These projects brought new life to cities after World War I, but they also presented new dangers for the construction workers who placed girders, poured concrete and pounded nails.
Thursday, October 03, 2019
The Evolution of the Hard Hat
These projects brought new life to cities after World War I, but they also presented new dangers for the construction workers who placed girders, poured concrete and pounded nails.
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I have never thought of hard hats as being a sign of masculinity or importance before, so this article is interesting to me. I guess they really have become synonymous with the male dominated industry of construction, so this makes sense that they would be associated with masculinity in this way. I do not think that this generation will apply the same context to it that it has from the past 100 years, especially in industries like theater where it is just assumed everyone is going to be wearing one, male, female, and everyone else. I think it is interesting that the design has not changed much in 100 years. I guess if it works, don’t fix it, but I am glad they are starting to add chin straps. I do not like when people wear climbing helmets on theater calls because of the holes in them. To me, it kind of defeats the purpose if a bolt could still fall from the grid and find its way to your head. And this will definitely make falling less deadly if everyone has a chin strap on.
Cooper hits it right on the head! Pun intended. I have never thought of hard hats as a sign of masculinity or social status, yet this article claims they are. Although, it falls short in providing any specific reasons why or where it came from. An ill supported argument. However, the article is very insightful in other ways. I find the history behind hard hats intriguing, especially to finally find out that they are in fact confirmed to be modeled from the gear the military was issuing to its soldiers. I am surprised to hear that technology hasn’t helped aid in creating better hard hats but find comfort that they are being reinvented or redesigned. We have abundant technology and research that we should be creating better safety equipment and looking to do so all the time. This is especially important because it also appears that no one really wants to wear them, in my experience anyways. They are often clunky, block visibility, etc. Motorcycle helmets don’t have these cons, but they are also for a different use and environment.
I am so fascinated by the evolution of the uniforms of soldiers, so reading that the hard hat was inspired by what the designer saw and war during his experiences in war made me really excited. It really does make sense, though. The US started wearing helmets in battle at the start of World War I, and the hard hat was invented only a few years after that. The experiences in construction and the experiences in war have some similarities when it comes to the type of material one is surrounded by. Many of the soldiers' equipment consisted of large heavy objects, which is also what miners and construction workers had to deal with as well. I never really considered the hard hat as a status symbol, but I guess when you trace it back to its militaristic design inspirations, that sense of honor could have been transferred. The other claim of hard hats symbolizing masculinity was never really something I believed. I guess this could go back to their time of origin: when women weren't really active in battle.
It's fascinating reading this article as well as the thoughts that have come out of it. Oddly enough, I have seen hard hats as a sign of status in many places. Where I previously worked, the technical staff had yellow hardhats, and other guests wore white. I actually found it extremely helpful since it was so easy to spot who had knowledge of what was going on vs who could be unaware of the dangers of working on an unfinished theatrical set. From high up in a lift or in the grid, this was the only sign we had about who was down below. When it comes to chin straps, I am glad to see the next iteration including them. I also think there can be a time and a place for 'climbing helmets' as they stand in theatre. I've found them specifically useful for electrics work, where there is the added level of bumping your head into something as opposed to something falling onto it. Additionally, working at heights with a hard hat that can securely fasten to your head removes the problem of working in a lift while work is going on in the grid and whether you should take your hard hat off. In regards to masculinity, I want to touch on that more with the AFL-CIO response to this article.
I never really thought of hard hats as a symbol for masculinity before. Although, being a cisgender male, that may not be too surprising. I do think that now that it is a bit more normalized to be wearing hard hats, sometimes begrudgingly, I think that that view may start to diminish. Maybe, though, because the industry does not represent women as much as it should, the masculinization of the hard hat is remaining. Like Elliott said, I too have seen hard hats color coded so you can easily identify who is in charge or who is visiting the space.
The history this provided though on the origin of the hard hat was really nifty. It is one of those things I just assumed came from a need in the public workforce, not something that came out of a military need. It will be interesting to see how the hard hat does evolve in the workforce and if the masculinity attached to it will diminish over time.
I love that the Hard Hat industry is working on fall protection, as that is the most common killer on construction sites. I would assume that fall protection would be more focussed on harnesses, railings, or something to prevent falls rather than items prevent injury once the person is falling. I thought the most interesting part of the article was Beth Rosenbrg’s analysis on why hard hats are the most popular PPE. I wonder if we could make other PPE “cool”, hopefully without the masculinity aspect, as an incentive to wear it, such as respirators, hearing protection, and harnesses. It seems that the social element of hard hats evolved overtime, but since the standard is there for hard hats it may be easier to introduce other PPE. Also, I think the history of hard hats would make an interesting museum exhibit. Overall, I enjoyed this article and how it portrays the history of hard hats and how they have become so popular.
So this article has an eye catching title but didn’t really talk a lot about the content of the New York Times article it called out. Regardless of that the article contained some really cool pictures I enjoyed going through and looking at them. I also decided to look at the original article to get more context on the quote that the article pulled out since I have never thought as a hard hat as a symbol of masculinity or status. The overall explanation of the statement went mostly that the meaning of the hard hat evolved into a place where it became desirable to be in a hard hat as a symbol of importance in the job site. I think one of the most notable things in the article was when it was talking about the big dig project where people who didn’t have to be in hard-hats were but people who needed to be in respirators weren’t wearing them. The idea of there being a cool factor with safety equipment is something I never put a lot of thought into before because I guess I never thought of one form of safety equipment being more desirable than something else. I don’t think over analyzing the meaning of a hard hat is an effective way to spend my time instead I think we just need to wear appropriate safety equipment when we need it.
I read this article the other day and the corresponding AFL-CIO article. I stepped away for a little bit and then came back to this article and have read all of the comments thus far. I’ve never viewed the hardhat I wear as a symbol of masculinity. To me it has always represented the person who built America, the blue collar worker. It is interesting to read about the history of the hard hat, especially as it pertains to color coding the crew. Working on load outs for IATSE, we often times have shirts or vests of different colors to denote our role on the load out. Except in a few cases, we are not required to wear hard hats and I have bumped my head on truss on more than one occasion. I disagree with Cooper about the helmets that some crew members wear (The ones that have the holes in them). These are designed for climbing where things like rocks can fall, the holes are vent holes to allow for air circulation. Wearing a hard hat in a hot environment can be annoying. The fight seems to be over the articles mention that the hard hat is a symbol of masculinity and people are calling out the NYT for that, but the Times never made that claim, the subtitle to the article is based off of the claim made by Dr. Beth Rosenberg, who made the original claim in her 2010 social paper about the wearing of hardhats on Boston’s Big Dig. Indeed nothing else in the article mentions anything about the masculinity of the hard hat. It’s not gender specific PPE. It’s just a hard hat.
I find it fascinating how hard hats have become something desirable to wear, in contrast to something like a bike helmet, that is “uncool” to wear. Toy hard hats are even something that’s made for kids to play being a construction worker. I also find it interesting how working class jobs like firefighter, trash truck drivers, and construction workers are stereotypically desirable jobs for little kids. Maybe it’s just because these types of blue collar jobs are very visible to small kids, but the fascination with them is definitely there, even for kids whose parents have white collar jobs. The symbol of patriotism is also strong with the union stickers and the cowboy hat shaped hard hats that I’ve seen. The article also mentions that well-worn hardhats are a sign of status because they’ve been through a lot of bumps along the way. Neat and clean clothes are a sign of rank, but well-worn, paint covered clothes also serve in that way.
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