Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/680

* HASWELL. 622 HAT. Navy. During his service, which lasted until 1850, he was a member of the boards which de- signed the Missouri, the Mississi'iJiji, and six other steam frigates. He built the tirst prac- ticable steam launch (1837), and was the first to use zinc to protect the hulls of iron vessels and marine steam boilers from the galvanic action of salt water and copper. He superintended the construction of the crib bulkhead at Hart's Isl- and, and after 1808 was the consurting engineer of the board of public improvements in New York City. His publications include: The Mechanic's and Engineer's Pocket Book (1844; UCth ed. 1901); Mechanic's Tables (1854); Mensuration and Practical Geometry (1856); and Reminis- cences of an Octogenarian (1895). HAT (AS. hwt, Icel. haltr; connected ulti- mately with Skt. chad, to cover), and Hat ^Maxtt- FACTFRE. The hat is a head-covering, distin- guished from the cap and bonnet by having a brim around it. Hats were first manufactured in England about 1510, and superseded caps, or soft headgear, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The felting of caps is, however, said to have been known long before this period ; and there is a tradition that a Icnowledge of felted caps or hats bad been introduced by the Crusaders. At any rate such an industry flourished in Germany and France in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As the process of felting is ascribed by tradition to Saint Clement, he was early assumed as the patron saint of the craft, and the annual festival of the trade was appointed for the 23d of Novem- ber. Wool was the material first employed in forming felt hats : but in time, as European trade with .Vmerica developed, the fur of the beaver, being finer and softer, came into use ; hence the term beaver was long synon^^nous with hat. For about three centuries, fine beaver hats dyed black, and prepared with much skill, formed the head- covering of the higher classes in Great Britain, and distinguished them from the middle and humbler classes, which continued for a length of time to wear the less expensive Caps and bonnets. The growing scarcity of beaver-fur led to at- tempts to substitute a cloth formed of silk plush, drawn over a pasteboard frame, about 1810. These were not very successful ; and hats of wool or beaver-felt were common until about 1840. The high cost of beaver at length brought out the improvement of silk hats to such an extent that the beaver was entirely superseded, and the fabrication of silk hats brouglit to great perfec- tion. With the course of fashion hats have under- gone a great variety of changes of shape. The raisins of the top part and the widening or di- minishing of the brims have constituted the chief differences. Sometimes the top has been high and narrow, sometimes high and widened; and as regards the brim it has sometimes been 60 broad as to loop up. Political and religious differences have been marked by the form of hats. The Puritan of the reign of Charles I. adopted the steeple hat, high and narrow, with a broad brim, and devoid of ornament. The Cavalier, during the same era, wore a lower and broader crown, with a feather stuck on one side. The Quaker hat. low in the crown, with a broad brim, and plain, dates from the origin of the sect at the middle of the seventeenth century. A growing extravagance in breadth of brim led to the device of looping up the back and sides, and thus led to the cocked hat which was worn by gentlemen througliout the eighteenth century. Some men of fashion, however, by way of singu- larity, wore low-crowned hats with brims, from which was evolved tlie round hat, which finally superseded everj- variety of cocked hat at the be- ginning of the nineteenth century. Tlie Himgarian patriot Kossuth introduced into the L'niled States the soft felt hat. which has since been an especial favorite in the South and West. Straw hats began to be worn in .merica about 1800, the first importations being of the palui-leaf variety. With the increased taste for traveling, and for bicycling, golf, and otlier cut-of-door sports, a great demand has arisen from adults of both se.xes and from chil- dren for light, soft, undressed hats, not easily damaged by rain oj rough treatment. Such hats are usually of cloth, and come in great variety of shapes and colors. H.at-JIakixg IX THE United States. The his- tory of hat manufacture in this country dates back to ver}^ early colonial days. In 1GG2 the Assembly of Virginia enacted a law offering ten pounds of tobacco for every good wool or fur hat made in the Colony. In 1675 laws were passed prohibiting the exportation of raccoon furs from the provinces. By 1731 the industry had become of so much importance as to interfere most seri- ously with the trade of the English manufactur- ers, who in that year petitioned Parliament to forbid the importation of hats from the American colonies. A special committee to which the peti- tion was referred reported that in New York and New England 10,000 beaver hats were manufac- tured annually, and that there were ten hatters in the single city of Boston, one of whom made forty hats a week. In accordance with the spirit of this petition, laws were passed forbidding the exportation of American hats to other English colonies, forbidding the manufacture of hats by any person who had not served an apprentice- ship of seven years at the business, and forbid- ding negroes from working at the business. But in spite of these hampering restrictions, the in- dustry continued to thrive and to be encouraged by the various colonial governments. Delaware, in 1753, ottered a prize of forty shillings for the neatest and best hat manufactured in the lower counties. Carolina, by 1767, had developed a flourishing hat industry, with a large export trade to the Spanish islands. Soon after the close of the Revolution the manufacture of hats had become of great importance in Pennsylvania, and from that time the industry has continued to flourish. Statistics, showing the growth of this industry in the United States, are given at the close of this article. Makuf.vctuke. Felt hats are made in a wide range of qualities. The finer and more expensive qualities are formed entirely of fur; the com- moner qualities use a mixi:ure of fur and Saxony wool ; and for the lowest kinds wool alone is employed. The processes and apparatus neces- sary for making hats of fur differ also from those required in the case of woolen bodies; and in large manufactories, especially in America, ma- chinery is generally employed for operations which formerly were entirely manual. Hatter's fur consists principally of the hair of rabbits (technically called coneys) and hares, with some proportion of nutria, musquash, and beaver's