Hats, Hats, Hats: Fashionable Features of the Past

Rebekah Sheats
Contributor

On August 6, 1859, the Monticello business of Johnson, McCann & Cuthbert entered into business with Daniel B. Bird, a longstanding member of the Jefferson County community. To mark the change in leadership, the firm altered its name to Johnson, Bird & Company. It was one of many businesses expanding in the closing years of the 1850s. The Pensacola and Georgia Railroad had almost completed its new line into Monticello, and it was no secret that rail traffic would bring an increase in the number of customers who would be frequenting the local merchants.
That summer of 1859, Johnson, Bird & Company informed the public that its dry goods store would soon be prepared to meet every need of Jefferson County inhabitants. These businessmen had invested in the best supply of goods available, as their advertisements explained: “Monticello having taken a sudden impulse in the way of general improvement... to meet the expected increased demand, [we] have brought out from New York a larger and more complete stock of staple and fancy dry goods than has ever before been offered in this market.”
Farm implements, hoop skirts, and waterproof boots were only a few of the items that had recently arrived from New York. Among the silks, sleeves, gloves, collars, and handkerchiefs, Johnson & Bird promised a large and varied supply of headgear. Besides ladies’ bonnets and gorgeously decorated headpieces, the firm offered a wide selection of “gents’ fine beaver and silk hats; gents’ moleskin and cassimere hats; boys’ cassimere and wool hats; caps of every description.”
Hats. Caps. Bonnets. Head ribbons and parasols. Considered fashionable throughout the nation in antebellum society, these pieces of headgear were absolute necessities in the intense Florida sunshine that marked Jefferson County. Long before locals were discussing the day’s UV index, they were donning their caps and hats prior to leaving the shaded safety of their homes.
Hat styles changed with each passing decade, but the necessity of wearing them did not. By the time the Roaring Twenties rolled around, Johnson, Bird & Company had long since closed its doors, but other businesses had stepped in to fill the void. In 1924, L. R. Rainey’s dry goods store located on the corner of North Jefferson and West Dogwood Streets proudly offered its customers the latest styles in hats. In September of that year, Rainey boasted: “1924 and 1925 modes of John B. Stetson latest style hats and some cow boy styles [have] just arrived.”
Necessary but not cheap, hats were an article of clothing requiring special care in the 1800s and early 1900s. In those days, it was recommended to have one’s hat cleaned and blocked regularly. To do this, a ‘hat blocker’ was needed. Hat blockers generally worked at pressing clubs (present-day drycleaners), where they cleaned hats and then shaped them to the desired shape and size by steaming and pressing the hat over a suitable wooden crown and brim form. This was no small feat. A good hat cleaner was expected to remove all trimmings from a hat (including bows, beads, and feathers from women’s hats), clean the hat, block it, then hand sew all trimmings back onto the hat before returning it to the customer. (For intricate ladies’ hats, cleaners would sketch a picture of the hat before removing the ornamentation so they could stitch each piece back on in its proper place.)
Such delicate work and precision of labor required skilled hands and patient handling. In Monticello, this painstaking job was undertaken by R. C. Powell of the Quick Service Pressing Club. In the 1930s, Powell offered “hats cleaned and blocked” as well as “suits pressed while you wait.” His services were greatly appreciated by the burgeoning community.
A useful and valuable commodity, a man’s hat was considered as much of his wardrobe as his suit or tie. Yet some men’s priorities were occasionally placed in other directions. In the early fall of 1924, Jefferson County suffered severe rains as hurricane season neared its conclusion. In Lamont, the roads were declared “nearly impassable.” One local noted: “The Aucilla River is all out in the woods and running across our causeway, and the little bridge here across Pollack Branch has washed out and no crossing in a car or trains can be effected until it is repaired.”
Despite the weather, Lamont resident W. T. Timmons who worked at a local garage decided to go fishing during the flood. (Perhaps he found himself temporarily out of a job since no vehicles could navigate the flooded roads.) Timmons caught a fine lot of trout and proudly walked home with it that evening. To his dismay, he lost his footing at Pollack Branch and fell into the river. The water was so deep that the Monticello News noted in a front-page article: “He failed to touch bottom.”
Timmons lost his hat in the river before he regained the bank. Whether the hat was one of Rainey’s special stock is unknown, but it was never seen again. Yet, true to his role as a fisherman, Timmons placed his greatest loss in another direction. While in the river, he also let go of his string of trout. Despite the loss of his hat, the newspaper unmistakably explained: “He said he had rather lose the hat than his mess of fish.”
It appears that Timmons’ priorities were right after all. Almost a century later, we have discarded most of the hat styles of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—but we’re still fishing for trout in the Aucilla River.