Only Godless Heathens Don’t Wear Hats

Houston Metropolitan Research Center

1920 is most remembered as the year women got the vote, and perhaps these very women DID vote that year. However, this was a day of leisure, a pleasant afternoon of watching boats shuttle visitors to and from the San Jacinto battlegrounds in Houston. Most Texans know the battle happened in 1836, the year Texas won its independence from Mexico, in a fight that lasted 18 minutes and wound up with Santa Anna getting his boo-tay handed to him by Sam Houston.

And while this image seems so very long ago, and none of us was alive, let’s remember that John McCain’s mom was already EIGHT years old when this photo was taken, tackling third grade and cursive. Just throwing that out there for some perspective. And she’s STILL alive.

23 thoughts on “Only Godless Heathens Don’t Wear Hats”

  1. Not sure if it’s just me, but the women of the twenties to the fifties had effortless style; the modest dresses showing no excess cleavage, I find still tasteful.

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      1. Not sure what went wrong in the style department, but hopefully this phase passes too into something new, refreshing, while stylish.

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  3. Everyone seems so relaxed. No cell phones and no selfies. Just a bunch of folks sitting around talking to each other. Of course they are wearing hats so they must be cultured.

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  4. I recently learned that it took more than 40 years to pass before this right was extended to include black women. Only white women were allowed to vote initially. Crazy, isn’t it?

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    1. I didn’t know that. So it goes white reproductive male organs, then black male organs, then white female organs, then black female organs? And what about all the colors in between?

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      1. When I say recently learned, I mean like, a few weeks ago! It’s just crazy to think about. But I love that we are a work in progress constantly changing and hopefully improving as we go. If you could live in any particular era what era would you choose, Kerb? I think I would have liked the 20’s.

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      2. Well, everything up until 1929 I guess. When I was little I always wanted to live in the 50s because I would have been perfectly content wearing pearls and heels and vacuuming and not going to work in an office.

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      5. Eek, I just re read my comment and it sounds horrible! After saying we all couldn’t vote and I come back with, what a great time! 😳🤪That’s not what I meant at all! I think I would have enjoyed dressing like a flapper, rum running, dancing at the secret underground clubs. But in reality it would have likely been a horrendous time to re-live since I’m brown. Anything pre civil rights would have been hard but there’s certain aspects, like you describe here that sound great! Pearls, fancy dresses, baking cakes, etc..

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      6. I knew what you meant completely with the Roaring Twenties. And I thought about that part too because I’m half Cuban. But because I was born with blond hair and green eyes I don’t feel like I experienced some of the prejudices that other people in my family did. I would have been fun to chop our hair off and use those long cigarette holders and blow smoke fancy ways and dance the Charleston. Of course, I’d have to flatten these Double D’s somehow LOL…

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  6. I love these photos. I was lucky enough to play dress up in these clothes. I knew my great grandmother and my great aunt very well and have many photos of my great aunt playing dress up and in her suffrage dress someplace. Great grandmother lived with us til I left home at 17. And my great aunt until I was in my 30s. She spoke a lot about the women suffrage. Asked how they could wear all those hot clothes in the heat and she said it never occurred to them because that’s just how it was. They didn’t have tank tops or flip-flops but they had linen, the parks and beaches. Being outside was the it factor.

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