YOU HAD TO HAVE BEAN THERE TO APPRECIATE THIS ONE

BeanieMe

In the beginning of the 20th century, the word ‘beanie’ was derived from the slang for ‘head’ used then as ‘bean’ i.e. bean head, or what's that on your bean? Blue-collared workers were the first to use brimless skullcaps to keep their hair from falling over their eyes and sweat from dripping down their foreheads. This form of working man's headwear therefore allowed for unobstructed vision when laborers were on the job.

When the 1920s rolled around, boys began to be dressed in beanies of different descriptions, perhaps influenced by the Our Gang/Little Rascals movies that were so popular by that time. Beanies, in fact, were forerunners to the baseball caps worn by kids (frontwards and backwards) today.

A Little Rascal

It is surprising to me, however, that there is very little on record about the novelty beanie of my youth in the early 1940s.

The "beanie" for me represents the equivalent of a skull cap, but made out of a second-hand felt hat or fedora previously worn by an adult member of the family, in my case grandfather Nelson Perry who generously donated his to the cause after buying a new one.

Typical of others in my hometown of Dresden, my mother craftily cut the brim off gramps' well-worn gray-colored chapeau and created V-shaped cutouts along the bottom which she in turn folded up to create a rim of sorts. The rim was stitched front and back in order to hold it in place.

My beanie today, minus a few
collector's item comic pins.

And, just like that, you had your own homemade beenie ready to be covered with pins and buttons of all sorts. I leaned toward Red Cross and V-Day buttons spaced between comic character pins collected from Kelloggs cereal boxes -- Dick Tracy, Freckles, Dagwood & Blonde, Major Hoople, Tress Trueheart, Joe Palooka, Lil Abner, Popeye, Harold Teen, et al. When we came up with duplicates they were traded with other kids for pins we did not yet have.

I wore my beanie with pride, even to church, as evidence the above photo of me dressed in my Sunday-go-to-meetin' best at about eight or nine years of age.

I still have that old beanie. I tried it on after about 75 years or so as I put together this piece. My intention was to run a photo of me wearing it, but I reconsidered because it looked silly.

Far be it from me...!

Friend Danny Burns and I wearing
 our beanies. Photo taken from cover
of my book Dresden Life Remembered.

UPDATE: Subsequent to the posting of the above story, my very curious daughter Debbie took it upon herself to do some further research on my behalf and was able to determine that in fact my type of "beanie" originated with the comics strip Archie and a lead character "Jughead". I completely forgot all about that possibility! 

Jughead

The initial Archie characters were created in 1941 by publisher John L. Goldwater and artist Bob Montana, in collaboration with writer Vic Bloom. They first appeared in Pep Comics #22 (cover-dated Dec. 1941).

Here is the original comic strip that introduced Jughead's beanie. It is classic and an excellent gun safety tip to boot. A perfect explanation too as to where my mother got her directions for making my beanie. It all comes together now, thanks to Deb's spadework!