Headwear: Tools of Respectability
As the twentieth century loomed, ladies' hats became increasingly extravagant. Hats like the one pictured here would have been all the rage due to the use of bird feathers. The use of feathers in hats and headwear was not uncommon in the centuries before, but it was Marie Antoinette and her court that inspired such a feathered fervor in the nineteenth century. The demand for feathered hats had a substantial impact on migratory bird species, and subsequently, some species were going extinct. The birds were not the only ones suffering for these hats; this fashion craze also effected immigrant working women. While the wages were quite high for millinery work, $2.50 a week (around $75 today), the women who worked with these feathers were at an increased risk for exposure to disease. Eventually, feathered hats fell out of favor for more humane alternatives due to increased public interest in reviving bird populations.
This cream-colored straw hat is one women of all social classes could have worn during the summer. Straw was a very common material for making hats, especially for the summer, since it would have provided shade while being breathable. By the 1910s, when this hat was made, hats had decreased in size, but the brims remained quite broad. Velvet or satin ribbons, as well as flowers and artificial fruits, could have adorned a hat like this one. During the first decades of the 20th century, American milliners kept a close eye on hat styles being produced in Paris, London, and New York to reproduce styles that could be bought readymade in department stores.
With so many different styles of hats in vogue in the years between 1880 and 1920, another fashion accessory rose in turn. The hatpin was a necessity for ladies of all social classes due to the popularity of updos, which required the use of a hatpin to keep a hat in place. Hatpins could be made of a variety of different types of metals with different decorative heads and be nearly a foot long. During the early 1900s, hatpins became much more than just a simple accessory; they became weapons of self-defense. With more and more women working and being able to walk around without the supervision of a chaperone, it became increasingly common for women to find themselves in unsafe situations. Predatory men, colloquially known as "mashers," could find themselves subject to a hatpin’s prick when unwanted advances were made. Hatpin self-defense became such a common occurrence that many cities passed laws to limit the size of hatpins in order to reduce incidents.
