If I Had My Own Blue Box:

This is one of the hardest questions for me to answer. Why? Because I don’t fully know.

Ideally, I would have a big pool of bills/receipts, an assortment of ledgers from many different milliners, and a few dozen diary entries to create a database of prices based on year, region, area, time of year, type of piece, etc.. Then, I would feel like I had a hint of an answer.

But, I don’t have that. I don’t think anyone has that.

I save every 19th century bill/receipt that comes up for sale. I have even bought a few. I note every diary entry.

I try really really hard not to cry at the auction in front of all those people when a dealer out bids me on the stack of ledgers with a milliner’s ledger in it.

Take a moment.

Yes. It happened. I saw them go out the door.

….

Diary entries like these from Caroline Richards of Canandaigua, NY give us a look at the prices she paid for her millinery:

Wednesday, 1854 – Ann Eliza is going down street with us this afternoon to buy us some new summer bonnets;. They are to be trimmed with blue and white and are to come to five dollars. We are going to Mr Stannard’s store also, to buy us some stockings.

April 12, 1856 — We went down town this morning and bought us some shaker bonnets; to wear to school. They cost $1 apiece and we got some green silk for capes to put on them. We fixed them ourselves and wore them to school and some of the girls liked them and some did not, but it makes no difference to me what they like, for I shall wear mine till it is worn out. …

 Saturday, 1854 – We got our new summer hats; from Mrs Freshour’s millinery and we wore them over to show to Aunt Ann and she said they were the very handsomest bonnets she had seen this year. 

Bills or receipts can show the price of items from particular stores. They can also show the variety of store types as well as methods of keeping track of sales. This bill from 1849 lists several items purchased:

One trimmed bonnet cost $4.50 in May. A pink silk bonnet cost 43.50 in December. Two bonnets and trimmings “last spring” cost $6.35. (This bill also tells us the products and services this shop in Springfield provides, the frequency in which this family of an unknown number of women purchases bonnets, and the delay in payment from “last spring” to April, 1849 for this bill to January, 1850 for the payment.)

If I have to give a price, I can give a window for the mid century of as low as $1 for Shaker bonnets for school to $4.50 for a decorated silk bonnet. But, my answer has holes in that these examples span two different geographic regions and come from two different size cities.

So, the exploration continues…….

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In person, as a visitor watches, the question is usually “Are you hand sewing all of it?” or something about the stitches itself. Online, the question I get is about what kind of machine I am sewing with.

Straw plait millinery was hand sewn up until the invention of the straw sewing machine in the late 1860s. The first straw sewing machine was for sewing the bind edge of a bonnet or hat, not the whole body. The machine for sewing all of the straw came just a short time later. These machines came into common, but not universal use, in the 1870s. I say not universal use because some original pieces from the 1880s still show hand sewing for the construction.

I sew my straw millinery as they did in the nineteenth century up through the mid-century: by hand.

I use little stitches on the outside and long, half inch to inch long stitches on the inside.

To this day, I am still amazed by the visible stitches inside many straw bonnets. Here is an original bonnet I have in my TLC collection. The left photos is outside. The right photo is inside. Notice how you can barely, if at all, see the stitches on the outside, while on the inside the stitches are very visible.

From an artistic or craft standpoint, I find I have far more control over the straw when working by hand. I can adjust the tension, slightly curve, shape, or even fold the straw as I work. This allows me to create the shapes of each style including the height seen in an 1860’s spoon bonnet or the straw bavolet in an 1840s bonnet or the V point of a Regency or late century hat. This straw manipulation is the job of my left hand. So, both hands get tired, often very tired and sore, when I push them. I go through a lot of creams and visit my massage person regularly.

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A cottage industry at its simplest is product creation in the home.

Product creation in the home, cottage industry, simultaneously provides income for the home, ideally utilizing the resources immediately or locally available, and contributes to the economy of rural and developing areas. When the product created went from the home to a larger manufacturer, as was the case with sewing straw bonnets or hats, this was known as piece work. This is not to say home manufacturing solely occurs in rural or developing areas. Product development can also be done in urban homes, where it is often referred to as home manufacturing instead of cottage industry. In this case, the materials are often provided. Flower making or band-box making would be examples of this.

Straw plaiting and straw sewing as cottage industries in the 19th century were prominent in England and Italy in Europe, and in the New England through New York areas of the United States. (Some areas, such as Luton in England, continued plaiting well into the 20th century.) Straw cottage industry took fibers easily grown in these regions, commonly wheat and rye, and transformed them into money earning product. (more details in From Field to Fashion) The workflow differed between the US and England. In England, straw markets were the norm. Plaiters and sewers exchanged their goods for the best price of the day based on their materials and work. In the US, an industry representative would come to collect finished work in exchange for pay. (I did read a single passage saying a woman could take her work to the local dry goods store with the merchant acting as the industry representative. I need to find additional support for this to be sure of the actuality.) These pieces (bonnets and hats) would then go a factory to be wired and finally sized (blocked and stiffened.) At this point, they were ready to go to straw goods stores and millinery shops.

I used to think straw sewing as a cottage industry in the US faded out by the turn of the century. Then, I discovered this log book for tracking straw sewing from 1904. Likely, this sewing was done by machine. This is based on the year and by the number of pieces this person could get done in a month. The booklet gives directions for sewing and shop regulations inside each cover. The pages give space for tracking: Date – Block – Pattern – Goods – Price – Amount

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