"In the early 1900's, one of the most curious sights in Seattle was the 'Umbrella Hat Man,' an eccentric old codger who inspired a popular cartoon character. The Umbrella Hat Man was Robert W. Patten, a Civil War veteran who walked Seattle's downtown streets dressed in dark pants, coat and vest and a hat that was actually a miniature silk umbrella to protect his head from the rain. With a long, white beard growing out from under the little umbrella, Patten was a familiar figure to most of the city's people...The Umbrella Man's claim to fame was being used as the model for a cartoon character also called the Umbrella Hat Man in The [Seattle] Times. The cartoon was drawn by a dentist from Indiana who migrated to Seattle, Dr. John Ross Hager. Hager joined The Times in 1906 and took the cartooning name of 'Dok' Hager and turned out a front-page daily cartoon that featured the Umbrella Hat Man and a little 'Dippy Duck.'" (David Suffia, "The man whose umbrella hat made him a cartoon character" Seattle Times, December 26, 1974, p. A13.) Handwritten on photograph, right: 29 CONN."
Measurements
17.49 x 15.01 cm
Digitization specifications
Master images scanned on Epson 10000 XL flatbed at 600 ppi, 24 bit color, and saved as TIFF files. Adobe Photoshop used to resize images to 300 ppi and convert to JPEG format. Master file size: 43,944,060 bytes.