Youth & Family News - Amesbury: A Center for Hat Making

How long have humans have been covering their heads -- for warmth, for shade or protection from elements, for religious beliefs, or to follow fashion and show wealth? This is unknown. But we do know from studying ancient art and writing from every continent, that it was more common, well into the 1800s, to cover one’s head, even while sleeping, than to be bareheaded.

Ancient Egyptians are depicted with hats—wealthy Egyptians, who shaved their heads, wore hats to keep cool.

In Ancient Greece and Rome, when slaves were freed they were given a special wool hat, called a pileus, that symbolized their new status. (See image)

Straw hats are one of the oldest known forms of hats, found throughout the African continent, and across China, as well as South and Central America. The Panama Hat, which actually originated in Ecuador, developed from indigenous palm leaf weaving traditions combined with Spanish colonial head coverings to create a hat that has been exported around the world.

By the 1800s, as the industrial revolution led to mass production of many consumer goods, hats, made of wool, cotton or fur, trimmed with feathers, bow or ribbons, became affordable and more common.

Amesbury became a center of hat making when the Merrimac Hat Company was established in the 1856.

Lasting through the 1970s, this company became one of the largest makers of hats in the United States with facilities not just in Amesbury, but throughout North America from Alabama to Nova Scotia.

Changes in fashion in the 1950s and 1960s led to the decline of the company, but Merrimac hats can still be found in museum collections around the country and in ACM’s Industrial History Center exhibit.

Today, you can see the Merrimac Hat Company buildings converted into condominiums. Located at 60 Merrimac Street, along the Merrimack River, the complex is called “Hatter’s Point.”

Photo credits:

• Ancient Greek red-figure plate from Apulia, third quarter of the 4th century BC, Louvre.

• The photograph of a woman at a sewing machine is from the Merrimac Hat Company Photograph Collection purchased by ACM. The collection contains about 40 images used in a promotional catalog, Making the Headlines, published in 1944.

• Postcard view of the Merrimac Hat Company, ca 1910.