Trivial Trivia - taking trivia to new levels

[L Verge]

I started to pose this as a question, but I figured it was either too hard for most of us or too easy for the Lincoln scholars. The Smithsonian magazine in November of 2013 carried a short article on Mr. Lincoln's famous stovepipe hats. First, I did not realize that those top hats likely were spawned by the 17th-century version known as a steeple, or sugarloaf hat. They were then influenced by soldiers' headgear and grew in popularity until, by the early-1800s, they had become symbols of prestige and authority.

Some historians think that Lincoln began wearing the top hat early in his political career as a gimmick. There is a report from the reformer Carl Schurz that he first met Lincoln on a train in the 1850s, en route to one of the debates with Douglas. He described Lincoln's tailcoat as shabby and his top hat as crumpled. Some people reported the same dented hat at the Cooper Union speech in February of 1860, but Harold Holzer disputes that because on the very day of the speech, Mr. Lincoln bought a new top hat from Knox Great Hat and Cap at 212 Broadway in NYC.

At the 1860 Inaugural, he wore a different design - a lower silk plush hat that was in fashion. But, by 1864, he was wearing a stovepipe; that design stayed in style for at least a decade after his assassination.

Now for the information that I was going to pose as a question: What size was the top hat that Lincoln wore to the theater on April 14, 1865? It was a silk top hat, size 7-1/8, from the Washington hatmaker J.Y. Davis. He had added a black silk mourning band in memory of son Willie.

A quote from Harold Holzer: "Hats were important to Lincoln: They protected him against inclement weather, served as storage bins for important papers he stuck inside their lining, and further accentuated his great height advantage over other men."