Snapbacks - Some will insist and call it baseball caps. Well they aren't wrong - to understand the history of Snapbacks, we'd look no further than Baseball...hat.
The earliest versions of the baseball caps is widely believed to have been around since the late 1800s. With the Brooklyn Excelsiors wearing them from the 1849 season. Until then, baseball players wore a wide array of hats including millitary head gear and straw hats.
Baseball started gaining popularity from the mid 1940s when baseball teams, starting with the Chicago Cubs started selling hats with the team logo on it to the fans, replicas of the ones donned by the the Cubs.
The (Era of) New Era
Though it started out as a baseball team hat, it's only natural that baseball hat found it's way into fashion and everyday life, in various incarnations: fitted with the flat bill which is distinctly HipHop, to crushed, to snapback, and mesh-back.It went from baseball to fashion; to Hip Hop; to Pop Culture; Military, police; and to other sports, including golf - And for better or worse - into politics.
In the 1990’s, it took roots in the Urban areas of Los Angeles and New York: it was popularly adopted by music groups such as N.W.A on the west coast and Mobb Deep on the east coast. That appears to be the tipping point: soon other groups, and fans had their's - all with their cities, teams, and borough's name embroided on it.