The Flat Hat

The Flat Hat, a student newspaper at William & Mary, is a rich source of information, announcing events taking place on campus as well as reflecting student opinion. It began publication in October 1911 and, except during the fall of 1918, has been continuously published ever since.

Information gathered by students in LCST 201 "Constructing the News" about some College publications including The Flat Hat is available at the course Wiki.

Selected

In the 1950-1951 academic year, tobacco advertisers used contests to appeal to college students, including trivia based on Flat Hat articles and a jingle competition.

The Weathervane, a supplement to the Flat Hat, documents student protests and student discontent during the Vietnam War era. See for instance November 7, 1969. Offshoots including the Straw Hat and High Hat were published separately. The Straw Hat was the summer school student newspaper with issues for July 3-Aug. 14, 1914, published at William and Mary's Dublin, Va. branch; 1927-1933 issues were published at Williamsburg campus. The High Hat (1930-1961) was the student newspaper of the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary.) The Fat Head is the traditional April 1st edition.

Flat Hat Online

The most recent issues of The Flat Hat are available online. Most issues of The Flat Hat from 1911-2010 are available for browsing and keyword searching in the W&M Digital Archive (with the exception of April 1990-July 1992 and April 1999-July 2002, which are to be digitized in 2013). The issues not previously microfilmed were not digitized in 2007, and so are not available in the W&M Digital Archive.

All issues of The Flat Hat are available in paper form in the Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center and issues through the 1990s are also available on microform in Swem Library. Until a few years ago, library staff indexed the The Flat Hat (as well as the Alumni Gazette and the William and Mary News) by subject and personal name. This index is still available as a card file in the Special Collections Research Center's lobby for public use. All three of these publications are available in the Swem Library on microfilm and in Swem's Special Collections in paper format.

Issues of The Flat Hat also published online from Fall 1999-Fall 2006 are available at the newspaper's website[1].

Material in the Special Collections Research Center

• Paper and electronic editions of The Flat Hat
  • A Partial Flat Hat index to articles related to African Americans for issues published in 1911-1975
• "The Flat Hat" folder, Student Organizations Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William & Mary.
• "The Flat Hat", "The Flat Hat--Controversy of 1945" folders, University Archives Subject File Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William & Mary.
• Search the SCRC Collections Database for further material related to the Flat Hat.

External Links

• Flat Hat stories related to the admission of women to the College of William and Mary are being used in the blog "Mary Comes to the College with William."
• Information gathered by students in LCST 201 "Constructing the News" about some College publications is available at the course Wiki.

Need help?

To search for further material, visit the Special Collections Research Center's Search Tool List for an overview of the Special Collections Database, W&M Digital Archive, Flat Hat-William & Mary News-Alumni Gazette index, card catalogs, and other tools available to help you find material of interest in William & Mary Libraries Special Collections Research Center.

Questions? Contact the Special Collections Research Center at spcoll@wm.edu or 757-221-3090, or visit the Special Collections Research Center in the Earl Gregg Swem Library at William & Mary.

A Note About The Contents Of This Wiki

The information available in this wiki is the best available from known documents and sources at the time it was written. Unfortunately, many of the early original records of William & Mary were destroyed by fires, military occupation, and the normal effects of time. Information in this wiki is not complete as new information continues to be uncovered in Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center and elsewhere. Researchers are strongly encouraged to use the Special Collections search tools for their research as the information contained in this wiki is by no means comprehensive.