c1895 University of California Berkeley Engineering Students

c1900 U.C. Berkeley Coeds Sporting Plug Hats

November 30th 2015

spotted this hat while in the middle of a conversation last Saturday, at the 31st Annual St. Leanders Sports Collectors Show in San Leandro CA. . The conversation slowly dribbled to nothing as I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing behind the person I was speaking with...I didn't know what it was...all I knew was it was incredible...and obviously some kind of folk art...The gentleman holding it happened to be chatting with my friend Bart White...I slowly walked up and started looking it over...At the first break in the conversation I asked what is was...He said as much he didn't know exactly.. and it turned out he had bought it at the show from the prolific sports memorabilia dealer Sal Dichiera of Amazing Adventures in San Francisco...Not being a morning person I got to the show at 9:45am....the show opened at 9:00am...ouch!...Oh well being it was $1,200.00 I may not have gotten it since I just crawled out from under a major purchase anyway...It was basically priced for the advanced Cal Berkeley collector...Although I could see it selling for much more than $1,200.00. Later I talked to Sal and he said he got it at the monthly Alameda Point Antiques Fair, just miles from us there at the St. Leanders show...said he got it about four shows ago...Arghh!!...I'm at that show every month!...He said a friend was looking at it and handed it to him and said this looks like something for you.

RESEARCH BEGINS

Later when I got home and started researching it I learned these hats were worn by U.C. Berkeley students beat up and hand decorated as a Cal tradition among upper classman...And that they were called Plug Hats....Looking deeper I learned the term Plug was slang for top hats back in the late 19th century...and that there had been an infamous Baltimore street gang in the 1850's named the Plug-Uglies...From a cursory look it appeared the term Plug-Uglies came to imply a general term for street gangs of that era in America...

A S.F. BAY AREA THING

It appears the tradition of wearing these decorated beat up hats started at Berkeley, but quickly spread to Stanford...Where the term "Plug-Uglies" was used to convey them...To the extent they initiated a variety type Satirical show named for them that featured these hats...Stanford put on an exhibit about the "Junior Plug Ugly" in the summer of 2014:

Stanford Plug Hats -The Plug tradition started at 

U.C. Berkeley and quickly spread to their rival Stanford

UNIQUE ASPECTS

The nicest aspect of this hat is the hand painted illustration of the track runner... The striped jersey is rich and classic...From this illustration we know the hat's owner would likely have been a hurdler as he is standing next to one...Regarding dating this hat I was speculating it was from around 1890...but then took note of the 22-0 score painted on a little football on the front at top center...that was the score of the 1898 football game which was the first time Cal beat Stanford...So we know the hat is from within a few years of that date...

Close in of hand painted  track runner next to hurdle	Front Page S.F. Call Nov 25th 1898 Cal Stanford Football Game Score 22-0 Same as on front of hat

YOU NEVER KNOW

When you go to an antiques venue...particularly a large one such as the monthly Alameda Point show...you really never know what you might see...That's a big part of the fun of collecting...Out there with a flashlight before sun up...it can happen and this is proof....Hearing this hat showed up there is a trump example...

SPECULATING THE COURSE

The Alameda Point show is 9 1/2 miles from U.C. Berkeley...Learning how this hat made it to Alameda Point 9 1/2 miles and 115 years after a student wore it around the U.C. Berkeley campus to show off would be very interesting....Graduates left Berkeley and typically could end up anywhere in the world...and could have taken this hat with them...But somehow someway this hat stuck around...Maybe the hat's owner discarded it before they left and it was reacquired...maybe the owner never left...My best speculation is the owner stayed in the area....He had good times as a student and was sentimental about his college days...He kept it laying around his home a few years until he married and his wife, for whatever reasons, wanted it out of site...Onto a closet shelf it went for many years until after years of the usual accumulation it was placed in a trunk for safekeeping...Along with yearbooks and other memories...Then after a few moves when he was...oh say about 60, the trunk ended up in the attic of his home in Piedmont...all speculation of course....Then he passed away around the 1940's...then his wife passed away....then his kids cleaned out the house to sell it and sold off most of the contents...but one of his children kept the trunk with the hat in it, along with family photos and other family history until about 1955 when that child passed away...Then I would speculate that one of  the children of that child, being a grandchild of the hat's original owner, ended up as custodian of the family mementos until he or she passed away around 2014-15 and somehow the trunk with hat inside ended up getting sold to a picker...who in turn sold it to an antiques dealer....who in turn...well you know the rest of the story!

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