "cowboy hats" (it had to do with the braiding).
- Brading?
- During the period (pre/early 1900s) I think the the big boy of hats was the "Chief Moses". Note that 'Monkey Wards' offered the 'Buckskin Sombrero' style. (I also note that they used the term "sombrero") with a 4 in crown & 5 in brim.
- "The original 'ten gallon' hat was developed in Cheyenne, Wyoming by Max Meyers and called the Colonel McCoy". It was made for movie star Tim McCoy in 1925. This monster hat had a 9 in crown and a 6 in brim."
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| Posted By : RHFay - 5/23/2008 10:59 AM | One or two of the links I posted had information suggesting that the term "ten gallon hat" was a garbling of the term "ten galon hat", "galon" meaning "braid in Spanish. Thus, a "ten-gallon hat" was a hat with ten braids, the braids being worn where brim and bowl meet (like the band on a fedora).
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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| Posted By : Rob Mancebo - 5/23/2008 4:47 PM |
RHFay said...
One or two of the links I posted had information suggesting that the term "ten gallon hat" was a garbling of the term "ten galon hat", "galon" meaning "braid in Spanish. Thus, a "ten-gallon hat" was a hat with ten braids, the braids being worn where brim and bowl meet (like the band on a fedora).
- Ah, okay.
- Please note both Wiki refrences about the '10-gallon hat' are flagged : " a Wikipedia editor feels that the preceding statement is likely to be challenged, and therefore needs an inline citation. If you can provide a source to back up the statement, please be bold and add it. If not, please exercise extra caution when using the flagged information."
- In the 50's (the hey-day of cowboy TV) I remember people claiming it was because they used to fit 10 gold coins around the band to show it off(which seemed like complete B.S. What dollar-a-day cowboy would wear a $2,000 hat band???) Lots of stories about things like that. Anyway, the name might hearken back to the old spanish but the hat was post 1920s in every refrence I've seen. It was also sold bound by a wide ribbon, like most period hats, not any sort of brading.
- My refrence has 'who made it and when' listed for the production of the "Ten Gallon hat". Corporate production records and advertising are pretty easy to research. Also '10-gallon hats' are not seen in any pre 1900s photos. 'I see by your outfit' further states: "The Stetson company made this hat at the request of Meyers who then sold it to McCoy. The style achieved immediate success among movie stars and rodeo cowboys."
. . . and the rest is (murky) history.
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