Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-06-21
HISTORY OF STRAWHATS
PLATED HEADGEAR SAID TO RE
AN ANCIENT INDUSTRY.
Manufacture Mentioned by Spensey
and Shakespeare - Queen
Anne's Leghorns.
From the London Globe.

From the London Globe.
BY what happy process prehistoric man
first consummated a headgear We do not
Know exactly; but Il must obviously have
been late incident in the evolution of that
interesting individual Perhaps a leafy
Dough, broken of and held aloft was the
very first thing in 'tiles." and il this were
so then some OF the garden hats. dear 10
the gentler sex today, may obviously boast
a direct descent from antiquity When our
remote kinsman had found next that a IT.
tie shaping CONNECTION Of twigs would
remain on the head without being held
there, the thing was DONE and from that
brilliant conception down to the sw-.test
and latest achievement Of Paris the steps
are simple and easy.
Obscurity of Origin.
Historically, the straw hat is wrapped in
a good deal of mystery. When once cstab-
lished in something like its present form il
became so much matter Of course that
few ancient writers thought Of alluding TO
it any more than they would have dwelt on
the homely fact that a man had shoes on
his feet or unmentionables to his lower
Ilmps. Authorities have generally held
THAT the plating of straw for the purpose
was not practiced in England before the
latter part Of the eighteenth century but
this is far too late date. Spenser himself
mentions such an industry Some plaid
with straws." and Shakespeare in The
Tempest makes Iris sing:
You sunburnt sickleman Of August weary
Come hither from the furrow aud he merry.
Make holiday your rye-straw hats put ON.
A Hive of Straw.
And in "A Lovers Complaint the poet
speaks again Of plated hive of straw
being worn by tickle maid to preserve
her complexion from the sun. In the reign
of James | the author OF ''Crudities'' tells
us that the finest ''strewen hats" were worn
both by men and women in Piedmont many
of them having a hundred seams and being
consequently very costly, f3 Is. having
been paid for two straw hats and bands
for the use of Lord William Howard
After that the head covering. once a de-
splsed essential of rustic costume. became
the joy of the court, a prime instrument in
the affected simplicity of an age whose only
inspiration was pretense.
Queen Annes great ladies wore straws.
These were followed by Leghom chips"
which were carried into overwhelming pop
ularity on the beautiful heads Of the Misses
Cunning, the ladies to whom we owe this at
least, that they not only graced their own
charms by the most natural and becoming
headgear that can be worn. but gave a
mighty impulse OF a British industry which
fourished for many years afterward.
Articles of Straw.
These Leghorn plaits proving too expen-
sive for general use Luton and Dunstable
came to the assistance of the foreign pro-
Queer; all over Herts and Suffolk, and
down into Essex, it became possible for
adroit women fingers to earn as much by
the fireside as the men earned 10y pillow or
sickle far afield. STRAW, straw, straw
everything is ornamented with il, from the
cap to the shoebuckle. and Ceres seems
to be the favorite idol, not only with the
female, but with the male part of the world
as well, for the gentemens waistcoats are
ribbed with straw, and they look If
they had amused themselves in Bedlam
for some time past manufacturing the
fiimsy doublet," wrote an essayist in the
European Magazine in lISS. alluding to the
craze which followed on the Duchess of
Rutland's use of the material as an orna-
ment to dress. Even today the old skill in
weaving the glossy yellow stalks is not
quite forgotten. and any day may see
in the old localities cottage women and
girls sitting at their doors gossiping with
their neighbors, while the strands accumu-
late around them. or weaving "A they walk
to market, where the factors are still ready
to buy the product Of the labor, clean,
healthy, easiy-learned, and practiced with
out apparatus.