Hat industry

“ As James became king in 1603 there would have been plenty of time for the industry of making plait for sewing into hats being established between then and 1624, which would be exactly 100 years before Oldmixon’s account! And speaking of the advent of the Lorrainers into Beds and Herts, Mr. Thomas George Austin, in [12] his book on the Straw Hat and Bonnet trade of the Luton District, writes, “It is said to be the true history of the introduction of the handicraft into England.” ”

“ They are doing a good deal in this city, and also in other places some are making straw hats and bonnets, and others are endeavoring to promote other branches of home manufacture. This is very pleasant, but we want to see it more general in this great community. If it were so this season in the one branch of straw hat and bonnet manufacture we should not see the scores and hundreds of five-dollar hats brought here and sold, that are good for nothing in the world. They have no strength about them. ”

“ It is a peculiarity of the trade, that a person seeking employment never addresses himself to the principal; he goes direct to the foreman." Silk and felt hats are most worn in the United States. We find there is great objection by the workmen to the use of machinery. Some factories confine their work exclusively to the making of hat bodies. The manufacture of hatters' trimmings forms, in large cities, a distinct branch of business. "In C.'s hat manufactory, in London, fifteen hundred hands are employed, two hundred of whom are females. ”

“ Hats have become in greater demand than ever among the street-buyers since the introduction into the London trade, and to so great an extent, of the silk, velvet, French, or Parisian hats. The construction of these hats is the same, and the easy way in which the hat-bodies are made, has caused a number of poor persons, with no previous knowledge of hat-making, to enter into the trade. ”

“ Trimming consists in placing and sewing on all sorts of decorative materials. A combination of the two processes of making and trimming, known as copying, consists in making a hat from the beginning exactly like a specified model. Designing is the creation of original models.
The increase in the use of the factory-made hat has decreased the number of workers in custom millinery, and has also had an effect in diverting business from small retail shops to millinery departments in stores. The number of millinery workers constantly fluctuates, not only from season to season, but from year to year. ”

“ This is the department for sewing straw braid; here unquestionably centres the interest in a hat factory; the hum of a hundred machines quickens the pulse, and to the observer, the interest and astonishment increases as the wonderful machine with its lightning speed, guided by the magic touch of the young woman who rules it, draws towards itself yard after yard of the delicate strand of straw plait which it sews together by the finest stitch of the most slender thread, till suddenly a hat comes forth, complete in its full perfection of shape. ”

“ All the world wants a new hat, gets it, and thinks no more of hats or the makers of hats. On this account a fast and feverish making and trimming of hats, an exhausting drain of the energy of milliners for a few weeks, is followed by weeks of no demand upon their skill. ”

“ Nor could it be said that such hats as were chosen were the only "similar competitive articles," since the foreign manufacturers can and do produce all types and styles sold in the United States. The fact that the American industry earned approximately 10 per cent on its invested capital (even after the payment of large salaries) must be chiefly explained by the profits earned on hats with respect to which there was no such acute competition. Obviously such more profitable hats strengthened the domestic industry's competitive resistance. ”

“ Here then is sufficient evidence that a fine hat must, under the most favourable circumstances, stand the manufacturer in upwards of twenty-one shillings, yet many assume a capability of retailing such an article at less even than the charge of manufacture. ”

“ Head-dresses, from their variety, simplicity, and mutability, were but little regulated by commercial or manufacturing interests, until the introduction of felt hats, which has occasioned a uniformity in this article of dress, unknown in former ages.
23. Curiosity is naturally excited to become acquainted with the particulars of the invention of the hat, and the subsequent stages of improvement in the manufacture. But the operation of individual interest, so generally connected with the useful arts, seems to have concealed the whole in obscurity ”

“ It needed something simple in outline, and something that could be done in large and recurring quantities, to give to the inventor the necessary impetus to produce a machine to impart to the hats their final finish. And 100 years ago there was nothing in the straw market, used either for hats or bonnets, that fulfilled the above conditions except the Leghorn hat. ”

“ I’ve sold hats that way though, I mean ready to wear, and my father before me has sold hundreds—yes, I’ve been in the trade all my life—and it’s the best way for a profit. You get, perhaps, the old hat in, or you buy it at 1d. or 2d. as may be, and so you kill two birds. But there’s very little of that trade except on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings. People wants a decent tile for Sundays and don’t care for work-days. I never hawks hats, but I sells to those as do. My customers for hats are mechanics, with an odd clerk or two. ”

“ Home-made hats are found to be contract work for great factories, or “neighborhood work for a few friends.”
Naturally, this lack of system and standard is reflected in the demands made upon workers. In general, it may be said that there are four stages in making a hat,—designing it, making the frame, covering the frame, and trimming it. And in general it may be stated that there are seven kinds of positions open to a girl looking for work in millinery. She may be a learner, an improver, a preparer, a milliner, a copyist, a trimmer, or a designer. ”

“ When the labourer and the hatter were brought together by the roads, the hatter soon sold off his stock, and the manufacturer of hats went to work to produce him a new stock; while the labourer, who found the advantage of having a hat, also went to work to earn more money, that he might pay for another when he should require it. ”

“ From the treating and cutting of the raw material, from the outer bound edge, and the band about the body, to the tip of the crown, a machine may be found for performing each separate step. Especially is this the case with the hard felt and the high silk hats.
Seventy-five years ago the making of hats was by hand processes. Now in all hat factories machines are employed, and the ingenuity displayed in the construction of some of them is marvellous. It is exceedingly difficult to find many of the old hand implements existing even as relics. ”

“ The very fact that it has been used for generation after generation without changing fashion is enough to indicate that necessity, not vanity, dictated its origin.”
“But see those wretched rawhide affairs.”
“I see them. Those are the cheap hats, and they are made by the cowboys themselves. Years ago every cowboy made his own hat, as manufacturers had not discovered that there was money in making hats for the punchers. An old cattleman once told me how they made their hats.”
“How it peen done, Vrankie? You toldt us dot,” urged Hans. ”

“ When Feargus O’Connor, the Chartist leader, came to Manchester during the insurrection of 1842, he appeared, amidst the deafening applause of the working-men, in a fustian suit of clothing. Hats are the universal head-covering in England, even for working-men, hats of the most diverse forms, round, high, broad-brimmed, narrow-brimmed, or without brims—only the younger men in factory towns wearing caps. Any one who does not own a hat folds himself a low, square paper cap. ”

“ No hat can be good, or well covered, with less than one ounce of prime beaver; and, small as the quantity is, there was a time when journeymen makers (catching the custom of their betters, and by way of tythe) thought it no sin to appropriate a part of this material to their own use; but, for the credit of the trade be it said, the practice is long since abolished, and a man attempting it at the present day would be scouted from the factory where he worked, by every honest journeyman therein.
5. The average week's work of a maker is about ten hats; that of a finisher, from five to six dozen. ”

“ The result, which is matter of common knowledge and is proved, is, that bodies are formed with such rapidity, and of such quality, and out of such variety of stock, that the manufacture of hats has been revolutionized; that fur is now used for hats which could not before be used; that one machine forms from three hundred and fifty to four hundred hat-bodies per day, while twenty was a large day's work for a good workman by the old process of hand-bowing; that fur bats are made better and out of less material by the operation of a machine than they were by hand-bowing ”

“ We wish them to continue and progress. During this Conference, many of the ladies have worn very nice straw hats of home manufacture. This is commendable, and this course should be presevered [persevered] in, until our hats and dresses are the workmanship of our own hands. To my view no trimming for a hat looks more beautiful than a nice straw rosette, bow or button; it looks better than a feather or artificial flower. In our Relief Societies we wish to introduce many improvements. ”

“ Representatives of the importers, on the other hand, called attention to the increasing competition of small firms in and around New York City with larger and longer established firms located principally in Baltimore. Some of the new firms operate on small capital and specialize in cheap hats which are directly competitive with the cheapest Italian hats. Others produce a somewhat better hat, such as is sold by chain stores. The rate of business failure among the newer firms is unusually high. ”

“ There were no recognized centres of manufacture or distribution, for, excepting the fact that some localities were more productive of suitable materials for plaitting than others, the making of straw hats was universal, and it is not until the sixteenth century that any reliable information is obtainable of special centres for straw hat production. ”

“ A moderate millinery establishment owned and managed by a woman is likely to produce an income of one thousand, fifteen hundred, or two thousand dollars a year.
Experience shows that ability to sell hats counts for almost as much as ability to create. Tact, skill, patience, must be combined with the genuine gift required to find the hat which will be most becoming to a customer, or to know how to alter a hat so that it may suit the taste of the purchaser. ”

“ We, on the other hand, wear in general short close clothes of coloured cloth; which by the fashion in which they are made, are less exposed to be dirtied; and we are more accustomed also to use clothes of linen or cotton, which can be washed with much less labour. Felt, which is employed almost for hats alone, is manufactured by our hat-makers. Whoever takes a general view of all these employments together, will be readily convinced that they maintain more people, and in a better manner, than the whole ars fullonia did at Rome. ”

“ As much sleight of hand is required in this department, it naturally follows that a good workman is a valuable and appreciated artisan.
The bodies used for this kind of hat have been so various, that a full, or even succinct, description of them would be quite superfluous. Wool and fur bodies, straw and leghorn, cork, whalebone and muslin, &c., even stretchers similar to umbrellas without a body at all have been adopted, and all of them have had their day. At present, however, the trade seems to have settled down to the two kinds—fur and muslin. ”

“ Pretty much everybody "stepped up" every day for a week. Meanwhile, customers of a leading hat maker were asking questions about the sale of his five dollar hats for fifty cents each. The maker went to the vender and gave him a hundred dollars to take out the marks of the hats still in his possession. Another hat manufacturer was caught in much the same fashion, and had to buy his hats back at fifty cents each. Old style hats are no longer for sale at a big reduction. ”

“ When hats became scarce after the breaking out of the war, the editor bought Mr. Wall’s interest in the hat-shop, and made him foreman. Several negroes were placed under him, and they soon became experts in hat-making. There was a great demand for the hats from all over the South, and on one occasion Joe Maxwell sold a dozen wool hats for $500—in Confederate money. ”

“ It is a very simple matter to do, and the hats we can manufacture here are just as pretty and just as comfortable as the imported articles, most of which are made abroad out of materials that can be raised in abundance here! When any of the brethren start in the hat business here we cannot wear them, they are too heavy; we must buy hats that will not last more than a month. Why not go to work and manufacture our own, and have them suitable for either winter or summer? Why not plant the mulberry? President Young imported the seed, and he has on hand a half million of trees for sale. ”

“ In Italy, however, one concern not only bleached its own braids but also bleached braids for other straw-hat manufacturers.
With respect to hats, some of the unfinished bodies, usually leghorns, are made by women in their homes. But men's sewed straw hats, the subject of this investigation, are produced in factories or in small workshops. The latter generally operate on a contract basis for the larger manufacturers or shippers. The workshops which own their own equipment are organized to produce from 25 to 200 dozen sewed hats per week. ”