Free eBook: The Twentieth Century Hat Factory

[tonyb]

If this has been posted before, my quick search didn't find it.

So, here 'tis ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=ETQuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Enjoy

 

[Rabbit]

Thanks for bringing this title to our attention, Tony.

GoogleBooks is for browsing only. The book is available for free download at the Internet Archive as a PDF scan:

http://archive.org/details/twentiethcentur00mill

 

[buler]

Rabbit, you can download as pdf from googlebooks. But maybe that's a US-only option...?

The book has been mentioned once or twice but I'm not sure which thread it's in. Maybe this one. List Your Hat Books

B

 

[Rabbit]

Rabbit, you can download as pdf from googlebooks. But maybe that's a US-only option...?

B

Oh, I see. That I didn't know. Seems to be a US option, indeed.

Anyway, I found a few more old hat books at the IA:

How to handle hats (1905)

A short treatise on head wear, ancient and modern (1885)

The hatter's guide, or scientific instructor (1919)

Instructions in hat cleaning (1920)

 

[Chepstow]

Interesting books, Nik, Tony and Bill! Thanks for sharing the links!

 

[tonyb]

All the old "how-to" books are worth the would-be hatter's while, for sure. And they make for entertaining reading for anyone with a more than passing interest in the topic.

But reading about how it's done (or how it used to be done) is, at best, just a jumping-off point. Renovating hats, and making hats from all-new materials (or, in many cases, new/old stock, for those of us who use vintage ribbons), takes lots and lots of practice. Sure, it's easy to understand how it is done. But ask anyone who has been at it for more than a year or so and he'll tell you that he didn't really get the hang of it until he had been at it quite some time. And he'll probably tell you that he's still learning better (or at least faster) ways of doing it.

I have a newbie hatter friend here locally who has benefitted greatly from my experience. He's been making and renovating hats for several months now, and has gotten passably good at it. Of late he's been hitting his local Goodwill "outlet," which is a low-rent storefront where large bins of merchandise in general categories are rolled out and customers pick through them at furious speeds. (Lots of this stuff gets shipped overseas, to the pickers' homelands, I suspect.) Much of the merchandise is sold by the pound. This pal of mine hits the men's accessories bins -- the ties and belts and suspenders and, yes, hats. He has made some quite nice, good as new (better, in some cases) hats from the crumpled up, dirty old things he mined from those bins. And he's paid less than a buck per hat there.

That, friends, is a great way to learn the trade. Start out with hats for which you paid next to nothing, and even if you don't at first do such a great job of renovating them, you still have better hats than what you had to start.

 

[TheDane]

Tony: I guess, it all boils down to the fact, that hatting is a craft like most other crafts - and the litterature on the subject should be treated as such. In most crafts you have some books to support you through your education - and/or to update long ago educated craftsmen. They are never ment as stand-alone educational tools

 

[Geldoc]

Well said, Tony.

 

[DJH]

Tony - thanks for sharing the link. That's a good read.
Bill - I appreciate you linking to the other thread; I'd not see that one before. I really enjoyed the posts by Brad and The Baron there.

 

[mayserwegener]

Interesting books but they only tell the story from the American hat manufacturing view point of that time period (early 1900s). For example there is no discussion of specialized finishes such as Velour. The continental Euro makers actually had the upper hand when it came to finishes and color dyes (same with style trends).