Red Hat Society

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Members wearing red hats.

The Red Hat Society (RHS) is a social organization founded in 1998 for women over 50. As of October 2006 there are about 1.5 million registered members in over forty thousand chapters in the United States and thirty other countries.^[1]

1 History
2 Organization
3 Activities
4 In popular culture
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

The founder of the society is Fullerton, California artist Sue Ellen Cooper, who in 1998 gave a friend a 55th birthday gift consisting of a red fedora she had bought a year earlier at a thrift store along with a copy of Jenny Joseph's poem, Warning, whose opening lines read

“

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me.

”

Cooper repeated the gift on request several times, and eventually the group all bought purple outfits and held a tea party.^[2]

At first spreading by word of mouth, the Society received national publicity in 2000 through the magazine Romantic Homes^[2] and a feature in the Orange County Register that ran nationally.^[3] Cooper then established a "Hatquarters" to field the hundreds of e-mail requests for help starting chapters. She now serves as "Exalted Queen Mother", and has written two best-selling books about the Society.^[3]

[edit] Organization

The Red Hat Society fondly refers to itself as a "dis-organization" with the aim of social interaction, and to encourage fun, silliness, creativity, and friendship in middle age and beyond. The Society is not a sorority or a voluntary service club. There are no initiations or fundraising projects.

A founder or leader of a local chapter is usually referred to as a "Queen". Members are called "Red Hatters". Members 50 and over wear red hats and purple attire to all functions. A woman under age fifty may also become a member, but she wears a pink hat and lavender attire to the Society's events until reaching her fiftieth birthday.

[edit] Activities

Both Red and Pink Hatters often wear very elaborately decorated hats, and attention-getting fashion accessories such as a feather boa at the group's get-togethers. The Society's events vary depending on the chapter, but one of the more favored pastimes amongst most Red Hatters is attending or giving a tea party.

The organization has published four books: Red Hat Society: Fun and Friendship after 50 and Red Hat Society's Laugh Lines: Stories of Inspiration and Hattitude, Designer Scrapbooks the Red Hat Society Way (2005, Sterling), and The Red Hat Society Cookbook which features recipes submitted by members. Regional gatherings called "Funventions" are held several times a year, along with official Red Hat Society events.

The official Red Hat Society day is April 25 each year.

In 2006 the group successfully commissioned its own musical entitled, Hats! The New Musical for the Rest of Your Life.

[edit] In popular culture

The Red Hat Society is paid homage to in one episode of The Simpsons, "The Last of the Red Hat Mamas," wherein Marge joins a group called The Cheery Red Tomatoes. Also, in Brian Crane's comic strip Pickles, the character Opal is a member of The Red Hat Society. In the show Still Standing, in the episode "Still Cruising" Bill's mother, Louise, is a member of The Red Hat Society and tricks Judy, her daughter-in-law, into going on a Red Hat Society cruise with her. Also, in the hit stage comedy Peachtree Battle, eccentric matriarch Azalea Wieuca is made an honorary Red Hat member.

Corner Gas, a Canadian comedy sitcom has one of the main characters, Lacey Burrows, join the 'Purple Hat Society', making a reference to the Red Hat Society

In the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm a red-hatter is shown sitting with the College of Cardinals. One of the cardinals informs her, "Madame, this is not that kind of red hat society."