Bonnet, 1860-1865
Headwear was a budget-friendly way to update your wardrobe. Every community boasted at least one milliner, and many made a decent living. Seasonal slumps could make income erratic: women usually bought hats twice a year, often re-trimming them at home. Milliners’ creativity, taste, and skill at nevertheless made them indispensable resources.
Straw, silk, and flocked cotton flowers. Gift of Sarah Hawkes Thornton 91.126
Milliner’s Model Head, French, 1838-1845, gift of Alice Staples Lane accession 778
2: Mme. Walsh’s Fashionable Millinery and Dressmaking, 1860s.
Some businesses combined dressmaking and millinery. Madame Walsh would probably have had a workroom in the back or upstairs, employing numerous cutters and seamstresses. Boston, 1860s. American Antiquarian Society.