Browse Items (19 total)

This black top hat is made out of beaver. Although top hats were also made from silk at this time, microscopic tests reveal that the fiber is indeed an animal hair fiber, not silk. According to "A Day at a Hat-Factory" published in The Penny Magazine…

This artifact is classified as a tall, black, silk top hat; it has a ribbon band with a small bow. On the inside of the hat embossed on the blue silk lining we can see a logo for E.T. & S. Ryder hatters whose premises was located at 60 Fulton…

This is a spoonbill bonnet dating between 1850 and 1860. The brim of a spoon bill bonnet flares out to frame the face, maintaining the bavolet popular in the 1840s. This bonnet is covered with blue taffeta over cording made of cane, achieving a…

This is a mourning bonnet covered in black silk crape. Crape is a dull, matte silk gauze which was crimped with hot rollers, dyed black, and stiffened with gum or starch. Crape was used not only for bonnets, but for other mourning attire including…

This mourning bonnet was worn by Robyn Bowen Gardner Brown, who was born in 1817. Black crape covers the exterior of the bonnet while the interior is lined with cambric. The crape is folded and pinned into the base, possibly signifying a work still…

This royal blue bonnet accompanied a matching skirt and jacket and a pair of gold boots when donated to the collection by the Mystic Seaport Museum. The ensemble was worn during the height of the bustle era, and would have made quite a splash. The…

This bonnet is made from a dark red silk velvet with rose-colored, striped silk ribbon ties. It is trimmed with silk brocade ribbons, of a black ground with copper-colored designs, that are folded and pleated across the crown. The inside of the brim…

This dark green velvet bonnet is trimmed with blush pink flowers and buds above the brim. Framing the face is a woven trim of tan chenille yarns mixed with brown metallic yarns. A wide silk bow with picot edging sits atop the bonnet’s crown. The same…

This is a woman’s bonnet consisting of a woven straw base with a shallow crown and narrow brim that has been folded up in the back. The straw base is covered in a weft-faced, camel/tan colored silk taffeta, multiple layers of black machine-made…

This bonnet is covered in a rich brown silk and has matching ribbons. It has ten channels sewn into the deep brim, through which cane was run, around which the fabric is ruched or shirred. At the lower back is a small curtain called a bavolet that…