When did eyelets first appear on hats?

[Russ]

Those old photos of campaign hats with holes punched in the sides of the crown for ventilation got me wondering when hatters started using eyelets instead of plain holes. Eyelet presses were available at least as early as the second half of the nineteenth century according to one web site I have found:

http://www.officemuseum.com/stapler_gallery_eyelet.htm

Does anybody know when they got the idea to start using them in hats?

 

[Russ]

I gotta ask easier questions, I guess!

I did uncover a little info in the few days since I posed this question. Here is an excellent web site on slouch hats which shows a photo of a British army slouch hat from around 1900 that had eyelets. So eyelets appeared on hats at least as early as then.

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-uniforms/non_oz_slouch2.htm

 

[BellyTank]

Actually

I don't know the answer but I AM trying to find some of the brass screened vent eyelets used on hats.

Anyone have a source..?

Thanks,

B
T

 

[feltfan]

I don't know the answer but I AM trying to find some of the brass screened vent eyelets used on hats.

Anyone have a source..?

Hi BT,

I've been working on this one for months now.
I found a bulk source here:

http://www.fasnap.com/category.asp?MainCat=Grommets+and+vents&SubCat=Net+vents**8&ListNum=13611&Count=1&OldList=Grommets+and+vents%2A%2A1&CatIndex=2

Ouch. This might work better:

http://tinyurl.com/qkwhk

But that's kinda pricey.

I think the proprietor of this site might buy some from them
and sell them individually:

http://www.ushist.com/wardrobe.htm

Someone on this list told me about that site.
They are not yet in stock...

If anyone has another source (or if enough of us want to
go in on an order...) please post.

BTW, Russ, sorry to hijack the thread. You might ask Deanglen
directly when he thinks the earliest use might have been. Certainly
well into the 19th Century.

 

[deanglen]

You might ask Deanglen
directly when he thinks the earliest use might have been. Certainly
well into the 19th Century.

Thanks for giving me more credit than I am due, Feltfan, but I really don't know when vents were first used. I wish I did. I wish I was an authority on hats! Nice of you to grant me the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I remember you and I communicating on the vent source thing. Did you ever get your prototype hat finished?

dean

 

[BellyTank]

Thanks Feltan- USHIST was where I'd seen them but Firefox junked all my bookmarks between backups.

http://www.19th-century-us-history.com/wardrobe/inc/m1880s_screen_vent.htm

This one with the fan blades was cool!

http://www.19th-century-us-history.com/wardrobe/inc/m1876_bracher_vent.htm

Thanks again.



B
T

 

[feltfan]

Deanglen, nope, still waiting on those vents, but it's
no hurry because I still haven't gotten off my butt to
fix my hat steam source (my espresso machine). So
it's still a month or so more before I can finish my
ultimate "summer" felt. When I do it, I promise a
full post on how/what I did.

BT, don't get me started on Firefox. I am still using it,
but what a piece of garbage! It crashes all the time.
Do drop the owner of that ushist site a note, stating
that you are interested in screen vents... maybe he'll
take some action. I was tempted by his Bracher vents
(with the tiny fan blades), but realized that they would
be noisey.

 

[Dinerman]

what are the ones with fan blades for?

 

[BellyTank]

Ventilation...

B
T