Photographer: Ralph H. Anderson (source)

While we can all be relieved that we're no longer expected to wear dresses & heels or suits & ties when we go hiking, it appears that society has, quite frankly, lost a certain amount of panache in the hat department since 1941. These people looked in the mirror that summer morning and asked themselves, "Is this headwear befitting the glamour and grandeur of Yosemite, crown jewel of the national park system?" and could answer, with no little complacency: "Yes. Yes it is." Let's hope they enjoyed this glorious looking day; six months hence, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor and the US would enter World War II, with carefree visits to Yosemite consequently becoming much less common. Park visitation fell from a then-record high of 597,000 in 1941 to 116,000 by 1943 (Yosemite currently gets 4 - 5 million visitors per year);^[1] several hundred members of the U. S. Army Signal Corps undertook training in the Wawona area; and the Ahwahnee Hotel was converted into a naval hospital. Park attendance would not recover until 1946.

(If you're not on a mobile device, you should be able to click on the photo to see a larger, more hat-worthy version; otherwise, here's a direct link.)