If I Had My Own Blue Box:

For the second year, I was able to focus my millinery interpretation, during GCVM’S Civil War Living History Weekend on women’s employment. Shifting from the “pretty” of millinery to the women and history connected to each part of a piece of millinery allows us to have more indepth, more genuine conversations with visitors.

Before and After

To prepare for the weekend, the Insurance Office needed to be transformed once again into a millinery shop. Here are before and after looks from the doorway.

With the focus on education, I brought educational display items in addition to the items for creating the appearance of millinery shop. On the front table is the straw millinery display showing the steps from wheat to straw to plait, with different examples of plait and straw motifs. To the right is a visual resource book filled with illustrations, cdvs, photographs of my millinery blocks, and copies of billheads. Additional reference books are on the shelf beside the mantle. On the side table is a new display board I thought of last minute and plan to develop further. These are touchable items, each representing not only a component in making a hat or bonnet, but also an employment for women or children.

Having resources and visuals available to share with visitors as their questions and our conversations unfolded was extremely helpful. I grabbed the visual resource flip book several times each day to show visitors the illustrations of cottage industry, photos of millinery blocks, and billheads. The copy of Virginia Penny’s Employments of Women was also referenced a few times either to show the multitude of employment opportunities for women or to let a visitor look up a particular job.

This year, visitors came with excellent questions. Some wanted to know how a woman got a job working in a millinery, what kinds of things they did, how much they got paid, and what the work day was like. Some even want to role play in first person. I plan to include some of these questions in coming Millinery Monday posts.

On a Personal Note….

I once again failed to get many photos. I feel good about this trio as it shows I am managing the physical aspects better than I have the past several years. I am not yet as fit as I once was, but hope keep improving.

“Isn’t straw delicate” is one of my favorite questions. It shows a visitor is thinking through what I am working with, imagining the fiber itself, and questioning either what they see or what they think.

Straw as a straw is delicate. It can be snapped or shredded with little effort.

Yet, straw once paired together with other straw can be quite strong.

Straw braided and sewn together can hold its shape well. It can be relatively strong. It can also withstand elements better than other contemporary materials.

One of the great things about straw is it can be forgiving, allowing it to be retrimmed or redecorated a number of times.

One of my favorite straw bonnet stories from the nineteenth century tells of a young woman who has the same bonnet for ten years. She redecorates it yearly…… Cite

Advertisements for millineries and straw goods stores often include bleaching and reblocking of straws in their lists of goods and services. Straw bonnets and hats can be reblocked into their original shape with new sizing (stiffening) or, within reason, be reblocked into a newer shape for a more updated style.

Straw can also be repaired. This can be seen in original bonnets and hats with patches of straw plait.

Clients have shared with me a few survival stories over the years. Most recently, is this hat who had a rough journey to its owner. The box suffered significant damage including the dented in side seen here and the opposite side ripped into. The hat within survived with only some mis-shaping from the trauma.

Another hat took an impromptu flight and dip into the ocean while its wearer was on a leisurely excursion. The boat was able circle around while the hat floated in the water. When it was fished out, the hat needed only to dry before it could be worn again.

Now, this isn’t to say straw millinery is invincible. A straw hat or bonnet is unlikely to survive being sat on or trampled. Straw can also be susceptible to mold or mildew if not properly dried after getting wet or damp. Straw can also become brittle if stored too long in a dry area.

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I have been waiting for months to make these straw bon bon baskets.

When I first saw the illustration for a basket made from straw plait in Godey’s Lady’s Book’s 1858 edition, I was nearly giddy. I had been thinking about baskets made from straw for a while. I had seen splint baskets repaired with straw. I had even repaired one with straw. It just made sense to me to make one with straw. I just needed documentation to place them in the nineteenth century. Ta da!

Let’s start with the morning videos.

This weekend’s set up was fairly simple. I made a couple baskets earlier for visitors to see while I decorated one and sewed a third, then fourth yet to be completed.

The baskets are made very much like the crown of a hat. The straw plait, or braid, is sewn in a spiral creating the bottom of the basket, then turned up for the sides. These bases are blocked just like a hat with a little sizing to stiffen them. The handles and decorative edges are straw shaped separately and added. Two are edged with double braided straw. One is edged with a looped design.

The baskets are decorated with the wheat heads, corn flowers, and poppies described in Godey’s.

I found I did not like the look or process of sewing the individual flowers and wheat heads as I decorated the first basket. I also found the wheat heads would block ease of reaching into the baskets for the chocolates. Towards the end of Saturday, I tried soaking some of the what heads, or the stalks of them actually. I was able to insert a wire and shape them. This made it possible to wire several Sunday morning and create a garland of wheat and flowers that could wrap around the basket. This needed only a few stitches to secure.

I have since had friends share additional straw basket images with me. Of course, some of these will need to be made as well.

This week’s question comes from a visitor who wants to begin reenacting as a hobby. They are either just starting out or have been reenacting for a short time. In developing their wardrobe, they know they need a bonnet. They ask “What should be my first bonnet?” or “What bonnet should I buy.”

My answer often surprises.

A sunbonnet.

So many women post about just starting and needing a bonnet. They often waste money on a bad fashion bonnet. I would rather see them buy a sensible sunbonnet and save for the right fashion bonnet. But, no. The bad fashion purchase gets worn far too long out of the feeling of remorse for the expense.

A correctly made sunbonnet is a purchase that will last many years. It will protect the wearer’s face, hair, and neck from the sun. It can also protect the fashion bonnet by allowing it to stay “home” in inclement weather.

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First, I am very grateful to those who helped me purchase this bonnet. When I saw it, I nearly cried because I was sure I would have to pass it up. Your support means I can do the research and work I do.

This bonnet is an excellent example of fine craftsmanship and three braids being set into stripes. The straw braid on the crown is a rich chestnut brown on the outside, a more matte, drab brown on the inside. The straw braid on the brim is a darker brown with a mauve/purple tint to it. This plait has a scalloped edge. Running through the whole of the bonnet is a wider braid with a two tone diamond pattern. I need to get a closer look at this braid. It may be a horsehair or wool. It is tight and fine.

The interior reflects aspects common to the era. The brim, cheektabs, and neck edge are wired with covered wire. The brim and crown are lined with loose weave cotton. Two tags, likely style and sewer, are attached to the back. The neck edge is bound in silk. Less commin but not unseen, the bottoms of the cheektabs have seperate pieces of dark brown plait pieced into the curve.

There are repair points throughout the bonnet where threads previously disintegrated. Additional threads indicate it may have been decorated at some point.

I am trying to write more but the WordPress app keeps crashing.

I noticed the local antique shop was open again. (I moved from a town with 5 antique shops to a town with 1.) Turns out there is a new owner. As I wandered, I saw this heart shaped frame in a little basket. It was such a sweet example of Victorian fancy work, I had to have it. Plus, it was only a dollar. Ya. Really.

The heart is 3 1/8″ tall and about the same wide. The 1″×3/4″ opening for the tintype photo sits about an inch above the point of the heart.

It is made of two layers of pasteboard. The back is covered in dark blue velvet. The front is covered in off white silk taffeta that has disintegrated.

The threads pulling the silk and velvet around the pasteboard can be seen through the photo opening as the photo has slipped.

The whole is bound with a bright golden yellow embroidery floss, likely silk, in a blanket stitch.

At the top of the heart is a red ribbon hanging loop and bow. The ribbon is a silk grosgrain with picot edge. At the bottom is a gold silk pom hanging from cord.

I recreated this heart frame from materials on hand. (Directions in pdf coming soon.) I think they came out quite darling.

I plan to do a semi-regular Fancy Work Friday series with Victorian fancy work focused posts on Fridays. Sometimes these will look at originals, other times they will be about making pieces from original directions. I may bring back some previous favorites for new readers.

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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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A supplement to the “How much did Milliner’s make?” post.

An Act
Concerning the Rights and Liabilities of Husband and Wife
Passed March 20, 1860.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. The property, both real and personal, which any married woman now owns, as her
sole and separate property; that which comes to her by descent, devise, bequest, gift, or grant;
that which she acquires by her trade, business, labor, or services, carried on or performed on her sole or separate account; that which a woman married in this State owns at the time of her marriage, and the rents, issues, and proceeds of all such property, shall notwithstanding her
marriage, be and remain her sole and separate property, and may be used, collected, and
invested by her in her own name, and shall not be subject to the interference or control of her
husband, or liable for his debts, except such debts as may have been contracted for the support of herself or her children, by her as his agent.

S 3. Any married woman possessed of real estate as her separate property may bargain sell, and
convey such property, and enter into any contract in reference to the same; buy no such conveyance or contract shall be valid without the assent, in writing, of her husband, except as
hereinafter provided.

S 2. A married woman may bargain, sell, assign, and transfer her separate personal property, and
carry on any trade or business, and perform any labor or services on her sole and separate account, and the earnings of any married woman from her trade, business, labor, or services shall
be her sole and separate property, and may be used of invested by her in her own name.

S 4. In case any married woman possessed of separate real property, as aforesaid, may desire to sell or convey the same, or to make any contact in relation thereto, and shall be unable to procure the assent of her husband as in the preceding section provided, in consequence of his refusal, absence, insanity, or other disability, such married women may apply to the County Court in the county where she shall at the time reside, for leave to make such sale, conveyance, or contract, without the assent of her husband.

S 5. Such application may be made by petition, verified by her, and setting forth the ground of
such application. If the husband be a resident of the county and not under disability from insanity
or other cause, a copy of said petition shall be served upon him, with a notice of the time when
the same will be presented to the said court, at least ten days before such application. In all other cases, the County Court to which such application shall be made, shall, in its discretion,
determine whether any notice shall be given, and if any, the mode and manner giving it.

S 6. If it shall be satisfactorily appear to such court, upon application, that the husband of such
application has willfully abandoned his said wife, and lives separate and apart from her, or that
he is insane, or imprisoned as a convict in any state prison, or that he is a habitual drunkard, or
he is any way disabled from making a contract, or that he refuses to give his consent without
good cause therefor, then such court shall cause an order to be entered upon its records,
authorizing such married woman to sell and convey her real estate, or contract in regard thereto without the assent of her husband, with the same effect as though such conveyance or contract had been made with his assent.

S 7. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all matters having relation to
her property, which may be her sole and separate property, or which may hereafter come to her
by descent, devise, bequest, or the gift of any person except her husband, in the same manner as if she were sole. And any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name, for damages against any person or body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement of any such action, or recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and separate property.

S 8. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to her sole and separate
property, or any property which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, or gift of
any person except her husband, and no bargain of contract entered into by any married woman
in or about the carrying on of any trade or business under the statutes of this State, shall be
binding upon her husband, or render him or is property in any way liable therefor.

S 9. Every married woman is hereby constituted and declared to be the joint guardian of her
children, with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them, with the
husband.

S 10. At the desease of husband or wife, leaving minor child or children, the survivor shal hold,
possess, and enjoy all the real estate of which the husband or wife died seized, and all the rents,
issues, and profits thereof during the minority of the youngest child, and one-third thereof
during his or her natural life.

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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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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