How we got here (from Wikipedia):
Management professor Peter Drucker credits writer Franz Kafka with developing the first civilian hard hat when he was employed at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia (1912). [1]
In the USA, the E. D. Bullard Company was a mining-equipment firm in California created by Edward Bullard’s father who was in the industrial safety business for 20 years. His father sold protective hats but they were only made of leather. Edward Bullard, arrived home from World War I with a steel helmet, which provided him with an idea to improve industrial safety. In 1919 Bullard patented a "hard-boiled hat", created through steaming canvas with resin, gluing several layers together which provided that hard molded shape. Within the same year the US Navy commissioned Bullard to create a shipyard protective cap, which began the widespread use of hard hats. Not long after, Bullard developed an internal suspension which would provide a more effective hat.
In 1933 construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco California. [2] This was the first construction site in history which required all employees to wear hard hats, by command of the project chief engineer, Joseph Strauss. He wanted the workplace to be as safe as possible; hence, he placed safety nets and required hard hats while on the job site. Strauss also asked Bullard to create a hard hat to protect workers who do sandblasting. Bullard came up with a design covering the worker's face with a vision window and a pump to bring fresh air into the mask.
Around 1938 aluminium became a standard for hard hats except in electrical applications.
In the 1940s fiberglass came into use.
Around ten years later thermoplastics took over because they were easy to mold and shape with applied heat. Today most hard hats are made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE).
Brown fiberglass is still preferred by workers who buy their own equipment, for better balance, lighter weight, resistance to scrapes and stains, and shedding rain without big drops forming on the edge. These hats stay on when tilting the head at an extreme angle to do the job.
In 1997 ANSI allowed the development of a ventilated hard hat to keep wearers cooler. To it could be added accessories like face shields, sun visors, ear muffs, and perspiration-absorbing cloths which line the hats. Today, attachments include radios, walkietalkies, pagers, and cameras.
For nearly sixty years, aluminum hard hats were extremely popular and had almost a cult-like following but were phased out about 1997 when new regulations required stricter safety standards. There were about a half dozen companies producing a version of the aluminum hat throughout that time. Nearly a decade later, new full brim and cap-style aluminum hard hats were introduced by Skull Bucket. They are easily recognizable due to a re-inforced crown secured by eight rivets. They are constructed of space-age aluminum alloy and are ANSI safety compliant. Aluminum hard hats are used almost exclusively by oil well fire fighters due to the extreme heat they encounter. The forestry industry and loggers favor the aluminum version as well, many wearers remembering the solid, reliable McDonald-T hard hats that were so popular for years. Other industries using the aluminum hard hat are rock quarries, heavy machine operation, oil production, mining, bridge construction and maintenance, water well drilling and pipelines, and construction. The aluminum hats are restricted from use wherever electrical hazards exist. To our knowledge, Skull Bucket is the only company currently manufacturing aluminum hard hats.
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