Revolutionary War Headgears

[Dept of PMM Cut of Style]

Headgears________________

Product details • • •

Blank Hat

Silk sweat band

Tri-corn

Tri-corn with gold trime

Tri-corn with white trime

Workmans hat

 

Headgears

In the 18th century, head gear was important not only to identify your social rank but also for some very practical reasons such as keeping the lice away or for some people, keeping those same lice for themselves.

In most of the 18th century paintings and plates, people were wearing headgear 90% of the time "except native American Indians". Coureur des bois and Militiamen were wearing "tuques and scarfs", crafts people and some merchants were wearing workman hats and the upper class were wearing tricorns more or less decorated, according to their social rank.

At the end of the last quarter of the 18th century, lain style was very extravagant and the wigs were more and more voluminous, but even then tricorns were popular. Men were still carrying them, but instead of wearing them on their head, they would carry them under their arms: "some originals in Europe museums showed traces of weariness" on the top and sides of the crown but are nearly perfectly mint inside" proof of this way of style.

In French the word "tricorn", meaning tricorne, did not exist until the _____. Before that, we called it a "chapeau" which means a hat, but in the last quarter of the 18th century, another kind of hat did it's appearance, it was the "Bicorne". So then and only then we started to use the word tricorn to designate a hat that has a 3 point edge to distinguish it from its new rival. The bicornes, holding their name for the fact they had 2 pointed edges. The round flat hat that we can fold, 1 side up is called "____ " and in English a _____. This kind of hat was in use in the ____. A lot of the originals were made out of beaver felt and some of wool felt, but never the less, the tricorn is a hat that is a very expensive piece of garment and is not worn for every day tasks, nor to be worn by a craftsman during the practice of his craft but he could wear out of his store leaving his workmen hat behind and of course he would wear his fancy hat at the church.
In ______ a French priest complained that his subjects should present themselves in their Sunday clothes "that means in the proper and nice clothes and wear a tricorn (chapeau) if they had one.

What about straw tricorns? Are they real or not? We do not have a lot of illustrations showing "peasants or other people" wearing straw tricorns. Some of the illustrations show them very small and it is difficult to judge the headgear with certainty. I know as a fact that we can document peasants in the fields of Europe wearing flat straw hats, workman hat or bareheaded. Let me remind you that ________ a Jesuit in New France was complaining about his peasants working in the field with only a shirt, and nothing else.

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