Singing Cowboys and Ten-gallon Hats
In the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, a hat was an indispensable item in every man’s wardrobe. Stetson focused on expensive, high-quality hats that represented both a real investment for the working cowboy and statement of success for the city dweller.
Early on, Stetson hats became associated with legends of the West, including “Buffalo Bill”, Calamity Jane, Will Rogers, and Annie Oakley. It is said that George Custer rode into the Battle of Little Big Horn wearing a Stetson. Later on, Western movie cowboys were quick to adopt the Stetson; many were drawn to the largest most flamboyant styles available.
Texans were known for their preference for the "Ten Gallon" model. According to Win Blevins' Dictionary of the American West (p388), the term "ten-gallon" has nothing to do with the hat's liquid capacity, but derives from the Spanish word galón (braid), ten indicating the number of braids used as a hat band. However, an early Stetson advertising image, a painting of a cowboy dipping his hat into a stream to provide water for his horse, symbolized the Cowboy hat as an essential part of a stockman’s gear and was later featured inside every western style hat.
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Famous quotes containing the words singing, cowboys and/or hats:
“Our Germany’s dead. However hard this may be for some of us older people, it’s a blessing for our children. Our children grew up against new backgrounds, new horizons. And they are free. Free to grow up as children. Free to run and to laugh without being forced into uniforms. Without being forced to march up and down streets, singing battle songs.”
—Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)
“What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.”
—John le Carré (b. 1931)
“Farmers in overalls and wide-brimmed straw hats lounge about the store on hot summer days, when the most common sound is the thump-thump-thump of a hound’s leg on the floor as he scratches contentedly. Oldtime hunters say that fleas are a hound’s salvation: his constant twisting and clawing in pursuit of the tormentors keeps his joints supple.”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)