11 July 2025

Inventions in Everything: The Most High-Tech Hat of the 1890s

If you were going to make a hat that embodies "high-tech" today, what would that mean?

We don't have to guess, because we've previously covered a number of innovations that could easily be built into a hat. It would probably involve things like wifi or perhaps a system that could help you avoid accidents or escape danger. Or maybe you would wear something that would help you breathe clean air. Or perhaps something that might automatically feed you a snack?

But what would it mean to invent a high-tech hat in 1890? What high-tech feature from that era would be something that would appeal to the hat-wearers of yesteryear?

On 18 September 1895, inventor James C. Boyle definitively answered that question when he applied for a patent for his invention of a saluting device. More remarkably, the patent examiners of the day agreed and awarded him with U.S. Patent 556,248, the hat that would automatically tip itself whenever social circumstances demanded it.

The internal apparatus Boyle wanted to incorporate within a hat is illustrated in Figure 1 from the patent:

U.S. Patent 556,248 Figure 1

Boyle describes the high-tech application he hoped his invention would achieve:

This invention relates to a novel device for automatically effecting polite salutations by the elevation and rotation of the hat on the head of the saluting party when said person bows to the person or persons saluted, the actuation of the hat being produced by mechanism therein and without the use of the hands in any matter.

But that's not all! In addition to this fantastic labor-saving capability, Boyle's self-tipping hat could be employed for a wholly separate and potentially lucrative opportunity by the hat-wearer:

The invention is also available as a unique and attractive advertising medium, and may be employed for such a purpose....

There may be a sign or placard placed on the hat having the improvements within it, and the saluting device be used to attract attention of the public on a crowded thoroughfare to the advertisement on the hat, the novelty of its apparent self-movement calling attention to the hat and its placard.

Unfortunately, Boyle's saluting device never caught on. We searched evidence his invention made it to the marketplace and came up nearly all but empty. We did find that the concept of a self-tipping hat was featured in the 1930 short film Soup to Nuts, which is better known for featuring the first appearance of the actors who would go on to become famous as The Three Stooges. Here's a clip:

As for his other patented objective of using a hat as an advertising medium, Boyle appears to have been just a bit ahead of his time. The first hats we can find with the equivalent of an advertisement placed on it are baseball caps, where hats were first transformed from a "sunshade into a billboard" by the Detroit Tigers, who added their original running tiger logo to their caps in 1901.

Today, hats with logos have attained a level of cultural influence, for which Boyle's 1896 invention would appear to be a significant step forward as the most high-tech hat of the 1890s.

From the Inventions in Everything Archives

The IIE team has previously covered the following stylish headgear items:

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