Straw hat

“ The rapid evaporation of any liquid put on a blocked hat is an absolute necessity, it must also not be able in any way to soften the gelatine or other stiffening material, and it must leave a desired gloss on the hat without being glassy or “fatty” looking. Further, it must not materially harden the fibres. Some plaits are required quite bright; for these ordinary straw hat polish is correct; others are wanted with an “egg shell” shine, these are provided for in one or the other of the “Lustres” and “Silk Finishes” that are to be obtained. ”

“ Generally speaking, trimming a lady’s hat is the special province of the milliner, and in this case, of course, hats are not confined to those made of straw or plait, and, in fact, this is an industry of its own, and is, therefore outside the scope of the making of a straw hat. ”

“ At my request he had bought a straw hat to cover his eyes from the sun and preserve his complexion, and so fur is that man from megumness that he had got one with a brim so broad that it stood out around his face like a immense white wing, floppin’ up and down with every gust of wind. ”

“ The making of these hats for men has nearly always been accompanied by the trimming; and when, about 1880, women commenced to wear “sailors,” many of them were dispatched from the St. Albans factories with some trimming. About 1890 the makers of ladies’ shaped hats of simple form began to add some little adornment to them, and these were designated as “semi-trimmed.” It is, therefore, quite inside the history of the straw hat to include some account of men’s boaters, ladies’ sailors, and “semi-trimmed” or ready-to-wear hats. ”

“ Typical of the headgear affected by the lower classes in warm weather was a huge straw hat in the form of a dish-cover. Another characteristic example, likewise of straw, resembled a round, deep-edged tray, the brim turned downwards, and the whole was held in place by means of a chin-strap.
Women, as a rule, left the head uncovered, preferring to rely for protection upon flat umbrellas made of paper, cotton, or silk. ”

“ Men wear enormous straw hats as a badge of mourning, but the usual style of head-dress is to shave the extreme summit of the head, while the rest of the hair grows long and is braided up in a sort of topknot with a little bird-cage hat above it. This hat is then tied under the chin as an American woman would tie hers. ”

“ A rounded crown can be made flat on top, and a slightly rolling brim can be made into a straight brim by using this method. It is a joy to take an old, discarded, battered straw hat and make it into a fresh-looking and up-to-date hat, a piece of work which any one may well be proud of. ”

“ Various other media have been used at different times for stiffening straw hats, such as dextrine and other farinaceous products, and resinous and other gums, soluble in spirit or in water. Machines have been utilized for stiffening, but the little [92] advantages therefrom were so overweighted by the disadvantages, that they have never obtained any popular support and to-day it is probably not too much to say that every straw hat is stiffened actually by hand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has one advantage, it can be done by less skilled or [87] careful operatives than the “sponging,” which needs careful attention.
The straw boater for men during its stiffening is often soaked in the “stiffening” bath for an appreciable time in order that the gelatine may thoroughly soak into all the fibres of the plait; but that also, when it emerges, is sponged over to remove excess.
The general plan of stiffening a single piece hat (ladies’ hat) with gelatine is for the operator to place the crown of the hat correctly on the wooden block. ”

“ But any description of the straw hat trade would be incomplete without a proper account of the woven hat or “hood,” as it is termed in the trade, the word “hat” implying the finished article. In the first place the fibres that can be made into plait can also be made into hoods, for any fibre capable of being manipulated in plaitting can be woven. (The term “woven” is used in want of a better, because the action needed is really more what is generally known as “weaving” than “plaitting,” although both processes are done by hand, with one or two minor exceptions.) ”

“ The straw of oats or wheat and corn husks were braided and made into hats. Hats which were almost everlasting, we used to think, were made of pine straw. Hats were made of cloth also. I remember one in particular of gray jeans, stitched in small diamonds with black silk thread. It was as perfect a hat as was ever moulded by the [59] hatter, but the oddness of that hat consisted in its being stitched on the sewing-machine with silk thread. ”

“ Their usual head-dress is either a white straw hat, or a black round beaver hat, with black ostrich feathers. I prefer the straw hat; it is more tasteful than the round hat which always seems to me too masculine for a woman. ”

“ The best covering for the head, when he is out and about, is a loose-fitting straw hat, which will allow the perspiration to escape. It should have a broad brim, to screen the eyes. A sunshade, that is to say, a sea-side 1125hat—a hat made of cotton, with a wide brim to keep off the sun—is also an excellent hat for a child; it is very light, and allows a free escape of the perspiration. It can be bought, ready made, at a baby-linen warehouse. ”

“ The other is a short, square-built, almost uncouth figure, overshadowed by a wide straw hat, which seems even to diminish his stature; a suit of black, wide and ample enough for one twice his size, gives his appearance a grotesqueness to which his features contribute their share. ”

“ The general description of the actual sewing of a straw hat, whether by hand or machine, must be followed by the statement that when sewn the hat is invariably in a limp condition, that is it is quite unfit for general wear. ”

“ The same may be said of what was once described to me as a ‘human’ hat, unless it is of the very plainest; for some reason which I cannot quite define, but can nevertheless thoroughly appreciate, a ‘smart’ hat looks absolutely ludicrous out here: in fact, any tendency to over-dressing has only one effect, that of making your company, usually a few hard-working men, feel thoroughly uncomfortable. All one wants, after all, is to appear fresh, spotless and dainty, which can be best accomplished by a clean linen frock, a shady simple straw hat, a sensible sunshade and garden gloves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My new straw hat that's trimly lin'd with green,
Let Peggy wear, for she's a damsel clean. ”

“ Organization of production.—The manufacture of straw hats is essentially a factory business and with few exceptions each concern carries on all of the major operations connected with the production of hats in a single establishment. Plaiting of straw braid is a separate industry, the domestic hat manufacturers being dependent upon foreign sources for their supply of braids. The bleaching of straw braids is performed by some of the hat manufacturers in their own establishments ”

“ Now the straw hat raises its pretensions against prescribed right, and insolently lays claim to half of the year. And since then approbation fluctuates between these two appurtenances of the human race. When the unstable minds of mortals wavered toward straw, the most beautiful felts, velveteen, silk, and pasteboard were left unnoticed and eaten by moths. On the other hand, when the inclinations of men turned to felt, every human being--women, children, and nurses--wore men's small hats ”

“ The hat having been properly “roughed out” or “sweated,” that is shaped to its exact size without pressure by hand or machine, and still holding a little steam moisture, is placed accurately in the pan, the outside of the hat to the metal; inside the hat is distributed as evenly as may be a thick felt dummy (to prevent the straw from cutting the bag) . If the edge of the crown is very sharp, such as one finds in a man’s boater, a ring of vulcanized rubber or similar material with angles corresponding to the crown edge is placed in position inside the crown before the felt dummy is introduced. ”

“ In summer a conical-shaped straw hat is chosen, and in winter small hats obtain either of hard felt with stiff, upturned brims or of felt soft and pliable.
The costume of the lower orders is simplicity itself. A cotton shirt, trousers, and a loose sleeve-less coat exhaust the list. A narrow strip of material is tied round the waist in order to prevent the clothing getting in the worker's way, and the naked feet are thrust into low sandals. ”

“ The only purely animal product used in making plaits is horsehair. This material, so extremely liked by the highest classes of wearers, is now most difficult to obtain owing to the rise of the motor car and the subsequent decline of the horse, but in spite of its origin it has been, since at least sixty years, included as one of the materials that can be classified as a “straw hat.”
All the plaits mentioned, with very few exceptions, such as the cellulose, visca, cotton or black horsehair varieties, require bleaching or dyeing before being ready for sewing. ”

“ I had never thought of them as curiosities, but one does not see them in England. The thing that to me is most noticeable on the London streets is the absence of straw hats. There are many more bare male heads than there are straw hats. It is almost impossible to attract attention in London, but a straw hat will come nearest to doing the trick. Some men are exquisitely and others strangely clad, and nobody cares. I saw a man riding a bicycle. He had on tan shoes, homespun trousers, a frock coat, and a tall silk hat. ”

“ This is the straw hat pressing department, occupied entirely by men. Here are the more weighty evidences of labor and work. Heavy and powerful hydraulic presses are used in shaping the ordinary kinds of straw hats, and the necessary metal moulds that form the "dies" for these machines represent tons of zinc. ”

“ A good black straw hat and bonnet, changed at the seasons with suitable blossoms, is the most economical and ladylike fashion, but the artificial flowers should be very good of their kind—those with silk or velvet petals look the best and most natural, and can be used a second season if carefully brushed and put away. ”

“ The only correct head-covering will be the tall hat, which I hear will be bulgier than ever this year. The smartest will have open crowns and little or no brims. There has been some attempt to revive the old straw hat, though only with a black ribbon, but I have not heard of this being adopted by Guys with any pretensions to dressiness. ”

“ We hunted during a couple of hours—not because the old straw hat was valuable, but out of curiosity to find out how such a thing could manage to conceal itself in open ground where there was nothing left for it to hide behind. When one is reading in bed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot find it again if it is smaller than a saber ”

“ Some plaits with prominent heads or fancy embellishments require two or more “strainers” or even a thickness of flannel [98] between the iron and the hat to prevent bruising, but plaits such as these are generally “blocked” by being “steamed” (trade term) , that is the shaping on the block is entirely done by the hand of the operator after the material has been softened in the “steampot.” When hats are, as they always were till about 1885, of “one piece” make, the crown having been finished, is taken off the wooden block and placed head downward in the “curler” or “brimmer” of wood. ”

“ The most recent development for ensuring the comfortable wear of the hardest boater is that of an American inventor. Although the making of straw hats from plait has been an established industry in the United States for at least half a century, and the amazing increase of the trade has been phenomenal, yet up to the present the name of an American has not been written very prominently on the pages of straw trade industry. ”

“ Another product, largely used in the trade, although strictly speaking neither a plait nor a woven hat, is “Sparterie.” This is wattle woven of fine willow-chip splints into various sized sheets for the different requirements of the trade; it is mainly used as a foundation for making hats to be covered with some delicate plait that will not stand any method of wet stiffening. It is extremely light in weight, and can be moulded to almost any shape, it will stand stiffening, and may be made as firm as stiff buckram. ”

“ Many women absolutely place a structure of straw, with a broad brim bent upward in front and behind, on this wonderful cap when they go out, and this queer affair they call a hat. I was astonished to find that girls and women endowed by nature with beautiful hair subjected themselves to this foolish fashion—the motive could scarcely be vanity. ”