Hats Off to the Library!

Do you own a hat? I don’t mean a baseball cap—I mean a real, structured, hat hat. And how would you feel about wearing it... every single day?

If you were living in Los Angeles in the 1920s, you wouldn’t have to think twice. A hat wasn’t just an accessory. It was part of getting dressed. More than that, it was part of being seen.

While researching Los Angeles 100 years ago, one thing kept catching my eye: the hats. So many hats. In photographs. In advertisements. In candid street scenes. It made me wonder—did people truly wear hats every day? Or did the camera lens exaggerate their importance?

The answer is both practical and revealing. In the Los Angeles of the 1920s, hats were not simply fashion statements. They were visible markers of respectability, gender expectations, seasonal rhythms, and even consumer culture. Who wore a hat, when, and where tells us quite a bit about how Angelenos understood public life.

For men, hat etiquette was largely about public presence.

The rules of etiquette dictated that men needed to wear hats in the following situations: outside, at sporting events (indoors or outdoors), on public transportation, and in public spaces such as post offices, airports, and hotel or office lobbies.

Alternatively, men didn’t need to wear a hat when: inside your home or someone else’s home, eating at home or in a restaurant, greeting someone (often just a tip or nod sufficed), in a house of worship (unless a head covering was required), at work indoors (unless required for the job), inside schools, libraries, or courts of law, at a theater or movie house, during the national anthem, and when the flag of the United States passed by in a parade.

Notice the pattern: hats were worn in public, removed in private or reverent spaces. Taking off one’s hat was a ritualized gesture of respect toward a person, a place, or the nation itself. A man’s hat functioned almost like public armor. It signaled that he was properly dressed for civic life.

And then there was the famous—or infamous—Straw Hat Rule.

"Straw Hat Day," typically in May or June, marked the seasonal switch from felt to straw hats. On September 15, it was back to felt again. This wasn’t just a casual preference. It was widely observed, and sometimes aggressively enforced. Reports from the era describe straw hats being snatched and smashed if worn after the cutoff date.

The hat industry appears to have promoted these rigid seasonal boundaries, possibly to boost hat sales. In this way, fashion didn’t just reflect culture; it helped engineer consumer habits. Even in 1920s Los Angeles, modern marketing was shaping daily behavior.

Men’s styles ranged from straw boaters, gamblers, and Panama hats in summer to felt fedoras, Homburgs, derbies, news caps, and even top hats for formal occasions. The variety was respectable, but still relatively contained.

Women, however, played by different rules.

Unlike men, women mostly kept their hats on while indoors.

The rules of etiquette dictated that women wore hats in the following situations: In someone else’s home, at luncheons, weddings, and garden parties, in a house of worship, at a theater or movie house, during the national anthem, and when the flag of the United States passed by.

Women left their hats on in public indoor spaces because they were still considered ‘out,’ still visible, still on display. Once ‘safely home,’ they could remove them. Women were expected to remove their hats when they blocked someone’s view (a practical concern!) or indoors at work.

Here, the hat functioned differently. For men, removal signaled deference. For women, the hat was part of the presentation. It framed the face, completed the silhouette, and participated in the social performance of femininity.

In image after image of librarians at work, the women are hatless. Sitting at desks. Shelving books. Standing outdoors in what appear to be mid-day shots. No brims. No cloches. No dramatic silhouettes.

But, they probably weren’t hatless rebels, just library professionals getting through their days.

Libraries were workplaces, and practicality trumped performance. The cloche hat fit very snugly on the head and shortened sightlines, so for library staff, this would pose a problem. A hat that might be appropriate at a luncheon or theater was less useful while cataloging books or assisting patrons. In these images, we see something subtle but significant: working women navigating public identity differently. The absence of hats suggests that professional competence, not decorative display, defined their moment.

It’s a small visual clue, but it hints at broader cultural shifts. The 1920s were a time of expanding opportunities for women, including in civic institutions such as libraries. The camera captures not just fashion choices, but evolving roles.

When women did wear hats, the brimless cloche was especially popular—snug, modern, and unmistakably 1920s. But unlike men’s relatively standardized styles, women’s millinery offered an extraordinary range: wide-brimmed hats, bucket styles, berets, turbans. There was no strict straw-to-felt deadline equivalent to the men’s September 15 rule.

For formal evening occasions, women often skipped full hats altogether, opting instead for headpieces, fascinators, jeweled adornments, or simply a carefully styled coiffure.

The rules were different but just as revealing.

A century later, the everyday hat has largely disappeared from Los Angeles sidewalks. But in the 1920s, it structured public life. Hats marked the boundary between public and private space, gestures of respect and patriotism, seasonal consumer cycles, gender expectations, and professional identity. Because in Los Angeles of the 1920s, a hat wasn’t just a fashion. It was part of one’s identity, perched right on top.

Please enjoy these photos from our collection, along with advertisements from the Vogue Archive and the Los Angeles Times, courtesy of the ProQuest database. And check out advertisementsCentral 100, a year-long celebration that brings together residents from all corners of Los Angeles. With or without a hat!