When did the fedora first appear?

[Kaleponi Craig]

We all know the fedora was the hat of choice from the 20s through the 50s, but when did it first appear? I was watching "The Great Quake" on the National Geographic Channel tonight, about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and there was an original movie of a man with a fedora. So we know it must at least date to 1906...KC

 

[Russ]

Nobody replied to this one yet? Okay, I'll take a stab.

From what I've read the fedora evolved naturally from the slouch hat, which at first was a soft felt hat with low crown and medium brim but which became a generic term for any soft felt hat with a brim. Slouch refers to the soft brim dipping down. This hat was introduced in America in 1852 by visiting Hungarian patriot Louis Kossuth, and became very popular during the Civil War. The Slouch hat in America evolved into the cowboy hat.

In Europe the fedora started out as a slouch hat that had acquired those characteristic pinches from natural handling. I've read that the style was brought back from Africa where British hunters saw these bashed slouch hats on the heads of hunters and farmers there. In 1882 there was a play entitled Fedora where this style hat was worn by one of the actresses.

So the fedora style hat was in existence in 1906, whether people called it a fedora or just thought of it as a slouch hat with bashes.

I would imagine a few bowlers and homburgs would naturally acquire similar bashes, so maybe the fedora has more than one father.

I'm sure the real historians here will correct my errors here.

What I would like to know is the origin of the slouch hat and its European history before Kossuth wore one in Hungary. Anybody know?

 

[Pilgrim]

History I've researched says it made its debut in the US in the late 1800's when Sarah Berhnardt wore that style of hat in a play titled Fedora. It caught on and...we all know the rest of the story.