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Looking for Lincoln: Lincoln's Hat:
Lincoln reportedly had a "very defective taste" in hats. At various times he was known to have worn fur caps, straw or palm hats and broad, low-brimmed wool or felt hats. He is best known for the "plug" or stovepipe hats he wore as a lawyer and as president. "His hat was brown and faded and the nap invariable y worn or rubbed off," a friend remembered. Another complained that Lincoln's tall hat "was not always exquisitely groomed" -- that it settled heavily on top of his wide ears. Another said that the hat Lincoln wore at the Lincoln-Douglas debates was "much worse for wear." Perhaps this was because Lincoln habitually used his hat as a desk and filing cabinet -- stuffing letters, legal papers, and scribbled speech notes inside it. This was not always wise. As a Congressman attending the 1849 inauguration of President Zachary Taylor, Lincoln supposedly had his hat stolen -- losing whatever literary treasures were inside it!
Hats were important to men in Lincoln's day. All men and boys wore one, Americans in the mid-19th century sported a wide variety of caps and hats. A friend of Lincoln's stated, "Hats are the item of dress that does more than any other for the improvement of one's personal appearance." Hats also marked a man's social status. Working men wore soft felt hats of every shape. Cloth railroad caps were also popular. Young men and boys liked dark wool sea caps with leather bills, Stiff felt bowlers and silk (replacing beaver) stovepipes adorned upper-middle-class businessmen. George Hall, who ran a haberdasher's shop (1860) on the west side of the square, is said to have made one of the stovepipe hats that Lincoln wore. |