January at the Historical Society welcomes the new year with a favorite Second Saturday Social at the Baugh House from 10:00-2:00. It’s Tea Party time, based on the British long-observed tradition of High Tea. WRHS board member Bonnie Botham loves hosting this special day and promises several kinds of tea and a plethora of culinary delights ranging from chocolates to crumpets and cucumber sandwiches. But before enjoying tea and fresh-baked goodies, be sure to save a place in the cabin area for a front-row seat at the Historical Fashion Show.
The ladies of the “Days Gone By” fashion group will dominate the show, and they are a delightful sight to see. Representing fashions of the early 20th Century, famous for the Gibson Girl styles, these women glide through the room in large hats festooned with ribbons, lace and lots of feathers. Their costumes represent all walks of life and are often sewBy the wearers. Dresses are made from fabrics of the day, silks, cottons and linens, and come complete with unseen corsets and hard to miss bustles.
Part of the fascination (and fun!) is the group members’ expertise concerning the costumes they create. While they saunter, they also offer descriptions of their dresses and explanations of fashions at that time. Common questions from the audience range from “How do you sit with that bustle back there?” to “Why do you have that long pin in your hat?”
The obvious answer to the hatpin question is “to secure the very large hat to a piled-high hairstyle so it won’t blow off.” For women at the turn of the century who were claiming new-found independence, often in the Suffragettes and other social change movements, hatpins also served another equally important purpose – as tools of self-defense.
As the century started, some men, unaccustomed to seeing women venture out unescorted, took the liberties of leering and cat-calling. When that behavior extended to unwanted physical touching, the “mashers,” as they came to be known, could meet with a quick jab in the arm or ribcage with a footlong hatpin, which effectively ended the encounter.
Emerging women’s rights groups quickly became vocal about the need for safety, autonomy and self-defense in the face of the new “masher” culture. Unfortunately, those efforts backfired and brought negative attention to newly independent women. Newspapers nationwide reported stories of women using hatpins to fend off attackers. By 1909, hatpins were widely considered dangerous weapons. Some areas even attempted to regulate their length; in many U.S. states, women could be fined up to $50 for wearing hatpins longer than nine inches.
Eventually, logic won out, and laws were passed to punish mashers. Still, traditional philosophies lingered, and women were told they were “too pretty” to be out walking alone. Within a decade, however, World War I grabbed the nation’s attention, and soon women’s hairstyles and hats were smaller, and dangerous hatpins were all but forgotten. The Flapper Era had arrived!
