It’s Hard Hat Awareness Week
Construction Hard Hats Save Lives One Head at a Time for over 100 Years
TARRYTOWN, NY—The helmet has been a part of life on this planet since medieval times, and we not that long ago celebrated the centenary of its modern counterpart, tweaked in the 1920s to accommodate sports, racing and jobsite safety throughout the world.
The word we use today is a diminutive of helm, the medieval word for protective head gear. An indispensable part of construction safety, that name eventually morphed from the original “hard boiled hat” of glue, steamed canvas and leather into our present hard hat of thermoplastics and other high-tech materials.
A sometimes trendy tool used to make a point, hard hats have been worn by a broad spectrum of presidents, architects, builders and bankers at events from campaign stops to shovel-ready ceremonies where it became a symbol underlining the importance of hard work, economic progress and safety.
The term “hard hat” has been used for more than half a century in describing union and construction workers on the job. (The British spelling is two words.) Men working on 19th century ships were some of the first to create what would become known as the hard hat by spreading tar on their soft hats to harden them for protection from falling ropes and cargo. As it evolved through the centuries, the helmet has served us well in its simple capacity to protect our noggins.
More than six million are sold each year in the U.S. but, like those who dismiss the use of lanyard and harness in dangerous situations, there are still workers who are lax in their regard for safety regulations. Fifty years ago there were 15,000 worker deaths (in 1970 alone), noted in an article by Stacey Simmons for Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S). The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) states that in 2011 there were 393 fatal injuries at jobsites, the result of falling or flying debris or unstable equipment.
When the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) was passed by Congress in 1970, it firmly established the role of hard hats at construction sites and those stats took a decidedly more positive turn. In 2016, reported OHS, worker fatalities dropped to approximately 5,200. According to OSHA 29 CFR 1910.135, the construction standard requires “head protection wherever there is a potential for employees to bump their heads against fixed objects, such as exposed pipes or beams.” Other OSHA requirements include hard hat use around objects with the potential to fall from a height above the worker, and any possible accidental head contact with electrical hazards resulting in burns or shock. Most construction sites require hard hats wherever and whenever work is in progress.
The Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America noted that “head injuries account for 9% of all laborers’ injuries,” and the BLS reported that, in most instances where head injuries occurred, employers were negligent in enforcing the hard hat safety regulation or did not see to it that they were worn correctly for maximum head protection. During construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1933 until its opening in 1937, falling rivets became such an issue that a designated “hard hat area” was established and the soft leather caps of the late 1800s morphed through time into the safer, sophisticated industrial materials version used today. In general, a hard hat can roughly withstand an object of eight pounds falling from a height of five feet. Many suppliers in the construction industry sell them alongside other tools and materials.
How hard hats save lives is often documented. Some years ago at a Sandhogs Laborers’ L.U. 147 tunnel jobsite under Manhattan, a worker was hit by falling debris that crushed his face, requiring extensive surgery. The hard hat he was wearing saved his skull and his life. The battered hard hat now sat on a desk in the Union 147 offices as a quiet but powerful reminder that paying attention to safety details saved a life. Safety on the job has always been a sensitive issue, for despite strong OSHA rules and regulations in place, incidents remain in which people are injured or killed because they didn’t take the time to fasten a harness or secure a hard hat. However, statistically more workers are saved by adhering to simple safety measures than those who ignore the steps and suffer the dire consequences.
So next time you’re on a jobsite and don that hard hat as a matter of course, tip it in thanks to those medieval men who had the survival instinct and the sense to protect their heads, and in doing so, yours too.
By Sheila Smith Drapeau, Associate Editor of CONSTRUCTION NEWS.
Published: June 9, 2026.