The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-04-28

l shrink and the ibers to tighten When lifted from the copper cone it looks like l a petticoat rounded out at the top, or a sugar loaf bag This is the embryo hat. It is now rolled and pressed in the hands, and run through shrinking and hardening machines to make the felt tighter and thicker At the same time the cone shaped fur body grows shorter and shorter, and at the end it has the right texture and thickness required for the hat. After this the fur body is
 dried and then dyed in boiling bath of chemicals suited for the fur, and then
 pulled out into shape. The pulling re- oures numoer of men. who work in steam and over hot water. It is done
 both by machinery and by hand, the felt being worked back and forth in this way and that until it finally reaches the form of the hat of the soldier. The brim is then soaked or coated with shellac to give it the stiffness required in the brims of all army hats.
 The hat has now to be finished. It must be ironed to close the pores, opened up by the steaming and stretch l ing, and it must be sandpapered to | make the felt smooth. The smoothing | is done with emery paper. There are a number of other processes. so that all l hands before it is ready for trimming. The trimming is done by women and l girls who work at long tables With needle and thread They sew in the sweat bands and fasten the cords around the crowns. I saw one room in | which there were at least an half acre of girls trimming hats for the soldiers, and during my stay, I walked through one vast room after another filled with I 1,,c hotG iY - rious stages of making. The establish ment is one of the largest in the hat making industry, and a trip through it's various branches gives one some l idea of the extent to which the hat industry of our country has grown.
 The American colonists began to make hats almost as soon as they landed They were not satisfied with
 the coonskin caps used by the hunt CTS, and about 40 years after the Pill grims landed on Plymouth rock the | assembly of Virginia was enactine laws to encourage hat making. A pre- mium of 10 pounds of tobacco was offered for every good fur hat made
 in the colony, and little later the l exportation of raccoon furs was for bidden. Long before the Declaration of
 Independence was signed Delaware
 
 the neatest and best hat manufactured in the lower counties and Carolina had developed a flourishing hat industry and was exporting hats to the West Indies Even before that England be- came alarmed at the American hats which were brought there to be sold and the English manufacturers peti- toned Parliament to forbid such i'm
 portations. The committee to which this petition was referred reported that there were 10 matters in the sim gle city of Boston, one of whom made 40 hats a week. and that 10000 beaver hats were annually manufactured iu New York and New England. As a re- suit of this evidence the English Par lament passed an act that no per l son was to be allowed to make hats unless he had served an apprentice ship of seven years, and that no negro could work at the business. It pro- vided that no hats or felts, dyed or | undyed. finished or unfinished, could
 be put on board any vessel for any