International Hats

Professional travel photographer David Sanger has a nice portfolio of hats from around the world.

Hatless Jack

Neil Steinberg's Hatless Jack is a quick read full of interesting anecdotes that exhaustively covers the rise and fall of hat fashion in America. What's really useful is its excellent bibliography.

Hats in Art History

The Village Hat Shop has a nice selection of images of hats in Western art.

Google Hats

There are a remarkable number of works on hats available through Google Books, some with just the bibliographic information but many full text, out of print works too.

To Hat

The indispensable Oxford English Dictionary reveals the history of Hat as a verb:

a. trans. To cover with a hat; to furnish or provide with a hat. Also, to bestow the cardinal's hat upon.
c1430 Pilgr. Lyf Manhode II. cxxii. (1869) 121 Al be it I be mantelled and wel hatted. 1598 FLORIO, Incapellare..to hat one. 1852 W. JERDAN Autobiog. II. xiii. 164 We had..hatted and cloaked ourselves. 1885 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 31 July 1/6 The Pope..held a public consistory..at which the newly appointed Cardinals were hatted. 1891 A. THOMAS That Affair I. x. 171 Miss Polthuan hats and veils herself.

b. To place one's hat on (a seat) so as to claim it.
1886 Philad. Times 10 Apr. (Cent.), Twenty seats had..been hatted before noon to secure them for the debate.

c. intr. To work alone. (Cf. HATTER n. 2.) Austral.
1891 Age 25 Nov. 6/7 (Morris), Two old miners have been..hatting for gold amongst the old alluvial gullies. 1900 H. LAWSON On Track 88 And he ‘hatted’ and brooded over it till he went ratty. ref

Les Catherinettes

Saint Catherine is popularly, but not officially, the patron saint of: 'philosophers, students and people of learning; wheelwrights, potters, millers, engineers; women without power (maids, servants, virgins, prostitutes, spinsters), nurses, doctors and the dying.' The monastary on Mount Sinai is named for her, as is a chapel in Abbotsbury which inspired PJ Harvey. She earlier inspired the medieval French tradition of Les Catherinettes. Women who had reached the age of twenty-five unmarried would place a cap on a statue of St. Catherine to invoke her blessing. This evolved into the wearing of elaborate hats on her feast day, November 25, and parading through Paris. An extraordinary video shows be-hatted women, carrying hat boxes(?), racing to meet the regal Josephine Baker (who definitely knew how to wear a hat herself) at the finish line.

Books About Hats

The Village Hat Shop has a good list of book resources. They might be available through a library near you.